Dick Durbin Lays an Egg Playing Tootsie with Muslims Sabotaging America

Neil Munro wrote the following article, “Durbin Flubs Muslim-discrimination hearings” at the Daily Caller.

(Why are these Obama Democrats playing tootsie with Muslim enemies of America?)

“The number two Senate Democrat, Richard Durbin, has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday to highlight claims of anti-Muslim discrimination, but his primary Muslim witness has publicly excused a U.S. imam for revealing an FBI investigation to a Muslim suspected-terrorist.

Durbin’s bungled choice for lead witness is another in a series of Democratic flubs that have paired top Democrats with anti-democratic, terror-excusing Islamists in the United States. According to a report released today by the non-profit Investigative Project on Terrorism, Durbin has already added to the flubs this year by visiting a mosque in Bridgeview, Ill., and posing for a photo with two Islamists who were named as unindicted conspirators in an Islamist project to smuggle funds to the Hamas Muslim terror group.

Hamas is an orthodox and militant Muslim terror group that controls the Gaza strip. Since it seized control in 2007, it has allowed numerous missile attacks on Israeli civilian targets and it has established an apartheid-like system of laws that cite Koranic texts to justify formal and informal discrimination and abuse against women, gays and Christians.

According to the IPT’s report, Durbin’s meeting with the Hamas-linked Muslims took place at the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, Ill. The mosque’s website shows a picture, dated March 1, of Durbin posing with nine suited men, and two women wearing dark-coveralls and tight white scarves. The men include the mosque’s director, Jamal Said, and the mosque’s imam, Kifah Mustapha, according to the IPT report.

Both men were declared to be unindicted conspirators in the 2008 Holy Land Fund trial, which resulted in guilty verdicts for five men who smuggled $12 million to Hamas. The fund’s two founders were both sentenced to 65 years in jail.

In the federal documents submitted to the court, Mustapha was included in the list of “individuals who were HLF employees, directors, officers and/or representatives.” In June 2010, the Illinois government denied Mustapha the title of police chaplain, even though he completed the four-day course.

In the court document, Jamal Said is named as an individual “who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and/or its organizations.” The Palestine Committee was established by Islamists as a Hamas advocacy group prior to 1991, according to government sources cited in another IPT report.

A 2004 article in the Chicago Tribune reported that moderates lost control of the mosque to the Islamists following an internal power struggle.

Durbin and several other Democratic politicians, and their staff members, have gotten themselves into trouble by endorsing little-known Muslims from Islamist groups within the party’s diverse base. The base also includes groups advocating for gays, women and Jews.

For example, in 2007, Virginia’s Democratic governor Tim Kaine appointed Esam Omeish to an advisory panel on immigration. Kaine withdrew the nomination a few hours after he was told of Omeish’s Islamist beliefs by a caller during a radio-talk show.

Last September, President Obama endorsed the construction of a mosque and community-center on the site of a building damaged by the 9/11 Islamist terror attack. But the then-current imam of the center, Feisal Abdul Rauf, had already authored an June 2009 article for the Huffington Post calling on Obama to accept Islamic theocracy in Iran. In the article, he urged Obama to “respect…Vilayet-i-faqih, which means the rule of the jurisprudent.” This March, however, the president rejected this policy, and called on Iranian people to cast off “the rigid and unaccountable government; the refusal to let the Iranian people realize their full potential for fear of undermining the authority of the state.”

Other Democrats have been more careful. In a September 2003 hearing, for example, New York Sen. Charles Schumer declared that “we know [CAIR] has ties to terrorism.” At the same hearing, Durbin declared “from what I have read [CAIR] is unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its association with groups that are suspect.”

A second flub by Durbin’s staff is the selection of the main witness for the Tuesday hearing. She is Farhana Khera, the Muslim director of a small legal firm — Muslim Advocates  – that works closely with Hamas-associated Islamist groups in the United States, such as the Council on American Islamic Relations. Durbin’s hearing, and Khera’s invite, were prompted by protests from Islamist and allied left-of-center groups against a March 10 hearing organized by New York Republican Rep. Peter King on the religious radicalization of Muslims in the United States.

