 The ongoing persecution of Republicans and Conservatives mirrors the attacks by the fascists of Europe on their opponents in the 1930s.
Punishing Obama’s political adversaries claims another victim.
The latest attacks are against Conservative authors and/or groups that share a philosophy based on individual rights.
Dinesh D’Souza is the latest target. D’Souza authored a wildly successful bestseller critical of Obama and directed the 2012 film, “President Barack Obama, “2016: Obama’s America.” He is charged with directing contributions to an unnamed candidate’s campaign.
“As we have long said, this Office and the FBI take a zero tolerance approach to corruption of the electoral process,” the U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Preet Bharara, said in a statement released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Bharara is an Obama appointee.
Really? I broke numerous stories and documented millions in illegal campaign contributions to the Obama campaign, but nothing was ever done.
This is so frightening. America, put down the newly legalized weed that Obama is touting and join us in the fight for freedom.
“Dinesh D’Souza indicted for violating U.S. election law,” Reuters, January 23, 2014
Jan 23 (Reuters) - Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative commentator and best-selling author, has been indicted by a federal grand jury for arranging excessive campaign contributions to a candidate for the U.S. Senate.
According to an indictment made public on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, D’Souza around August 2012 reimbursed people who he had directed to contribute $20,000 to the candidate’s campaign. The candidate was not named in the indictment.
Attempts to reach D’Souza and a lawyer representing him were unsuccessful.
D’Souza was charged in the indictment with one count of making illegal contributions in the names of others, and one count of causing false statements to be made.
Federal law in 2012 limited primary and general election campaign contributions to $2,500 each, for a total of $5,000, from any individual to any one candidate.
“As we have long said, this Office and the FBI take a zero tolerance approach to corruption of the electoral process,” the U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Preet Bharara, said in a statement released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Bharara is an Obama appointee.
Born in Mumbai, India, D’Souza, 52, is a former policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan, and has been affiliated with conservative organizations such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
He also directed a 2012 film critical of President Barack Obama, “2016: Obama’s America,” and has written books including “The End of Racism,” “Life After Death: The Evidence” and “Obama’s America: Unmaking the American Dream.”
D’Souza campaigned in 2012 on behalf of Wendy Long, a lawyer and Republican who sought to unseat Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand as New York’s junior senator. Long graduated from Dartmouth College in 1982, a year before D’Souza.
Long could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
Gillibrand, herself a 1988 Dartmouth graduate, ended up winning re-election to her first full term, collecting close to 72 percent of the vote.
In late 2012, D’Souza resigned his post as president of King’s College, a small Christian college in New York City, after admitting he had become engaged to a woman even though he was legally married, though separated from his wife. He has been an outspoken defender of traditional marriage.
The case is U.S. v. D’Souza, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 14-cr-00034. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Additional reporting by Emily Flitter; Editing by Eddie Evans, Toni Reinhold)
The post The Persecution of Obama’s Political Adversaries: Destroying Dinesh D’Souza appeared first on Atlas Shrugs.
More O-baloney sliced and diced. What contempt he has for us. He has no regard for the American people, for the Constitution he swore to protect and defend, or for freedom; but most of all, he has no regard for the truth. In fact, he wants nothing more than to prohibit it.
The Middle East is embarking on a nuclear arms race, thanks to Obama’s dangerous Islamophiliac misadventure.
Iranian Foreign Minister: “We Did Not Agree to Dismantle Anything” — CNN
(CNN) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted Wednesday that the Obama administration mischaracterizes concessions by his side in the six-month nuclear deal with Iran, telling CNN in an exclusive interview that “we did not agree to dismantle anything.”
Zarif told CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto that terminology used by the White House to describe the agreement differed from the text agreed to by Iran and the other countries in the talks — the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.
“The White House version both underplays the concessions and overplays Iranian commitments” under the agreement that took effect Monday, Zarif said in Davos, Switzerland, where he was attending the World Economic Forum.
As part of the accord, Iran was required to dilute its stockpile of uranium that had been enriched to 20%, well above the 5% level needed for power generation but still below the level for developing a nuclear weapon.
In addition, the deal mandated that Iran halt all enrichment above 5% and “dismantle the technical connections required to enrich above 5%,” according to a White House fact sheet issued in November after the initial agreement was reached.
Zarif accused the Obama administration of creating a false impression with such language.
“The White House tries to portray it as basically a dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program. That is the word they use time and again,” he said, urging Sciutto to read the actual text of the agreement. “If you find a single, a single word, that even closely resembles dismantling or could be defined as dismantling in the entire text, then I would take back my comment.”
He repeated that “we are not dismantling any centrifuges, we’re not dismantling any equipment, we’re simply not producing, not enriching over 5%.”
“You don’t need to over-emphasize it,” Zarif said of the White House language. A separate summary sent out by the White House last week did not use the word dismantle.
In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani echoed Zarif’s statement, saying the government will not destroy existing centrifuges. However, he added: “We are ready to provide confidence that there should be no concern about Iran’s program.”
Responding to Zarif’s comments to CNN, a senior administration official said “we expected that the Iranians would need to spin this for their domestic political purposes, and are not surprised they are doing just that.”
Iranian and U.S. officials have tried to sell the nuclear agreement to domestic opponents in their respective countries who could scuttle it.
Iranian officials have called the interim pact a victory and said it failed to halt the nation’s nuclear development program, while U.S. officials say the agreement essentially froze Iran’s nuclear program and rolled back some capabilities.
Zarif noted the political pressure facing both sides, which includes a push in Congress for more sanctions against Iran that Tehran warns would destroy any chance for success in talks on a long-range nuclear agreement intended to prevent development of an Iranian nuclear weapon.
“All of us are facing difficulties and oppositions and concerns and misgivings,” he said, noting he had been summoned Wednesday to Iran’s parliament to answer questions.
Asked about his relationship with Secretary of State John Kerry, Zarif called it “very difficult because we’re both going into these negotiations with a lot of baggage.”
Progress has been made, he said, but “it’s yet too early to talk about trust.”
