Planned Parenthood, ACLU Defeated In Alaska Vote

Friend and former public school teacher, Mark Waldeland sent me the following piece on Planned Parenthood’s effort  to dictate its will:

“Once again slouching proudly against morality,  Planned Parenthood has predictably suffered another resounding rebuke from the public.  Alaska citizens, as citizens in 34 other states have done [  
http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_OAL.pdf
 ] , just told PP that they want parents to be notified before their minor daughters undergo abortions.  With 97.9 percent of Alaska precincts reporting, the vote wasn’t even close: 72,730 (55.5 percent) supported the measure; 58,347 (44.5 percent) opposed it.

After fighting in the courts for years to deny Alaska citizens the right to vote on the issue,  Planned Parenthood and the ACLU were, in fact, spectacularly unsuccessful in trying to buy the result they sought:  ”[Juneau Empire story,  8/19] With backing from Planned Parenthood and ACLU-Alaska, Alaskans Against Government Mandates reported collecting $745,383 as of July 23. Alaskans for Parental Rights reported raising $84,445.”  Doing the math:   the abortion apologists spent $12.78 per vote and still got smoked.  

Characteristically, Planned Parenthood didn’t have the guts to defend its position in the public square: ”[Juneau Empire] Opponents of the [parental notification] measure have refused to debate the issue in the days leading up to the primary election on August 24. According to reports, Planned Parenthood will not participate in a public forum discussing the measure and its impacts on the state.   In an e-mail written on August 3, 2010 from the organization’s chair,  the group has further confirmed that it will not participate in such events.” “

“Clueless on Ground Zero Mosque”

This article, “Pols Clueless on Ground Zero Mosque”,  was written by Nick Hentoff  at Cato Institute:

“The angry national debate over Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s intention to build a mosque two blocks north of the horror of 9/11 at Ground Zero has been further fueled by supporter Nancy Pelosi declaring, “I join those who have called for looking into how … this opposition to the mosque is being funded.”

If one of her sleuths knocks on my door, this opponent will readily state that I need no outside funding as a reporter who is deeply investigating the motivation of Imam Rauf’s choice of this site of mass murder for the mosque. I will add that, of course, all American Muslims have their First Amendment right to exercise their freedom of religion in their place of worship. There have been other mosques in New York City built without opposition. That freedom is not at stake here.

As for Rauf’s inflammable site choice, however, one of a growing number of construction workers pledging they will not work on this mosque (New York Daily News, Aug. 20), Dave Kaiser, a blaster, explains:

“I wouldn’t work there, especially after I found out about what the imam said about U.S. policy being responsible for 9/11.”

Imam Rauf said was interviewed on CBS’ 60 Minutes (Sept. 30, 2001) by Ed Bradley. (I have the transcript.) Asked how he felt as a Muslim “knowing that people of your faith committed this act,” Imam Rauf spoke about Muslim reaction throughout the world “against the policies of the U.S. government, politically, where we espouse principles of democracy and human rights and where we ally ourselves with oppressive regimes in many of these countries.”

“Are you in any way suggesting that we in the United States deserved what happened?” Bradley asked.

“I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened,” Rauf answered, “but the United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened. … Because (the United States has) been an accessory to a lot of – of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, it – in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the U.S.A.”

Were the heads of government in Iran, Hamas and Sudan also “made in the USA?”

Imam Rauf has refused to call Hamas a terrorist organization and had no comment when, on Aug. 15, Mahmoud al-Zahar, its co-founder, strongly supported the Imam’s mosque near Ground Zero, saying, Muslims “have to build everywhere” (Associated Press, Aug. 16). Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the support by Hamas of the Imam’s mosque carried no weight because “Hamas is a terrorist organization.”

Why, yes, it is, Imam Rauf, with its suicide bombers and endless rockets into Israel. How else can suicide bombers be characterized?

This imam – widely lauded in much of the press as “a moderate” Muslim – is not reticent, however, in his firm commitment to Sharia (Islamic law), which regards women as far less than fully human. In the Dec. 9, 2007 Arabic newspaper Hadi el-Islam, Rauf insisted:

Throughout my discussions with contemporary Muslim theologians, it is clear an Islamic state can be established in more than just a single form or mold. It can be established through a kingdom or a democracy. The important issue is to establish the general fundamentals of Sharia that are required to govern.

I would greatly appreciate it if Imam Rauf explained, maybe Pelosi will ask him, more fully what he meant in his 2004 book, “What’s Right With Islam is What’s Right With America.” In it he declares: “American Constitution and system of governance uphold the core principles of Islamic law.” Rauf says Sharia law is a core principle of Islamic law. Does that also include a core principle of our Constitution?

