Obama Appoints Controversial James Cole As Number Two At DOJ
December 31, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - On yet another vacation, this time in Hawaii, President Obama elevated James Cole to the number two position in DOJ, using the oft-criticized recess appointment process.
The move, predictably triggered criticism by the right, with conservatives charging Cole with being soft on terrorism.
For example, in a piece published by the Legal Times in 2002, Cole wrote, "the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were horrible, but so are these other things." [see Canada Free Press, http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/31629]
The incoming Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Peter King used particularly strong language denunciating the move, even to the point of calling Cole a "left wing ideologue."
"I strongly oppose the recess appointment of James Cole to lead the national security team at the Department of Justice...The appointment indicates that the Obama Administration continues to try to implement its dangerous policies of treating Islamic terrorism as a criminal matter...This may be one of the worst appointments by President Obama during his presidency. The Justice Department needs a strong Deputy Attorney General who understands that our country remains at war with Islamic terrorists who continually plot deadly attacks against Americans, not a left-wing ideologue who places terrorists in the same categories as drug peddlers..."
[source, Peter King House website, http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/ny03_king/jamescole.html]
Critics have also pointed out that Cole defended Saudi Prince Saudi Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud in a civil lawsuit brought by 9/11 families, charging him with financing terrorism. In a separate matter, Cole was appointed by Eric Holder in 2006 to keep tabs on ailing insurance company AIG. Though so poorly managed it had to be bailed out by the feds, Cole reportedly still received $20 million in compensation.
With Cole in place now, we can count on at least two more years of Justice granting the same rights to terrorists that the Constitution reserves only for U.S. citizens. If Team Obama has learned anything from his November 2 shellacking it is not apparent in this action. The fact that on the same day as the Cole appointment, Obama named Robert Ford as ambassador to Syria - ignoring Syria's key role in Middle East terrorism - should produce its own set of shivers among those on the national security beat.
[Read More]Feds Usurping States' Rights Via Legislative Chicanery
By CAMILLE GIGLIO
December 28, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The Contra Costa Times, a member of California's Bay Area News Group, recently published a series of commendable articles on the state legislators' questionable use of lobbyists and special interest organizations to write self-serving legislation.
However this type of legislation is only a part of a corrupt process.
A large portion of this special interest legislation is but a mirror image of federal legislation. All the stimulus money, grant money and foundation funding written into federal legislation and directed toward assistance to the states requires the states to provide authorization, in the form of bills, legitimizing federal intervention is health, education, environmental and workforce development within a state. One 27 page federal bill, such as the Food Safety Legislation (which was an amalgam of about 10 other federal bills) can end up being reflected in 27 different state bills.
Basically the same activity of allowing special interests to write the state legislation is also occurring at the federal level.
As an example, states may be reluctant to take on the requested federal programs because it means extra work and expense at the state level. However, if the feds dangle enough stimulus money in front of a financially hungry state it will be better disposed to invite in the federal management. What starts out as a request from the feds becomes a mandate to implement once the state accepts the funding.
In some cases the state must first prove it is willing to implement the federal program by first passing the legislation before actually getting the federal funding.
As an example, an Associated Press article written by Don Thompson, 9/30/2010, was published in the online www.signonsandiego.com entitled, "Schwarzenegger acts on health care, foster care."
The first paragraph declares, "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made California the first state to create an insurance exchange under new federal health care reform as he ended the bill signing period Thursday by also approving bills addressing topics ranging from kindergarten to foster care."
Once the state takes the funding it is compelled to create programs specific to the legislation but also to comply with any other federal level legislation pertaining to the same activity.
Consider this press release by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, 10/26/2010, entitled, "HHS announces the availability of up to $335 million to boost access to primary health care."
"The Affordable Care Act provides $11 billion in funding over the next 5 years for the operation, expansion, and construction of health centers throughout the nation. Of the $11 billion, $9.5 billion is targeted to creating new health center sites in medically underserved areas and expanding preventive and primary health care services at existing health center sites. An additional $1.5 billion will support major construction and renovation projects at health centers nationwide. This expansion of sites and services will help community health centers serve nearly double the number of patients they do today, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay."
There are now, beginning with the 2011 legislative term, dozens of bills in the California legislature, setting up the programs, advisory groups, partnerships with community non-profits, etc., which will be required to run these programs and deliver the services required in the federal legislation. Several bills authorize expansion of health centers on school campuses including the presence of psychiatrists and psychologists to deliver mental health services to k-12 students. Other bills target the schools to establish school-to-work training of students who will be specifically trained to work in these federally mandated programs.
Did California parents demand this? Is this what we were being encouraged to lobby our legislators to obtain?
The recently passed federal Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 goes nowhere unless there are generous appropriations behind it enticing the states to take the money. As a result of taking the federal money, the state cedes some of its Tenth Amendment State's Rights authority to govern. But, first they must pass local legislation permitting all this to take effect. In order for this to take effect the lobbyists must sell the public on the need for this intervention. One of the ways they sell the public is through creating so-called newsworthy articles for the media describing all the thousands of hungry kids in the state even if some of those kids are wearing Air Jordan shoes or holding IPhones.
The creation of and successful passage of this Hunger Free Kids Act is worthy of note.
This act has led to the passage of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 which Obama just signed.
This bill, submitted in the early days of the 2009/2010 congressional term, started out as an automotive emissions bill, S.510 (there were also about 10 other bills with the same focus). They were all merged and quickly passed both houses of Congress and then sat for a year and a half. In late November, 2010, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid [D, NV] submitted an amendment to the bill at the request of Sen. Harkin, which totally gutted the original language and substituted a draconian federal takeover of the food industry. It is known as Senate Amendment 4715. This was printed in the November 18, 2010, edition of the Senate Congressional Record.
This bill places enormous power into the hands of 3 federal agencies - FDA, Homeland Security and HHS, to monitor nearly every facet of agricultural and dairy production and manufacturing including expanded and stringent rules on what types of food can be used in school breakfasts and lunches, under the guise of security.
California, like several other states, is now beginning to consider legislation to lengthen school hours and days, provision of free school breakfasts, lunches, after school meals and the provision of material to parents to instruct the parents in proper nutrition for their children at home.
One segment of SA 4715 talks about not only supplying these meals, but requiring the children to eat the meals in their classrooms, not the cafeteria, because in the cafeteria there is less capability of monitoring whether or not the children eat the meals or take some of the food home.
You've undoubtedly come across articles decrying the thousands of California children who are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Now enters Roger Phillips [12/26/10] with an emotionally appealing online article about students in Stockton and San Joaquin counties, who are living in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods and for whom, "hunger remains an ever-present issue..."
Phillips quotes a kindergarten teacher as saying, "It's difficult to say exactly how many children arrive hungry...on a day-to-day basis, but one thing teachers know is that every child who is not getting enough to eat has an additional obstacle to learning." Another teacher is quoted as saying that she would like to start seeing a program of serving breakfast to students in their classrooms.
Who gets fed? Are we to assume that teachers have become omniscient, that they can determine who is and who isn't hungry, or are they just spouting public employee union talking points?
In a larger sense, have parents ceded all their rights to teachers?
Every state in the union that accepts federal funding must comply with federal mandates, overriding any interests of the state and the local administrations. Federal and state tax dollars are going to organizations which are then transformed into agents of the state, enforcing legislation that most citizens neither need nor want, assuming they are aware of it at all.
This process is destructive to the states in general and represents an insidious bypassing of the Tenth Amendment.
[Read More]Start Treaty Passage - Media Bias, The New Standard
December 23, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - If one were to accept the judgment of AP's sycophants, president Obama - the comeback kid in their lunatic asylum - has just saved planet earth from certain nuclear Armageddon, "The Senate on Wednesday ratified an arms control treaty with Russia that reins in the nuclear weapons that could plunge the world into doomsday, giving President Barack Obama a major foreign policy win in Congress' waning hours..." [source, Donna Cassata, Desmond Butler, Senate ratifies nuke pact, delivering win to Obama, Contra Costa Times, http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_16918714?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com]
Unfortunately, once you get past the cheerleading, the fact remains that this treaty profoundly harms U.S. national security in a number of ways.
The first and most immediate is that it rewards the Russians despite their ongoing campaign of belligerence against American interests. A primary example of this is Russia's continued high level nuclear assistance to the Iranian theocracy and in our hemisphere - where the Monroe doctrine has fallen into disfavor - it has actively aided thugs such as Hugo Chavez, inking contracts [and providing billions of dollars in "loans"] for advanced missile defenses, tanks and other armaments wholly outside the real defense needs of a non-aggressive South American country.
As to the nuts and bolts of the agreement the Center for Security Policy's Frank Gaffney nails the treaty's defects. [see, Gaffney, Just Say No To Start, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/20/just-say-no-to-new-start/ also see, http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.xml, The Center for Security Policy]
Sorry AP, the approval of this treaty, though providing a meaningless feather in the president's cap, does real harm to national security. The fact that a major news organization [even one as tainted as the Associated Press] would use the occasion in an attempt to resurrect their handpicked man-child, is another simple reminder that in today's MSM, bias has become the new standard. [Read More]1. He points out that because the treaty does not factor in Russia's huge advantage in tactical nuclear weapons. We are talking thousands of weapons here and also not factoring in the reality that our tactical nukes are ancient, with many of them 30 years old.
2. It reduces our nuclear stockpile at precisely the time when multiple new nuclear threats have appeared on the horizon; witness, Iran, N. Korea, Syria and Venezuela, all of which are engaged at one level or another in obtaining nukes.
3. It will allow the Russians to have veto power over U.S. missile defense plans. As a side note, the way in which the Russians so easily bullied Obama to abandon a limited Eastern European missile defense does nothing but embellish his administration's reputation for studied ignorance on nearly every significant foreign policy matter. It also demonstrates TeamObama's lack of resolve, an unwillingness to confront aggressive foreign powers.
4. Under this treaty, Russian compliance will be nearly impossible to verify. Hence they will most assuredly cheat, as they have always done, a trait formalized during the terror of the Soviet regime.
