RUTHFULLY YOURS

Is this House Resolution a prelude? Has Attorney General Lynch seen the potential for someone lifting her “mantle of anti-Muslim rhetoric”? And what is “anti-Muslim rhetoric” exactly? Criticizing Islam? Debating Mohammed? Discussing whether ISIS is a true manifestation of Islam? Who decides the definition of “hate speech” against Muslims?

Of all 1,149 anti-religious hate crimes reported in the United States in 2014, only 16.1% were directed against Muslims, according to the FBI. By contrast, over half of all anti-religious hate crimes were directed against Jews – 56.8%.

Why this lopsided, discriminatory House Resolution in favor of a religious group that statistically needs it the least?

Are the Attorney General and the eighty-two House Democrats out to destroy the First Amendment and introduce censorship? A House Resolution could be reintroduced later as binding legislation.

Eighty-two leading Democrats have cosponsored a House Resolution (H.Res. 569) “Condemning violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States”.

The Resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives by Democrat Donald S. Beyer (Virginia) on December 17, 2015 — a mere 15 days after Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook gunned down 14 innocent Americans and wounded 23 in an ISIS-inspired terror attack at a Christmas party in San Bernardino, California.

The House Resolution states, “the victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes and rhetoric have faced physical, verbal, and emotional abuse because they were Muslim or believed to be Muslim,” and the House of Representatives “expresses its condolences for the victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes.”

What victims? Of all 1,149 anti-religious hate crimes reported in the United States in 2014, only 16.1% were directed against Muslims, according to the FBI. By contrast, over half of all anti-religious hate crimes were directed against Jews – 56.8%. The fewest, 8.6% of anti-religious hate crimes, were directed against Christians (Protestants and Catholics).

On December 29, 2015, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) extended a Christmas greeting to “Our Christian Brothers and Sisters.” ISNA, it must be remembered, was, and still is considered an unindicted co-conspirator in the successfully prosecuted federal terrorism case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. ISNA is also Number One on the list of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “organizations and the organizations of our friends.”

The tone of the greeting was how much in common Muslims have with their Christian brothers and sisters. This should not be surprising because at the bottom of the greeting was: Dr. Sayyid M. Sayeed, ISNA Office of Interfaith and Community Alliances Director.

So, let’s examine some of the claims of commonality in this greeting.

Mary, the Mother of Jesus

The Christmas greeting makes much of the fact that Mary appears to be equally revered by both Muslims and Christians. To show that Muslim reverence, ISNA points out there is an entire chapter of the Koran named after Mary (Chapter 19). But the greeting fails to mention that of the 98 verses in that chapter, only fourteen are actually devoted to Mary (Verses 16-29).

And Islam has an interesting, but different, approach to the virgin birth of Jesus. 21:91 and 66:12 of the Koran state that Mary became pregnant by the Angle Gabriel blowing into an opening of the garment she was wearing. Ibn Kathir explained:

Forget academic boycotts and protesting Israeli oranges in the produce aisle. The new BDS targets are Jewish charities with a special focus on those that provide services and support in ’67 Israel.

Under its new Muslim boss, Amna Farooqi, J Street U has been pressuring Jewish charities not to help Jews living in territory which had been conquered and ethnically cleansed of Jews by the invading Muslim armies during Israel’s War of Independence. Other groups, including T’ruah, which had a prominent role at Obama’s toxic Chanukah party, have also made Jewish charities into their target.

But the BDS campaign against Jewish charities has reached a new level of ugliness with a lawsuit by CAIR’s favorite lawyer which demands that Jewish charities be stripped of non-profit status and that the charities and their donors be potentially listed “as specially designated global terrorists”.

The lawsuit targets a number of pro-Israel groups, including Friends of IDF, an organization that helps wounded Israeli soldiers who have lost arms and legs in the fight against Muslim terrorism learn to live fulfilling lives again. The lawsuit uses claims made by the left-wing anti-Israel group Breaking the Silence as the basis for its hateful campaign against FIDF and Israeli soldiers. It contends that providing “financial, social, and emotional support” to soldiers serving in the Israeli army is a war crime.