Prior to King’s hearing, front-page articles in both the New York Times and the Washington Post excoriated King for his association with the Irish Republican Army in the 1990s. The main witnesses at King’s hearings were Muslims, and included Muslim modernist Zuhdi Jasser, who disavows jihad and supports the formal separation of mosque and state.

In the Tuesday hearing, Khera is expected to argue that Muslims have faced increasing levels of “discrimination” and hostility in the United States in the decade following the mass-murder of roughly 3,000 Americans by 19 Islamist terrorists. However, FBI data on crimes motivated by religious hatred show 107 incidents in 2009, down from 156 in 2006. Nationwide, in 2009, Jews were nine times as likely to be targeted for their religion than Muslims, up from five times as likely in 2006.

Khera’s claim to represent ordinary Muslims, however, is tainted by her cooperation with Islamist groups, and by support for Ahmed Afzali, an Afghan-born New York imam. A court ordered Afzali expelled last April after he confessed to warning a suspect terrorist, Najibullah Zazi, of an FBI investigation into his activities. Zazi, an Afghan immigrant, pled guilty in February 2010 to preparing a suicide-bomb attack on civilians in the New York subway.

Khera entangled herself in the terror case in June 2010, after the guilty verdicts, when she spoke at a Chicago convention of Muslims. At the event, she described the Afzali’s tip-off to the suspected suicide-bomber as “self-policing” by Muslim community, not as aid for a would-be murderer. “The imam thinking that he was doing his civic duty, went, spoke to Zazi and said – Hey, what are you doing?,” according to a transcript of Khera’s remarks provided by the IPT. “Police are you know asking questions about you, you better not be up to anything bad.” The imam, she said, thought he was “doing his duty, what he thought was his civic responsibility, and helping, as so many of our community members feel like, to help self-police the community.”

Afzali’s subsequent expulsion, added Khera, “is just one example of really frankly the risks and consequences of engaging with law enforcement without an attorney.” Khera’s opposition to easy cooperation with police forces is matched by other Islamist groups, which argue that federal, state and local governments should appoint them as the conduits through which resident Muslims should deal with the government and law-enforcement. In January, for example, CAIR’s California branch posted an image on its website urging Muslims to “Build A Wall of Resistance. Don’t Talk to the FBI.” CAIR was founded by Islamists with ties to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is the Gaza-based affiliate of the brotherhood.

Critics say Islamists’ campaign to limit cooperation with law-enforcement is a part of the groups’ effort to prevent the assimilation of immigrant and U.S.-born Muslims into secular American culture. This effort is also illustrated by pressure on Muslim girls to wear the hijab, which isolates them from non-Muslim men, the critics say.

Khera and her group have worked closely with CAIR on several advocacy campaigns, including a current project to roll-back restrictions on U.S. fund-raising for overseas groups. In May 2008, for example, Khera’s group also allied with CAIR and two other groups to denounce a Senate report on Islamic terror that was prepared by independent Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins. The report, according to Khera’s group, “falsely character[izes] Muslims in America as susceptible to ‘radicalization.’”

Since then, several Muslims living in American have cited Islamic justifications for their participation in numerous terror attacks, including the murder of 11 soldiers in Fort Hood, the attempted detonation of a bomb in downtown New York, and the murder of more than 150 Hindus and Jews in Mumbai, India. Islamist groups in the United States, such as CAIR and Khera’s group, have not organized demonstrations to protest the attacks. Instead, they have repeatedly characterized widespread criticism of the Koran’s promotion of jihad as “bigotry,” while arguing that the many attackers misquote and misunderstand the Koran’s numerous statements urging jihad against non-believers and Jews.

Khera did not respond to TheDC’s request for comment.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/28/durbin-flubs-muslim-discrimination-hearings/#ixzz1HxPwTidF

Obama at the Podium Again Loving His Voice

The following article, “Obama on Libya:  How Did He Do?”was written by John Hinderaker at PowerLine:

“Tonight President Obama addressed the American people on Libya, something that he chose not to do when he initially ordered our military involvement there. Instead, he made a terse announcement and left for Latin America. Now, a couple of weeks later and with poll data looking weak, he decided to deliver the usual speech to the American people.

