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Guess who’s coming to Iftar? Offensive Islamic views are not personal, they are religious Mark Durie

Posted By on July 1st, 2016

A widely-publicised Iftar dinner, intended to show that Malcolm Turnbull gets what it means to be inclusive, ended badly after he was advised that one of his guests, Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman, had taught that Islam prescribes death for adulterers, and homosexuals spread diseases. No rogue maverick, Australian-born Alsuleiman is the elected national president of the Australian National Imams Council.

Although insisting that ‘mutual respect is absolutely critical’, Turnbull subjected this prominent Muslim leader to public humiliation. He regretted inviting him to dinner and counselled the sheikh ‘to reflect on what he has said and recant’. In the middle of an election, wanting to limit fallout from the dinner-gone-wrong, held only days after the Orlando massacre, Turnbull stated that his no-longer-welcome guest’s views are ‘wrong, unacceptable and I condemn them’.

Well may Mr Turnbull deplore Alsuleiman’s teachings, but the real challenge is that these were not merely his personal views. The sheikh’s teachings on homosexuality and adultery reflect the mainstream position of Islam, preached by many a Muslim scholar around the world today, and telling a sheikh to reject the sharia is like telling a pope to get over the virgin birth.

Many Australian Muslims will be disappointed at the treatment meted out to Sheikh Alsuleiman. An event designed to honour the Muslim community ended up providing a platform to denigrate one of their most respected leaders for promoting Islamic doctrines. Several Australian Muslim leaders have since dug in their heels to affirm support for the sharia position on homosexuals. So much for recanting.

While Turnbull refused to pass judgement on Islam itself, saying ‘there are different views of different issues, as there are in all religions’, he also sent a message that he is prepared to disparage Australian Muslims’ religious beliefs. It was a bitter pill for Muslims to swallow that this came in the form of a humiliating invite-to-disavow game of bait-and-switch, conducted during a pre-election media storm.

The cognitive dissonance is startling.

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MARILYN PENN: A REVIEW OF “THE SEPTEMBERS OF SHIRAZ”

Posted By on July 1st, 2016

The Septembers of Shiraz is not only a compelling movie but an important one to see. Based on the book by Dalia Sofer which recreated the experiences of her own family, the film is the only one I can recall dealing with the plight of Iranian Jews after the fall of the Shah and the takeover by Ayatollah Khomeini. Its contemporary importance is heightened by the recent agreement between the US and Iran and the threat that this poses to Israel and to the many middle-eastern Jews persecuted by Muslims in countries that were formerly hospitable to them. They all learned first-hand how brutal that persecution was – confiscation of wealth and property, imprisonment, torture, expulsion or death.

In a searing performance by Adrien Brody, the character of Isaac goes from that of a successful gemologist and jeweler to the Empress to a bewildered man imprisoned summarily and beaten into submission in an attempt to force him to divulge the whereabouts of his shady brother and his own fortune. His family is never told of his whereabouts or whether he is still alive and part of the story concerns their own travails. The faithful housekeeper who has been with them for many years begins to be influenced by her militant son who believes the propaganda that anyone with money has gotten it by stealing what rightfully belongs to the common, less fortunate man. In this case, forgetting the paternal kindness exhibited by Isaac when the housekeeper and her son were homeless and poverty-stricken, the son steals the jewels and furnishings of the business and threatens to further blackmail Isaac in a way that could prove fatal.

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Judge Expands Investigation into Hillary Clinton’s Dealings with Foundation Donors E-mails ordered released Wednesday could contain evidence that Clinton kept a secret, off-the-books schedule of meetings with foreign foundation donors as secretary of state. By Brendan Bordelon

Posted By on June 30th, 2016

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the State Department to produce the e-mail records of Hillary Clinton’s scheduler during her tenure as secretary of state, expanding an investigation being pursued by conservative nonprofit Citizens United into the overlap between Clinton’s official travel and her meetings with foreign Clinton Foundation donors.

Citizens United is slated to receive all e-mails sent to and from Lona Valmoro, Clinton’s State Department scheduler, in the two-week periods before each of 14 international trips Clinton took during her four years in office. David Bossie, president of Citizens United, hopes to confirm suspicions that Clinton maintained an off-the-books schedule, meeting with Clinton Foundation donors on the taxpayer’s dime. “Citizens United wants to know how many overseas dinners Secretary Clinton attended with Clinton Foundation donors that didn’t make it on her schedule,” he says.

