http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/dealing-with-voter-fraud Attorney General Eric Holder is engaged in a war against states trying to ensure the integrity of the electoral system. As he noted, “The arc of American history has always moved toward expanding the electorate.” While there is truth in this claim, it does not mean that felons, foreigners or those residing in cemeteries […]
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2181/Hill-and-Huma-and-Bill-and-Anthony-and-the-Muslim-Brotherhood-and-Alger-Hiss.aspx
While my esteemed colleague Andy McCarthy analyzes the substance of Hillary Clinton’s address in Alexandria, Egypt here, I confess to remaining stuck on the description of the Egyptian crowd chanting, “Monica! Monica!” as Hill’s motorcade made its way through the city.
Must be the call of my wild old beat covering Impeachment Issues (“Monica! Monica!”) for the Washington Times editorial page years ago.
It’s hard to imagine any barb razor-sharp enough to penetrate the thick skin that allows the thoroughly disgraced Clinton couple to remain in the public X-ray eye, but if one such barb could break through their armor of brazenness, maybe it would be the utterly debasing story of Monica, Bill, and Hill, particularly as shouted by chorus of loutish misogynists on the literal Arab Street.
Of course, poor Monica was the most sensational but least significant aspect of Clintonian malfeasance and criminality, for which they have never been brought to book. Missile technology to China in exchange for campaign slush-cash? Ah, Johnny Chung and Chinagate. Fast-tracking hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens to the voter rolls? Ah, Citizenship USA. Nearly 1,000 raw FBI files on Republicans that made their way to Hillary’s hands? Ah, sands of time, sands of time. Lincoln Bedroom rentals, Vincent Foster, Whitewater, cattle futures, “put some ice on that,”…. Its’a all part of the Clintons’ enduring triumph over truth, their vanquishment of shame. The Clintons’ legacy is lying as an art, shamelessness as a virtue, treason as business as usual, and oral sex as a teenage commonplace.
Such is the Clintonian subtext that the raucous Egyptian mob forced to the surface.
Wth that in mind, consider as a sidelight this piece in the New York Post:
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/07/16/the-petraeus-passport-puzzle/print
Shouldn’t he mind that the State Department is denying “country clearances” to CIA operatives?
Hillary Clinton’s State Department bureaucrats are interfering with current CIA operations by denying passports to agents, according to intelligence community sources.
Though this has happened in the past, these denials were until recently a rare occurrence. There has been a surge in the State Department’s denial of “country clearances” in recent months. Because the State Department has legal control over the issuance of all U.S. passports — including those diplomatic and other special passports often used by active CIA operatives — its refusal to issue passports in recent months has denied the CIA the ability to mount planned operations in several nations. My sources did not reveal which countries are involved but — given the turmoil in Egypt and Pakistan, and the U.S.’s tenuous relationship with both countries — they would likely be among those nations for which the passports are being denied.
The State Department’s decreasing cooperation with the CIA may have begun as early as January 2011 when CIA contractor Raymond Davis got into a shootout with Pakistanis on a street in Lahore, killing two men who Davis said were attempting to rob him. Davis was arrested for murder and his diplomatic passport was deemed ineffective by the Pakistanis, who held him in prison until the U.S. government paid “blood money” to the relatives of the dead.
These events come at a time when rumblings about the effectiveness of new CIA Director, Gen. David Petraeus, are also being heard. If the passport denial is as great a problem as my sources indicated, why would Petraeus not be fighting the State Department’s usurpation of his job?
The denial of passports to CIA agents would most affect those who are going abroad to gather intelligence under an official cover of other U.S. government employment. Covert operations, logically, would not be affected as the agents involved would not be traveling on U.S. government passports, though “case officers” who run the covert agents might be.