Was tonight’s speech effective? You can read it here. In my opinion, the biggest problem with Obama’s speeches is that he can’t resist hedging his bets. Thus, tonight’s speech included a little bit of everything. The basic rationale for intervention, as Obama described it, was humanitarian. But then, what about the multiple humanitarian disasters in Africa, some of which have been going on for years without any U.S. military action? And what about Yemen, Bahrain and Syria? When, exactly, does the humanitarian impulse kick in?

Obama invoked our national interest, but half-heartedly:

Now we saw regime forces on the outskirts of the city. We knew that if we wanted — if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.

It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen. And so nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop the killing and enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973.

This is, of course, a non sequitur. Why is our national interest suddenly implicated in Benghazi when it is not implicated across Africa, in Yemen, in Bahrain or in Syria? Obama makes no effort to explain why national security has suddenly come into play.

With his usual mean-spiritedness, Obama could not resist contrasting himself with his predecessor. But the contrast made little sense:

Moreover, America has an important strategic interest in preventing Gadhafi from overrunning those who oppose him. A massacre would have driven thousands of additional refugees across Libya’s borders, putting enormous strains on the peaceful — yet fragile — transitions in Egypt and Tunisia. The democratic impulses that are dawning across the region would be eclipsed by the darkest form of dictatorship, as repressive leaders concluded that violence is the best strategy to cling to power. The writ of the United Nations Security Council would have been shown to be little more than empty words, crippling that institution’s future credibility to uphold global peace and security. So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America.

To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq. Thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our troops and the determination of our diplomats, we are hopeful about Iraq’s future. But regime change there took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya.

If you can make any sense of that passage, we would like to hear from you. Obama says we have a vital national interest in Libya, and he declares that Qaddafi “must go.” Yet regime change is not our goal: “[B]roadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.” If I understand Obama correctly–and believe me, it isn’t easy–he is invoking Iraq as an explanation for why he doesn’t want to overthrow Qaddafi: regime change in Iraq took too long and cost too much.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that deposing Qaddafi would be as hard or take as long. Actually, Qaddafi appears to be hanging by a thread. Obama leaves himself in an inconsistent position, where the U.S. ostensibly has a vital interest in preventing Qaddafi from terrorizing his own people, but not vital enough to do the one thing that would actually bring about the desired result: get rid of Qaddafi.

The administration’s policies toward Libya and the entire region continue to be a mass of inconsistency and incoherence. In my view, Obama’s speech tonight did nothing to obscure that fact.”

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War over Dollars Looms at Capitol

By JANET HOOK And DAMIAN PALETTA     at the wall street journal

“The White House and Democratic lawmakers, with less than two weeks left to avoid a government shutdown, are assembling a proposal for roughly $20 billion in additional spending cuts that could soon be offered to Republicans, according to people close to the budget talks.

That would come on top of $10 billion in cuts that Congress has already enacted and would represent a deeper reduction than the Obama administration and Senate Democrats had offered previously in negotiations. But it isn’t clear that would be enough to satisfy Republicans, who initially sought $61 billion in spending cuts and face pressure from tea-party activists not to compromise.

GOP Congressional aides said they had not received a new proposal from the White House over the weekend.

With the federal deficit projected to rise to a record $1.65 trillion this year, how Washington is going to control government spending has become the central point of dispute between the parties.

Congress returns from a weeklong recess Monday facing an array of budget issues, including a deadline of April 8 to reach agreement on a spending plan for the current fiscal year.

With negotiations on the current-year budget proving difficult, leaders of both parties are trying to broaden the discussion.

House Republicans are preparing a budget resolution for 2012 that would make major spending reductions in entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, and give states more flexibility in how they spend federal Medicaid money.

Separately, Senate GOP leaders are urging all 47 Republicans in the chamber to sign on to a proposed constitutional amendment to balance the budget and demand a vote on it.

