Obama’s invisible Islam–Democrats refuse to admit who the jihadist enemy is

EDITORIAL: Obama’s invisible Islam

Democrats refuse to admit who the jihadist enemy is

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

During questioning before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, a visibly nervous Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. tried valiantly not to utter the expression “radical Islam.” The twisting began when Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, asked whether the men behind three recent terrorist incidents – the Fort Hood massacre, the Christmas Day bombing attempt and the Time Square bombing attempt – “might have been incited to take the actions that they did because of radical Islam.”

Mr. Holder said there are a “variety of reasons” why people commit terror attacks. That can be true, but in these cases there was one reason: radical Islam. The attorney general said you have to look at each case individually. That’s fine, but when that is done, one comes face to face with radical Islam every time. He said that of the variety of reasons people might commit terror, “some of them are potentially religious.” Yes, like radical Islam. When pressed, what Mr. Holder would finally allow is, “I certainly think that it’s possible that people who espouse a radical version of Islam have had an ability to have an impact on people like [Times Square bomber Faisal] Shahzad.”

Mr. Holder mentioned Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born radical cleric now holed up in Yemen who has been mentioned in connection with all three attacks. Mr. Holder said that Mr. al-Awlaki “has a version of Islam that is not consistent with the teachings of [the faith].” Mr. Holder did not go into details to back up his assertion that Mr. al-Awlaki, an Islamic scholar, is somehow at odds with his own faith, nor did he pinpoint exactly what Muslim teachings he was referring to.

The Obama administration seems to have issued an internal gag order that forbids any official statements that might cast even the most extreme interpretations of the Islamic religion in a negative light. The “force protection review” of the Fort Hood massacre omitted any mention of shooter Nidal Malik Hasan’s openly radical Islamic worldview or the fact that he made the jihadist war cry “Allahu Akbar!” before opening fire. Initially, the Obama administration refused to even call the massacre an act of terrorism, much less radical Islamic terrorism.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security Domestic Extremist Lexicon, which was pulled out of circulation in the wake of controversy with other department publications, listed Jewish extremism and various forms of Christian extremism as threats but made no mention of any form of Muslim extremism. The Feb. 1, 2010 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review discusses terrorism and violent extremism but does not mention radical Islam as a motivator, or in any context. The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review likewise avoids any terminology related to Islam.

The Obama administration may not like to think of being at war with radical Islam, but the jihadists are definitely at war with the United States. Rather than running from the expression “radical Islam,” the administration should be openly discussing the ideological motives of the terrorists and finding ways to delegitimize them. Instead of hedging, obfuscating and ignoring, these Democrats should confront the challenge frankly, openly and honestly. Pretending that a radical, violent strain of Islam does not exist will not make it go away. To the contrary, it will make the situation much worse.

President Obama’s continuing solicitude toward the faith of Muhammad is inexplicable, and as these acts of denial continue, it is becoming dangerous. The United States will not defeat an enemy it is afraid to identify.

White House message machine spins faster than ever

Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: May 15, 2010 05:28:31 PM

WASHINGTON — In the days after an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, the White House faced not only a looming environmental catastrophe, but also a potential public relations disaster.

Aides feared that a story line would take hold that President Barack Obama had responded too slowly to the spreading oil slick, which could damage him politically much as the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 discredited former President George W. Bush.

So as the federal government began reacting to the spreading oil, the White House message machine swung into action, too.

Within hours, it was cranking out a sustained barrage across the broad spectrum of modern media — statements, reports, e-mails, tweets, photos and videos — all punctuated by a high-profile presidential visit to the Gulf followed by an incendiary speech at the White House and a video recap with exclusive behind-the-scenes views of Obama in “West Wing Week,” the White House’s new online program at www.whitehouse.gov.

Whether it’s Obama sitting with one reporter or a statement sent via Twitter, nothing happens by accident. The White House message machinery is a crucial element of the ever-expanding presidency, and like his recent predecessors, Obama uses it to shape public opinion, drive the mainstream media’s agenda and minimize political blowback.

The White House bureaucracy devoted to managing public imagery has been growing since President Richard Nixon created the first office devoted to broad communications strategy in 1969. Obama’s version uses a blend of old and new techniques and technology in an effort to cut through a polarized partisan landscape and a dizzying array of modern mass media that abbreviate attention spans and fracture public attention.

Obama’s White House message machine employs 69 people who are directly involved in some part of the communications effort, at a cost to taxpayers of at least $4.3 million a year. That’s an increase from 47 in Bill Clinton’s White House and 52 in George W. Bush’s.