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/11/navys-new-gender-neutral-carriers-wont-have-urinals/ Navy’s new gender-neutral carriers won’t have urinals [Updated at 6:17 p.m. ET] The U.S. Navy’s new class of carriers will be the first to go without urinals, a decision made in part to give the service flexibility in accommodating female sailors, the Navy says. The change heralded by the Gerald R. Ford class of […]
http://myrightword.blogspot.co.il/2012/07/gordis-not.html
The Gordis Not
Daniel Gordis said “no” to the Levy Report in signing on to the far-left “Open Letter” (and the full text is below) released this week which has been fisked a bit here. At Haaretz, rather than his usual Jerusalem Post base, he defends his co-joining the left-of-center American Jews who decided to become very publicly upset at the publication of the Levy Report on Israel’s rights in, and to, Judea and Samaria. He published this piece, Choose hope: Don’t adopt the Levy report.
In short, he thinks that
“To state publicly that what we have in Judea and Samaria is not an occupation might be a legally justifiable claim. But it would also signal that it is time to give up even thinking about how a different reality in the Middle East might be achieved. That, we must not do.”
Might be? And why is that “different reality” abhorrent enough for Gordis to join the left-of-center crowd, lend them his name, and that of the Shalem Center? Is the issue that important for him to decide to run with this group of Israeli critics?
Well, we need to review his thinking and so here are some extracts from his defense:-
The letter did not argue that Justice Levy’s legal argument was legally incorrect; it also took no stand on settlement issue writ large…The letter simply asserts that if the Prime Minister adopts the Levy Commission report, he will do Israel serious damage.
The Path Less Chosen — on The Glazov Gang by Jamie Glazov Three Iranian freedom fighters share why they entered the battle zone against a vicious tyranny. http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/i-am-neda-on-the-glazov-gang-1/
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org//the-call
This week we are proud to present the inaugural episode of “The Call,” an unconventional foreign policy round-table that will be posted regularly on Monday afternoons. Each “Call” will focus on a single subject to which panelists will bring insights drawn from their experience and contacts in the worlds of finance, investigative reporting, military operations and intelligence work. The weekly discussion will be followed by regular blog-posts.
None of the panelists adhere to any common ideological line or political affiliation, and are united simply by the fact that they like talking to each other:
Mike Breen, Vice President of the Truman National Security Project, is a former US Army officer who served in tactical and operational assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pepe Escobar is an investigative reporter based in Sao Paolo, Brazil and author of the “Roving Eye” feature for the Asia Times
David Goldman, aka Spengler, is the author of “How Civilizations Die” and the former head of fixed income research for Bank of America.
Rotem Sella is the foreign affairs editor at the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv
David Samuels is a Contributing Editor at Harper’s Magazine
http://times247.com/
Obama: Washington still broken after four years…..HMMMM…IS THIS HIS “MALAISE” MOMENT LIKE JIMMY CARTER?…RSK
President Obama concedes that Washin…
Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz20mf40ZBh
Fridays in Pakistan: Prayer, then U.S. flag-burning
NBC
Monday, July 16, 2012
News
If anti-Americanism is rife in Pakistan, which currently faces the lowest point of its fractious relationship with the United States, then it is manifested, physically, almost every week in Karachi. Many rallies end in the same way: the burning of an American flag. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz20me9nYLc
Obama’s ‘war on coal’ helps Romney in Ohio
CBS News
Monday, July 16, 2012
News
Can Mitt Romney win Ohio by convincing voters in economically depressed Appalachia that President Obama has declared a “war on coal?” That’s the message coming from Romney’s Ohio campaign manager, Scott Jennings, says Obama’s hostility energy production will help put Romney over the top in this pivotal swing state. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz20meQur2V
Report: Wasserman Schultz eyes Fla. governor bid YIKES!!!!
Newsmax
Saturday, July 14, 2012
News
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is weighing a run to become Florida’s next governor, the state’s biggest newspaper claimed. Read more…
Read more: http://times247.com/#ixzz20meiOSIQ
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dr-hans-jansen/what-is-sharia/
Reprinted from libertiesalliance.org.