Zarif and Rouhani traveled to Switzerland for annual gathering of world political and business leaders in Davos as a new round of Syrian talks started in Montreux before moving to Geneva.
Iran, a major backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was invited to the Syrian talks by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, then disinvited under pressure from the United States because Tehran refused to endorse conditions in a previous agreement setting up the talks.
“We do not like the way Iran was treated,” he said, adding “it did not enhance the credibility of the United Nations or the office of the Secretary General.”
Zarif expressed hope that the Syrian talks could succeed, but he criticized Syrian opposition groups and their supporters that opposed Iran’s participation in the talks for what he called spreading extremism and trying to impose their will on the Syrian people.
He explained Iran’s support for the Syrian government, a longtime ally, by saying “Iran finds itself in a situation where we see the very prominent and serious danger of terrorism, extremism, sectarian tension being fed from outside and creating a very dangerous environment in Syria.”
To Zarif, an agreement among Syrians that brings a democratically elected government is the only solution, and he dismissed concerns that a free and fair vote would be impossible with al-Assad in power and running as a candidate.
Kerry said earlier Wednesday in Montreux that there was “no way” al-Assad will be part of a transitional government sought by the Geneva talks.
“Why don’t we talk about it?” Zarif asked. “And why don’t we allow the Syrians to talk about how they can conduct a free and fair election? Why do people need to set an agenda and impose their agenda on the Syrian people?”
Sciutto also asked Zarif about his visit last week to lay a wreath at the grave of Hezbollah leader Imad Mugniyah in Lebanon.
The United States condemned the gesture, saying Mugniyah was “responsible for heinous acts of terrorism that killed hundreds of innocent people, including Americans,” said a statement by National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden.
Zarif responded that his visit should be seen in the same context as the U.S. delegation that attended the recent funeral of Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli leader who was defense minister when mass killings occurred at refugee camps under his command in 1982.
“It’s a decision based on national perceptions and national beliefs,” he said, describing Mugniyah as a revered figure for resisting Israeli occupation while calling Sharon responsible for the massacre of Palestinians and Lebanese in the Sabra and Shatila camps.
“I believe Sabra and Shatila were crimes against humanity,” Zarif said.
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Obama’s favorite “Junior Varsity” team and war partner in Syria, al Qaeda, was behind the the recently thwarted plot to blow up the US embassy in Israel.
Under Obama, al qaeda has murdered American officials and set ablaze the US consulate in Libya, seized parts of that country, taken over Mali and turned it into a terror state, wreaked havoc in Africa, taken over parts of Iraq, is waging a bloody war in Syria to wrest control away from Assad, and has partnered with the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
On the other hand, under Obama, America has doubled its debt, doubled its unemployment, precipitously dropped in rank in economic freedom, abandoned decades-long allies, dismantled and routed the medical sector, suffered a sharp spike in households on food stamps, seen attacks on American interests across the world, seen our influence in the Middle East and beyond diminished, lost our standing in the world….
Who is the JVer, Mr. Obama?
“Zuwahiri plotted Palestinian-Caucasian terrorist attacks on US Embassy, Jerusalem Convention Center,” DEBKAfile Special Report January 22, 2014
The Jerusalem court and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) disclosed Wednesday, Jan. 22, that three Palestinians were in custody having been recruited by al Qaida for three separate suicide operations in conjunction with 5 North Caucasian terrorists due to enter Israel as tourists on fake Russian passports. The plot was orchestrated by Ayman Zuwahiri. It targeted the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, the Jerusalem Convention Center and buses on the Jerusalem-Maaleh Adummim route.
DEBKAfile’s counter terror sources: This was the first time al Qaeda leader Zuwahari was to take a personal hand in setting up attacks inside Israel and his first attempt to use his operational ties for building mixed teams of jihadists from the Caucasus, the Gaza Strip, Syria and local Palestinians - two from East Jerusalem and one from Jenin.
Suicide bombers were to storm the US embassy in Tel Aviv or blow themselves up at the entrance to the building. This attack was to be coordinated with a simultaneous shooting attack on buses plying the Maaleh Adummim-Jerusalem line.
Suicide bombers clad in explosive vests were to stage a double attack on the Jerusalem National Convention Center – one blowing up the cavernous building and the second detonating a truck bomb against the responders to increase the casualties.
The Shin Bet inquiry found that two East Jerusalem Palestinians had been recruited as operatives or accomplices.
Iyad Abu Sara, 23, from Ras Hamis in Jerusalem, who was arrested late last year, revealed under questioning that he’d been recruited online by a senior Al Qaeda operative from Gaza called Arib al-Sham.
For his initiation into al Qaeda, he promised to shoot out the tires of an Egged bus causing it to overturn, then shoot the passengers. He was required to serve three months on probation.
Among his other duties, Abu Sara agreed to look after the Caucasian terrorists when they arrived in the guise of Russian tourists. His task was to guide them to their targets, the Convention Center in Jerusalem and the US Embassy in Tel Aviv.
Abu Sara also admitted that he was assigned to travel via Turkey to Syria for training with Al Qaeda instructors. He was also planning to purchase plane tickets for the five Caucasians. His handler in Gaza sent him a computer file containing a manual on the manufacture of explosives, and informed him that the operation was personally planned by Zuwahiri and would go forward with his blessing.
The second Jerusalem Palestinian arrested was Rubin Abu Nagma, a married father of four from the Abu Tor neighborhood. He was picked up before he could execute additional attacks, such as kidnapping a soldier in Jerusalem and planting a bomb in a building in his neighborhood which has a mixed Arab-Jewish community. Nagma admitted he had obtained weapons and taught himself how to build bombs from the Internet.
DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources disclose that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put before Russian President Vladimir Putin details of the inquiry into the al Qaeda plot, including the plan to import Caucasian terrorists, when they met in Moscow on Nov. 20. In addition to the Iranian nuclear issue, they also discussed using Israel’s counter-terror expertise to aid Russia in securing the Sochi Olympic Games against Islamist terrorists from the Caucasus and Syria.