This 2004 book’s title in the English-language edition yields to a different title for non-English-speaking readers in Malaysia, reports Andrew McCarthy (“Rauf’s Dawa from the World Trade Center Rubble,” nationalreview.com).

This alternate title in Malaysia brings us right back into the civil war here about the imam’s mosque near Ground Zero: “A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11.”

What does “dawa” mean? McCarthy explains: “Dawa, whether done from the rubble of the World Trade Center or elsewhere, is the missionary work by which Islam is spread. … The purpose of dawa, like the purpose of jihad, is to implement, spread, and defend Sharia. … through means other than violence and agents other than terrorists.”

As of this writing, Imam Rauf is on the State Department tour (financed by us) of Arab nations in the Middle East. He has been on four such State Department tours – two under George W. Bush. Says State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley (New York Post, Aug. 20):

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he talks about the ongoing debate within the United States, as an example of our emphasis on religious tolerance and resolving questions that come up within the rule of law.”

Does our State Department include Sharia as being within our rule of law?

At the end of that news story, we are told that Rauf “is not allowed to fund-raise on the trip.” Yet, in the Aug. 18 New York Post, Geoff Earle and Tom Topousis report that “in an interview overseas, he (Rauf) said ‘he would also tap Muslim nations for help.’”

I would not be surprised if Saudi Arabia ultimately becomes a generous contributor, but not quite in the agreement with the State Department’s “emphasis on religious tolerance.”

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg charges that opponents of Imam Rauf’s mosque “should be ashamed of themselves” and are bigots.

Me, too, Mr. Mayor?

If you want to join Speaker Pelosi in investigating me, your honor, I’d be glad to oblige. I’m just doing my job as a reporter. I wish more reporters had gone beneath the shouting on both sides. There’s another part of the First Amendment in addition to the free exercise of religion: The press is free to investigate the reasons for Imam Rauf’s fixation on the 9/11 location of his mosque.

And why does this location make Hamas glow?

//

Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights.”

The Muslim Question for Americans

Is America Islamophobic?  an article by Paul Mirengoff at Powerline:

“Following up on Time Magazine’s article arguing that American may be Islamophobic, the Washington Post takes its stab at pressing the indictment. Post writer Annie Gowen focuses mostly on opposition to a proposed sprawling Islamic center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The Post claims that opposition is intense, but it presents no data on where overall public opinion in the area stands. Thus, the Post apparently has no idea whether the headline of the story that appeared in the print edition — “Nowhere near Ground Zero, but no more welcome” — is accurate.

The Post does refer to a poll that appeared in the Time article finding that 43 percent of Americans hold unfavorable views of Muslims. But which Muslims were the respondents referring to when they answered?

Was it the Muslims they know personally or the Muslims involved with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial? Was it the Muslims who cheered the 9/11 attacks, the Muslims who condemned them, or the Muslims who called the attacks a crime, but claimed America was an accomplice? Was it the Muslim population in peaceful Indonesia or the Muslim population in Gaza? Was it the Iranian dissidents or the Iranian government?

The Post notes that 25 percent of respondents said that most Muslims are not patriotic Americans. If this answer to an empirical question is incorrect (I assume it is, but don’t really know), the conclusion should be that a relatively small, though certainly not de minimis, percentage of Americans showed bias in their answer to this question. The conclusion should not be that America as a whole is Islamophobic; if anything, the opposite conclusion better fits this piece of data.

The Post acknowledges that the overall level of anti-Muslim sentiment hasn’t shifted much as a result of the Ground Zero Mosque controversy. But it quotes unnamed “religious scholars and other experts” who find the change in tone “striking.” That’s certainly possible, given the “in your face” nature of the decision to build a mosque on the site of a building that was damaged by the deadly 9/11 attack. But if overall sentiment hasn’t changed, one wonders why Time and the Post are suddenly suggesting that Americans are Islamophobes.

In the end, of course, the question comes down to how one defines Islamophobia. If it means disliking American Muslims because of their religion, then I don’t think the charge sticks. If it means disliking a good deal of what many Muslims are doing in the wider world, and seeing some sort of a connection between that conduct and the religion of Islam, then Americans may well be Islamophobic. But we would be fools if we weren’t.”

Comment:   White Americans, actually only conservative white Americans to be more accurate,  are called racists because they are not Leftists and they are white.   Conservative blacks are called “Uncle Toms” or oreos, in American black lingo. 

There is much for all Americans to dislike about American black culture…..its violence….its dysfunctional pecking order and family disorder, its devotion to avoid education, its denigration of the female, and so on.    It is not a religion exactly, but its adhesive of choice keeping it together,  is, of course, being black, which these days means in the cultural propaganda, ’sisters and brothers’  who are superior to whitey because they ARE black……..which is racist by nearly any definition.  Many blacks have risen above this black ‘behavior’….and many ignore it when they venture outside of this  inner city driven culture.   Many others simply live a rather normal life raising a family despite the environment.