Those efforts are aimed at turning attention from spending on defense, education, research and other so-called discretionary programs—the one-third of the budget that is at issue in the current debate—to the broader sources of the nation’s deficit problems, which come from entitlement programs and the cost of interest on the growing national debt.

By signaling that they will make efforts to rein in entitlements and balance the budget, Republicans may also diminish the disappointment among some conservative activists and tea-party groups that this year’s spending cuts aren’t bigger.

Many tea-party activists are already complaining that Republican leaders have fallen short of budget-cutting goals. Critics are calling a rally on Capitol Hill Thursday to air their complaints.

The pace of the budget debate is quickening amid a convergence of deadlines. The House is scheduled to begin debate on the 2012 budget resolution in early April.

The Treasury Department this week is likely to issue an updated report on when it expects the ceiling on the federal debt will have to be increased; its most recent estimate was that the borrowing limit would be reached between April 15 and the end of May.

Negotiators are still working on short-term spending policy because, with the parties stalemated over the 2011 budget, the government has been operating under a series of interim appropriations bills, and the latest expires April 8.

The House has passed a bill that would cut $61 billion from 2010 levels. Democrats say those cuts would be too large, but large numbers voted in favor of $10 billion in cuts as part of the last two short-term government funding measures.

Negotiations to bridge the $51 billion difference have been conducted by aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) and White House Budget Director Jacob Lew.

Those talks faltered last week amid a dispute over where to start discussion. Republicans insisted that the two sides negotiate from the legislation passed by the House to cut $61 billion, which would put the burden on Democrats to say which cuts they didn’t find acceptable.

The White House and Democrats said they had expected, based on earlier discussions with Republicans, to talk about cuts from current spending levels. Democrats said they were blindsided by the new GOP position, and a Tuesday meeting blew up over the point.

Republicans said the Democrats had laid out a proposal that made insufficient spending cuts. Democrats wouldn’t comment on its contents, but GOP aides said the proposal purported to cut $11 billion, but amounted to less because of “gimmicks” that inflated the impact of the proposed savings. In turn, Democrats say Republican leaders keep shifting their bargaining position under pressure from conservative members, making negotiations confusing.

The ill will that erupted last week has cast doubt on when negotiations will resume. Some people tracking events said that Democrats are continuing to prepare their proposal that makes additional spending cuts, but when and whether they are offered is in question.

Anticipating tough tea-party opposition to raising the debt limit, Senate Republicans are planning soon to mount a new push for a constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget, which may be unveiled soon after Congress reconvenes this week.

Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has said he wants Republicans to demand a Senate vote on the amendment as a condition of voting on an increase in the debt ceiling.

Democrats are also contending with division in their ranks. Many have hopes that a bipartisan group of senators known as the Gang of Six can reach agreement on a broad deficit-reduction package.

It would not only set targets for cuts but also call for an overhaul of the tax code and changes to entitlement programs, including Social Security. The group, which hopes to get broad support by including elements that each party likes and dislikes, is expected to meet again Monday.

Republicans say any comprehensive deal to rein in the deficit must include changes to Social Security.

But Mr. Reid, like many fellow Democrats, argues that Social Security shouldn’t be part of such a deal because it faces no immediate financial problems and therefore isn’t part of the deficit problem.

Mr. Reid is emphasizing his opposition by hosting an event for 200 people in a Senate office building, featuring other senators as well as beneficiaries who will recount how Social Security helps them. Organizers said the event was Mr. Reid’s idea.”

—Carol E. Lee and Naftali Bendavid contributed to this article.

Modern Morality at Your Corner University

The following article, “Term Paper company Irks Profs, Students”, was written by Debra O’Connor at the Pioneer Press:

“The college senior in Colorado felt cheated when for $23 per page she ordered a custom-written term paper from a Twin Cities company and it wasn’t delivered on time.

Never mind that she was cheating by passing off a paper written by a stranger as her own. She complained to the Better Business Bureau about Essaywritingcompany.com, owned by Jordan Kavoosi of Farmington.

“I ordered it, and they were supposed to have it back to me within four days,” she told the Watchdog. “I constantly emailed. Nobody replied to me. Then (Kavoosi) calls me and says under no circumstances am I going to get a refund.”