What should parents do if their little boy professes an intense desire to be a girl? Or if their daughter comes home from kindergarten and says she wants to be a boy? In recent years the dominant thinking has changed dramatically regarding children’s gender dysphoria. Previously, parents might hope that it would be a passing phase, as it usually is. But now they are under pressure from gender-identity politics, which asserts that children as young as 5 should be supported in wanting to live as the opposite sex. Any attempts to challenge this approach are deemed intolerant and oppressive.

I myself was a gender-dysphoric child who preferred trucks and Meccano sets to Easy-Bake Ovens. I detested being female and all of its trappings. Yet when I was growing up in the 1980s, the concept of helping children transition to another sex was completely unheard of. My parents allowed me to wear boys’ clothing and shave my head, to live as a girl who otherwise looked and behaved like a boy. I outgrew my dysphoria by my late teens. Looking back, I am grateful for my parents’ support, which helped me work things out.

Since then, research has established best-treatment practices for adolescents and adults with gender dysphoria: full transitioning, which includes treatment with hormones to suppress puberty and help the individual develop breasts or facial hair, as well as gender-reassignment surgery.

But prepubescent children who identify with the opposite sex are another matter entirely. How best to deal with them has become so politicized that sexologists, who presumably would be able to determine the healthiest approach, are extremely reluctant to get involved. They have seen what happens when they deviate from orthodoxy.

Some years ago I had a medical procedure that required visiting a few different doctors, and, dysgraphic as I am, I was intensely annoyed by the fact that at every doctor’s office, I was given pencil and paper to fill out what was essentially the same questionnaire, over and over. There being nothing much more pressing at issue than whether I am allergic to penicillin or had been feeling dizzy lately, this seemed to me like the sort of thing that ought to be done electronically and shared among practices. I pointed out to one not-at-all-interested physician that when I received bills, they were produced electronically rather than with pencil and paper.

“What’s your point?” he asked.

“The point is that when it comes to my interests — the timely and efficient transmission of my medical records — you are content to use 17th-century technology, the first mass-produced pencil having been developed in Nuremberg in 1662. When it comes to your interests — getting paid — you use 21st-century technology. It strikes me as odd that we have a very sophisticated electronic system for monitoring credit scores but no such thing for medical data.”

My weekend column profiled Bosch Fawstin, the intrepid cartoonist who won last spring’s “Draw Muhammad” contest that was attacked by two ISIS-inspired jihadists in Garland, Texas. (The terrorists were killed in a shootout with police.) Fawstin compellingly argues that the best way to fight a repulsive conquest ideology such as Islamic supremacism is to expose it. That means an unstinting reliance on our constitutional right to free expression.

Apparently, Twitter has opted to join the campaign to crack down on free expression. And one is left to wonder whether the big Saudi bucks that have come its way are a factor in Twitter’s decision-making.

As I recount in the column, the top agenda item of Islamic supremacists has long been the imposition of sharia blasphemy standards on the West. This campaign is not waged exclusively or even primarily by violent jihadists. Instead, its leading proponents are the Muslim Brotherhood’s network of Islamist activist groups in the West and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (a 57-government bloc of, mainly, majority-Muslim countries).

The West should be fighting these anti-Western Islamic supremacists in defense of our core principles. Instead, the Obama administration — particularly the president and his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton — has colluded with them. So have other left-leaning governments and institutions that are naturally hostile to free speech and open debate. One prominent result, which I discussed in the column as well as in Islam and Free Speech, is U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18. This blatantly unconstitutional provision, co-sponsored by Obama, Clinton, and OIC members, calls on all nations to ban speech that could promote mere hostility to Islam. Essentially, this is a codification of sharia, which prohibits all expression that subjects Islam to critical examination.

Aviation police officers at Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports have been advised to “run and hide” in the event of an active shooter at either facility.

The officers really have no other options because they are not allowed to carry guns.

According to CNN, the 300 aviation officers all have “badges, uniforms and vehicles…[that] say ‘police.’” Moreover, “they are certified police officers in the state of Illinois.” But they have no guns. Therefore, “internal aviation department documents” obtained by CNN advise the officers to evacuate in the event of a shooter. And “if evacuation is not possible: hide.”

The documents also say, “We must also ensure that unarmed security personnel … do not attempt to become part of the response, but could be invaluable to the evacuation efforts.”

A training video for aviation police officers provides similar guidance: “If evacuation is not possible, you should find a place to hide where the active shooter is less likely to find you. Block entry to your hiding place and lock the door.”