Those totals don’t include communications staffs at the National Security Council or in Vice President Joseph Biden’s offices, or support staff who are paid out of different accounts.

They also don’t include hundreds of political appointees scattered across cabinet departments and agencies who were hired with approval from the Obama White House and who work with the White House to present a coordinated message, as they did under previous presidents.

In all, about 350 people worked on the president’s message in the Bush administration — the most recent tally available — according to Martha Joynt Kumar, an expert on the White House communications machinery and a professor at Towson State University in Maryland. There’s no reason to think fewer work on Obama’s.

“It’s an enormous operation,” said Bradley Patterson, a veteran of the Eisenhower White House who’s chronicled the growth of White House operations.

The president himself relies heavily on the traditional paths to America’s hearts and minds, from a televised Rose Garden statement Friday voicing anger over the oil spill to his frequent gifts of exclusive interviews to favored TV and newspaper journalists from elite news organizations.

At the same time, he’s limited his exposure to questions in other formats — especially traditional press conferences — as his White House relentlessly uses the new media to supplement its selective manipulation of the old.

The reason for all this media manipulation is simple: Like his recent predecessors, Obama’s found that he no longer can dominate the public debate with what Theodore Roosevelt called “the bully pulpit” alone. Rather, he’s confronted by an ever-growing array of competing voices in a 24/7 barrage of constant media.

To break through, he’s assembled a vast team to promote his agenda, whether it’s selling a policy such as his health care overhaul, providing information about government programs such as the H1N1 vaccine, or simply making the president look good — or less bad than others might.

“Because we are in such a hyper-partisan, polarized media environment, a lot of what we do is correcting misinformation. That’s part of implementing his agenda,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director.

THE THREAT

As it became clear that oil was gushing from the Gulf floor, top White House aides scrambled to ensure that Obama didn’t look bad in a developing story that they thought was flat wrong.

“All of a sudden one morning, the White House press corps woke up and thought we hadn’t been doing anything for eight days because they weren’t paying any attention to it,” said Pfeiffer. “So we almost had to bludgeon the press into understanding what had been going on all along. So we were very aggressive about that.”

So on April 29, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs rolled out Obama and a gusher of cabinet officers to tell the media about all the things the federal government was doing. Created by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939, the office of press secretary is the visible information frontline for every president.

TWITTER

That day, Gibbs sent his first oil leak message via Twitter, announcing that Obama had received a 20-minute briefing on the spill.

Others would follow.

“Our comprehensive look inside the aggressive response,” boasted one from Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton on May 5, with a link to an 11,500-word report from the White House detailing an “around the clock” response from the government. It included 73 mentions of the president.

“A busy day here, but the president has not taken his eyes off the BP spill,” said another White House tweet on May 10, with White House photos of Obama meeting with top aides in the Situation Room.

Twitter is just one of the new media tools that White House officials use to deliver their message. It allows them to reach voters directly without filtering or commentary from the mainstream media. Gibbs alone reaches 60,000 people on Twitter; the White House Twitter messages reach 1.8 million.

PHOTOS

An hour after his first oil leak tweet, Gibbs used Twitter again to send a picture of Obama getting briefed, driving the image of a personally engaged president. The shot was taken by official White House Photographer Pete Souza, whose office sends out a steady stream of flattering, behind-the-scenes shots of the president to the public, distributed via Flickr and posted on whitehouse.gov.

Souza and his colleagues, who include former McClatchy-Tribune photographer Chuck Kennedy, are respected former journalists, but their work can be controversial when the White House uses it to replace independent journalism.

When the White House released a Souza photo this year of Obama apparently editing a speech text, for example, one online article gushed that the edit marks revealed Obama’s intellect and talent. Yet there was no independent journalist present to verify that the photo hadn’t been altered or staged.

The White House shut out photojournalists, and instead sent out Souza’s photos when Obama signed an executive order on abortion this year and again when he restaged his inaugural swearing-in with Chief Justice John Roberts last year.

“Pete Souza is a fantastic photographer, but he works for the White House,” said Ed Henry, a CNN reporter and the secretary of the White House Correspondents Association. “A photographer on the White House payroll is going to release one photo out of the hundreds he takes. It’s going to be the one that casts the president in the best possible light.”

There’s no evidence that these White House photos left anything out, but photos the White House selects are chosen to project its message, and sometimes that can shield a larger truth.

After President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, for example, the White House released a photo of a hospitalized Reagan, wearing a bathrobe and standing with his wife Nancy. It did not, however, show the IV tubes running from Reagan to a stand at his side. The White House cropped them out to project the image it wanted — one that misled the public about the president’s strength.