It wasn’t the first complaint filed against the company, which has resolved most of those registered with the Minnesota BBB.

But President and CEO Dana Badgerow calls Kavoosi an “entrepreneur who is skating on the thin edge of legality, and for sure he’s plunged into what we think is unethical behavior.”

The Watchdog, whose favorite part of academic life was writing term papers, asked Kavoosi if he had any problem with making a living by enabling students to commit academic misconduct that, if caught, can result in failing grades or worse.

“It doesn’t bother me at all. I just see it as a business. It’s as if I was selling shoes,” Kavoosi said. “I just chose something that would make money … and was kind of catchy and would help people out.

“People are too busy, and that’s why we exist.”

His Colorado client, who said she has disputed the credit card bill for her term paper, would agree with that.

She has used Essaywriting company.com and other such companies because, she said, “I work full time and I go to school full time and I’m a single parent. Lack of time, basically.”

Dubious claims — specifically the one guaranteeing an “A” grade — prompted the BBB to go “secret-shopping.” For $40, the BBB purchased a two-page paper titled “The Ethics of Advertising to Children,” then took it to Dan Wackman, a professor in the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication who teaches the topic.

He gave it a “C.”

Wackman knew that it was purchased from a company, but that didn’t affect his grading, he said. He had concrete reasons to mark it down: It cited unidentified sources, it was unfocused and it failed to refer to recent dramatic changes affecting the topic.

Every class syllabus at the U is required to have a section on academic misconduct, including plagiarism and cheating, Wackman said. Each instructor denotes a consequence such as getting an “F” on the assignment or flunking the entire course.

But that’s not the only bad consequence of buying a term paper, he said.

“When students skip the steps of actually doing the work, which is when the learning occurs, they’re cheating themselves,” he said. “That woman is cheating herself. It’s her own loss.”

Thanks to Mark Waldeland for sending in this article.

Is Tommy Robinson the Only Evangelist for Democracy in the West?

With the exception of Chris Christie,  why aren’t there any Tommy Robinsons in America?   Like the Brits until Tommy Robinson arrived  from nowhere except the common folk of England, are   Americans so  feminized, so  wussed, so wimpy and emasculated by university that they cannot recognize the mortal threat to democracy of MILITANT ISLAM and Obama  Marxism?

Is there any Tommy Robinson left in America?     I don’t think so…..click on to answer for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAq4KhfOd-s

THE WIMP GOES TO WAR!…..by Michael Ledeen

What an appropriate title!!  So direct, so rhythmic, so perfect Obama!     I wish I had thought of it myself, but alas,  we can’t win everything, so I’ll share my pleasure. with you.  Michael Ledeen writes:

“I was right to worry about what the president might do to demonstrate his virility on the international stage, and the confusion surrounding just about everything having to do with the Libya thing certainly proves that.  But I had underestimated this administration’s misreading of the situation, and they have dragged most of the pundits along with them, to such an extent that it’s nearly impossible to see Libya in context.  That’s not unusual or even surprising.  When Egypt happened, it was all about Egypt.  When Tunisia happened, that was the lone subject for analysis.  And now it’s all Libya, all the time.

But it’s not about Libya.  It’s about the big war in which we are involved.  That war extends from Somalia to the Persian Gulf, from Sudan into Egypt, and thence to Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey, and across North Africa.  It reaches South and Central America, and some of its footsoldiers are undoubtedly on our soil. The tensions and passions involved in that war have turned many of those countries into battlefields, and since we have refused to see the war for what it is, we do not have a clear picture of the fighters, nor even a reliable way to anticipate future events.  And the hell of it is that we have been in a position to benefit enormously from this war, but instead we find that we might “win” in Libya (topple Qadaffi, empower the “rebels,” launch the usual cycle of new constitution, new elections and new government) and utterly lose the day, as enemies even more virulent than the colorful colonel of Tripoli take over.

We have to win the big war.  Decisions about Libya should be subordinate to a serious big war strategy, which in turn should be aimed against our main enemies.  Regime change in Tripoli is a worthy objective, but it’s not a crucial strategic mission.  We should want regime change in Syria and Iran.