Judge Rosemary Collyer, the federal judge presiding over a public-records case brought by Citizens United, was initially hesitant to allow the release of Valmoro’s e-mails, and asked the group to provide one example of an off-the-books meeting with Clinton Foundation donors. As part of a joint filing with the State Department on Monday, Citizens United presented the judge with several pieces of evidence suggesting Valmoro deliberately struck from the official schedule a December 6, 2012, dinner in Dublin, Ireland, with several Clinton Foundation and Clinton campaign donors, organized by Teneo co-founder Declan Kelly. Though Valmoro was made aware of the Dublin meeting through an earlier e-mail chain, neither Clinton’s archived daily calendar nor her detailed official schedule make any note of it.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Mother: Cops Called on My Third-Grade Son over Racism Concerns for Talking About Brownies Yes, as in the baked good. By Katherine Timpf —

Posted By on June 30th, 2016

An elementary school in New Jersey allegedly called the police on a third grader for talking about brownies — yes, as in the baked good — over concerns that the word “brownies” may have been a racial slur.

According to the student’s mother, her nine-year-old son was participating in a conversation about the bakery treat during his end-of-the-year class party at William P. Tatem Elementary School on June 16 when another student remarked that his comment was racist. Rather than explain to the accusing student that the name of the baked good is a generally accepted term and not racially charged whatsoever, the school actually called the police.

Yes — the police.

“He was intimidated, obviously,” the mother, Stacy dos Santos, said, according to Philly.com.

“There was a police officer with a gun in the holster talking to my son, saying, ‘Tell me what you said,’” she continued. “He didn’t have anybody on his side.”

According to Philly.com, the police department also contacted the boy’s father, and the incident was referred to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency — because after all, hearing a nine-year-old talking about snacks definitely makes you wonder how he could possibly be safe living in a home with people who raised him to behave that way.

According to dos Santos, her son spent his last day of third grade at home because of the incident, and he feels so “traumatized” over it that they’re hoping to send him to a different public school in the fall.

Unfortunately, another school in the same district may just be more of the same. After all, according to both school officials and police, they were told during a May 25 meeting with representatives from the county prosecutor’s office that every little thing that could maybe potentially be considered criminal – even things that Police Chief Kevin Carey called “as minor as a simple name-calling incident” — should be reported to the cops. What’s more, Carey also said that “just about every incident” should be reported to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency. According to Philly.com, Superintendent Scott Oswald estimated that the cops may have been called to as many as five incidents per day in the district of 1,875 students over the last month.

Not surprisingly, Philly.com reports that parents are not big fans of the policy — and that they have written letters and taken to social media to express this. Hopefully, it can make a difference. After all, what good can come from involving law enforcement anytime some kid talks about snacks is really not clear — but the potential for harm is.

— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.

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Anti-Brexit Elites Aren’t the Ones Who Suffer from Their Policies By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on June 30th, 2016

Following the Brexit, Europe may witness even more plebiscites against the undemocratic European Union throughout the continent.

The furor of ignored Europeans against their union is not just directed against rich and powerful government elites per se, or against the flood of mostly young male migrants from the war-torn Middle East. The rage also arises from the hypocrisy of a governing elite that never seems to be subject to the ramifications of its own top-down policies. The bureaucratic class that runs Europe from Brussels and Strasbourg too often lectures European voters on climate change, immigration, politically correct attitudes about diversity, and the constant need for more bureaucracy, more regulations, and more redistributive taxes.

But Euro-managers are able to navigate around their own injunctions, enjoying private schools for their children; generous public pay, retirement packages and perks; frequent carbon-spewing jet travel; homes in non-diverse neighborhoods; and profitable revolving-door careers between government and business.

The Western elite classes, both professedly liberal and conservative, square the circle of their privilege with politically correct sermonizing. They romanticize the distant “other” — usually immigrants and minorities — while condescendingly lecturing the middle and working classes, often the losers in globalization, about their lack of sensitivity.

On this side of the Atlantic, President Obama has developed a curious habit of talking down to Americans about their supposedly reactionary opposition to rampant immigration, affirmative action, multiculturalism, and political correctness — most notably in his caricatures of the purported “clingers” of Pennsylvania.

Yet Obama seems uncomfortable when confronted with the prospect of living out what he envisions for others. He prefers golfing with celebrities to bowling. He vacations in tony Martha’s Vineyard rather than returning home to his Chicago mansion. His travel entourage is royal and hardly green. And he insists on private prep schools for his children rather than enrolling them in the public schools of Washington, D.C., whose educators he so often shields from long-needed reform.

In similar fashion, grandees such as Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and Univision anchorman Jorge Ramos do not live what they profess. They often lecture supposedly less sophisticated Americans on their backward opposition to illegal immigration. But both live in communities segregated from those they champion in the abstract.