E-MAIL

From the time the Obama White House decided to launch its coordinated push on the oil spill, it bombarded the media with e-mail reports on the federal response, emphasizing words such as “aggressive” and “immediate.”

“Administration-wide response,” said one e-mail on May 1, introducing a phrase that would be used repeatedly.

“President Obama visited the Gulf Coast to inspect response operations firsthand, underscoring the administration’s all-hands-on-deck response,” said another on May 2.

VIDEO

The White House also produces its own video. Obama’s trip to the Gulf Coast on May 2 was covered not only by the news media, but also by a White House video team.

By May 4, whitehouse.gov had posted a video recap of the visit. By May 6, it had showcased a new version on its West Wing Week webcast, “Your guide to everything that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

The program, which runs about six minutes each week, is a flashy recap of the president’s week with behind-the-scenes footage that shows Obama in a favorable light — leading a meeting, announcing good news, laughing with world leaders.

The May 6 program was a day-by-day look at an Obama deeply involved in the oil spill response, even as he headed out to dinner. As it said:

Friday: He announces economic growth. “But first, he took time to update the American people about efforts to contain the oil spill.”

Saturday: “Even as preparations were being made for the president’s visit to the Gulf coast, he made time to go to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.”

Sunday: Videos of Obama visiting the Gulf. “The federal government has launched and coordinated an all-hands-on-deck, relentless response to this crisis from day one,” he said.

Monday: Video of Obama and Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen working the phones from the Oval Office.

Like other White House videos, such as one of a White House staff interview of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, the West Wing Week program offers a one-sided view that’s stylized to appeal to consumers of modern media.

“It’s packaged like a hybrid between a week in review program and a documentary version of the old entertainment series, West Wing,” said Gerald Jordan, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Arkansas. “Ultimately, there will be an audience that is so accustomed to fragmented media . . . that they might meet at some point.”

THE LEADING MAN

The highest-profile White House messenger is the president himself, and as the oil spill grew, so did Obama’s public role, from the May 2 visit to the Gulf to a May 14 appearance in the Rose Garden.

Obama plays his role as public messenger much as his most recent predecessors did. In his first 15 months, he gave 620 speeches, very similar to the 15-month totals for George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, according to Kumar.

For all the outreach via Twitter and other new media, Obama himself prefers the old media, which still aggregate the largest audiences. He uses the old mainstream media very differently, however.

He takes fewer questions from a variety of reporters in open sessions and gives many more one-on-one interviews, particularly to The New York Times, which the White House uses to deliver its message to the nation’s political, cultural and economic elite, starting with network and cable television news producers.

In 15 months, Obama took questions in formal news conferences or short sessions 83 times. Bush did it 205 times; Clinton 367 times.

Obama gave far more interviews, however — 184 in his first 15 months compared to 56 for Bush and 61 for Clinton. Of his interviews, 108 went to TV, 52 to newspapers and magazines, 11 to radio, 11 to mixed media, and only 2 to online organizations.

“The reason he does interviews is he likes to explain things like a professor, with all the buts and wherefores. He doesn’t like short q-and-a’s,” said Kumar.

“The ideal interview is a cross-platform,” she said, meaning talking to someone who can deliver Obama’s message both on TV or online to “get into the bloodstream fast,” and then reinforce his message with an article in a prestigious newspaper or magazine.

Thus, she noted, Obama’s given multiple interviews to John Harwood of CNBC-TV and The New York Times, the favored White House outlet that got 20 percent of all Obama’s on the record print interviews in 2009. An official White House photo displayed on a West Wing wall shows Harwood about to exchange high fives with Obama during one of their interviews.

THE STAGE MANAGERS

Others help drive the message, too, notably Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior adviser David Axelrod, a former political reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Both grant frequent interviews — or rushed phone calls — to favored reporters, although they often speak as unnamed “senior White House officials” or “people knowledgeable about the president’s thinking.”

In addition to daily meetings at the White House, the senior staff meets at 7:30 am, the press staff at 9:15 am, the communications staff at 9:30 am and then the senior staff again at around 6 pm, and Axelrod hosts a weekly meeting at his home that includes working on communications strategy over Thai or other takeout food.

Among those who attend are staffers from the Democratic National Committee, which does polling and research to help the White House target its message.

“We’ll sort of explore how we say things, and how people are interpreting what’s happening in the world,” Pfeiffer said.

Finally, Pfeiffer or his aides also hold a daily teleconference with top communications people in the executive branch agencies and departments to coordinate the message. “We keep in pretty close contact,” Pfeiffer said.

Does it all work?