French Jihadist Muslim Gang's Sentences Upheld In Halimi Murder Case
December 21, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Nearly 5 years ago we wrote about the case of Ilan Halimi, a French Jew who was lured by a woman into a trap set by a Muslim gang and then tortured to death over the period of three weeks. You can refer to the original articles to see the extent of what he endured [see, Torture Death Of French Jew By Muslim Gang Produces Collective Yawn By MSM and Coverup Of Muslim Torture Killing Of French Jew Continues]
At the time and since, the MSM has ignored the story or worse, if covering it at all, sanitized it as to mask the religious nature of the attack and to present Halimi's jihadist murderers as common criminals looking only for a quick monetary score.
As the LA Times dissembled in its Feb 28, 2006 edition, "Rather than a premeditated anti-Semitic murder, it seems a more complex result of dysfunction in the narrow world of thug culture..."
AP and other news sources offered similarly tepid analysis, "...AP and UPI, in feeds to the U.S., barely mentioned the possibility of anti-Semitism. After arrests were made, the BBC worked hard to avoid using the word "Muslim," though verses from the Koran were recited during the torture..." [source, Birmingham Jewish Federation, http://www.bjf.org/update_archive/2006_03_01_archive.html]
Of course this should be expected from the MSM combine whose multicultural self-censorship is legendary, under the circumstances, even 5 years later, the coverage should still shake the sensibilities of journalists.
Today however, we note that a French court has upheld an appeal by 16 members [out of a total of 24 convicted] of the Muslim gang responsible for the Halimi atrocity.
AP's coverage this time around however is the stuff of pure revisionism, finally attributing the murder to the gang's anti-Semitism rather than the originally claimed financial motivation, "The case revived worries in France about anti-Semitism, which is considered the main motive of those involved in the killing. It has led to deep anxiety in France's Jewish community - the largest in Western Europe." [source, AP, http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=199954]
So...five years after the fact AP is forced to confront reality. Though this is a small victory for sure, in the current state of media affairs, it should still be savored.
[Read More]Torture Death Of French Jew By Muslim Gang Produces Collective Yawn By MSM
Torture Death Of French Jew By Muslim Gang Produces Collective Yawn By MSM
February 24, 2006 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - If Ilan Halimi the Jewish cell phone salesman who was tortured to death in France by Muslim thugs - was instead a Quran and soiled by a GTMO detention center guard, tens of thousands of Muslims worldwide would now be burning flags and chanting "Death to America."
Halimi's death was horrific.
Over a period of three weeks his captors stabbed him countless times, cut off his ears and fingers, used some type of corrosive liquid on him and repeatedly burned him.
The above manifest is assembled from leaks made by French officials, we may thankfully never know the full extent of the violence that Halimi endured.
On February 11 he was dumped like refuse on a street in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, France still alive but died subsequently on the way to the hospital.
Police in attendance said that 80% of his body had been butchered."
The event has been hush-hushed by the French government and essentially covered up by the American press, with a few exceptions like the NY Sun, which is by no means part of the liberal reportorial establishment.
The New York Times placed its skimpy coverage deep within its Thursday internet edition. In order to find it, one had to go to International news, sub-heading European news and even then it was the fourth item down on the page.
The story the Times did cover was sanitized, glossing over the brutality of the crime, and its obvious anti-Semitic motivation. The piece instead suggested that the motivation for killing Halimi was ransom not religious hatred.
The New York Suns coverage which was extensive, claimed that a police source stated that, "This behavior was very different from what is usually expected from abductors motivated by greed."
Given the degree of tumult that the Muslim umma is these days, had the situation been reversed - with a Muslim in Halimis place - this would have been the story of the year and arguably the tinder for World War III.
That is not hyperbole.
In discussing this incident with a colleague who had just participated in a discussion of these events at the Nixon Center in DC, they pointed out the Muslims simply "live in a different world."
We heartily concur.
Muslims live in a world that is frozen in pre-Medieval hatred, superstition and lemming like mob violence. It is a world stripped of the thousand years of refinement that Western civilization has produced.
The Muslim religion is steeped in dark conspiracies and blood libels of the type that justify the extravagantly cruel treatment of a man simply because he is Jewish.
Our ossified mainstream press is displaying signs of a complete mental breakdown over these culture-clash issues, showing themselves afraid of even telling the story, let alone interpreting it.
[Read More]Coverup Of Muslim Torture Killing Of French Jew Continues
February 27, 2006 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews - The Halimi cover-up continues - in the face of 100,000 Parisian protesters on Sunday - finding the media guilty of attempting to manipulate the story.
Most U.S. newspapers buried the death of Mr. Halimi if they carried it at all. Now they are attempting to defuse it, acting as multicultural ombudsmen for the Islamists who perpetrated this outrage.
Note to the liars at the Associated Press, money was not the object of this kidnapping, the motivating force is exactly the same as what drove Hitler - AP can't handle the truth, neither can the LA Times whose Sunday piece concluded:
"Rather than a premeditated anti-Semitic murder, it seems a more complex result of dysfunction in the narrow world of thug culture: a poisonous mentality that designates Jews as enemies along with other "outsiders," according to investigators and other observers."
The only reason Mr. Halimi was selected was because he was a Jew.
The leader of the gang - "The Barbarians" - Youssouf Fofana was born in France and attended college there. He is not the stereotype that the liberal press wants you to believe, a down-and-out North African immigrant with no future stuck in a seething French Muslim ghetto and ignorant of Western ways.
Youssouf was also a well-known Islamist. Acquaintances referred to him as a "devout Muslim" who often lectured others in a manner they characterized as "preaching." Fofana subscribed to the blood-libel myths associated with anti-Semitism including the belief that all Jews are rich.
Would AP and the LA Times be expending such efforts to parse, shuffle and dissemble if the victim had been a Muslim killed by Christians or an African American lynched by a Southern gang?
When the truth is inconsistent with the predisposition of the MSM they lie - they did this with the French Muslim riots in November, they did so only a few weeks ago refusing to lay out how relatively benign cartoons about Mohammed were manipulated into tinder for Muslim fury and that is what now is happening when they tell you that the grisly torture death of Ilan Halimi was not the result of Islamist hate.
One must truly wonder over the Bizaro-world that American journalism has become when the correct analysis on Halimi comes from the likes of the French Communist newspaper, "Liberation" as translated here by Beila Rabinowitz:
"The whole nature of this affair - the combination of gangland criminality with exceptional sadism and a brute anti-Semitic instinct that equates Jews and money - gives it an extraordinary character that inspires both revulsion and dread."
The mind reels...
[Read More]Rep Peter King To Hold Hearings On Islamic Radicalization
December 20, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In an op-ed published today by Newsday [see, http://www.newsday.com/opinion/oped/king-what-s-radicalizing-muslim-americans-1.2550488] New York Representative Peter King poses the question, "What's Radicalizing American Muslims?"
In this piece, King, the incoming chair of the Homeland Security Committee and a frequent target of the multicultural thought police, carefully establishes that before 9/11 he had excellent and extensive dealings with Muslims.
"Before 9/11, few if any American politicians had a closer relationship with the Muslim community and its leadership than I did. During my first months in Congress in 1993, I traveled to the Balkans - including Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosovo - to support that region's Muslims from aggression by Serbian Orthodox Christians...I attended the Islamic Center of Long Island ...had Muslim students intern in my office...In the days following 9/11, I made several television and radio appearances supporting American Muslims, saying that they had nothing to do with the attacks and were as loyal and patriotic as any Americans..."
King was [mirroring the feeling of many Americans] therefore greatly troubled by the Muslim response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, seeing the emergence of a hard-line Islamist perspective which blamed everyone but those who were actually involved, primarily Saudi Muslims linked to al-Qaeda.
King became aware that despite claims to the contrary, U.S. Muslim leadership often was an impediment to law enforcement when it came to terrorism, "Federal and local law enforcement officials throughout the country told me they received little or - in most cases - no cooperation from Muslim leaders and imams..."
This continuing campaign, vilifying the American counter-terror effort by Islamist mouthpieces such as CAIR and ISNA, has led the representative to call for congressional hearings to investigate the causative factors behind Islamic radicalization in the United States, post 9/11.
Mr. King's effort is long overdue and we hope that such an investigation will lead to a permanent sub-committee within the Homeland Security Committee, which will continue to the increasing radicalization of American Muslims and why, nearly 10 years after this horrific event, 15% of U.S. Muslim men between 15 and 29 support suicide bombing, an unacceptable position for any citizen of the West.
[Read More]CA State Senator DeSaulnier Pimps For Child Care Industry
By CAMILLE GIGLIO
December 20, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - On December 18, the California East Bay's Contra Costa Times published a commentary on its editorial page submitted by state Senator Mark DeSaulnier, [D-Contra Costa] and representatives of the Contra Costa Child Care Council [a non-profit lobby for child care] and Contra Costa First Five, [tobacco tax funded lobby for child care] entitled: Child care crisis looming in County. It's clearly an agendized, self-serving piece, pimping for the child care industry, for which all of these players have a major interest.
BACKGROUND: A late night agreement was reached regarding signing of the very late budget. Part of the agreement was to allow the Governor to line-item veto the state portion of funding for both mental health services and CalWORKS stage 3 child care funding.
As a result of this veto of funds, a group called Parent Voices, located in Oakland, California, sued the Governor. Judge Wynn Carvil issued an order mandating that the money be restored. Apparently the Governor has not yet obeyed the order.
Hence, DeSaulnier's plea to the public for help in saving the jobs of county child care councils and First Five's interests.
In the op-ed it is claimed that 1,700 children may [emphasis mine] lose their child care, jeopardizing jobs for 900 working parents and 830 care providers, along with $49 million in economic impact to the county.
Stages 1 and 2 of the CalWORKS Welfare-to-Work federal and state partnership program are still intact. Stage 3 pertains to the funding of agencies who act as spokespersons for the state funded child care industry and funding for after-school programs.