We all know that white Lefties play on this black racism for political advantage.  Many are news opinion writers for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and so on and so on….University professors play similar games in their classrooms and writings.

Most Americans know exactly what I am describing here, but have been trained never to seek truth in these racial political, religious and  social matters when dealing with minorities made sacred by the left.   Minorities are not considered  minorities unless they are bought to huddle under the  umbrella of  Marxist Left.

The American Left is in the process of creating a similar sacred aura around the Muslim…….the suffering  Muslim who lives and works under  ’the terror’ of right wing extremists……any and all who don’t play the 21st Century Muslim games of sharing what you have in return for nothing. 

 Only white conservatives can be determined as bigots….racists…..homophobes…..sexists ……and so on.   The same lefty reporters, professors, film directors and producers,  ‘educators’ at all levels who formed  the American black as sacred and therefore beyond any negative criticism  no matter how vile the crimes,  are applying these  distinctions to this new American community, the muslim. 

This is the natural way of the Left to bond together  its constituencies in a free society.   

Dennis Prager reported on his radio show a few days ago that of dozens of  mainstream media newspapers he had examined, not a single  writer on the Rauh-Ground Zero battle  failed to  accuse the opponents of the  mosque at or close to the site as primitive,  vile, and bigotted.

What is most important to the Left is that its opponents be destroyed,  fair or foul  doesn’t matter. 

How can the American Left and today’s Islam, the religion of Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, 21st century Lebanon, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and so on, have anything in common except the green greed for  power in both.

How can any normal person today who is aware of the Islam world today trust the motives of anything Muslim?

Yes, fellow Americans, the majority of American born, American educated muslims are likely to be American in culture.   

These are not the Muslims who command today’s cultural wars.  These are not the Muslims who are the murderers and teach murder as vital to the spread of Islam throughout the world.  These are not the Muslims who murdered on rampage against cartoons of someone name Muhammed.  These are not the Muslims who  slaughtered the innocent on September 11 or the innocent in Iraq every day of every week.   These are not the Muslims who ban, burn or  destroy anything Christian in their neighborhoods.  They are still Americans.

The American black has been far more civilized in its own history.  Many in its community have broken out of its own brands of racist disorder and have joined the American way of life as never before.  But the majority in the  community has suffered tremendously from its own politics of violence, distortion, extortion,  and lies caused primarily by their marriage with the Left from whom they have enjoyed small political and monetary gains for their obeisance at the polls.

The habits of the American Left have become so paralyzing to themselves and their followers, they are unable to gather words except the screams of racism and bigotry.   They are attempting to create a  Muslim following to join the American black inner city extremists to spread the words of the Jeremiah Wrights “Goddamn America church and  a Nation of Islam community.

Venezuela a More Dangerous State Than Iraq?

Some Venezuelans joke that they might be safer if they lived in Baghdad.  The numbers bear them out, says the New York Times. 

For instance: 

• Venezuela is struggling with a decade-long surge in homicides, with about 118,541 since President Hugo Chávez took office in 1999.
• There have been 43,792 homicides in Venezuela since 2007, compared with about 28,000 deaths from drug-related violence in Mexico since that country’s assault on cartels began in late 2006.
• More than 90 percent of murders go unsolved, without a single arrest. 

Furthermore: 

• Caracas itself is almost unrivaled among large cities in the Americas for its homicide rate, which currently stands at around 200 per 100,000 inhabitants.
• That compares with recent measures of 22.7 per 100,000 people in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, and 14 per 100,000 in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city.
• In Iraq, a country with about the same population as Venezuela, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009; in Venezuela that year, the number of murders climbed above 16,000.  

But scholars describe the climb in homicides in the past decade as unprecedented in Venezuelan history; the number of homicides last year was more than three times higher than when Chávez was elected in 1998.  Some crime specialists say a reason for the surge is Chávez’s government itself: 

• The judicial system has grown increasingly politicized, losing independent judges and aligning itself more closely with Chávez’s political movement.
• Many experienced state employees have had to leave public service, or even the country.
• Cases against Chavez’s critics — including judges, dissident generals and media executives — are increasingly common.  

Henrique Capriles, the governor of Miranda, a state encompassing parts of Caracas, told reporters last week that Chávez had worsened the homicide problem by cutting money for state and city governments led by political opponents and then removing thousands of guns from their police forces after losing regional elections. 

Source: Simon Romero, “Venezuela, More Deadly Than Iraq, Wonders Why,” New York Times, August 22, 2010. 

The article was found at National Center for Policy Analysis.

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