The oil spill is a developing story; it could grow worse for Obama if it grows worse in the Gulf, but Pfeiffer said the White House is satisfied so far.

“We were successful at getting a pretty high percentage of the coverage accurately depicting the steps the administration had taken . . . . It was not clear that was going to happen (several) days ago.”

A non-partisan poll found a more mixed initial verdict, with Obama emerging from the first few weeks with some public disapproval, but not as much as Bush got after Katrina.

The Associated Press-GfK poll found that 42 percent of Americans approved of Obama’s handling of the oil spill, 33 percent disapproved and 21 percent were neutral. By comparison, 35 percent approved of Bush’s handling of Katrina in an AP-Ipsos poll weeks after the hurricane, 42 percent disapproved and 25 percent had no opinion.

Worst “Danged” Political Ad In History! Congratulations, John McCain

May 11, 2010 | 3 Comments

This ad from John McCain has to be one of the worst advertisements in the history of politics:

Worst “Danged” Political Ad In History! Congratulations, John McCain

The stiff, scripted read serves as a perfect analogy to the way politicians like John McCain have failed to do anything to protect America’s sovereignty regarding our borders and immigration laws. Instead, they read meaningless words in a lame and transparent attempt to make us think they are “One of us,” working day and night to solve the problems that vex us all.

What a crock. They are just empty words being recited (poorly) from a script.

Besides, the “danged” fence, as John so condescendingly puts it, is not alone the answer. Ending the drug war and making legal immigration more accessible would cure most of the human smuggling issues currently plaguing this country.

Senator McCain, you have been in D.C. a long time. You and your party have failed to address this issue for decades, and this embarrassing ad encapsulates that failure pretty danged well

Great and truthful letter, keep it going….so we can keep America going!!!

NO ONE ON ANY OF THE NEWS PROGRAMS IS TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT OUR IMMIGRATION LAW. LEGAL IMMIGRATION IS ENCOURAGED AND GOOD, BUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS AGAINST THE LAW. I’M SICK AND TIRED OF THE HALF TRUTHS ABOUT THIS LAW. IGNORANT PEOPLE ARE BOYCOTTING OUR STATE BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THE NEWS REPORTS. THEY SHOULD LOOK INTO THE LAW AND THE REASONS FOR IT BEFORE THEY PASS JUDGEMENT. WALK IN OUR SHOES AND SEE WHAT IT’S LIKE. MY DAUGHTER-IN-LAW IS HISPANIC. HER DAD WAS BORN HERE. THEY WERE CITIZENS. HER GREAT-GRANDFATHER WAS THE FIRST SHERIFF OF MARICOPA COUNTY. I AM NOT A RACIST, BUT I OBEY THE LAW OF THE LAND AND THINK THE IMMIGRATES SHOULD ALSO. ALL OF OUR TAXES HAVE GONE UP SO AS TO GIVE THE ILLEGALS ALL OF THE SERVICES FOR FREE THAT THE REST OF US HAVE TO PAY FOR OR GO WITHOUT. WE HAVE TO PAY TO SEE THE DENTIST. THEY DON’T. WE HAVE TO PAY FOR OUR FOOD. THEY DON’T. PARTS OF THE CITY HAVE STARTED TO LOOK LIKE OLD MEXICO. THEY FLY THEIR FLAG AND SPEAK SPANISH. THEY HAVE NOT EVEN TRIED TO ASSEMILATE. EVERYTHING WE GET IS PRINTED IN SPANISH AS WELL AS ENGLISH. DO YOU THINK MEXICO WOULD DO THAT FOR US? WE ARE NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO OWN PROPERTY IN MEXICO. THE LIBERALS TELL US THEY ARE WORKING JOBS THAT AMERICANS WON’T DO. RECENTLY 300 ILLEGALS WERE ARRESTED AT A WAREHOUSE BUSINESS HERE AND THE NEXT DAY 500 AMERICANS WERE STANDING OUTSIDE TRYING TO GET A JOB. AMERICANS ARE HUNGRY SOME HOMELESS AND THEY ARE LOOKING FOR ANY KIND OF WORK. WE HAVE TO GET RID OF THE ILLEGALS.

Arizona resident

Great and truthful letter, keep it going….so we can keep America going!!! 