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Helen Mirren rejects efforts to boycott Israel In Jerusalem to host Genesis Prize award ceremony, Oscar-winning actress says she’s a ‘believer’ in the Jewish state

Posted By on June 30th, 2016

http://www.timesofisrael.com/actress-helen-mirren-rejects-efforts-to-boycott-israel/Helen Mirren rejects efforts to boycott Israel | The Times of Israel

Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren says she is a “believer” in Israel and rejects efforts to boycott it.

Mirren showered Israeli artists with praise Wednesday and said she opposed efforts by pro-Palestinian groups to boycott them.

Mirren is in Israel to host the Genesis Prize, an award known as “the Jewish Nobel.” The $1 million prize is being awarded to Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman for his accomplishments as a musician, teacher and advocate for the disabled.

Mirren, who first visited as a volunteer in the 1960s, says she has a strong connection to Israel.

Mirren is one of the few actors to have won the so-called Triple Crown — an Oscar, Tony and Emmy. She received her Academy Award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 film “The Queen.”

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Brexit restored sovereignty to the UK – now it must be Israel’s turn. Victor Sharpe

Posted By on June 30th, 2016

The intellect of so many in Israel’s governments have led them along the dead end path of the peace process, forcing them to taste the bitter fruits of appeasement.

Sovereignty refers to the defined right of nations, the ‘ownership’ of their territories and national interests.

A nation is referred to as ‘sovereign’ in terms of its independent identity and rights. Sovereign rights are exercised within national territories.

A nation has the legal right to insist on its sovereign status and the right to protect its interests. As the Governor of Texas stated recently on the Sean Hannity program, “Sovereignty is a key component of a Nation.

The British people groaning under the increasingly onerous and tyrannical power of the European Union finally had had enough and in a national referendum voted to leave the EU and regain their borders and national sovereignty. Other nations, such as Holland, Hungary, Poland and even France, may in time follow Britain’s lead.

But will Israel assert its rights in its own sovereign, ancestral and biblical lands from the River to the Sea?

Will its leadership have the courage to withstand the burdensome and illegitimate pressures that the Obama regime, the United Nations and the European Union place upon it to abandon its heartland and give it away to the Jew hating Muslim barbarians who call themselves Palestinians?

For 49 long years, since the liberation of east Jerusalem and biblical Judea and Samaria from illegal Jordanian occupation – territory the world grotesquely prefers to call the ‘West Bank’ – the beloved Jewish heartland has remained in a political limbo and not fully annexed. Instead, too much has been sinfully abandoned.

Israel’s foolish failure to declare again and again its historical and ancestral patrimony in its own biblical, physical and spiritual homeland has allowed a hostile world to thus assume that Israel itself does not believe it has legal or indigenous sovereignty in its own territory or in its eternal capital, Jerusalem.

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Benghazi Report Confirms Hillary’s Fraud Against the American People Will Clinton continue the Benghazi lie through the presidential campaign? Ari Lieberman

Posted By on June 30th, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s brief and lackluster tenure as secretary of state can best be summed up as scandal-ridden. But of all the scandals swirling around the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, none resonates more than the Benghazi fiasco, which resulted in the needless deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, the first U.S. ambassador to die in the line of duty since 1979.

After 25 months of work which included interviews with over 100 witnesses and the examination of thousands of documents and emails, including those obtained off Clinton’s unsecured bathroom server, the Select Committee on Benghazi has finally released its lengthy report which includes detailed findings that reflect poorly on the Obama White House and Ms. Clinton. Among its many damning conclusions, the report portrays a deceitful administration obsessed with pushing a false narrative on to the American people in an effort to deflect attention away from the administration’s glaring foreign policy failings.

The September 11, 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi came just 56 days before the general election at a sensitive time when Obama’s reelection campaign was in full swing. At the time, Obama was touting his “success” in liquidating Osama Bin Laden and was pushing the storyline that Al-Qaida was retreating and the worldwide terror threat was diminishing. But the well-organized, well-planned Benghazi terrorist assault, likely timed to coincide with the anniversary of the 9-11 terror attacks, threw a wrench in Obama’s narrative, shattering the mendacious tale he was peddling.

The delay in deploying military assets to the theater, attributed by the committee to needless bureaucratic bungling, almost certainly cost those men their lives. The committee also found that some two-dozen people, who were saved during the assault, were rescued with the assistance of a unit known as the Libyan Military Intelligence, which was composed of fighters and officers loyal to the regime headed by the deposed Qaddafi. In other words, the army that the Obama/Clinton duo helped defeat was also instrumental in saving Americans, a bitter irony.