There are lots of reasons to criticize Obama for the Libya thing, but the most important is never mentioned:  it’s the wrong battlefield. The battlefields that will determine the outcome of the big war are Tehran and Damascus, and there are ongoing battles on both.  We could make a decisive difference, without bombing anything, without risking any American lives, just by giving political and perhaps some financial and technological support to the Iranian and Syrian rebellions.  The tyrannical regimes are hollow, the people have demonstrated great courage, and if — as I keep hearing — we have gone to war in Libya in support of people who are fighting for their freedom against evil dictators, all the more reason to support the Iranians and Syrians, who are fighting against killers of even more Americans than Qadaffi has killed.

I don’t think that Obama and his three Valkyries (Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power) see the big war plain, but I hope they see the logic according to which if-it’s-right-to-defend-Libyans-it’s-even-more-right-to-defend-Iranians-and-Syrians.  There is one pretty straw in the wind:  Obama’s video to the Iranian people on the occasion of the Norooz holiday.  “I am with you,” he said to young Iranians fighting their evil regime.  No more outstretched hand, it seems.

It isn’t a pretty moment, but as we all know, it’s better to be lucky than to be smart.  If, through the confused underbrush of mushy internationalism and humanitarian interventionism we arrive at a decision to finally challenge our main enemies, I’ll take it.  If we get an end to the reign of the fanatics in Damascus and Tehran, the whole world will change, decidedly for the better.

Valkyries!  If we could bring down the Soviet Empire without bombing Leningrad, we can surely bring down the hollow tyrannies of our mortal enemies in the Middle East in a similar manner.  Khamenei’s Islamic Republic is even more fragile than Gorbachev’s Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

If, on the other hand, we’re doing the Libya thing because our leader wants to show the world that he’s fully capable of dropping bombs on a madman with oil, then the world will get decidedly grimmer.

Obama!  Now that your brackets have been busted (yes, I was at the Verizon Center when little Butler brought down big bad Pitt), play in the big leagues.  We’re America, we dream big dreams, we can change the world.  You’ll love it.  But go for the big win, go for victory in the big war, the real war.  The little places will become oh so much easier.”

Comment:  I knew kids like Obama when I taught school.   Those who wanted quick self esteem, whether earned or not, would pick on a weakling with great noise, pomp and celebration.   This evening Obama  wimp will play  ’bully’ and  blow a lot of huff and puff as he primps and pimps in front of his minions to flex a muscle.

Be that as it is, I wish him and us luck giving Libya lip as long as this nut, Moammar Qaddaffi, is around.”

Michael Ledeen writes at Pajamas Media.

Mark Steyn: A Pause in the Day’s Occupation

Let’s face it….there may be hundreds of creatures hired as reporters for the American Mass Media.   One is often difficult to distinguish from another as if all computers work exclusively from fingers.

But, then there is  Mark Steyn……..He is best when he is not happy and for a conservative today, there is lots to be unhappy about.   Here he writes about the Closet Case found at SteynonLine:

Closet Case

By Mark Steyn  

Hillaire Belloc on Fleet Street:

You cannot hope to bribe or twist
Thank God, the British journalist.
But seeing what the man will do unbribed
There’s no occasion to.

We may have to modify that for the court eunuchs of Obama’s state media:

As the unaware $500-a-head invitees dined on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread with grapes honey and gorgonzola cheese, grilled chicken Caesar and garden vegetable wraps, veteran reporter Scott Powers was locked away.

The Orlando Sentinel reporter was ushered into the closet inside wealthy property developer Alan Ginsburg’s Winter Falls mansion, after being told that Joe Biden and Senator Bill Nelson had not yet arrived.

They were due to speak to the audience to raise money for the 2012 elections.

He was told he could only come out when the politicians were ready to give their speeches.

As with Lara Logan in Tahrir Square, even when it’s one of their own on the sharp end of the agreed fairytale, the media obligingly look the other way:

Powers has all the details, even pictures of the inside of the closet where he was held; but it appears the Sentinel editors have refused to let him report on all the details of what some are calling a kidnapping!