What all this comes down to is that our state is now under a court order to provide child care funding. What Sen. DeSaulnier failed to mention in his article is that he is a co-author of a bill by Senator Ellen Corbett , [D-San Leandro] to re- appropriate $250,000,000.00 of state tax funding which will go to the Department of Education to provide the child care funding and after school care for Stage 3 children, age 6 and older.
There are also three other bills, all submitted on December 12th, after the close of the year's session, on an emergency basis to provide funding and expanded child care opportunities. These are, I believe, referred to as trailer bills. What that means is that the governor and the legislators get brownie points for cutting the state budget and then when no one is looking, basically put it all back into the budget. These bills are: SB 12, Education Finance: CalWORKS Stage 3 Child Care, AB 70 Health and Human Services: Federal Grant Opportunities and AB 1 Education Finance: CalWORKS.
All of this "theater" as Anthony Wright, Director of Health Care Access, calls it, is designed to test the strength of the Obama Administration's Affordable Care Act - ACA - and insure, using a judge's court order, that California will not be able to reject the federal funding and mandates.
Below is an excerpt taken from the Health Care Access website - www.health-access.org from a press release by the HAC, the most aggressive lobbyist for the latest Child Care bills,
"State Cooperation: Gubernatorial elections that resulted in victories by opponents of the federal health law do pose a threat to the ACA. States have considerable leeway to implement the ACA; in the name of ideology, they could even refuse federal dollars meant to provide health care to their residents and to benefit their doctors, nurses, hospitals, and clinics.California has not had this problem. Voters re-elected every congressional representative who voted for the ACA, as well as a new governor and attorney general who have pledged to fight for it. California has moved forward aggressively, passing some of the first bills in the nation to implement and improve upon the federal law.
The bottom line is this: California's families should disregard most of the political theater in Washington D.C. and see how health care reform benefits them. With a disproportionate share of uninsured Americans, and a health care system at a breaking point, California needs all the help it can get. California voters should take advantage of the new benefits and options under ACA - and continue to press our elected leaders to seize the opportunities available for our state. This was originally written for New America Media by Linda Leu and Anthony Wright of Health Access California."
The legislator ends his commentary with this pious admonition, "Employers and workers" [note: he doesn't say parents] "need a reliable system of child care, it is critical for job growth and economic recovery" [maybe for the child care industry] "...that demands immediate and permanent funding for child care."
It appears then that Mr. DeSaulnier and his Democrat cronies want a state/federal permanent monopoly on caring for your children, using federal mandates to control health/mental health counseling and employment development/school-to-work training. Of course they want it all delivered through the Department of Education.
[Read More] Largest Mosque in Western Europe Opens in Holland
By BEILA RABINOWITZ
December 20, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The largest mosque in Western Europe has opened in Rotterdam, Holland, despite attempts to stop it by leading Dutch politicians.
According to the NRC Handelsblad, "The mosque is financed by the Al Makhtoum Foundation from the wealthy sjeik Hamdan bin Rashid Al- Makhtoum from the United Arab Emirates. The Dutch security service has investigated his alleged financial ties to jihadists. For that reason House members Wilders (PVV) Eurlings (CDA) and Eerdmans (LPF) attempted unsuccessfully six years ago to forbid the funding." [translated from the Dutch, source, Jules Seegers, Largest Mosque in Western Europe Opened in Rotterdam, NRC NRC Handelsbad, http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2010/12/17/grootste-moskee-west-europa-geopend-in-rotterdam/]
Upwards of 1,500 [some sources estimate as many as 3,000] congregants can be accommodated in the prayer room of the Essalem Mosque, drawn from Holland's huge Moroccan Muslim immigrant community. The building is 4 stories high and the minarets dwarf the towers of the Feyenoord Stadium which is located nearby.
The mosque was inaugurated by the Muslim Mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb and legislator Hamit Karakus, who was instrumental in bringing the project to completion.
It has been predicted that over the next decade Rotterdam will become the first Muslim majority city in Europe.
[Read More]MSM Takes Notice Of Christian Genocide In Iraq
December 17, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - It's not news that the Muslim world, despite claims to the contrary by its apologists, actively suppresses other faiths, however it is a big deal when a member of the MSM has the audacity to recognize and write about it.
That is exactly what happened in the December 15 edition of the LA Times, where Tim Rutten neatly encapsulates the truth, "...the West as a community of nations has long turned a blind eye to the intolerance of the Middle East's Muslim states - an intolerance that has intensified with the spread of Salafism, Islam's brand of militant fundamentalism...The soft bigotry of minimal expectation is in play, an unspoken presumption that Muslim societies simply can't be held to the same standards of humane, rational and decent conduct that govern the affairs of other nations." [source, Tim Rutten, Iraq's War On Christians, LA Times, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/15/opinion/la-oe-1215-rutten-20101215/2]
We have been frequent critics of the MSM's biased news reportage regarding the Middle East and the Muslim world in general with good reason; perhaps Mr. Rutten's bold statement of fact regarding the ceaseless Islamic genocide against "people of the Book" [non-Muslim monotheists, primarily Christians and Jews] will point the way towards more honest reporting from his fellow journos.
[Read More]West's War On Christianity - UK Red Cross Bans Christmas
December 17, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Though it might be seen by some as an act of accommodation and seasonal good tidings, the UK Red Cross' decision to ban Christmas displays of any kind in its plus 400 centers in Britain will be interpreted by the radical Muslim world as a sign of capitulation. [see, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-152361/The-Red-Cross-bans-Christmas.html#ixzz18GIAmlB9]
Given the UK's rush to embrace Shari'a concepts nationwide, including its legal system, who could blame them?
Consider the overblown public attention and honor given in the West to Ramadan, a 30 day Muslim period of atonement, and you will at once grasp the ridiculous fawning that the UK Red Cross decision represents
The event is even less comprehensible given the obvious symbolism of its red cross logo. To those who may argue that the Red Cross is non-denominational, we ask if that is true why then the existence of the Red Crescent, employing Islamic symbolism or the Red Star of David, clearly referring to Jewish iconography?
No, instead of being seen as another olive branch being extended by the Christian West to the Muslim world, the act will be interpreted as a sign of our not being resolute, signifying a lack of cultural confidence.
In a world engaged in an on-again-off-again struggle against totalitarian Islam, the picture this ill-conceived gesture presents to our adversaries invites aggression, not forbearance.
[Read More]Germany, Holland And Belgium Bust Jihadist Groups
December 14, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - German security officials raided the premises of two jihadist groups today, Invitation to Paradise and the Islamic Center Bremen. [see, Germany Mounts Raids Against Islamists In Three Cities, Expatica, http://www.expatica.com/de/news/german-news/germany-mounts-raids-against-islamists-in-three-cities_117320.html]. Both of the groups sought to overthrow the civil order and establish Shari'a by way of an Islamic caliphate in its place.
Today's actions in Germany are part of a larger, still unfolding European effort involving additional arrests in Holland and Belgium, with the latter country apparently being the central focus of the suspected plot.
A spokesman for the Belgium prosecutors' office tersely stated, "In total 10 people suspected of preparing an attack in Belgium were arrested in Belgium, Holland and Germany." [see, Terror Suspects Arrested In Germany, The Local, http://www.thelocal.de/national/20101123-31363.html]
Intel reports have pointed to possible al-Qaeda involvement in a large terror operation, hence both Europe and America are operating on heightened security.
[Read More]DOJ Enforcing Shari'a In Berkeley School District - Meet America's Grand Mufti, Eric Holder
December 13, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a recent piece CAIR's "Hate Crime" Campaign Thoroughly Consistent With Policy Of Advancing Shari'a, we noted:
"CAIR's purpose here is two-fold:1. To spread the provably fraudulent assertion that Islamophobia is omnipresent and that America is a cauldron of anti-Muslim bigotry.2. To force the American legal system to define anything which even inferentially connotes disapproval or criticism of Islam and its "final prophet" Mohammed as a hate crime. This sets a process in motion which in the end results in the feds enforcing the blasphemy concept central to the Qur'an and Shari'a.
Seen dispassionately, this is clearly a back-door method of violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment by making law enforcement dependent upon a religious test. Should this philosophy take hold, it would in effect elevate Eric Holder to the position of America's Grand Mufti, the ultimate enforcer of Shari'a in the nation."
In a just announced action, the DOJ's renegade Civil Rights Division has done exactly that, made itself an arbiter in religious matters, here, acting to enforce Shari'a.
"The Justice Department today announced it has filed a lawsuit against Berkeley School District, Berkeley, Ill., alleging that the school district violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by failing to reasonably accommodate the religious practices of Safoorah Khan, a Muslim teacher at McArthur Middle School.[Read More]The government's complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, alleges that Ms. Khan requested an unpaid leave of absence in December 2008 to perform Hajj, a pilgrimage required by her religion. According to the complaint, Berkeley School District denied Ms. Khan's request because the purpose of her leave was not related to her professional duties nor was it leave for any of the specific purposes set forth in the Professional Negotiations Agreement between the district and the teachers' union. The United States further alleges that, because Berkeley School District denied her a religious accommodation, the district compelled Ms. Khan to choose between her job and her religious beliefs, and thus forced her discharge.
The lawsuit is based on a charge of discrimination filed by Ms. Khan with the Chicago District Office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). After investigating Ms. Khan's charge, finding reasonable cause to believe that Berkeley School District had discriminated against Ms. Khan, and unsuccessfully attempting to conciliate the matter, the EEOC referred the charge to the Department of Justice. More information about the EEOC is available on its website at www.eeoc.gov.
In the lawsuit, the United States seeks an order requiring Berkeley School District to adopt a policy designed to reasonably accommodate the religious observances, practices and beliefs of employees and prospective employees. In addition, the United States seeks back pay, compensatory damages and reinstatement for Ms. Khan.
"Employees should not have to choose between their religious practice and their livelihood," said Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. "Federal law prohibits employers from treating employees and applicants less favorably because of their religion, and requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for the religious beliefs and practices of their employees."