An unidentified aviation police officer commented, saying,

We’re not trying to replace the Chicago police officers; we just want to have the tools to do the job like every other law enforcement agency in the country. We’re nothing but casualties if you tell us to run and hide. And how can the public look at us if they see police officers running and hiding? That goes against the very oath we were sworn to that we took.

Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, said “there is a danger” in allowing Syrian refugees to resettle in the United States at this time and cautioned the Obama administration to be “prudent” with the process.

“With regard to the refugees, sure, there’s no requirement to be stupid, along with being generous, so my short summary would be simply I would advise the chief executive to speak like and act like Mother Teresa and then before the meeting broke up to grab whoever is filling my chair now, pull them aside, poke his finger into his sternum and say, ‘now you make sure nothing bad happens.’ We can do both. We are talented. We’ve got talent at this,” Hayden said during a homeland security discussion held by the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Look, there is a danger. We should be prudent about it, but just simply saying ‘it ain’t going to happen’ is actually destructive of our security, not just destructive of our character,” he added.

Hayden served as NSA director from 1999-2005 and as CIA director from May 2006 to February 2009.

Former Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Robert Bonner said the U.S. visa waiver program poses more of a threat than the refugee process.

We live in an expanding culture of victimhood fueled by identity politics. Americans are supposedly saved from themselves by a new hipster generation of Silicon Valley zillionaires, socially aware techies, progressive government bureaucrats, crusading liberal journalists, and cranky, mostly irrelevant academics. So why do they not address the need for politically correct self-policing? Here are five examples of how postmodern do-gooders could help the nation in 2016.

iPhone-induced Mayhem

The left believes a corporation or business is ultimately financially responsible for the unanticipated consequences of using its product. Smoke too many cigarettes and the tobacco companies are sued for knowingly having tar and nicotine in their products. We go after fast food and super-sized drinks for inundating unaware Americans with trans fats and processed sugar. Design flaws earn auto companies billions of dollars in recalls and fines.

But why do we ignore smart-phone companies? Studies supposedly reveal that texting or net surfing while driving is a greater impairment than is driving while under the influence. How many of us have seen 20-ton semi-trucks weave down mountain passes, as a 20-something driver is glued to the opiate-like device on his lap? Doesn’t Apple know how its product is being misused and causing death and mayhem—or has it commissioned some secret study showing that its devices are as addictive as painkillers and therefore essential for expanding sales?

Shouldn’t a benevolent government agency in 2016—in the fashion that it regulates less-lethal handguns—go after iPhones to block their use while the user is in motion? Cannot Obama’s consumer protection bureaucrats put an “automatic motion shut-off app” on every smart phone? In one day last week, a vagrant with shopping cart walked into my bumper at a crosswalk while texting, a young woman slammed on her brakes in front of me during a bottleneck while texting, and a driver went off the road into the gravel. Again, all were texting. How about a microchip to turn these gadgets off once they are in motion? Wouldn’t that remedy be as humane and socially aware as trigger locks on new handguns? Could we register lethal iPhones?

For thousands of years, man has sought to ward off the dark by using light to illuminate the night. Now, EPA chief Gina McCarthy and celebrity astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson want to take us back a few thousand years by giving the agency the ability to deal with “light pollution.”

The only way to deal with light pollution is to, well, turn off the lights. This will be a boon to astronomers like Tyson who will be able to see the stars and planets a lot better. But for the rest of us, not so good. Crime will rise, accidents will increase, and more people will die just so that Tyson can study the heavens.

Washington Examiner:

“So is there a day, is there some occasion, where I can add light pollution to your portfolio,” he asked McCarthy during a segment released for Sunday’s episode of “Star Talk,” a weekly late-night talk show he hosts on National Geographic.

“Well, this is another thing that’s been called to our attention for satellites,” McCarthy answered. “The imagery of the United States at night shows all those flares from oil and gas in places that are in the middle of nowhere. It is startling to me, to see the change in the night sky.”

“Go in the big world and see how vast it is, and get a sense of yourself in it,” she added. “It changes your perspective forever. And you’re absolutely right. That’s one of the reasons why we have to be worried about light pollution. It’s in our portfolio, and we’re thinking about it and there are steps we can take, but it needs to be on everybody’s mind because the way in which we disconnect ourselves from the natural world means that my job gets harder and harder.”