This is a very good letter to the editor. This woman made some good points. For some reason, people have difficulty structuring their arguments when arguing against supporting the currently proposed immigration revisions. This lady made the argument pretty simple. NOT printed in the Orange County  paper ……………….. Newspapers simply won’t publish letters to the editor which they either deem politically incorrect (read below) or which does not agree with the philosophy they’re pushing on the public. This woman wrote a great letter to the editor that should have been published; but, with your help it will get published via cyberspace!  From: ‘David LaBonte’  My wife, Rosemary, wrote a wonderful letter to the editor of the OC Register which, of course, was not printed. So, I decided to ‘print’ it myself by sending it out on the Internet. Pass it along if you feel so inclined. Written in response to a series of letters to the editor in the Orange County Register:  Dear Editor:  So many letter writers have based their arguments on how this land is made up of immigrants. Ernie Lujan for one, suggests we should tear down the Statue of Liberty because the people now in question aren’t being treated the same as those who passed through Ellis Island and other ports of entry.  Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to people like Mr. Lujan why today’s American is not willing to accept this new kind of immigrant any longer. Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to the United States, people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in New York and be documented . Some would even get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good and bad times. They made learning English a primary rule in their new American households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new home.  They had waved goodbye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into one culture. Nothing was handed to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labor laws to protect them. All they had were the skills and craftsmanship they had brought with them to trade for a future of prosperity.  Most of their children came of age when World War II broke out. My father fought along side men whose parents had come straight over from Germany , Italy , France and Japan .  None of these 1st generation Americans ever gave any thought about what country their parents had come from. They were Americans fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of Japan .  They were defending the United States of America as one people.  When we liberated France , no one in those villages were looking for the French-American or the German American or the Irish American. The people of France saw only Americans. And we carried one flag that represented one country. Not one of those immigrant sons would have thought about picking up another country’s flag and waving it to represent who they were. It would have been a disgrace to their parents who had sacrificed so much to be here. These immigrants truly knew what it meant to be an American. They stirred the melting pot into one red, white and blue bowl.    And here we are in 2009 with a new kind of immigrant who wants the same rights and privileges only they want to achieve it by playing with a different set of rules; one that includes the entitlement card and a guarantee of being faithful to their mother country. I’m sorry, that’s not what being an American is all about. I believe that the immigrants who landed on Ellis Island in the early 1900’s deserve better than that for all the toil, hard work and sacrifice in raising future generations to create a land that has become a beacon for those legally searching for a better life. I think they would be appalled that they are being used as an example by those waving foreign country flags.  And for that suggestion about taking down the Statue of Liberty , it happens to mean a lot to the citizens who are voting on the immigration bill. I wouldn’t start talking about dismantling the United States just yet.  (signed) Rosemary LaBonte  KEEP THIS LETTER MOVING. FOR THE WRONG THINGS TO PREVAIL THE RIGHTFUL MAJORITY NEEDS TO REMAIN COMPLACENT AND QUIET!!  LET THIS NEVER HAPPEN!! I sincerely hope this letter gets read by millions of people all across the nation!!

A REAL EYE OPENER ! Bush debt vs Obama debt

A REAL EYE OPENER !

 
The Washington Post babbled again today about Obama inheriting a huge deficit from Bush.
Amazingly Enough, a lot of people swallow this nonsense.  So once more,  a short civics lesson.
Budgets do not come from the White House.  They come from Congress, and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party.  They controlled the budget process for FY 2008 and FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011.  In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.  For FY 2009, though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office.  At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets.
And where was Barack Obama during this time?  He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete FY 2009.  Let’s remember what the deficits looked like during that period: 

  
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets.  That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending.  After that, Democrats in   Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.  If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.
In a nutshell,  what Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.
WAKE UP,  AMERICA, BEFORE ITS TO LATE
There is no way this will be widely publicized,
unless each of us sends it on!
This is your chance to make a difference.

Obama’s Grotesque Move to Join the “Alliance of Civilizations”: “the dhimmitude syndrome”

Obama’s Grotesque Move to Join the “Alliance of Civilizations”: “the dhimmitude syndrome”

Obama plans to announce as early as this week that he will begin a formal relationship with the Alliance of Civilizations, the 5-year-old, UN-backed stealth jihad, Islamic supremacist organization.

What’s next? How long before Obama joins the bloc of 56 countries in the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference)? The Alliance of Civilizations is an arm of the OIC. Bat Ye’or, after hearing Obama’s submission speech to Islam in Cairo last June, said this:

“The president’s speech is similar to many such declarations by European leaders. The question it raises is how much the West is ready to forgo truth and its basic principles in its supplication for obtaining peace with Islam. Clearly, the full Islamization of the West is the quickest way to obtain it. Obama’s political program in connection with the Alliance of Civilizations conforms to an OIC strategy that has already been accepted by the EU. In history, this policy has a name: the dhimmitude syndrome”

And this from Bat Ye’or:

The Alliance of Civilizations [was] created to oppose the clash of civilizations, that is jihad.  On 13 November 2006, the High-Level Group of the Alliance of Civilizations presented its report which sums up the request of the OIC at its Mecca Summit 9, in 2005, after the Cartoons affair. First, it adopts the Islamic view of history and politics by claiming that everything was fine between the three monotheistic religions until the 19th century, when the evil of European colonialism and Zionism destroyed this harmony. Then it affirms that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main source of Christian-Muslim antagonism, not the jihadist war and ideology that deny for others the right to exist. It proclaims that this conflict “remains one of the gravest threats to international stability” and formulates recommendations that again echo the OIC requests. Such views mirror Hitler accusing the Jews of fomenting World War II, or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, praised in the Hamas charter, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood which denies Israel’sright to exist. (Bat Ye’or)

 

US to join group previously shunned for anti-Israel stances By ASSOCIATED PRESS

13/05/2010 04:10

The Obama administration is preparing to join an international advisory group that the United States generally has shunned due to fears it would adopt anti-Israeli and anti-Western positions, US officials said Wednesday.

The officials told The Associated Press the administration plans to announce as early as this week that it will begin a formal relationship with the Alliance of Civilizations. The 5-year-old, UN-backed organization aims to ease strains between societies and cultures, particularly the West and Islam.

The Bush administration boycotted the group when it was founded in 2005 over because it feared the group would become a forum for bashing Israel and the United States. Those concerns were magnified a year later when the alliance released a report that officials in Washington said unfairly blamed Israel and the United States for many of the world’s problems.

The decision to join grows out of Obama’s desire to broaden US participation in international groups and improve its standing among Muslims. The officials said they had consulted closely with Israel on the decision to join the alliance. Israel has no plans to join, diplomats said.

Theology for a Holocaust

Theology for a Holocaust

Posted By Robert Spencer On May 14, 2010 @ 12:06 am In FrontPage | 60 Comments

UC-San Diego student Jumanah Imad Albahri ^[1] last week, under questioning from David Horowitz, refused to condemn Hamas and Hizballah and endorsed a genocidal statement ^[1] by Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Many were shocked. Albahri’s statement is being treated as a singular utterance, a lapse that has nothing to do with the Muslim Students Association of which she is a part, and certainly not with Islam as a whole.

Unfortunately, Albahri’s support for genocide of the Jews doesn’t reveal that she is a closet Nazi, but that she is an entirely mainstream Muslim. Genocidal statements are painfully common from Muslim leaders today. On January 29, Palestinian Authority TV, which is controlled by the ostensibly moderate Fatah faction of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, broadcast a Friday mosque sermon containing this reference to the notorious genocidal hadith in which Muhammad says that the end times would not come until Muslims started murdering Jews: “The Prophet says: ‘You shall fight the Jews and kill them, until the tree and the stone will speak and say: “Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah”’ — the tree and the stone will not say, ‘Oh Arab,’ they will say, ‘Oh Muslim.’ And they will not say, ‘Where are the millions?’ and will not say, ‘Where is the Arab nation?’ Rather, they will say, ‘Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah — there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’ Except for the Gharqad tree, which is the tree of the Jews. Thus, this land will be liberated only by means of Jihad.”

 

In the original hadith, Muhammad says that “the last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews” (Sahih Muslim 6985).

If the “last hour” will not come until Muslims start murdering Jews wholesale, then what’s to prevent a pious young lady like Jumanah Imad Albahri from believing that speaking approvingly of the mass-murder of Jews, as Nasrallah did, is a holy and pious act?

Clearly other Muslims do. On January 12, a top Iranian official, Mohammad Hassan Rahimian, declared on Al-Manar TV: “We have manufactured missiles that allow us, when necessary, to replace Israel in its entirety with a big holocaust.” And on December 29, 2009, Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub, an Islamic cleric, dashed hopes for the usefulness of interfaith discussions when he said this on Egypt’s Al-Nas TV: “The Jews are our enemies. Allah will annihilate them at our hands. This is something we know for certain. We know this for certain – not because I say so, but because Allah said so. ‘You shall find that the people strongest in enmity to the believers are the Jews and the polytheists.’”

Yaaqub was quoting from the Qur’an (5:82).

Ahmad Al-Barqawi, professor of philosophy from Damascus University, joined the genocidal chorus on Syria TV on December 15, 2009: “If the enemy reaches a stage in which it feels that it is paying a heavy price for its occupation – both in terms of human lives and in terms of resources – it will give up. Without this, there is no chance of reconciliation with the enemy. Therefore, I believe that the annihilation of Israel is easier than reconciliation with it. Annihilating Israel is easier than reconciling with it, because annihilating Israel through a long-term and consistent effort may bear fruit in a society that feels it is alien to this [Arab] world, and does not want to remain in a world that rejects by force.”