"The EEOC is committed to ensuring that individuals are protected from religious discrimination at work," said Jacqueline A. Berrien, Chair of the EEOC. "We are pleased to foster this important collaboration with the Department of Justice to enforce the laws that ensure our workplaces are free of bias."
Swedish Muslim Bomber Driven By Shari'a
December 13, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Over the weekend, Taymour Abdulwahab, an Iranian who immigrated to Sweden, detonated 2 bombs in Stockholm, killing himself and injuring two passersby.
The first device, a car bomb loaded with propane cylinders, failed to detonate completely, burning instead and causing no damage. About fifteen minutes after that failed attempt, Abdulwahab killed himself using a bomb belt, injuring 2 bystanders.
Abdulwahab had spent a great deal of time in Britain previous to the Saturday attack and security officials there continue to investigate whatever ties the perp had to radical Islamic groups in the country.
The bomber was very clear in stating his motivation for his actions, "Thanks to Lars Vilks and his paintings of the Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, and your soldiers in Afghanistan and your silence on all this so shall your children, daughters, brothers and sisters die in the same way as our brothers and sisters and children die...Our actions will speak for themselves, as long as you do not end your war against Islam and humiliation of the prophet and your stupid support for the pig Vilks..." [source, Kat Higgins, Sweden Terror Bomb Suspect's Warning Email, Sky News, http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Sweden-Suspected-Suicide-Bomber-Sent-An-Email-To-A-News-Agency-Before-Explosions-On-Saturday/Article/201012215852813?lid=ARTICLE_15852813]
Abdulwahab's statement clearly indicates that his primary motivation was to avenge the action's of cartoonist Vilks, whose depictions of Islamic topics he found offensive to the religion and humiliating to its final prophet, Mohammed. His base motivation then must be seen as a botched attempt to enforce Shari'a [Islamic law] which holds that insulting Islam and its prophet constitutes blasphemy, a capital offense.
As the debate in the West over the role - if any - which Shari'a might play in democratic societies, Abdulwahab's terror attempt must be understood as to its motivation. The news here for the MSM and others who may not be paying attention is that the civilizational conflict between the West and the Islamic world is a religious war. It is not simply a long string of unrelated atrocities carried out by lunatics, but a well reasoned attempt by fanatical Muslims to enforce what they feel is the will of God.
What team Obama's group of national security strategists fail to understand is that the enemy is intent upon making the West subservient to an ideology, Shari'a. Our opponents will do this violently when they feel it advances the cause and non-violently [the stealth jihad] when circumstances warrant that approach, as they do now in the United States.
If, somewhere in this dysfunctional administration, there is a rudimentary understanding of the moving parts in the Islamic terror equation, it has had little apparent effect on the formation and execution of security initiatives at the decision making level. It's very difficult at this point to imagine Team Obama ever having the insight or courage to carry through with an effective set of counter measures and that is a tragedy.
[Read More]CAIR's "Hate Crime" Campaign Thoroughly Consistent With Policy Of Advancing Shari'a
December 10, 2010 -San Francisco, CA -PipeLineNews.org - We have on numerous occasions noted on these pages an ongoing campaign by the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR] to define "hate crimes" in a manner consistent with making this society subservient to Islamic law, Shari'a.
Hardly a day passes were we don't find at least one, usually ridiculous, assertion by CAIR [in the form of an email alert] that an American Muslim has suffered an indignity attributable to anti-Muslim bigotry.
Today for example we find the case of a sign outside an Arkansas restaurant specializing in pork dishes, making the statement "No Muslims Inside."
"AMERICAN MUSLIM NEWS BRIEFS...VIDEO: ALA. SIGN SAYS RESTAURANT SAFE BECAUSE 'NO MUSLIMS INSIDE'"
Of course, even interpreting the verbiage in the most pejorative manner, the sign doesn't come close to violating any federal anti-discrimination statute...but that is not the point of CAIR's exercise in this matter.
CAIR's purpose here is two-fold
1. To spread the provably fraudulent assertion that Islamophobia is omnipresent and that America is a cauldron of anti-Muslim bigotry.2. To force the American legal system to define anything which even inferentially connotes disapproval or criticism of Islam and its "final prophet" Mohammed as a hate crime. This sets a process in motion which in the end results in the feds enforcing the blasphemy concept central to the Qur'an and Shari'a.
Seen dispassionately, this is clearly a back-door method of violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment by making law enforcement dependent upon a religious test. Should this philosophy take hold, it would in effect elevate Eric Holder to the position of America's Grand Mufti, the ultimate enforcer of Shari'a in the nation.
The same MO is operative in efforts by CAIR and other Islamist organizations to force private employers [via legal action] to agree to outlandish accommodations in order to accommodate Muslim workers' desire to pray 5 times a day. Similarly it would criminalize the banning of religious garb while on the job. This would result in, for example, the feds forcing employers to allow their Muslima saleswomen to make sales calls wearing a burqa - regardless of how negatively it might impact the sales transaction. It would also allow Shari'a concepts to trump extant law in family matters, inheritance, marriage, divorce, child custody and the like - hence the current fight in Oklahoma to ban Shari'a from creeping into its legal system.
What has to be realized is that this process [one of the central goals of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West] does not happen in a vacuum, it is actively promoted by CAIR, ISNA, MPAC and their brethren in hopes of eventually toppling constitutional government. So the next time you see an activist Muslim on television going on about rampant Islamophobia and how employers are discriminating against Muslima's who insist on wearing hijab to work, see it for what it is, a naked attempt to elevate Shari'a and subvert the Western legal tradition.
[Read More]Arrest Made In Maryland Recruiting Center Bomb Plot
Arrest Made In Maryland Recruiting Center Bomb Plot
December 8, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Though details are sketchy, according to a Baltimore Sun breaking story a 21 year old local man has been arrested on suspicion of attempting to bomb the Cantonville, Maryland Armed Forces recruiting center.
"Federal authorities say Antonio Martinez, also known as Muhammad Hussain, attempted to detonate what he believed to be a vehicle bomb this morning at the Armed Forces Career Center in the 5400 block of Baltimore National Pike..."
[source, Justin Fenton and Tricia Bishop, Arrest made in plot to blow up Baltimore-area military recruiting center, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-bomb-plot-arrest-20101208,0,739343.story]
As was the case two weeks ago in the Portland Pioneer Courthouse Square plot, the alleged perp thought he was working with supporters of the mujadineen and jihad, when in actuality he was "plotting" with FBI undercover agents in a classic sting.
In the Sun piece, Hussain, is claimed to have been obsessed with jihad and an admirer of Maj. Nidal Hassan's Ft. Hood massacre. Hussain felt that the West was at war with Islam and that striking out against the military was therefore called for.
[Read More]Christian Asylum Seekers in Holland Intimidated by Muslims and the Widespread Trouble with Muslim Immigrants
Christian Asylum Seekers in Holland Intimidated by Muslims and the Widespread Trouble with Muslim Immigrants
By EMERSON VERMAAT
December 7, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Christian asylum seekers in three thirds of the asylum seekers centers in Holland (so-called "AZC's") are seriously intimidated. In about one third of those asylum centers Christian asylum seekers are even subjected to physical violence. The perpetrators are usually fellow asylum seekers from Muslim countries. This was shown in an inquiry by the Gift Foundation ("Stichting Gave") in Harderwijk, the Netherlands, which specializes in assistance to Christian asylum seekers.
"Stichting Gave" asked 24 local working group contact persons who both know these asylum seekers and 28 Dutch asylum centers the following question: "Do you know asylum seekers who because they are Christians or former Muslims are subjected to discrimination?" Eighteen of the respondents, or 75%, said yes, six of the respondents, or 25%, said no. The number those who did not know was zero. The next question was: "Have any death threats been uttered?" In this case there were fifteen respondents, and ten of them, or 67%, said yes, four of them, or 27%, did not know and just one of the respondents said no. The third question was concerning physical violence, and here again there were fifteen respondents. Five of them, or 33%, said yes, six of them, or 40%, said no, four of them, or 27 percent, did not know.
Although the inquiry was limited to 28 asylum seekers centers (nearly half the total number of 59 centers, though), a spokesman for "Stichting Gave" told me recently that he does not rule out that cases of harassment, intimidation or physical violence are occuring in other asylum centers, too. "Stichting Gave" asked their contact persons to describe a number of individual cases concerning Christians in Dutch asylum centers who have been subjected to discrimination, threats or physical violence. There was, for example, the case of a young Christian male from Pakistan who felt seriously intimidated by Muslims as they burned Christian books in front of his door. Another young Christian male from Afghanistan does not want to talk openly about his Christian convictions out of fear for Muslims. Another case concerns a Muslim couple who converted to Christianity. Muslims inside as well as outside the asylum center then began to intimidate and threaten them. In one asylum center Christian asylum seekers from frea happened to have Somali neighbors. In the kitchen they were asked by these neighbors: "You are not Muslims, so you eat pork, don't you?" Their Eritrean children want to become Muslims. "Then we won't be bothered anymore," they told their parents.
Recently baptized Christian Muslim converts cannot avoid participating in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan if they wish to keep their conversion to another faith secret. Indeed, they are still very much afraid of the implications if their recent conversion to Christianity would be known to fellow Muslim asylum seekers.Another Christian asylum seeker in Holland was thrown down the stairs.They then heard that the next victim would be their defenseless child.
It seems that equally defenseless female Christian asylum seekers have to bear the brunt of hostile treatment on the part of Muslims. The Dutch TV news program "Uitgesproken EO" interviewed a Christian woman from Iraq. She was forced to go into hiding after Muslim asylum seekers attacked her, injuring her as they threw her from her bike. (Such injuries can really hurt, I know from experience.) The ineffective "Central Accomodate Organ Asylum Seekers" or COA failed to act. The only lame decision they took was to transfer the poor victim of this attack a middle aged woman to another asylum center where she chose to hide her Christian convictions.