The post Al Qaeda “JV” Captain Zuwahiri plotted jihad attacks on US Embassy, Jerusalem Convention Center appeared first on Atlas Shrugs.
All Islamic charities (zakat) that fund jihad should have their 501C3 status stripped. They should be outlawed. They support our mortal enemies in their war to destroy and conquer the United States.
This is a good beginning, although these jihad funders continue to enjoy tax-exempt status.
Muslim Brotherhood groups in the US like CAIR, ISNA, and ICNA were named co-conspirators in the largest terror funding trial in our nation’s history, but Obama’s Department of Justice scuttled those prosecutions. The next President will take up the mantle — if the party of traitors doesn’t lie, cheat and steal its way to the White House again.
“IRS Wants Gaza Caravan-Tied Charity’s Status Stripped” By ITP, January 23, 2014
An Internal Revenue Service audit recommends stripping a New York-based charity of its tax-exempt status after it served as a conduit for donations for a convoy that delivered cash and goods to Hamas officials in Gaza.
The investigation was prompted by a 2009 report by the Investigative Project on Terrorism that documented statements during a Viva Palestina fundraiser directing contributions to the charity, the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organizations (IFCO)/Pastors for Peace. Viva Palestina is the brainchild of British MP George Galloway.
Viva Palestina’s U.S. website directed donations to an address in Chicago, explaining that IFCO “is serving as fiscal sponsor for Viva Palestina USA. Your donation to Viva Palestina – IFCO is fully tax deductible under IFCO’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.”
U.S. Reps. Brad Sherman, D-Cal., and Sue Myrick, R-N.C., wrote to IRS officials asking that they determine whether IFCO did, in fact, accept and process donations for Viva Palestina. “If so, IFCO’s status as a 501(c)(3) entity must be revoked,” Sherman wrote. “The taxpayers of the United States should not and cannot support the activities of recognized terror organizations. [Emphasis original].
The IRS had an answer last October.
“Based on our examination of Inter-Religious Foundation for Community Organization Inc. (IFCO), we have determined that IFCO does not qualify for exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Code,” the report explains.
IFCO attorney Martin Stolar responded in December, accusing the IRS of being wrong on the facts and the law. “No funds were supplied to HAMAS or to any entity controlled or operated by HAMAS,” he wrote.
IFCO posted both the IRS report and Stolar’s response as part of an appeal for people to lobby the IRS and politicians against removing IFCO’s tax-exempt status. IFCO is a “victim of political persecution,” it says. “Imagine, the first national foundation controlled by people of color in the United States, now being denied tax-exempt status by the US government.”
IFCO blames the Investigative Project on Terrorism, and tries to discredit it. “This group is believed to be a propaganda arm of the Israeli government,” Stolar wrote, “and cannot be relied upon for the purpose for which the IRS uses it, i.e. that there was a connection between the Viva Palestina program and HAMAS.”
It is a tactic used by others the IPT exposed for supporting terrorists. It has not worked.
Viva Palestina was not incorporated in the United States and never had tax-exempt status. There is no dispute that IFCO agreed to accept Viva Palestina donations and use its exempt status as an enticement.
“The Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), which has been working for racial, social, and economic justice since 1967, is serving as fiscal sponsor for Viva Palestina USA,” Viva Palestina’s website said. Your donation to Viva Palestina – IFCO is fully tax deductible under IFCO’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.”
During a July 2009 Viva Palestina fundraiser, then-IFCO Executive Director Lucius Walker said that “we could not avoid being a part of this historic [convoy] effort to give the people of the United States an opportunity to visibly demonstrate their opposition to our government’s policies, our government’s callousness and our government’s complicity with Israel’s efforts to destroy the hopes and the aspirations of the Palestinian people. And so we have been honored to be able to receive funds on behalf of this effort that we are here as a part of.”
At the same event, attorney Lamis Deek, who also serves on the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ New York chapter’s board, acknowledged that politics was the “essence” of the convoy, even more than supplying relief aid.
“The first and foremost among them with this convoy, without question supports is the rights of Palestinians to self-determination, the right the government to choose, not only the government under which they want to live, but in choosing Hamas, what they chose was one united Palestinian state on all of the 1948 territories from the north to the very south. That is what Palestinians chose. And in supporting Palestinian choice we are saying we support their right to liberation from violent colonialism.”
Three weeks later, Deek asserted that, “Jerusalem must be the capital of Palestine,” adding, “We reject Zionism as a racist and criminal ideology.”
So does Hamas. Even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas described the convoy as a “propaganda tool” for Hamas.
In March 2009, before the IFCO fundraisers, Galloway boasted that he would give aid to Hamas and dared anyone to stop him.
“I personally am about to break the sanctions on the elected government of Palestine…” Galloway said, adding that the convoy would deliver 100 vehicles loaded with supplies and that convoy members carried in huge sums of cash strapped to their bodies. He would give it to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
“Here is the money,” he said, holding up a bag of cash. “This is not charity,” he repeated three times. “This is politics. The government of Palestine is the best people to decide where this money is needed. We are giving this money now to the government of Palestine.”
Galloway concluded by saying that the convoy raises hopes “that one day, we can return to our country, that we can return to our country, that we can drive them [Israelis] away, and we can return to our country.”
Another Viva Palestina convoy made its journey to Gaza in December 2009 and January 2010. Hamas leaders turned out to greet it during stops in Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Gaza. In Jordan, flags for Hamas and its military wing were prominently displayed.
Deputy political director Mousa Abu Marzook told the convoy that Hamas terrorism – he called it “resistance” – would continue.
At another stop, the crowd chanted a key Islamist slogan:
“Allah is our goal. The Prophet Muhammad is our leader. The Koran is our Constitution.
Jihad is our path. Death for the sake of Allah is our most exalted desire.”
A convoy participant described meeting Haniyeh during the 24 hours the group spent inside Gaza. Another wrote that the government “provided bus service, hotel, meals, security (photo at right), and a tour of Gaza” for convoy participants. He was uneasy, he wrote, because “supporting Hamas is illegal for Americans because the U.S. Government considers Hamas a terrorist organization, [so] I took care to distance myself from tour events that were not humanitarian in nature.”