The Islamic Sharia is a system of law. It is a collection of prohibitions, admonitions and commands about human behavior. The Sharia is not an internal matter that only concerns Islam and Muslims. The Sharia includes a large number of provisions about people who are not Muslims. These rules are usually prohibitions that carry severe penalties if violated. These provisions of the Sharia make life unsafe and uncertain for someone who lives under Sharia law and who is not a Muslim.
Under Sharia law, someone who is not a Muslim possesses no inalienable rights. If I am wrong here, I will be relieved, and happy to stand corrected and receive your e-mails pointing out why I am wrong. But if I am right, a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay possesses more rights than a Jew or a Christian who lives under Sharia law.
Unlike the legal systems of most modern nation states, Sharia law is not subject to democratic supervision. Like international law and rabbinic law, Sharia law is an academic affair: experts discuss and debate the rules until they reach an agreement. Sharia law does not know a parliament or a government that acts as legislator, but the rules of the Sharia come into being by being agreed upon by the experts, that is, the Islamic religious leaders, the professional Muslims, the Ulama, Ayatollahs, or whatever these dignitaries are called.
Like me, most of you will be only superficially familiar with international law. The pretensions of international law have never been put to the test of a free and democratic vote. It was, to say the least, interesting to note how often the accusers of Geert Wilders in 2010 and 2011 appealed to what they regarded as generally accepted international law in order to silence Geert Wilders. As international law demonstrates, communities of academic specialists, in their isolation, have a tendency to develop a degree of pedantry that an elected lawgiver could never afford. Up to a point, this is exactly what has happened to the Sharia.
Religions are not democratic even if they sometimes may preach or tolerate democracy. Hence, the way in which the rules of Islamic law come into being is undemocratic. This implies that allowing the Sharia, or a part of it, to be the law of the land in a Western nation will diminish the democratic character of that nation. It means giving away legislative power to unelected self-appointed men, who are unknown and anonymous, who operate from far-away mosques in Pakistan or Afghanistan. In a democracy, this is not the ideal arrangement. One may have legitimate religious reasons to nevertheless prefer such an arrangement, but it entails something worse than taxation without representation; it entails legislation without representation.
Western policymakers do not take Sharia law too seriously because it is an academic and religious affair, a system of law that springs not from the power of a state but from the minds of religious scholars. In the Muslim world, to the contrary, the authority of the Sharia is overwhelming. The colossal prestige of the Sharia in the world of Islam is easy to explain: Islamic theology identifies Sharia law with the will of God; and Sharia specialists are the religious leaders of the Islamic community. No government in the Muslim world can afford to alienate these specialists of religious law if it wants to remain in power.
Each and every Islamic country nurtures its own equilibrium between its government and its religious specialists. This ever-changing equilibrium is the stuff of PhD-dissertations. Nevertheless, most Islamic countries possess legal systems that are influenced by, but not identical with, traditional Sharia law. To the leaders of the radical Islamic movements this non-identity of national law and Sharia law is a permanent source of anger. The smallest discrepancy between Sharia law and the law of the land is permanent fuel to the fire of their propaganda machines since such a difference supplies proof that a human lawgiver wanted to take God’s place, and attempted to improve on Go’ds work, which is blasphemy since God must remain the only law-giver.
Sharia law is not a practical system of law developed in courts. It is the product of the deliberations of scholars, and it does not spring from the practical concerns of judges, barristers, prosecutors or defenders. Consequently, Sharia law is poor on procedure. It is a theoretical, abstract system of law thought out in academies. This explains most of its weaknesses.
Nevertheless, Muslim theology claims that Sharia law is divine. If unfamiliar new questions arise for which the Sharia has to provide an answer, Sharia specialists, at least in theory, put forward a solution that is based upon the four principles or ‘roots’, of the Sharia. These four principles will reemerge again and again in all discussions concerning the Sharia. They are Koran, Hadith, Analogy and Agreement.