In other words, it's not the perpetrators who are being punished, but their very victims. Mind you, Christians in Iraq are heavily persecuted by Muslims who a bomb their churches, kill their courageous pastors and priests. This has been going on for years now. Back in August 2004, Daniel Pipes, an American expert on Islam and Director of the Middle East Forum, wrote that Christians "are disappearing from Iraq" and they still do so today. "Christian women are threatened unless they cover their heads in the Islamic fashion," Pipes writes. "Random Christians have been assassinated. These assaults have prompted Iraqi Christians, one of the oldest Christian bodies in the world, to leave their country in record numbers."
And what happened to that middle aged Christian woman from Iraq who fled the horrors of her home country hoping and expecting to be safe from persecution in small, nice and peaceful Holland, a so-called Christian country? Those in charge of the very asylum center where she supposedly would be free from harassment and violence could not even protect her and punish her Muslim attackers. After she managed to flee deadly persecution by Muslims in Iraq, she is once again the victim of persecution by the same kind of aggressive and intolerant Muslims, but now in the country of refuge where she should have felt quite safe.
Dutch members of parliament were flabbergasted, and rightly so. Joel Voordewind ("Christen-Unie" party) said in the Dutch TV program "Uitgesproken EO" that Bibles have been burned and Christian asylum seekers have received death threats. "We will kill you," they were told by Muslims in Holland, that is. "It is not the Muslim perpetrators who are punished, but their victims who now have to leave the asylum center," Voordewind said. "This is the world turned upside down." Voordewind and other Dutch MP's (Van Klaveren, PVV party, Sterk, CDA party, Van Nieuwenhuijzen, VVD party, Spekman, PvdA party, Schouw, D'66 party and Van der Staaij, SGP party) put parliamentary questions to Gerd Leers, the new Minister of Immigration and Asylum Policy. They want to know, among other things, what the authorities are going to do to make Dutch asylum centers a safe place for all those who live there. They also asked Minister Leers the following question: "Do you agree with us that if there are persons who are the victim of death threats and ill-treatment, that it is not the victim who should be transferred to another location, but that it is the perpetrator who should be put in foreigners' detention?" They also want the asylum procedure to be stopped for those asylum seekers who repeatedly issue (death) threats or are perpetrators of ill-treatment.
The trouble with Somali asylum seekers: hostile to the "terrible" West, yet less hostile to collecting (Western) benefits
Muslim asylum seekers from Somalia, the Middle East and Afghanistan are often intolerant towards former Muslims, Muslim converts to Christianity, so-called "apostates," that is. According to the Koran these former Muslims even deserve the death penalty. A young woman named Ayaan Hirsi Ali Magan applied for asylum in Holland in 1992. She later became an "infidel" or "apostate." She now says Muslims would be better off if they would convert to Christianity, even though she is not a Christian herself. When she was in the Dutch asylum center, she did not have a high regard for fellow Somali asylum seekers. They were lazy, arrogant, hostile to (Westernized) women and weren't integrating into Dutch society. Instead, they were largely interested in receiving money from the state and then complain about the very country that granted them shelter. "Most just chewed 'qat' all night and sat around talking about how terrible Holland was," Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote in her book "Infidel."
Robbert van Lanschot, a knowledgeable Dutch diplomat who visited Somalia, Iraq, Kosovo and Eritrea, claims that Somalis who want to apply for asylum in the Netherlands often receive money from family members for their trip to Europe. Once they have been accepted as refugees in Holland, they claim (child) benefits. They are then expected to send money regularly to these family members. This is seen as a kind of "business venture," van Lanschot writes. He also claims that so-called Somali refugees in Holland often wait until the very moment when they receive a Dutch passport. After that most of them don't wait very long and to move to England where the Somali immigrant community is much larger. But they fail to inform Dutch city authorities that they now live in Britain and so these very nice people continue to receive Dutch child benefits. Let us assume that they just forgot to inform Dutch authorities about their new country of residence. But why, then, do they not forget to return frequently to Holland to collect child benefit money to which they are no longer entitled?
Cheating the Dutch benefit system is not at all unusual among Somali and Moroccan immigrants, by the way. A former Deputy Minister Social Affairs named Mark Rutten (currently the Dutch Prime Minister) desperately tried to do something about these widespread practices of fraud by former Somali asylum seekers. But some liberal judge in the city of Haarlem (near Amsterdam) then lamely ruled that "by singling out Somalis" Mr. Rutte was guilty of "racial discrimination"! Van Lanschot writes that Somali benefit fraud cost the Dutch tax payer half a billion euros ("ruim een half miljard euro"). There are more than 35,000 Dutch Somalis in Britain now. Most of them live in Bradford and Manchester. The tortuous practices of female circumcision are widespread among Somali communities both in Europe and the United States. Hostility towards the "terrible" West and oppression of women is inherent to backward Somali clan culture. If the West is as "terrible" as they claim it is, why, then, did they decide to emigrate en masse to Holland, Britain and the United States? Why didn't they go to another Muslim country?
Somali and other Muslim converts to Christianity in Holland fear for their lives
There are not so many Somali converts to Christianity in Holland. For some reason, these people cannot testify openly about their new faith. We would normally associate communist or Muslim dictatorships such as North Korea and Saudi Arabia with hostility towards Christianity, would we not? Local Christians in North Korea and Saudi Arabia have to meet secretly in so-called "underground churches," otherwise these people will go to jail or might even face a death sentence. But believe it or not, this is now happening right here in tolerant and liberal Holland where there are also a few "underground churches." We are referring to churches where Somali Christians have to meet in secret, a well researched article in the Dutch radio and TV magazine "Visie" claims. And these Somali Christians only do so out of fear for their sometimes naturalized Somali country men.
In backward Somalia the punishment for conversion to Christianity is death. "In 2008, Somali militias beheaded fifteen Somali converts to Christianity," a human rights organization reported. Thirteen Christians were beheaded between January and August 2009. Death threats have also been issued against Somali Christians in Holland by Somali family or clan members. Nevertheless, some 25 Somali Christians secretly attend church services every month, one of those Christians claims. He says that some members of this secret "underground church" have been subjected to ill-treatment, or they have been cast out by their families. Others received serious death threats. "Even a Somali cannot just unexpectedly walk into our church, you never know if he is not an infiltrator," he says.
Muslim converts to Christianity in Holland in 2009 about 200 are often afraid to inform the police that Muslims threatened or intimidated them. But they do inform people whom they really trust. Eerde de Vries, an active member of the free reformed "Morgensterkerk" in the northern city of Leeuwarden, says that about 80 former Muslims visit his biannual special Arab language church service. "I sometimes hear from them that people received real death threats, via SMS, for example. I also hear stories about people who have been hit by others."
I personally know a sixty-two year old woman who together with others gives a naturalization course to immigrants. She complaints they know nothing about the Holocaust and World War II. She also told me that for some reason the Christians in her classroom are afraid of the Muslims.
The trouble with (former) asylum seekers from Muslim countries
Certainly not all Muslim asylum seekers and migrants are criminals or radicals. Yet, Western security services are deeply worried about the impact made by militant Muslims on the Muslim immigrant communities in Europe and North America. Those communities partly consist of former asylum seekers, many others are economic migrants.
Abu Qatada, Omar Bakri Mohammed, Mullah Krekar and Anwar Shaban, what do they have in common? All them are former asylum seekers who sought refuge in the West. Abu Qatada and Omar Bakri Mohammed went to Britain, Mullah Krekar applied for asylum in Norway and Anwar Shaban successfully sought asylum in Italy. All them were (and are) leaders of Islamist movements and are admirers of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. (Many other examples could be given.) This is their way of saying "thank you" for granting them shelter and protection and other benefits (welfare money, for example).
A British study on the Security Service MI5 finds that "two-thirds of Security Service resources continued to be devoted to countering Islamist terrorism." This is "a serious long-time threat." "The threat of Al-Qaeda had been underestimated in 2003 and that Britain was directly threatened by home-grown terrorists." Between July 2005 and February 2008, MI5 and the British police "have disrupted six plots to undertake terrorism in this country."
Another hot issue in Britain is the rise of anti-Semitic sentiments among the British Muslim community. A new study on anti-Semitism in England written by Anthony Julius quotes from a poll, claiming that 56% of the Muslims thought that the Muslim community should not participate in Holocaust Memorial day. "Most Muslims do not subscribe to Holocaust denial or other anti-Semitic positions, but this kind of sentiment seems to be on the rise," writes Julius. Additional noteworthy quotes from his highly topical book are: "According to a government-funded report, some teachers are reluctant to teach it (i.e. the Holocaust, V.) for fear of offending Muslim students whose 'beliefs' include Holocaust denial." "A full 50 percent of anti-Semitic incidents on the European continent are connected to radical Islamic elements." "Monica Ali, a close, engaged observer, finds anti-Semitism everywhere in London's Muslim East End." Nearly 50 percent of the British Muslim community subscribes to anti-American and anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories "agrees that 9/11 was perpetrated by an American-Israeli conspiracy."
Professor Julius also quotes former asylum seeker Abu Qatada who once said: "The Savior will come back to this earth, the king with an army in the sky, killing the Jews, to wipe them out and rid the planet of the Jews." This probably the reason why so many radical Muslims liked (and still like) Hitler. The reach and depth of Qatada's influence among terrorist groups was said to have been "formidable, even incalculable."
Sweden, a very friendly country, has always provided a safehaven to refugees from a variety of countries. During World War II most Jews from Nazi occupied Denmark fled to Sweden. But there are now growing concerns about different forms of abuse of the still rather liberal Swedish immigration and asylum policies. Today, Sweden is even a target of Somali terrorist recruiters who recruit young Somali males for the jihad, in cities such as Gothenbörg and Malmö. Just like in Britain, the Muslim community in Sweden is more restive than it was before. Gang rapes, usually involving Muslim immigrant males and native Swedish girls have become commonplace, a Swedish newspaper reported. (Similar gang rapes occur in Berlin, the capital of Germany.)