Hamas has been the controlling power in Gaza since it ousted its rival Fatah in 2007 in bloody clashes. Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza in an attempt to stem the flow of weapons and supplies that could be used in terrorist attacks. A 2011 United Nations report found that policy to be “a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law.”
However, the blockade did not stop Hamas from smuggling in thousands of rockets which it fires on Israeli civilian communities. It also triggered convoys like Viva Palestina and flotillas aimed at breaking the blockade.
In 2009, IFCO took in $1.2 million, the IRS audit found. More than $885,000 was transferred out, including some which were invoiced in Farsi, the official language of Hamas’s patron state Iran. The Farsi invoices were paid without being translated. IFCO refused to make anyone available to discuss this action with the IRS.
That’s under the advice of counsel, Stolar wrote. While he insisted there is no evidence showing IFCO or Viva Palestina sent money to Hamas, IFCO’s refusal to talk about it should not be surprising “in view of the legal posture of the federal material support criminal statute. If IRS could grant immunity or otherwise guarantee that no testimonial evidence from an IFCO officer, Director, or employee would ever be used in a prosecution based on the material support statute, that would solve the problem.”
But IFCO also failed to include information about its partnership with Viva Palestina on its required annual tax forms, known as 990s. A standard question asks whether the organization was involved in grants or assistance worth more than $5,000 to foreign recipients. IFCO checked no. The IRS got no response when it sought more information, including questions about how donations were solicited and handled.
The audit also found fault with some of IFCO’s convoys to Cuba.
It is not clear what happens next. IFCO continues to enjoy tax exempt status.
The post IRS Wants “Viva Palestina” Charity’s Tax Status Stripped, “Zakat” for terror appeared first on Atlas Shrugs.
How is reform in Islam possible. Anyone that goes off the reservation even in the most elemental way is threatened, harassed and in many cases killed.
How can you separate Hamas from jihad? Hamas existence is jihad.
Hamas-tied Muslim groups in the US pretend to be “moderate” but they support the brutal sharia and bloody jihad. Even a “Palestinian” isn’t safe.
“Female Palestinian cartoonist threatened after critique of Islamic Jihad, Hamas,” By Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, January 23, 2014
Majedah Shaheen has been called a “traitor” and “prostitute” in response to cartoon referring to Hamas efforts to rein in Islamic Jihad’s military wing.
Cartoon suggesting Hamas needs to rein in Islamic Jihad military wing Al-Quds Batallions. Photo: Courtesy
A Palestinian female cartoonist has come under fire for publishing a cartoon that has enraged Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
The controversial cartoon refers to Hamas efforts to rein in Islamic Jihad’s military wing, Al-Quds Batallions, whose members are believed to behind recent rocket and mortar attacks on Israel.
The cartoon by Majedah Shaheen depicts Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh asking his dog to “calm down.” The dog represents the Al-Quds Battalions.
Following strong condemnations and threats, Shaheen published an apology on her Facebook account.
“I wish to apologize for the cartoon I published about Hamas and the Al-Quds Battalions,” she wrote. “My intention was to relay a message in a clear and firm manner. But there are many who prefer to deal with the issue in an artificial manner instead of making an attempt to understand the idea behind it.”
The apology has failed to calm many Palestinians, who posted abusive comments against her on Facebook, denouncing her has a “Zionist agent,” “traitor” and “prostitute.”
The post Female Palestinian cartoonist threatened after cartoon enrages Islamic Jihad, Hamas appeared first on Atlas Shrugs.
I understand that under Islamic law (sharia), a 16-year-old girl is an old coot, but this is America, still.
Tiffany Snook was reported missing on Nov. 12. Police now believe that she was with Sezer Gok, 40.
At some point they were married in a Muslim religious ceremony, a Pasco sheriff’s report states.
In what state was this sharia marriage made? The few states that allow a 16-year-old girl to get married only do so with parental consent. Why did the mosque perform the marriage? Why didn’t the mosque call authorities? 
He groomed her and took advantage of a young stupid girl.
“Man arrested after Illinois runaway teen is found in Wesley Chapel,” Tampa Times, January 23, 2014 (thanks to Creeping)
WESLEY CHAPEL — They met at the mall in her small central Illinois hometown. He came from Turkey and ran a kiosk in Bloomington. It was either June or July last year, detectives say.
She was 16. He was 39.
Tiffany kept her relationship with Sezer Gok a secret from her parents, authorities said. She began working for him. He named a new kiosk for her: Tiffany’s Balloons.
Tiffany and Gok must have planned to leave, said Bloomington police Detective Tom Rena, because it all happened so fast. Gok had been working days, if not weeks, in advance to close down each of his kiosks. She left high school and family behind.
Before anyone even knew, they were gone.
”By the time we caught up with them leaving,” Rena said, “we were about 10 steps behind them.”
Tiffany was reported missing Nov. 12. Evidence showed she left willingly with Gok, Rena said.
At some point they were married in a Muslim religious ceremony, a Pasco sheriff’s report states. They first stopped in Pittsburgh. There, the report states, Gok read a news story alleging he abducted Tiffany. He got nervous and took her to Tampa.
Tiffany never told her parents where she was, Rena said. During the two months she was missing, she called them once, just before Christmas.
Back in Bloomington, Rena worked with U.S. marshals to track Gok’s location.
The couple moved to Glenwood Mobile Home Park on Habersham Lane east of Tampa. Then on Jan. 12, they rented a house at 5909 Azure Drive in Wesley Chapel.
Rena would not reveal investigative techniques, but marshals located Gok. Authorities went to the home at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and arrested him.
Investigators interviewed Tiffany, now 17, who told them she was seven weeks pregnant with Gok’s child and that she was “fully committed to Muslim faith,” said sheriff’s spokeswoman Melanie Snow.
Tiffany was taken into child custody. Her father has since picked her up, Rena said.
Gok, now 40, remained in the Land O’Lakes jail Wednesday on charges of interfering with custody and sheltering a runaway. More charges are pending against him in Illinois.
U.S. Immigration and Customs had placed a hold on his release.