The fourth root, Agreement or Consensus, is for all practical purposes the most important criterion. Once a consensus has emerged it becomes unnecessary to consult the other sources. Theory and theology, however, attach the greatest value to the authority of the first of these four roots, to the Koran, but in practice the wording of the Koran may have to be supplemented or interpreted by the other sources, or by another passage from the Koran itself.
Here we meet with an important principle from both Sharia law and Koran interpretation. This principle, ‘abrogation’, naskh in Arabic, is often misunderstood. ‘Abrogation’ means that a verse from the Koran that was revealed early might be repealed, or ‘abrogated’, by a verse that came down at a later point in time. Sometimes even an element from one of the other three sources can abrogate the contents of a verse from the Koran. Muslim scholars analyze all possible cases in depth.
The most famous example of abrogation is of concern to anyone who is not a Muslim: the abrogation of Sura 109, a Sura from the Mecca period that preaches religious tolerance. This Sura is abrogated by later verses from Medina that command the Muslims to fight and kill the unbelievers wherever they find them.
Whatever problem Sharia scholars are confronted with, in a few generations they will work out an agreement; and then Muhammad’s directive applies that ‘God will not permit [his] people to agree on an error.’
This important directive plays a central role in the Sharia system. Its application has a number of unforeseen consequences. Abolishing a Sharia regulation on which agreement had been reached, implies that Muhammad’s umma did go wrong. But according to Islam’s Prophet, it did not. Hence, it is out of the question to go back on regulations once they are agreed upon. Examples of cases where this creates difficulties and embarrassment are numerous: just think of the Sharia punishments for apostasy, adultery or theft.
A famous example of abrogation is the prohibition of wine. In early verses, the Koran speaks well of wine; later verses forbid wine. But how do we know which verse comes first? This we can only know from the Muslim Sharia experts. How do they know? Well, since wine is forbidden, the verse that forbids wine must be later than the verse that praises wine. Outsiders will suspect circularity, but to traditional Muslims this all enjoys the support of the Most High, and reconfirms that they would be at loss without the scholarship and learning of the experts who embody religious authority in Islam.
The friends of Islam see the alleged flexibility of Islamic law as an indication of its humane and liberal character. This, however, is a mistake. Flexible laws are not humane but dangerous, since citizens do not know for what they can be arrested and executed. Islamic law, flexible as it is reported to be, is unanimous on a large number of points. Agreement, consensus, that is what the system is build upon. No important disagreements exist on the points of law that are important to whoever is not a Muslim, whatever the friends of Islam may say. Not respecting the majesty of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, is generally seen as a capital crime. If the courts or the governments do not execute the offender, spontaneous informal volunteers may feel justified to take this task upon their shoulders, whatever the cost to them personally.
Modern Western scholars have called into doubt the origins of the Sharia. They believe that the Sharia is the continuation of Roman provincial law as it was in force in the Roman Empire in the Middle East on the eve of the Arab conquests. A number of 20th century scholars wrote about the relationship between Roman and Islamic law. It is easy to see that the figure of the mufti is a continuation of the scholar of jurisprudence well known from Roman law, and other examples abound.
Strong influence from Talmudic rabbinic law on the Sharia is undeniable, and no miracle, since the Talmud and the Sharia both came into being in Iraq, in roughly the same period, 7th till 9th century AD. Fatwa’s are, of course, the exact functional equivalent of the rabbinic teshuvot, and the responsa from Roman law.
Muslims believe that their religious specialists derived the rules of the Sharia from its four sources: Koran, Hadith, Analogy and Consensus. However, modern Western scholars have come to believe that the rules of the Sharia were not derived from the four ‘roots’, but that the rules and provisions were anchored in these four ‘roots’ only in retrospect. This is again the stuff of PhD-dissertations. These academic questions, however, should not detain us here, we have a more important duty: to explain why we should concentrate on the Sharia, and not on the Koran or Muhammad, when we want to defend ourselves against the onslaught of Islam.