None of this should come as any surprise. The genocidal hadith quoted on Palestinian TV is just one element of an anti-Semitism that is deeply rooted in the Qur’an and Sunnah, and which runs through Islamic history with a remarkable consistency. The Qur’an portrays the Jews as the craftiest, most persistent, and most implacable enemies of the Muslims. Three notorious Qur’anic passages depict an angry Allah transforming Jews into apes and pigs: 2:63–66; 5:59–60; and 7:166. The first of those passages depicts Allah telling the Jews who “profaned the Sabbath”: “Be as apes despicable!” It goes on to say that these accursed ones serve “as a warning example for their time and for all times to come.” The second has Allah directing Muhammad to remind the “People of the Book” about “those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some He transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil.” The third essentially repeats this, saying of the Sabbath-breaking Jews that when “in their insolence they transgressed (all) prohibitions,” Allah said to them, “Be ye apes, despised and rejected.”

In traditional Islamic theology these passages have not been considered to apply to all Jews. However, that hasn’t stopped contemporary jihadists from frequently referring to Jews as the “descendants of apes and swine.” The implication is that today’s Jews are bestial in character and are the enemies of Allah, just as the Sabbath-breakers were. The grand sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the most respected cleric in the world among Sunni Muslims today, has called Jews “the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs.” Saudi sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudayyis, imam of the principal mosque in the holiest city in Islam, Mecca, said in a sermon that Jews are “the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs.”

Another Saudi sheikh, Ba’d bin Abdallah al-Ajameh al-Ghamidi, made the connection explicit: “The current behavior of the brothers of apes and pigs, their treachery, violation of agreements, and defiling of holy places … is connected with the deeds of their forefathers during the early period of Islam—which proves the great similarity between all the Jews living today and the Jews who lived at the dawn of Islam.” A 1996 Hamas publication says that today’s Jews are bestial in spirit, and this is a manifestation of the punishment of their forefathers. In January 2007, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas stated, “The sons of Israel are mentioned as those who are corrupting humanity on earth,” referring to Qur’an 5:64.

Likewise, Sheikh ‘Atiyyah Saqr, writing in Islam Online, declares of Jews that “Almighty Allah told us that He’d send to them people who’d pour on them rain of severe punishment that would last till the Day of Resurrection.” Then comes a threat: “All this gives us glad tidings of the coming victory of Muslims over them once Muslims stick to strong faith and belief in Allah and adopt the modern means of technology.”

Modern means of technology? Perhaps a nuclear bomb exploded in Tel Aviv? If that happened, Jumanah Imad Albahri would by no means be the only Muslim who would thank Allah for his bounties.

Obama the destroyer

May 15th, 2010

By Jeffrey T. Kuhner, Washington Times

 Obama is packing the Court with his cronies

President Obama is subverting the Supreme Court. His latest pick for the high court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, is a radical leftist who would rubber-stamp Mr. Obama’s transformative socialist agenda. She is not an independent, serious nominee, but an Obama ideological clone.

The Supreme Court is the nation’s highest legal body. It represents the apex of a separate branch of government designed to serve as a pivotal check and balance against the executive and legislative branches. A functioning democracy based on the rule of law depends upon an independent judiciary – especially, a Supreme Court immune from the corrosive grasp of political power.

This is why dictators and socialist autocrats often seek to control their nations’ supreme courts: By imposing their will on the high court they can bend the nation’s judiciary to submit to their rule. Dominating the high court removes a major institutional bulwark to consolidating state power. Hence, our Founding Fathers believed that Supreme Court justices should be individuals of the highest intelligence, character, moral integrity, political independence and fair-minded temperament. They are not – and should never be – partisan hacks.

Ms. Kagan is unfit to sit on the high court. She is an incompetent apparatchik, whose only purpose is to blindly advance Mr. Obama’s revolutionary progressivism. She possesses no judicial experience; never once being a judge. Her litigation background is thin. She is neither an accomplished lawyer nor jurist. She is no Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Read More:

Obama’s choice to head Medicaide/ Medicare wants to distribute health and wealth

Ed Lasky

Recall, one of the few times Obama has been honest was his campaign era gaffe when he touted his desire to spread the wealth.

More recently, he hectored us (which he often does) that sometimes he thinks people just earn too much money. Now his OMB director denies that Obama pledged not to raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000. He says it was just a preference of Obama’s  (and now Obama himself just says he is agnostic on tax raises).