No one was home Wednesday afternoon at the light pink Wesley Chapel home with “Princess” etched into the door knocker.
A silver Jeep Cherokee with Illinois plates, listed as Gok’s vehicle by Bloomington police, sat in the driveway. Duct tape covered a gash in the SUV’s rear end.
On the driveway, closest to the rear passenger side of the SUV, lay a pair of girl’s jeans, still folded, and a make-up case.
The post Florida Muslim Arrested After 16-Year-Old Teen Girl is Found, Pregnant and “Fully Committed to Muslim Faith” appeared first on Atlas Shrugs.
Today’s must-read column. I cannot add to this brilliant analysis of the low state of the world, except to say that America’s “can do” spirit has been replaced with America “won’t.” American optimism has been replaced by fatalism and pessimism. Individual rights has been replaced with mob rule — “any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man’s rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life,” Ayn Rand said.
“The Last Generation of the West and the Thin Strand of Civilization,” Posted By Victor Davis Hanson On January 19, 2014
Had the Greeks lost at Salamis, Western civilization might easily have been strangled in its adolescence. Had Hitler not invaded the Soviet Union, the European democracies would have probably remained overwhelmed. And had the Japanese just sidestepped the Philippines and Pearl Harbor, as they gobbled up the orphaned Pacific colonies of a defunct Western Europe, the Pacific World as we know it now might be a far different, far darker place.
I am not engaging in pop counterfactual history [1], as much as reminding us of how thin the thread of civilization sometimes hangs, both in its beginning and full maturity. Something analogous is happening currently in the 21st-century West. But the old alarmist scenarios — a nuclear exchange, global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps, a new lethal AIDS-like virus — should not be our worry.
Rather our way of life is changing not with a bang, but with a whimper [2], insidiously and self-inflicted, rather than abruptly and from foreign stimuli. Most of the problem is cultural. Unfortunately it was predicted by a host of pessimistic anti-democratic philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to Hegel and Spengler [3]. I’ve always hoped that these gloom-and-doomers were wrong about the Western paradigm, but some days it becomes harder.
Over 90 million Americans who could work are not working [4] (the “non-institutionalized” over 16). What we take for granted — our electrical power, fuel, building materials, food, health care, and communications — all hinge on just 144 million getting up in the morning to produce what about 160-170 million others (the sick, the young, and the retired who need assistance along with the 90 million idle) consume.
Every three working Americans provide sustenance for two who are not ill, enfeebled, or too young. The former help the disabled, the latter take resources from them. The gang-banger has only disdain for the geek at the mall — until one Saturday night his liver is shredded by gang gunfire and suddenly he whimpers (who is now the real wimp?) that he needs such a Stanford-trained nerd to do sophisticated surgery to get him back in one piece to the carjackings, muggings, assaults, and knockout games — or lawsuits follow!
Given that the number of non-working is growing (an additional 10 million were idled in the Obama “recovery” alone), it is likely to keep growing. At some point, we will hit a 50/50 ratio of idle versus active. Then things will get interesting. The percentage of workers’ pay deducted to pay for the non-working will soar even higher. So will the present redistributive schemes and the borrowing from the unborn.
We forget that the obligations of the working to care for the 70-80 million who genuinely cannot work become more difficult, when the 90 million who can work for all sorts of reasons won’t. Note the theme of this essay: the more in humane fashion we provide unemployment insurance, food stamps, subsidized housing, legal advice, health care and disability insurance, the more the recipients find it all inadequate, inherent proof of unfairness and inequality, and always not enough.
Much of the Modern University Output Coarsens American Life
We will hear even more shrillness about “fairness” and “equality.” The more government support, all the more will grow the sense of being shorted. When someone idle receives a free iPhone, he doesn’t thank government for its magnanimity. More likely, he damns it for allowing someone else the ability to purchase an updated, superior model. I have talked to several students about their iPhones; so far not one has said, “Wow, I have more computer and communications power in my palm than a multi-millionaire had [5] just 15 years ago.” Mostly they wished they had an updated version like someone better off.
An indebted and crippled U.S. has so far survived the second decade of the 21st century largely due to some ingenious engineers and audacious workers who revolutionized the gas and oil industry, at a time when wind and solar merely amused us, when our enemies considered us ripe for perpetual petro-blackmail, and when our wherewithal to pay for more imported energy was increasingly questionable.
A very few people are saving very many. But how thin the strand of civilization hangs — given that the forces of our modern Lotus Eaters (every bit as dangerous in their postmodern imaginations as the Cyclopes are in their premodern savagery) have stopped the Keystone Pipeline, stopped most federal leasing of new gas and oil finds, and are trying to regulate fracking and horizontal drilling out of existence where it might be most vital to the U.S. — as in the Monterey Shale formation in California.
How ironic is the Sierra Club Bay Area grandee who finds light when he flips on his office switch, and would find no light were his utopian ideas about wind, solar, and biomass to come to full fruition [6]. Only what he despises [7] — radioactive uranium, messy drilling rigs, and unnatural dams — for now continue to bring him what he must have. Again, the theme: the more the green activists empty reservoirs to save a bait fish, or stop fracking, or prevent salvage logging, the angrier they sigh that it is not enough and the more they must count on someone ignoring them to provide them with what they must have.
The universities were the great backbone of the West, from the Academy and Lyceum to medieval Pisa and Oxbridge to the great 18th- and 19th-century founding of American campuses. Not necessarily any longer [8]. Too many are bankrupt morally, economically [9], politically, and culturally.
The symptoms are terrifying: one trillion dollars in student debt (many of these loans accruing at higher than average interest rates and even before students have graduated); a small Eloi class [10] of rarefied elites who teach little and write in runes that no one can decipher; a large Morlock class of part-timers and oppressed lecturers who subsidize the fat and waste of the tenured and administrative classes; graduates who are arrogant but ignorant, nursed on –studies ideology without the liberal arts foundations to back up their zeal; and a BA/BS brand that no longer ensures better-paying jobs, if any jobs at all.