You cannot hope to twist or bribe
The US monodaily scribe.
He’s so cooperative, I posit,
He’ll let us lock him in the closet.”

Roger L. Simon and Why the Left Doesn’t Understand Iran

Roger L. Simon wrote the following at Pajamas Media:

Greetings to Mahdi, the one who all beings on Earth and In Heaven love without end.”

About two weeks ago, when Reza Khalili first emailed me a video of the new Iranian-produced documentary – The Coming Is Near — I knew I was witnessing something extraordinary. (Reza was preparing a translation at the time, which is available as of today on PJ Media.)

The message of the short film was clear: The current crisis in the Middle East (Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, now Syria… all of it) is a harbinger that the Mahdi (the hidden one, the Twelfth Imam) was coming soon and that, in the ensuing chaos and destruction, Khomeini’s version of Shia Islam would shortly rule over the entire globe.

It seemed like an Iranian version of The Triumph of the Will. Although not remotely as artful as Leni Riefenstahl’s film, The Coming was in many ways as blood-curdling, perhaps more so for its corny time-lapse photography of flowers opening and oddly stiff narration. I thought it should get as wide a dispersion as possible.

And yet simultaneously I thought that was useless. The people who would most need to see this video — our liberal/left intelligentsia — either would not watch it or dismiss it as “mere propaganda” and of little significance.

Propaganda it indeed is, but propaganda of a very special sort because its makers truly believe their own ideology. Perhaps, I shouldn’t use the word ideology. They believe their own religion, for religion is the more proper term in this instance, all the pronouncements in the film being of an essentially theological nature, and thus incontrovertible by logic, such as the following from Imam Bagher: “The messiah will not rise unless fear, great earthquakes, and sedition take place.” (Ah, Japan…)

To the Western mind this seems like mumbo-jumbo, of course, or something a Seventh Day Adventist might try to flog when collecting donations door-to-door. To the leftist, long divorced as he or she normally is from conventional religious faith, pronouncements of this sort appear particularly absurd. No one of intelligence could possibly believe the superstitious nonsense the mullahs were mouthing. It was just a method of keeping the impoverished masses on their side.

The leftist assumption, therefore, is that the religion is not really believed by the leadership, but that it is exploited much in the manner Elmer Gantry — in a considerably more localized way, of course — exploited Christianity. Or perhaps some Medieval pope used his faith as a power grab.

The leftist worldview is so alienated from religion it cannot take it seriously or think anyone else takes it seriously. Therefore Khamenei, et al., must be masquerading for their own purposes. Theirs is just a negotiating stance, albeit of a longterm nature. Hence, Obama’s view that he could win over Ahmadinejad on nuclear weapons with discussion around a table accompanied by a bribe or two. But one viewing of this film reminds us there is nothing to discuss any number of bribes could resolve. Ahmadinejad sees an entirely different universe.

Watching this film is indeed more disturbing in the face of current Middle East conditions. The entire region is caught between brutal semi-secular dictators who espouse Islam only when convenient and brutal dictators who always espouse some version of Islam and wish to control the world through it. Off in the margins, are a handful of blogging freethinkers who, if we are to believe recent reports from Egypt, have already been cast aside.

The Iranians are doing their best to take advantage of the situation on as many fronts as possible. Some of them, of course, are doing this for geopolitical reasons or from fear that their Islamic regime may be the next to go in this wave of reform (or whatever it is). But many, at the highest reaches of their government, believe that their Mahdi is coming, as this film indicates. Under those circumstances, they would not fear nuclear holocaust. They might even welcome it.

So what are we to do? Well, I have nothing to offer, but we should at least be clear in our understanding. If you have a liberal friend, pass the video on to them. Maybe they will look at it — and think.”

Comment, rather Question:   What is it that  today’s leadership of the American Democrat Party understand besides Marxism?

Not all Marxist Loonies are American. Let’s Check out some Swedes!

“The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.