A few years ago, he expressed dismay that the Constitution was a roadblock to redistributing wealth. The stimulus plan rewarded union allies at the expense of the next two or more generations (and includes our own); the government bailout plan was a bailout of the UAW – and on and on it goes. 

His policies show such a desire to spread the wealth (I prefer the term savings) – as do his personnel choices. The latest is Donald Berwick who will head the Medicaid/Medicare office and wants to not only redistribute health but also wealth.

An IDB editorial:

‘The decision is not whether or not we will ration care – the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open” is what Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama’s nominee to head the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, said in an interview published in Biotechnology Healthcare in June 2009.

The question is whether the Senate will confirm Berwick with open eyes.

And how will that care be rationed? It seems Berwick is a great fan of Britain’s National Health Service, specifically its Orwellian-named National Institute for Clinical Excellence, or NICE. NICE is the body that decides what health treatments are available in Britain and who is worth receiving them.

In the 2009 interview, Berwick opined: “We can make a sensible social decision and say, ‘Well, at this point, to have access to a particular additional benefit (new drug or medical intervention) is so expensive that our taxpayers have better use for those funds.” Sounds like denial of care to us.

 

The desire to distribute the savings is a job requirement for all applicants in this administration.

Obama’s Wall Street problem

Jeannie DeAngelis

It’s a classic story; a bully repeatedly trounces an opponent and then finally, after having had enough the bloodied, bruised victim rises and walks away.  That appears to be what happened after Obama’s continued Wall Street plummeting caused financial big wigs to exit the love-fest.

“Democrats on Capitol Hill say those in the financial industry are tired,” of being Obama’s punching bag.  They also don’t appreciate, “Democrats crafting legislation to tightly regulate them.” According to one House Democratic lawmaker Wall Street, supports”individuals, but not the party…I think there’s been some push back from the [financial] community.

Could thuggery have inspired the punching bag to let the hot air out of Barack Obama’s “assail?” Besides, how much credibility can a person expect to have if demonizing fat cats is the basis for fund raising at $50,000-dollar a couple events?

Obama flew into the Big Apple to attend the glitzy St. Regis affair. Wall Street power players excused themselves from the position of punching bag for the night and skipped the dry chicken and twice baked potatoes.  Instead of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup,  Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan, Obama speechified “Carrie Bradshaw” and “Ferris Bueller” into submission and did so for a hefty haul of currency, slated for nervous Democratic candidates, who probably wish Barry would shut up.

Obama doesn’t get it, beating up Wall Street dries up funds faster than raising taxes on business, but then again, Barack’s math grades have never officially been made public.

Even Democrats are admitting, “Wall Street money has dried up for the party,” and an official from one of the major investment firms confirmed its people decided to forgo the festivities.Apparently the word was out, “We won’t be attending.”  Come on guys, what’s another split lip or couple of rhetorical stitches above the right eye?

One attendee said, “I didn’t see anyone from the big firms. I did see some folks from sort of some mid-level-range hedge funds.” Ed Towns (D-Brooklyn) said afterward. “I would recognize a lot of them, but I didn’t see any.”

Speaking on behalf of the poor, indigent and oppressed Obama reiterated the call for Wall Street reform and in the process raised $1.3 million from 185 donors. Although Sarah Jessica Parker was in attendance the President didn’t cover the greed exhibited by exorbitant Hollywood salaries or the $75-million dollar Sex in the City 2, film budget.

Instead, Obama continued to pound Wall Street saying,”There are a lot of good people who work in the financial industry who do things the right way.” Yet there remain those who”operate irresponsibly, they don’t just threaten themselves, they threaten the entire economy. We need reform to ensure they operate in an honest, fair and open way.”-An introspective indictment, perhaps?

It was reported Obama’s condemnation failed to garner the slightest reaction from the well-heeled, St. Regis crowd.As Barry the battering ram battered on, New York City donors may have come to the realization they too were sitting targets.

Maybe someone whispered in Sarah Jessica and Matthew’s ear that while busily punching out the Street for “irresponsibility,”a reckless Barack cut Big Apple homeland security?By slashing “mass transit grants by 27 percent and port grants by 25 percent,” Barry single handedly placed NYC in great danger.

Seems that while Goldman Sachs was being railed on in absentia, the fawning Sex in the City star was delivered an unexpected sucker punch.  The President took $50,000-dollars and then left faithful supporter Sarah Jessica Parker in the city,with less security living under a looming cloud of impending terrorism.

Wonder who’ll attend Obama’s next fundraiser?

 
Author’s content: www.jeannie-ology.com