In sum, apart from the sciences and medicine, most of the university coarsens rather than enlightens American life.
The current campus is unsustainable and we are beginning to see its decline, as online courses and for-profit tech schools usurp its students. The liberal arts are not nurtured and protected for another generation in the university. Instead, their umbilical cords have become cut with the cleaver of race/class/gender no-nothingism. Again the theme: the more bloated, exploitive, and costly the university, the more it lashes out it that it is short-changed, the victim of philistine budget cuts, and the last bastion of civilized life.
Civilization Seems to Be Losing
Popular culture is likewise anti-civilizational [11]. Does anyone believe that Kanye West, Miley Cyrus, and Lady Gaga are updates to Glenn Miller, jazz, Bob Dylan and the Beatles? Even in the bimbo mode, Marilyn Monroe had an aura [12] that Ms. Kardashian and Ms. Hilton lack. Teens wearing bobby socks and jeans have transmogrified to strange creatures in our midst with head-to -oe tattoos and piercings [13] as if we copied Papua New Guinea rather than it us. Why the superficial skin-deep desire to revert to the premodern? When I walk in some American malls and soak in the fashion, I am reminded of National Geographic tribal photos of the 1950s.
Again the theme: the more we borrow to provide iPads to our supposedly deprived youth, the more in theory they can access in a nano-second the treasures of their culture and heritage, and in fact the more likely it is that they have no clue what Gettysburg was [14], who Thomas Jefferson was [15], or who fought whom over what [16] in World War II. Our managers in education, terrified of confronting the causes of ignorance, believed that the faster youths could transmit nothingness, the more likely they might stumble onto somethingness.
The fourth-century Greeks at the end pasted silver over their worthless bronze coins — “reds” being the protruding noses and hair of the portraiture that first appeared bronze-like, as the silver patina rubbed off. The bastardization of the currency fostered many books on Roman decline. More worthless money for more people was a sign of “crisis” — analogous to our own quantitative easing and $17 trillion in debt.
Once more the theme here is not just that we are insolvent, but that we are so insolvent that it is now a thought-crime to talk of dissolution, bankruptness, and irresponsible spending — all damned as symptoms of “callousness” to the poor, proof of “social injustice”, and “obsessions” with deficits. The medicine of austerity always becomes worse than the disease of profligacy.
What do I mean about the “thinning strand of civilization”?
A shrinking percentage of our population feeds us, finds our energy, protects us, and builds things we count on. They get up each morning to do these things, in part in quest for the good life, in part out of a sense of social obligation and basic humanity, in part because they know they will die if idle and thrive only when busy, and in part simply because “they like it.”
We can stack the deck against them with ever higher taxes, ever more regulations, ever more obligations to others, and they may well continue. But not if we also damn them as the “1%” and call them the agents of inequality and the fat cats who did not build what they built or who profited when they should not have.
You cannot expect the military to protect us, and then continually order it to reflect every aspect of postmodern American sensitivity in a risky premodern world. Filing a lawsuit to divert a river’s water to the sea during a drought is a lot easier and cleaner than welding together well-casings at sea. Last week, an off-duty armed correctional officer in Fresno intervened in a wild carjacking, shooting and killing the gang-member killer and thus limiting his carnage to one death and two woundings rather than five or six killings — at the very moment Harvey Weinstein — of guns-blazing Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction fame and profits — promised to destroy the NRA [17]. These contrasts say everything about the premodern, the postmodern and the innocent who pay the tab in-between.
Each day when I drive to work I try to look at the surrounding communities, and count how many are working and how many of the able-bodied are not. I listen to the car radio and tally up how many stories, both in their subject matter and method of presentation, seem to preserve civilization, or how many seem to tear it down. I try to assess how many drivers stay between the lines, how many weave while texting or zoom in and out of traffic at 90mph or honk and flip off drivers.
Today, as the reader can note from the tone of this apocalyptic essay, civilization seemed to be losing.
The post “The Thin Strand of Civilization” appeared first on Atlas Shrugs.
Even Hitler would be impressed.
Hezbollah unveils youngest terrorist,” MEMRI via The Times of Israel, January 23, 2014
“Mahdi, dressed in an oversized army uniform, was dedicated to the Shiite terror group from the moment he was born” MEMRI via The Times of Israel
ittle baby Mahdi, a pudgy-faced Lebanese newborn who can still barely open his eyes, was destined to become a Hezbollah warrior from the moment he first entered this world.
“It’s a boy!” a balloon in the hallway of the Rasul Aatham hospital in Beirut proudly exclaims. But, snoozing in his bed, Mahdi is dressed as a fighter: In a video posted by Hezbollah-owned news channel al-Manar earlier this week, Mahdi is seen in a tiny military-style camouflage uniform only slightly too large for an infant of his stature. A hat bearing the Shiite organization’s emblem keeps his head warm.
“Nothing could be better than him becoming a soldier for the Imam Mahdi [the prophesied redeemer of Islam],” his mother, dressed in traditional black Middle Eastern garb, tells al-Manar in the video, according to a translation posted by MEMRI, an Arab news watchdog.
According to the al-Manar report, as a token of appreciation, Mahdi’s family had all hospital bills waived and was granted a golden necklace engraved with the name of the Prophet Muhammad.
“[He] reflects the continuation of the path of the Islamic resistance, one generation after another,” Mahdi’s mother says of her tiny baby in the video.
The post Maternity Ward or Terrorist hatcheries appeared first on Atlas Shrugs.
Obama is uneasy with this, but thoroughly down with Muslim Brotherhood operatives in key positions in the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Department of Justice and the FBI.
In his second term, Obama and company are clearly comfortable with taking the mask off and spewing traditional anti-Jewish incitement to hate. Sounds like he’s taking his talking points from Rouhani.
On Capitol Hill there are lobbies for everything. Literally. Anyone with a cause, a calling, a corporate interest, a national interest or an axe to grind is lobbying our lawmakers. But Obama is uncomfortable with the Jewish groups lobbying on behalf of the Jewish state. And just this week, he advanced the viciously anti-Israel lie that Muslim antisemitism is “only decades old.”