According to European Union statistical data the Swedish Muslim population has grown from 1,000 in 1970 to 400,000 in 2006. Some Muslims are now even selling T-shirts displaying the following inscription: "By 2030 we'll take over the country." There are 50,000 Muslims in the city of Malmö alone, about one-fifth of the total city population. Many of these Muslims are former asylum seekers from Iraq, Somalia, Iran, "Palestine", Bosnia and Somalia. Anti-Semitism is on the rise as well. On March 7, 2010 Muslim demonstrators in Malmö, Sweden's third-largest city, chanted the following anti-Semitic slogan: "Khaybar! Khaybar ya Yahood!" "Khaybar ya Yahood" is the start of an anti-Jewish chant that translates as: "Khaybar, Khaybar, o Jews, the army of Mohammed (Muhammad) will return!" It was at Khaybar, a rich oasis in today's Saudi Arabia, in 629 that the Muslim prophet Mohammed attacked and conquered the Jews ("Yahood" means "Jew").
Not only did the so-called holy prophet force the Jews to surrender to him, also did he take "a beautiful girl of seventeen named Safiyya" for himself "after killing her husband for conceiling his goods," writes Mohammed biographer Maxine Rodinson. He "took her into his bed that very night. By so doing he was violating his own previous commandments, according to which his supporters had to wait until the beginning of the next menstrual cycle before having intercourse with their captives. But she was so very beautiful!"
It wasn't the first time Mohammed took a young Jewish widow for himself after he conquered a Jewish tribe. After some six or seven hundred Jews had been beheaded, one by one, in the market place of Medina, women and children were sold. Mohammed, Rodinson writes, "took a concubine for himself, the lovely Rayhana, the widow of one of those who had been executed." So, "Khaybar" probably also stands for taking the widows of those you have murdered or executed. Islam is not as peaceful as some claim it is.
The Israeli newspaper "Ha'aretz" reported in July (2010) that Jews reluctantly abondon the Swedish city of Malmö amid growing anti-Semitism. One of those who left Malmö was Marcus Ellenberg: "At some point, the shouts of 'Heil Hitler' that often greeted Marcus Ellenberg as he walked to the 107-year-old Moorish-style synagogue in this port city forced the 32-year old attorney to make a difficult, life-changing decision: Fearing for his family's safety after repeated anti-Semitic incidents, Ellenberg reluctantly uprooted himself and his wife and two cihldren, and moved to Israel in May." "I didn't want my small children to grow up in this environment," Ellenberg told Ha'aretz just before leaving Malmö. Elllenberg's paternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors who found shelter in Malmö in 1945. Young attorney Ellenberg was not the only one Jew who is deeply worried about rising anti-Semitism in Sweden.
Ha'aretz describes the dramatic case of Judith Popinsky, a 86-year old Jewish refugee and Holocaust survivor from Poland who found refuge in Malmö in 1945. "Until recently, she told her story in Malmö schools as part of their Holocaust studies program. Now, some schools no longer ask Holocaust survivors to tell their stories, because Muslim students treat them with disrespect, either ignoring the speakers or walking out of the class. 'Malmö reminds me of the anti-Semitism I felt in Poland before the war,' she told the Forward while sitting in her living room, which is adorned with Persian rugs and many paintings.' 'I am not safe as a Jew in Sweden anymore,' a trembling Popinsky said in a frail voice." Such people are the real heroes of our time. They should be invited to the royal palace and decorated by the King of Sweden for their wisdom and valuable contribution to society. Indeed, their warnings can only ignored at the our own peril.
As fine citizens such as the Jews are leaving Sweden, intolerant and freedom-hating militants from the Middle East and Somalia are pouring into the nation's increasingly "multicultural" cities.
Criminal migrant trafficking networks now targeting Belgium, Greece and Israel
It was during the past twelve years that I have seen and studied the devastating effects of the large and unprecedented influx of poor economic migrants from Africa and the Middle East into Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Holland, Belgium and Germany. It was, as the German weekly "Der Spiegel" rightly called it in June 2006, "an invasion of the poor" ("Ansturm der Armen"). Apart from Islamist terrorism (which is directly related to immigration), this invasion is indeed the most serious challenge the West and Israel are facing right now.
These immigrants bring the negative aspects of their culture, religion and traditions, their cultural and religious baggage, that is, with them: backwardness, sharia law, arms possession (very common among Turks and Kurds), polygamy, cousin marriages, honor crimes, wife beating, rape and even witchcraft (belief in witchcraft and magic voodoo, among other things is widespread throughout sub-Saharan Africa.) Moreover, in too many cases migrants from Muslim countries bring their Islamism, terrorism, crime, and anti-Semitism with them into Europe and North America. In Britain, for example, "the number of people of Pakistani origin with jihadist views is extremely large," the "Sunday Times" (Culture supplement) reported on October 31, 2010. "Terrorism has a real-life threat to people in Britain. It has a pungency and urgency."
Criminal migrant trafficking networks our now focussing on Belgium, Greece and Israel. Belgium has a weak "outgoing" government which is unable to cope with the recent and unexpected massive influx of economic migrants most of whom are Muslims. They just cannot be accomodated anymore and many of them are now sleeping on the street. A Belgian judge even ruled that the government must financially compensate those asylum seekers who cannot be accomodated. But the judge failed to see that Belgian authorities are just overwhelmed by the massive demands for accomodation. Meanwhile, thanks to that judge false rumors are now rapidly spreading in the home countries of the immigrants that the Belgian state pays 500 euros per day to anyone who seeks asylum there. Such rulings certainly are not very helpful.This Belgian judge also failed to take into account that international refugee law does not require a state to admit a virtual limitless number of people who claim to be refugees. Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, who wrote a thorough study on "The Refugee in International Law," says, for example: "It must be admitted that the prospect of a massive influx of refugees and asylum seekers exposes the limits of the State's obligation otherwise not to return or refuse admission to refugees."An Afghan asylum seeker was deported from Belgium to Greece in 2009. He lodged a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Egbert Myjer, the Dutch ECHR judge, told a Dutch newspaper that the European immigration system is beginning to bog down. Hopefully, the European judges will be wiser than that silly Belgian judge.
Similarly, in Greece, authorities cannot cope anymore with the massive influx of refugees. These people are now sleeping on the streets of Athens. Greek citizens are outraged. There is just no money in Greece to deal with an unprecedented crisis like this. The Islamist government of neighboring Turkey abolished the visa restrictions for citizens of Syria, Iraq and Iran a very unwise and fatal decision indeed a decision welcomed by the powerful Turkey's mafia and the Islamists in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Israel is now facing an equally massive influx of economic migrants from Africa. There are already hundreds of thousands of illegal African immigrants in Israel. This year alone an additional 11,000 illegal Africans entered Israel via Egypt. They are often assisted by local Bedouin tribes. Security officials know that among those hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are a number of Islamists, terrorists, prostitutes and drug dealers. Nigeria, Mali, Kenia, Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan are known hotspots of Islamic radicalism and crime. The Israelis are belatedly building a huge fence to seal off their porous southern border. They should have done so years ago, though.
[Read More]Emerson Vermaat, a law graduate (State University of Leiden, the Netherlands) is an investigative reporter specialized in terrorism and crime. Website: emersonvermaat.com.
Sources:
Stichting Gave, Harderwijk, emailpeiling onder 24 contactpersonen van lokale werkgroepen van christenen die contact hebben met asielzoekers in een asielzoekerscentrum in hun omgeving, October 19, 2010.
Nederlands Dagblad (Barneveld, Netherlands), October 20, 2010, p. 1 ("Christenen in AZC vaak bedreigd")
Centraal Orgaan Asielzoekers (COA), Opvanglocaties (per provincie): 59 AZC's. (www.coa.nl). The English term for COA is the "Central Accomodate Organ Asylum Seekers."
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel (New York: Free Press, 2007), p. 169, 223-225.
Uitgesproken EO (Dutch TV program, Channel 2), October 19, 2010.
Daniel Pipes, Christians Disappearing from Iraq, New York Sun, August 24, 2004 (www.danielpipes.org).
Robbert van Lanschot, Café Mogadishu. Omzwervingen door het andere Nederland (Amsterdam: Mets & Mets Publishers, 2010), p. 144 (seeking asylum by Somalis: "a business venture"), p. 153: "Zodra ze hier na een jaar of zes, zeven hun paspoort ontvingen, vertrokken ze, zoef! naar Engeland. Soms ging het zo snel dat ze vergaten zich in Nederland uit te schrijven. Daar liep dan bijvoorbeeld de kinderbijslag gewoon door. Dan kwamen ze zoef! gauw op en neer om die bijslag op te halen."
Visie (Dutch Radio and TV Magazine), August 29, 2009, p. 22-25 ("Somalische christen spreekt zich uit: Een Nederlandse ondergrondse kerk"). "Daarnaast zijn enkele leden van de gemeenschap verstoten of zelfs met de dood bedreigd. Soms via de telefoon, soms via een haatdragend briefje onder de ruitenwisser. Dan komt vervolging om je geloof vreselijke dichtbij." "Voor zover bekend onthoofden deze milities in 2008 vijftien bekeerde ex-moslims."
Friesch Dagblad (Netherlands), June 15, 2010 ("Moslim die christen wordt leeft in angst"). "Doodsdreigingen voor bekeerlingen in Nederland." (Death threats against converts in Holland). Quote from Eerde de Vries, Leeuwarden.
Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm. Thr Authorized History of MI5 (London: Allen Lane, 2009), p. 816, 826, 827.
Anthony Julius, Trials of the Diaspora. A History of Anti-Semitism in England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 536 ("Some teachers are afraid to teach the Holocaust "), p. 539-542, 543 (Abu Qatada Al-Filistani).