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The America-Hating Obama ‘Homeland Security’ Appointee … And the mindset that permitted the Orlando massacre to take place. John Perazzo

Posted By on June 30th, 2016

Good ol’ Barack Obama. So deeply do he and his administration love America, that they felt secure enough in their own patriotism to appoint an America-hating radical to the Homeland Security Advisory Council’s Subcommittee on Countering Violent Extremism (SCVE). After all, they undoubtedly reasoned, what possible harm could such an individual do in that kind of a setting? Perhaps you’ve heard of her—a young woman named Laila Alawa, born to Syrian parents who immigrated to the United States when the girl was ten. Soon after she became a U.S. citizen in April 2015, Ms. Alawa wrote: “I will always be Syrian. I will always be from Syria. I will always be of Syria.”

Ain’t that nice?

Ms. Alawa has long regarded the United States as a nation that oppresses and abuses Muslims, as she explained in a July 2014 piece which she wrote for The Guardian. Therein, Alawa says that ever since her arrival in America, she has “learned to view” law-enforcement officials and “my new government” with “a certain level of suspicion”—particularly after 9/11, when “stories of warrantless deportations, faith-based workplace discrimination (and termination), and arrests that resulted in unending detention were common.” Citing the “constant surveillance, government stings and wannabe informants” to which she believes Muslims in the U.S. are being subjected, Alawa laments that “my long-held suspicions have been confirmed—the knowledge that my faith makes me suspicious in the eyes of the government to which I’ve pledged my allegiance…. We know that we’re often discriminated against by our government and our fellow Americans.”

This young woman has a very bright future in the Democratic Party if she wants it. Heck, she already sounds downright Hillary-esque, and she’s only 25!

Alawa regularly disseminates views like these in her work as an opinion writer for The Guardian, Salon, Glamour, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, and The Islamic Monthly. Further, she hosts The Exposé, a weekly podcast “tackling tough topics with snark and wit.”

In addition, this multi-talented woman is also a self-described “online activis[t]” whose mission is “to elevate the voices of those who are often not heard.” Her Twitter posts are rife with allegations of — (what else?) — American racism and “Islamophobia.” Some examples:

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Loretta Lynch’s Private Meeting With Bill Clinton Prior to Release of Benghazi Report Why would the Attorney General, who sets the tone for law enforcement, do this?Michael Cutler

Posted By on June 30th, 2016

On Tuesday, June 29, 2015 ABC News-15 based in Arizona reported, “US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Bill Clinton meet privately in Phoenix before Benghazi report.”

According to the report the meeting was not a chance encounter but was apparently an arranged meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch on board her government airplane.

The appearance this meeting creates, in and of itself, calls into question the judgment of the Attorney General of the United States – America’s “Top Cop” who sets the tone for law enforcement for the entire federal government and, as a consequence, for law enforcement agencies at all levels from coast to coast and border to border.

And make no mistake – appearances can be critical. This was a message that was repeatedly hammered home by my bosses when I served as a Special Agent for the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service).

Let me describe two such instances in order to properly set the stage and provide a bit of context to the meeting between the former president of the United States and the Attorney General.

When I began my career as a special agent back in the 1970’s one of my bosses, a gentleman by the name of Frank Johnson who was the section chief for the Frauds Unit where I was assigned, would hold what were known as “Payday Meetings” because every other Thursday we would stand on line and be issued out paychecks- this was long before direct deposit was implemented. These meeting provided management with an opportunity to inform the agents about any changes in priorities and to provide us with whatever information they deemed was essential to enable us to to our jobs effectively and safely. These meetings also provided agents to inform each other about any information that they might need as they pursued their assigned investigations.

At the conclusion of each of those meetings, Frank Johnson would accentuate each syllable by jabbing his ever-present cigarette in the air as he looked around the room and said, “As federal agents, it was not enough that we never engaged in wrong doing- but that we must never give the illusion of doing wrong!”

We knew that Frank was not just spouting a slogan- because he held himself to a higher standard than he held those of us who worked under him- this is what true leadership is all about.

As for the second incident – I had become an agent just months earlier and was eating lunch at a local restaurant located across the street from our offices in lower Manhattan, when an attorney I had met when I was assigned as an Adjudications Officer or Examiner as those who adjudicated various applications for immigration benefits were known. The attorney had represented several aliens I had interviewed in that earlier assignment and conducted those marriage interviews you likely have seen in various movies about aliens who marry citizens to acquire lawful immigrant status.

I had just order desert at the end of my meal when the attorney who, like myself, was sitting at the counter of the restaurant move next to me to engage in innocuous banter. Suddenly one of my supervisors noticed me as he was walking by the restaurant and quickly entered the restaurant. He walked up to me and whispered in my ear, “Mr. Cutler, when you are finished with your lunch you are to report directly to my office.” He quickly left the restaurant and I quickly headed back to my office and went to his office- with quite a bit of consternation. Clearly he was not happy.