Obama has gone after pro-Israel groups with a vengeance. Obama has consistently snubbed AIPAC throughout his presidency, instead giving the Muslim-funded J Street the respect that AIPAC had earned and enjoyed for decades. J Street, an anti-Israel organization masquerading as a pro-Jewish group, was formed by antisemites like George Soros in order to weaken AIPAC.
Obama urged Jewish leaders not to back Iran sanctions.
Obama has played this dirty game with AIPAC before. When Obama bumbled his way through his Syrian misadventure, he demanded that the Jews carry water for him. Caroline Glick wrote this at the time:
US President Barack Obama’s rapidly changing positions on Syria have produced many odd spectacles.One of odder ones was the sight of hundreds of lobbyists from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC] fanning out on Capitol Hill to lobby members of the House and Senate to support Obama’s plan to launch what Secretary of State John Kerry called “unbelievably small” air strikes against empty regime controlled buildings in Syria. AIPAC officials claimed they were doing this because the air strikes would help Israel.
[...]
Obama wanted to launch the unbelievably small strikes to prove that he wasn’t lying when he said that Syria would cross a red line if it used chemical weapons. So if the strikes were going to harm the US and Israel, why did AIPAC dispatch its lobbyists to Capitol Hill to lobby in favor of them? Because Obama made them.
Obama ordered AIPAC to go to Capitol Hill to lobby for the Syria strikes. He did so knowing that its involvement would weaken public support for AIPAC and Israel. Both would be widely perceived as pushing the US to send military forces into harm’s way to defend Israel.
Then, with hundreds of AIPAC lobbyist racing from one Congressional office to the next, Obama left them in a lurch. He announced he was cutting a deal with Russia and had decided not to attack Syria after all.
What did AIPAC get for its self-defeating efforts on Obama’s behalf? Obama is now courting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in the hopes of making a deal that Iran will use as cover for completing its nuclear weapons program.
Apparently, the Jewish groups aren’t steppin’ and fetchin’ for Obama’s annihilationist support of Iran.
“White House reportedly uneasy with Jewish lobbying in Congress,” By Adiv Sterman, The Times of Israel, Janaury 23, 2014
Top Obama administration official tells Israel Radio president, secretary of state ‘unsettled’ by Israel-backed activities on Capitol Hill
he lobbying efforts of Jewish groups in the United States Congress are causing a general uneasiness in the White House, specifically with US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, an official in the Obama administration reportedly said Thursday.
The unnamed official, quoted by Israel Radio, said that “Jewish activity” in Congress, which was perceived by Kerry and Obama to be backed by the Israeli government, was unsettling the two American leaders.
Obama and Kerry, the official continued, were also disappointed by several US Jewish groups’ repeated criticism of the government.
In recent weeks, pro-Israel lobbying groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Zionist Organization of America have been applying heavy pressure on members of Congress to support a bill which would impose a new round of sanctions on Iran.
The sanctions bill is strongly opposed by the Obama administration, which fears that the piece of legislation would dampen the possibility of achieving a sustainable diplomatic solution for the Iranian nuclear issue.
The bill, which was sponsored by Senators Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), has so far garnered support from 59 Senators, 16 of which hail from the Democratic party.
The bill is currently eight Senators short of the votes needed in order to assure that the president cannot veto the legislation.
“Our top priority is stopping Iran’s nuclear program, and consequently we are very engaged in building support for the Menendez-Kirk bill which now has the bi-partisan co-sponsorship of 59 senators,” AIPAC’s spokesman, Marshall Wittman, wrote in an email to JTA.
“AIPAC’s relationship with the White House has never been kissy-kissy,” Morris Amitay, a former AIPAC executive director told JTA.
“And if you look at where Congress is today on Israel issues, the peace process, Iran, AIPAC is doing a terrific job.”
The post Obama “reportedly uneasy with Jewish lobbying in Congress” appeared first on Atlas Shrugs.
Anywhere sharia blossoms, humanity withers.
Gay people suffer unimaginable torment and abuse when the sharia is imposed (that is, if they are not executed for it first). Last week, dozens were arrested for being gay in Nigeria. Now Muslim hordes are demanding the death penalty under Islamic law.
Gay organizations in America say nothing, but loudly condemned my ad campaign highlighting Muslim oppression of gays under the sharia. Why haven’t the San Francisco City Council, the Human Rights Commission, SFHRC head Theresa Sparks, and the enemedia issued condemnations and resolutions against this new law in Nigeria? They called my ads hate and issued a resolution against my organization for merely quoting Muslim political leaders, spiritual leaders and cultural voices in the Muslim community who call for the torture and death of gay people.
No, instead, I was denounced by gay and transgender leaders in the US for our work to highlight the Muslim oppression of gays. The San Francisco City council issued a resolution condemning our AFDI ad campaign (the first of its kind) focusing on the vicious oppression and subjugation of gays under Islam.
Where are those “human rights” hypocrites now?
Moderate Muslim nation of Nigeria: Protesters throw stones, demand gays be executed By Blazing Cat Fur, January 23, 2014
Thousands of protesters threw stones into the Shariah court in a north Nigerian city Wednesday, urging the speedy convictions and executions of 11 men arrested for belonging to gay organizations.
Security officials fired into the air to disperse protesters in Bauchi city so the accused men could be safely returned to the prison. Judge El-Yakubu Aliyu closed the court abruptly.
Nigeria — Death penalty for men and whipping and/or imprisonment for women in 12 northern Nigerian states. Up to 14 years in jail in the rest of the country. 51 million in aid.
The post Moderate Muslim nation of Nigeria: Protesters throw stones, demand gays be executed under the sharia appeared first on Atlas Shrugs.
Of course, Islamic supremacists and their leftist lapdogs are crowing over the latest development in our British lawsuit against the dhimmi ban by craven British authorities. But fear not, freedom lovers. We expected it.