Open Society Institute/EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program, Muslims in the EU: Cities Reports, Sweden (EU/University of Göteborg, Sweden, 2007), p. 10: 1970: 1,000 Muslims, 1985: 50,000 Muslims, 1990: 120,000 Muslims, 1996: 200,000 Muslims, 2000: 325,000 Muslims and 2006: 400,000 Muslims. Just like in Holland and Britain, this represents an exponential growth. Page 47-49: Malmö. For Dutch figures (largely Turks and Moroccans) between 1972 and 1996, see: Arie van der Zwan, Waar blijft de ombuignig in het immigratiebeleid?, in Socialisme & Democratie, 2002, Number 4, p. 43, 44.
Udo Ulfkotte, SOS Abendland. Die schleichende Islamisiering Europas (Rottenburg, Germany: Kopp Verlag, 2010), p. 107 ("T-shirts, deren Aufdruck "2003 übernehmem wir das Land" verkündet.")
Aftonbladet (Sweden), April 18, 2009 ( "Sex ligan valdtog atta flickor") (gang rapes by minors).
Kirstin Heisig, Das Ende der Geduld. Konsequent gegen jugendliche Gewalttäter (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder Verlag, 2010), p. 28 ("Sexualdelikten"), p. 72-99 ("Yilmaz, Hussein and Kaan jugendliche Vergewaltiger"). (Gang) rapes in Berlin. Kirstin Heisig, who died in June 2010, was a juvenile judge in Berlin.
Muslims chanting Arabic and anti-Semitic slogans in Malmö, March 7, 2010 (www.youtube.com).
Ha'aretz.com, July 7, 2010 ("Jews reluctantly abandon Swedish city amid growing anti-Semitism"); Washington Times, March 29, 2010 ("Hate crimes force Jews out of Malmö"): "His paternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors "
Der Spiegel, June 26, 2006 (Cover story "Die neue Völkerwanderung: Ansturm der Armen").
The Sunday Times, October 31, 2010. 15 (Culture international: "What MI6 wants you to know").
De Standaard (Belgium), November 25, 2010, p. 2 ("Het gezicht van asielcrisis"), p. 10 ("Uitgewezen ouders dreigen kinderen te vermoorden"), p. 11 ("Opvangplaatsen bij OCMW's niet voor kerst"); De Morgen (Belgium), November 25, 2010, p. 15 ("Ruim 1200 naturalisatieverzoeken 'vergeten' door dispuut tussen parket en overheid"); NOS Journaal (Dutch TV), November 22, 2010 (20:00 hours): "Rechters leggen dwangsom op: 500 euro als ze geen onderdak krijgen."
Uitgesproken EO (Dutch TV), December 2, 2010. (Belgian judge).
Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, The Refugee in International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 141.
NRC Handelsblad, November 13, 2010, p. 3 ("Rechter: asielcrisis breidt uit"). Volgens Egbert Myjer begint het EU immigratiestelsel vast te lopen. De Europese Unie zal hier een oplossing moeten geven."
De Volkskrant (Netherlands), November 12, 2010, p. 7 ("In delen van Athene is het oorlog"); Trouw (Netherlands), November 3, 2010, p. 5 ("Het Griekse gat in fort Europa"). A TV news report in Holland showing angry Greek citizens. I was attacked myself by an aggressive illegal African immigrant in Greece a few years ago. It also happened in Hamburg in 2001, when a Nigerian drug dealer, an asylum seeker, was quite upset when I was secretly filming him for Dutch TV. The young German guy to whom that Nigerian drug dealer had previously sold cocaine was standing beside me. I interviewed this poor drug addict later about it. The chief of Hamburg police's drug unit estimated there were a few hundred African cocaine dealers in Hamburg at the time, virtually all of them were asylum seekers.
NRC Handelsblad (Netherlands), November 27, 2010, p. 2 ("Israël verschanst zich achter hekken en muren"). "Er zijn honderdduizenden illegale migranten uit Afrika in Israel." See also: De Volkskrant, November 23, p. 13 ("Hek Israel aan grens Egypte"); De Volkskrant, November 25, p. 15 ("Opvangkamp voor Afrikaanse illegalen"). Various news reports on Dutch TV.
Dutch Politician Urges Orthodox Jews to Leave Holland
Dutch Politician Urges Orthodox Jews to Leave Holland
By BEILA RABINOWITZ
December 6, 2010 -San Francisco, CA -PipeLineNews.org - Frits Bolkestein, a retired member of the Dutch VVD party and formerly a European Commissioner, has said there is no future for orthodox Jews in Holland because of, "the anti-Semitism among Dutchmen of Moroccan descent, whose numbers keep growing" [see, http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/no-future-dutch-orthodox-jews%E2%80%99"].
He said that orthodox Jews, who are recognizable as such, should encourage their children to immigrate to the United States and Israel.
Dutch politicians and prominent Dutch Jews reacted angrily to his statements with Geert Wilders twittering that it is not Jews who should immigrate but "the Moroccans who are anti-Semitic."
Prominent Dutch rabbi Raphael Evers, called Bolkestein's comments "unacceptable" [see, http://www.elsevier.nl/web/Nieuws/Politiek/283230/Kritiek-en-onbegrip-na-Bolkesteins-Jodenuitspraak.htm#12916500295783&%7B%22adId%22%3A%22E-Klasse%20Limousine%22%2C%22actionId%22%3A%22view%22%2C%22action%22%3A%22insertStat%22%2C%22surveyId%22%3A14%7D].
[Read More]Bypassing the Tenth Amendment, Part II
Bypassing the Tenth Amendment, Part II
How California Became a Branch Office of the Federal Government
By CAMILLE GIGLIO
December 6, 2010 -San Francisco, CA -PipeLineNews.org - In a November 11 piece entitled Has California Bypassed the Tenth Amendment? this author analyzed CA Governor Schwarzenegger's line-item budget vetoes of state tax money for welfare-to-work Stage 3 Child Care CalWorks programs, and more importantly, mental health services funding which has traditionally and appropriately been administered from within the state's Department of Health Care Services.
In that writing I opined that the Governor, in cooperation with the legislature, might have deliberately created a situation in which the federal government was prompted to step in and oversee yet another segment of California's business, thereby further blurring the separation of state and federal powers contained in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution regarding state's rights.
Immediately following the November 2nd election an Oakland, California, based community action group, Parent Voices, filed and won a lawsuit against the state, to return the Child Care portion of the vetoed money to the budget.
A class-action lawsuit filed on November 9 by mental health and disability rights advocates against the department of health services will be heard after the first of the year when, according to a spokeswoman for CA State Senator Darrell Steinberg's office "we will wait for a new Governor to see what he will do."
According to H. D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the California Department of Finance, this [stakeholders suing the state] is just business as usual. Federal legislation signed by George W. Bush permits nonprofit agencies to sue the government, he stated.
In the weeks following I have been accumulating information that supports the claim that this was not just business as usual, as state officials might want you to believe. Removing the state's portion of the mental health funding was, I believe, a key final step in merging California into a close partnership with the federal government in the day-to-day governance of California - reducing it to a branch office of a national corporation.
The veto of the state's portion of the mental health funding left the state Department of Health Services without state funds to run this program. This action, though legal according to the governor's office, brought the state into conflict with the mandates of the civil rights protections [section 504] of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Section 504 mandates that should a state department of mental health services be left without state funds to dispense mental health services, the remaining federal portion of the funding would be redirected to the Department of Education to oversee and administer the federal mental health services agenda.
In an interview with Fred Balcom, Director of the Special Needs segment of the state Health Services Department, he questioned the ability of the Department of Education to administer mental health services. After all, he said, "they don't have the psychologists and psychiatrists. We have them."
One key item in all this is that it remains unclear whether a court decision will include returning the state funding or administering of mental health services to its original department or if it will stay with the Department of Education.
My guess is the $133 million in question is going to stay with the school districts to pay for more on-campus, school-based clinics and expanded services. This lays the groundwork for the Health department and the Education Department to form a partnership delivering the federal No Child Left Behind [now called Race To The Top] education agenda along with ObamaCare and mandated federal "New Freedom" mental health counseling on school campuses.
If that does indeed happen, the school districts - already deeply involved in agendized partnerships with the business community - otherwise known as the School-To-Work program, will become the point of service deliverer of mental health services, during and after school hours, to the students and the community in general.
Such a partnership would fulfill the Clinton and [GW] Bush mental health legislation mandates.
On October 17, 2000, President William J. Clinton signed into law the 146-page Children's Health Act.
One excerpt from Clinton's press release announcing the signing reads, "The programs contained in this bill to improve and expand research and services for our children's physical and mental health, and to prevent substance abuse and violence, are important investments in the well-being of our Nation. For these reasons, I am pleased to sign H.R. 4365."
Continuing, "...I am gratified to see that this bill's focus on children's health addresses several priority areas identified by the President's Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children. I am also pleased that H.R. 4365 authorizes new funds to improve the health and safety of children in child care. Available, affordable, safe, high-quality child care is a concern for any working parent. I have committed my Administration to achieving this goal, and today we are making substantial strides forward."
Clinton also noted, in the press release, that though funding was available to religious groups to administer these health services, they were denied to any religious group which could not or would not separate their religion from the government-funded services.
On November 23, 2004, the New Freedom Initiative/Mandatory Mental Health Screening of American Children Act was signed into law. In reaction, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, "decried a move by the U.S. Senate to join with the House in funding a federal program [which] will lead to mandatory psychological testing for every child in American without the consent of parents."
In addition to mandating screening for 60 million children, this act also requires screening for pregnant women and adults through schools and pre-schools.
Though this legislation did not mandate that states perform these services, Kathryn Serkes, public affairs officer for the AAPS, said: "However, the HHS appropriations bill contains block grant money that will likely be used as is often the case with block funding by the various states to implement mandatory psychological testing programs for all students in the school system."
In 2008, Congress passed and President Bush signed what was considered a major victory for the health industry; the Wellstone/Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2000. It was tacked onto a $700 billion financial bailout bill. It did not mandate that insurers provide mental health coverage, but if they did so, they must adhere to this bill's mandate of providing unlimited coverage equal to the benefits derived from other health insurance.