Modern Western scholarship on the Koran and the life of Muhammad has made great progress since the turn of the century. Consequently the traditional positions concerning Muhammad and the Koran have shown themselves to be untenable.
Whether Muhammad really existed, is more uncertain than ever. Two centuries of patient scholarship have created serious doubts about the historicity of the prophet of Islam. These doubts will not go away, no matter how small and insignificant the number of academics that works in this field may be.
The general picture which the Koran and the Islamic tradition offer of the setting in which Muhammad worked, first as a prophet, then as both a prophet and a statesman, the general picture of Mecca and Medina in the beginning of the 7th century AD, is not confirmed by the results of archeological research and inscriptions as far as these are available. This, of course, may change when research progresses but it is not a good sign, especially since what has been found, at first sight appears to contradict the traditional views.
The literary tradition about Muhammad’s biography does look like an unsystematic collection of mutually contradicting sermons that nevertheless all want to convince the audience that a certain Muhammad was the Messenger of God. The literary material that has been preserved does not look like an historical record at all. This is not necessarily fatal, but it is not a good sign. Numismatics does not confirm Islam’s version of the early history of Islam. This by itself is not conclusive, but it is not a good sign. There are discrepancies between what we know about the ancient Arab calendar and the reported stories about Muhammad. This needs not be fatal, but it comes close to being so.
True Muslims, however, do not share these doubts about their beloved prophet. The guild of Muslim religious leaders, on the other hand, will go further than simply not sharing these doubts; they will be infuriated when modern Western scholars unmask the Muslim version of the early history of Islam as a narrative created by theological necessities, as sermons that are disguised as history. It goes without saying that many Muslims will be ready to put on heavy armor to defend their religion against such attacks.
There is, however, one point of entry into the Islamic armor that sounds as pious and as Islamic as these things go. It may even be effective. The Koran unequivocally states that it is written in clear Arabic language. ‘Well’, one is bound to ask, ‘Why, if this is true, do we need Koran commentaries that run into thousands of pages?
This question is awkward already, but we have to pose an even more embarrassing one concerning the authority of the ancient founding fathers of the Sharia: the four giants al-Shafi’i, Abu Haniifa, Malik and Ahmad ibn Hanbal, all close to 800 AD; all, except Malik, geographically connected to Iraq: ‘Why do we need these four Sharia scholars to inform us which acts Islam forbids and prescribes?’. ‘If the Koran is clear, why do we need these luminaries? What did they know more than the prophet Muhammad? What did they know that is not in the clear verses of the Koran?’
These questions do not necessarily make the average Muslim laymen angry. Nevertheless, they will enrage Muslim Sharia scholars. Since these men play the role the clergy plays in Christianity, they are a force to be reckoned with. They are no doubt a spiritual force, but some of their youthful supporters do not care much about the distinction between soul and body, and do not hesitate to take all necessary steps to enforce compliance with the wishes of these clergymen.
Muslim laymen, as a rule, assent to whatever the professional Muslims teach and preach. The power that this guild of Islamic Sharia experts exercises over its flock is amazing and has no equal in history. It is based on social pressure. It operates in the simplest way imaginable: carrying out the prescripts of one’s religion creates prestige amongst coreligionists. This is the case in all religious systems. Hence, in the case of Islam, Muslims will admire anyone who acts in the Islamic way. Who defines how that way runs? It is the Islamic clergy that exercises the final authority on which behavior constitutes Islamic behavior.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/humberto-fontova/m-a-s-h-star-partners-with-castro%e2%80%99s-spy-service/print/
M.A.S.H. Star Partners with Castro’s Spy Service Posted By Humberto Fontova
Though a consistently good show, few conservatives mistook M.A.S.H for anything but pinko propaganda. Last week, long-time M.A.S.H star Mike Farrell (Capt. B.J. Hunnicut) took the last few baby-steps and started spouting outright Communist propaganda.