We have long known that this would be a long, tough legal fight. We don’t expect to see justice until we appeal to the very highest court. The lower courts, where our cases are heard early in our court battle, are low on the totem pole and very politically driven. Once we get out of the sewer of those who are bowing to thugs for political gain, real justice will be served. And we know, it’s not just our battle; we are mere proxies. It is the fight for freedom for all, equality of rights for all before the law. And Western law (at least not yet) is not under the boot of sharia. Remember the Magna Carta.
The British government alleged that our presence was “not conducive to the public good” and that we would incite to violence, despite the fact that we abhor and condemn violence. We have held many rallies, some with upwards of 30,000 people, and none have ever led to violence. According to documents newly released under the ‘duty of candor’, the uglier truth is we were banned for our support for Israel and the British authorities feared violence from Jew-hating Muslims. That’s not our problem. It’s theirs, and freedom cannot allow be held hostage for fear of savages.
This battle must be fought. So donate via via Paypal – contribute to americanfreedomdefense@aol.com.
Liberty GB has a good piece on the latest. I will be on their radio show next Tuesday; listen in.
“Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller Are still Fighting Back against Their Ban: Help Them,” by Enza Ferreri for Liberty GB, January 21, 2014:
The UK ban on Pamela Geller and me is a naked concession to Leftist and Islamic supremacist pressure groups. The government claims that our presence would have led to violence. Yet we have never advocated or condoned violence, and have spoken all over the world without a single incidence of violence. The darker truth is that we were banned for supporting Israel. Please help us fight the ban: donate via Paypal to americanfreedomdefense@aol.com. “Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller Are still Fighting Back against Their Ban: Help Them,” by Enza Ferreri for Liberty GB, January 21:
The 25th June 2013 is a significant date not only in the history of the counterjihad movement but also in the history of freedom of speech in one of the countries that most contributed to its establishment: Britain.
That is the date on the letter to Robert Spencer announcing the UK Home Secretary Theresa May’s decision that he should
be excluded from the United Kingdom on the grounds that your presence here is not conducive to the public good …
The Home Secretary notes that you are the founder of the blog Jihad Watch (a site widely criticized for being Islamophobic). You co-founded the Freedom Defense Initiative and Stop Islamization of America, both of which have been described as anti-Muslim hate groups.
So those were the reasons given for Spencer’s and fellow founder of American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and SIOA Pamela Geller’s ban.
As Robert Spencer put it at the time:
Muhammad al-Arifi, who has advocated Jew-hatred, wife-beating, and jihad violence, entered the U.K. recently with no difficulty. In not allowing us into the country solely because of our true and accurate statements about Islam, the British government is behaving like a de facto Islamic state. The nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead.
Al-Arifi is just one of the many Islamists admitted to Britain, in this case just a few days before Spencer’s ban. The interesting thing about him is that he’s the author of these words:
Devotion to jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls, and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for the believer. Allah said that if a man fights the infidels, the infidels will be unable to prepare to fight.
Read the rest at Liberty GB….
The post “Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller Are Still Fighting Back Against Their Ban: Help Them” appeared first on Atlas Shrugs.
I have long said that the media is self-enforcing the sharia, adhering to the blasphemy laws under Islam (do not offend or criticize Islam). And the venerable New York Times, iconic of free press in the West, is leading the pack of sheep to the slaughter.
The New York Times continues to embarrass and shame freedom-loving individuals the world over. What next? Will they be photoshopping burkas on any women who appear in the newspaper?
Understand that in Judaism, pork is unkosher. That was one of many things Muhammad and company stole from Judaism. Jews don’t eat pork, but you never hear them attacking those who do, or burning embassies, killing non-Jews because the guy next to him ate pork or…… the NY Times ran a picture of a pig.
You don’t want to eat pork? Fine. Leave the rest of us alone.
This is the supremacism of Islam. And the NY Times turns over its pages to this extreme and monstrous ideology. Unreal.
First it was the Danish cartoons, now it’s little piggies. What will the NY Times blacken out next? The faces of Jews?
This is dhimmitude.
“New York Times censors pigs’ faces in Malaysian edition to avoid offending Muslims”(thanks to Robert Spencer)
The endless solicitude of the mainstream media for the sensibilities of Islamic supremacists is probably meant to try to foster harmony and peace. But in reality, it only inspires contempt among those Islamic supremacists, because it is contemptible. This is the same New York Times that feared to run the Muhammad cartoons in the wake of Muslim riots over them, thereby reinforcing the proposition that terrorism works, and non-Muslims will curtail their freedom of expression voluntarily when confronted by it.
“Pigs’ faces blackened out in papers in Malaysia,” from AFP, January 21:
Kuala Lumpur — The company which prints copies of the International New York Times sold in Malaysia blackened out the faces of pigs in two photos in the paper Wednesday, sparking ridicule online in the Muslim-majority country.
KHL Printing Co superimposed black boxes on the pigs’ faces in line with government guidelines, said a company employee who declined to be named.
“This is a Muslim country so we covered the pigs’ eyes,” he told AFP. “We usually do that for the International New York Times — also for pictures of cigarettes, weapons, guns and nude pictures.”
The front-page picture of a group of brown and black-and-brown piglets in the United States accompanied an article on increasing consumer demand for antibiotic- and hormone-free meat.
Another picture of pigs on the inside of the paper accompanied the rest of the article.
The censorship drew a flood of online comments, with many ridiculing the move.
“Poor piggies,” one user wrote on Facebook, while another said, “This is hilarious… We are officially a nation of morons.”
Home ministry officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Muslims consider pigs to be unclean. Some 60 percent of Malaysia’s 28 million people are Muslim ethnic Malays.
The Southeast Asian nation has sizable ethnic Chinese and Indian non-Muslim minorities.
Though Malaysia is known for its relatively moderate version of Islam, conservatives often cry foul over what they deem as insults to their religion.
A row over whether Malay-speaking non-Muslims can use the word “Allah” to refer to God has also raised tempers. Authorities say the word is exclusive to Islam and may confuse Muslims if used by other religions.
Banning of books or other materials deemed offensive is common in Malaysia.
The post Sharia @NYTimes censors pigs’ faces in Malaysian edition to avoid offending Muslims appeared first on Atlas Shrugs.
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