Unfortunately, the idea of routing children into the state school mental health labyrinth did not originate with Bill Clinton.
In California, as John Vasconcellos rose through the ranks of assemblyman and senator, he used every opportunity to promote the idea that children were - almost inherently - mentally and emotionally harmed by their parents and churches. He even wrote a book advocating that position, arguing it was the duty of the schools to provide counseling to correct parental influence. He also continually authored legislation mandating reformation of the state Education Master Plan, to include counseling services.
Though publicly laughed at by other legislators at that time, he has nonetheless been very influential in creating an atmosphere of acceptance for the touchy/feely "I'm Okay/You're Okay," attitudes so prevalent in the 60s and 70s. He has even appeared before educational and legislative committees during his retirement years, advocating his position along with Rob Reiner and other advocates of early childhood education and mental health counseling.
Towards that end, CA State Senator Leland Yee - a psychiatrist - regularly submits bills sponsored by various mental health counseling groups, for counseling services on school campuses.
In 1999, the legislature passed then Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg's AB 34, authorizing and appropriating funds for creation of pilot mental health programs to targeted constituents in targeted counties. Data was gathered, statistics created, clients provided with mental health services and the program, after a decade, was considered a success. It's findings were used to further advance the cause of everyone's need for mental health counseling.
In 2004, the California Psychiatric Association was successful in getting Prop 63, Mental Health Services passed, extending the idea of providing psychiatric services to every California citizen. To see what the CPA intends please visit "Some of the Things the CPA has done for you lately," www.calpsych.org/cpa/cpaaccomplishments.html
In 2009, now as a state senator, Darrell Steinberg [D-Sacramento] authored SB 2034, Mental Health Funding, mandating mental health coverage for everyone in the state of California from the newest infant to the oldest senior adult.
San Francisco Senator Mark Leno, expressing concern for the mental health stability of "lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgendered" [LGBT] children or those children living in those types of families, authored SB 543, Mental Health Services, authorizing agencies to accept students, ages 12-16, for mental health counseling without parental consent. The legislation incorporates, interestingly enough, language similar to that previously used to authorize minors to obtain abortions and venereal disease treatment without parental involvement.
The final bill states, in part:
"In 2004, California voters passed Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA), which provides increased funding, personnel, and other resources to support county mental health programs and monitor progress toward statewide goals for children, adolescents, adults, and families. Community stakeholder groups consisting of consumers, families, and service organizations identified various barriers to various populations accessing not only for MHSA programs, but for all mental health services. The groups identified that, among other things, requiring parental consent when a youth seeks mental health counsel or treatment is a barrier to the youth getting needed assistance. This bill, sponsored by the National Association of Social Workers, California Chapter, Mental Health America of Northern California, GSA Network and Equality California, seeks to address that barrier to needed services."
On November 17 of this year, the Lucile Packard Foundation released a statement declaring that 15% of California families have a child with a special health care need - a chronic physical, developmental or behavioral condition that requires more than routine health and related services.
Of course, it also declares that California lags way behind the nation in delivering appropriate "high quality" health services to children and families, in general. This is, one presumes, an incentive for California to become competitive in raising its rating to one of being a leader in the provision of mental health services.
Though the legislators are supposed to represent the people of the state, sadly just the opposite appears to be reality. The legislators have become the willing servants of the special interests. It hardly matters who the next governor is, or whether he or she is a Republican or a Democrat. Republican Governor Schwarzenegger has been merely been one, in a succession of governors who have moved this state closer to being a permanent serf of the federal government.
Jerry Brown will be no different.
Over the years, as I have researched legislation, seldom have there been any organizations, individuals or faith groups working in opposition to this relentless movement toward governmental intrusion into nearly every aspect of life impacting school age children including education, employment, job creation, lifestyle and health. The public is being heavily lobbied to accept the idea of increased taxes to pay for increased governmental meddling, and few people seem concerned over the consequences.
The National Partnership for Women and Families, a stakeholder, tax supported abortion lobby is an example of the prototype of the future provider of services to children and adults. www.nationalpartnership.org.
They are lobbying the feds to become an integral part of the delivery of Medicare and Medicaid services. Their website links to another site entitled, The Hill Health Watch. Here is an excerpt from their coverage of the launch of a, "new innovation center created by the health reform law that aims to fulfill the triple goal of improving individual care, coordination between providers and prevention."
"CMS launched the center on Tuesday with a stakeholder meeting including representatives for the health care industry, consumers, states and employers. The goal is to create public-private partnerships, Berwick said, and the innovation center will consult with stakeholders every step of the way and create an "open innovation community" to serve as an information clearinghouse of best practices."
"Best practices" is the latest code word for substituting values neutral ethics in place of the traditional Christian moral ethics. It means whatever works for obtaining the optimum outcome for the state.
Psychological profiling, called for by the Obama Administration under the pretext of not letting terrorists get on airliners, is the latest insult to the peoples' sense of decorum and privacy being promoted on a nationwide basis. Skeptics might view this as a test to determine if the general public is compliant enough yet, to accept physical intervention in their private matters. The best time to start this of course would be during the heavy Christmas season travel period when people are already harried and pre-occupied and just want to get on a plane.
Such a method would be worthy of the cleverest brain washing expert. It's a furtherance of the game plan called accepting what appears to be the lesser of two evils: Either put up with being humiliated standing in an airport line while agents of the government take invasive full body x-rays of everyone, or full body hands-on pat downs in front of everyone...or, acquiesce to the entire population being psychologically profiled thereby invading the mind instead of the body.
In this type of scenario, everyone becomes a potential enemy of the state and would have to prove that he or she is mentally competent [i.e. not an opponent of Big Brother]. The mindset at work in this type of legislation views children as damaged goods by the time they are 3 years old, due to parental influence. Pregnant women are all deemed to be potential psychotics who will abuse and kill their children. Senior citizens are now being targeted to receive mental health counseling because growing old is too psychologically burdensome. And, in California, the courts are calling upon the prison system to release 40,000 prisoners into the general public because the prisons are too crowded for them to have their physical and mental health needs met. The public is going to be charged with paying for and providing the local agencies to provide these services.
If schools are to become integral to the future provision of physical and mental health services then it will be to schools that all clients will turn. Parents, concerned over the steady encroachment of big government into their families might well take a closer look at what's happening in our schools before this process pass the point of no return.
[Read More]Christians Under Genocidal Attack Throughout The Muslim World
By WILLIAM MAYER and BEILA RABINOWITZ
December 3, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Pointing to the disconnect between claims by American Islamists, that "there is no compulsion in religion," in the Muslim world, persecution of Christians is very real, often deadly and increasing at a frightening pace.
In an article entitled "Muslim Genocide of Christians Throughout the Middle East," Khaled Abu Tomeh documents the ongoing jihad against Christians.
He calls Christians an "endangered species" writing that "hardly a day passes without reports of violence against the Coptic community in Egypt." In Iraq there appears to be an orchestrated campaign to drive Christians from the country.
"The war of genocide against Christians in the Middle East can no longer be treated as an "internal affair" of Iraq or Egypt or the Palestinians. What the West needs to understand is that radical Islam has declared jihad not only against Jews, but also against Christians. In Iraq, Egypt and the Palestinian territories, Christians are being targeted almost on a daily basis by Muslim fundamentalists and secular dictators." [source, Khaled Abu Tomeh, Muslim Genocide of Christians Throughout Middle East, Hudson Institute, http://www.hudson-ny.org/1685/muslim-genocide-of-christians]
Historically, especially early in the 20th century, Egypt had the deserved reputation of being perhaps the most religiously cosmopolitan nation under the Islamic banner. Cooperation between different faiths was common, with Jews having positions of power in the Egyptian government. All of that changed after the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, an event which would profoundly change the Muslim world, setting it once again on the path of religious warfare, jihad. 1
The presence of Muslim on Christian violence in that country now is so commonplace that unless a particular act of intolerance rises above its already pervasive presence in the society it simply isn't deemed to be news.
[Read More]Team Obama Tried To Shield Pak ISI Chief In Mumbai Attack
Team Obama Tried To Shield Pak ISI Chief In Mumbai Attack
December 2, 2010 -San Francisco, CA -PipeLineNews.org -The full implications of the Wiki disclosures are yet to be felt, but what is known even this early in the process makes Obama's foreign policy team appear to be a group of hapless amateurs operating at a level far beyond their competence.
A glimpse of this was offered in today's India Times, which relates that against a backdrop of sounding tough publicly regarding Pakistan and its terror aiding ISI intelligence operation, in private it was shielding the ISI's chief Pasha from allegations that his agency was involved in the 11/26 Mumbai attacks -India's 9/11.
Pakistan is widely understood in intelligence circles to be playing both sides of the fence regarding Islamic terrorism, but even though this is generally accepted common knowledge, the U.S. State Department was caught in at least one of the leaked diplomatic cables, pressuring India not to disclose the Paks involvement in the Mumbai atrocity.
"We are concerned that the India's premature public dissemination of this information will undermine essential law enforcement efforts and forestall further Indo-Pakistan cooperation. Our goal is not only to bring the perpetrators of this attack to justice, but also to begin a dialogue that will reduce tensions between India and Pakistan,"
[source, US defended Pak, shielded ISI chief after 26/11 strikes?, The Times of India, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/US-defended-Pak-shielded-ISI-chief-after-26/11-strikes/articleshow/7030632.cms#ixzz16zhGQV00]
The thrust of the document is that team Obama apparently tilted toward protecting the Pak sponsored terrorism, rather than allowing Indian security officials to mention the linkage publicly, thus shielding those arguably most involved with coordinating the deadly attacks, which claimed the lives of six Americans, including a rabbinical family which was so horribly tortured that physicians reviews the carnage were physically sickened.
The negative impact, not only on the ability of the U.S to conduct foreign policy, but on this administration's already tattered reputation internationally will be long felt. The fact that it has taken over three months for the fed to move against cyber-terrorist Julian Assange, indicates that this WH is once again experiencing a disconnect in the most serious matters of state.
[Read More]