In a letter to President Obama, Farrell officially partnered with Castro’s KGB-trained DGI urging the release of five of their agents and officers who were convicted in 2001 of conspiracy to commit espionage against the U.S. and conspiracy to murder Americans. The Supreme Court has twice upheld the convictions of these Communist terrorists and accessories to murder.
In 1933 Stalin’s propaganda chief, Willi Munzenberg, re-monikered the Soviet Comintern as the “International Aid Committee for the Victims of Fascism.” The Soviet’s Cuban satraps and their propaganda auxiliaries have one-upped even Munzenberg. These convicted Castroite terrorists — we’re now told by the former M.A.S.H star — are actually peace-loving anti-terrorists; flower-children of sorts. Here’s the heart of Farrell’s letter:
Release them because they came here only to monitor the activities of violent Cuban exiles who, operating from bases in Miami of which our government is well aware, were planning violent actions against innocent people in Cuba.
Release them because they were trying to prevent more brutal acts against their country and save innocent lives.
But according to the FBI’s affidavit, the convicted Castro-agents whom Farrell champions were engaged in, among other acts:
• Gathering intelligence against the Boca Chica Air Naval Station in Key West, the McDill Air Force Base in Tampa and the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command in Homestead, FL;
• compiling the names, home addresses and medical files of the U.S. Southern Command’s top officers, along with those of hundreds of officers stationed at Boca Chica;
• infiltrating the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command;
• sending letter bombs to Cuban-Americans;
• spying on McDill Air Force Base, the U.S. armed forces’ worldwide headquarters for fighting “low-intensity” conflicts; and
• locating entry points into Florida for smuggling explosives.
Farrell’s poster-boys also infiltrated the Cuban-exile group Brothers to the Rescue, which flew unarmed planes to rescue Cuban rafters in the Florida straits, also known as “the cemetery without crosses.” The estimates of the number of Cubans dying horribly in the “cemetery without crosses,” run from 50,000-85,000. Brothers to The Rescue risked their lives almost daily, flying over the straits, alerting and guiding the Coast Guard to any balseros, and saving thousands of these desperate people from joining that terrible tally.
Prior to Castroism, by the way, Cuba was swamped with more immigrants per capita than the U.S., mostly from Europe. People from nearby Haiti jumped on rafts desperate to enter Cuba, which enjoyed a higher standard of living than much of Europe. Also, during the 1950s when all Cubans were perfectly free to emigrate with all family, property, etc., and U.S. visas were issued to them for the asking, about the same number of Americans lived in Cuba as Cubans in the U.S. In 1953 more Cubans vacationed (then voluntarily went home) from the U.S. than Americans vacationed in Cuba. Alas, none of this features in The Godfather II. So it’s mostly unknown.
By February 1996, Brothers to The Rescue had flown 1,800 of these humanitarian missions and helped rescue 4,200 men, women and children. That month, members of Mike Farrell’s current cause célèbre passed to Castro the flight plan for one of the Brothers’ humanitarian flights over the “cemetery without crosses.”
With this information in hand, Castro’s Top Guns saluted and sprang to action. They jumped into their MIGs, took off and valiantly blasted apart (in international air space) the lumbering and utterly defenseless Cessnas. Four members of the humanitarian flights were murdered in cold blood.
Three of these men were U.S. citizens, the other a legal U.S. resident. Among the murdered was Armando Alejandre Jr., who came to the U.S. at age ten in 1960. His first order of business upon reaching the age of 18 was fulfilling his dream of becoming a U.S. citizen. His next was joining the United States Marine Corps and volunteering for service in Vietnam. He returned with several decorations.
As a member of Brothers to the Rescue, Alejandre often dropped flowers over the sea, in memory of the thousands who were unable to be rescued in time. So Castro waited for Armando Alejandre Jr. and his Brothers to be carrying these flowers—and made his move, murdering them in cold blood. MIGs against Cessnas. Cannon and rockets against flowers. Details of the atrocity are provided in a book by Matt Lawrence, one of Alejandre’s colleagues in rescue.