When it comes to taking cultural Marxism and “gender neutrality” to its logical conclusion, you just can’t beat the Swedes:

Transgendered people need more protection, the Liberal Party has announced, adding it proposes that the hate crime law be clarified so that it is clear that it also applies to this group.

A previous sample from Gates of Vienna:

Meet Pop, a two-and-a-half-year-old Swedish child whose parents are refusing to say whether the apple of their eye is a boy or a girl. Pop’s parents, both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few — those who have changed the child’s diaper — nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information. In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.

And from the Brussels Journal:
- – - - – - – - -

The Swedish Green Party state explicitly that the concepts male and female are “socially constructed” and forced upon all human beings. In order to reach the new world order, it is paramount that all such artificial identities are broken down. This should be facilitated by the education system and specially trained teachers. They believe that “all human beings” should be free to choose whatever name they desire. By this they appear to mean “gender” as well. They want everything to be “gender neutral,” not only marriage ceremonies but identity cards.”

Posted by Baron Bodissey at 7/28/2010 10:03

Comment:    Welcome folks to the Obama future of Marxist government of forced equality elevated by the feminism  of  Democrat Party censorship known as Political Correctness.

Lefty Liars Lie Again: “Marxists, NOT Anarchists Tear London Apart

Anarchists Said to Be a Threat to Prince William and

Kate Middleton’s Wedding

THIS LIE WAS Posted by Associated Press

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 ”Anarchists said to be a threat to UK royal wedding Police and protesters clash in the center of London on March 26, 2011 during a mass demonstration against government financial cuts.”

Note the word “ANARCHISTS’ AGAIN.  THIS IS YET A REPEAT OF THE ABOVE LIE.   THE HOODS RIOTING IN THE STREETS WERE UNION THUGS AND KIN WHO  PROTESTED GOVERNMENT EFFORTS TO MEET BUDGETS.   “ANARCHISTS” ARE NOT INVESTED IN GOVERNMENT MANIPULATED  BRIBINGS OF LABORERS OR ANY OTHER GROUP OF GOVERNMENT EXPANSIONISTS.

IT COULD BE THAT TODAY’S REPORTERS DON’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.

I AM NOT SURE THEY ARE THAT UNEDUCATED, BUT THEY MAY BE.

 

“Scotland Yard is bracing to fend off possible security threats to the royal wedding from groups that range from terrorists to anti-monarchists.

The announcement Monday came only days after a peaceful demonstration Saturday against government spending cuts was disrupted by violence. Police made more than 200 arrests as the march drew 250,000 people to London, the largest protest in Britain since the Iraq war.

ACCORDING TO HONEST REPORTS THE LONDON POLICE DID NEARLY NOTHING TO INTERFERE WITH THE RIOTING AND THE INVASION AND DESTRUCTION OF PERSONAL PROPERTY.   REPORTS CLAIM A FEMALE OFFICER ACTUALLY HELD THE DOOR TO A BANK OPEN FOR EASIER ENTRANCE AND EXIT FOR THE THUGS.

THE RIOTERS WERE OUTRAGED AT GOVERNMENT BUDGET CUTS!

“A small group separated from the main protest, hurling ammonia-filled light bulbs, paint and wooden planks at officers and smashing windows near London’s Trafalgar Square.

Police commander Bob Broadhurst said the April 29 wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton carries even more of a security threat than the anti-austerity protests, and that means police officers will be able to tap into special stop-and-search powers that fall under Britain’s counterterrorism laws.

“They won’t get away with it,” Broadhurst told BBC radio Monday. “The royal wedding has a different tenor to it. It’s a security operation largely.”

British security officials have said there is no specific terror threat to the wedding, but they are monitoring chatter over the Internet and other channels.

Several anarchists and protesters used Twitter and other social media sites over the weekend to promise more mayhem on the day of the wedding. Some anti-monarchists also said they plan to have a presence near the Abbey next month.

“You’re looking at a different type of threat,” Broadhurst said, calling the threat to the royal wedding, “a threat to democracy.”

Britain’s government has pledged to scrap a law that bans any unauthorized protest within about half a mile (0.8 kilometers) of the Houses of Parliament — which includes the royal wedding venue at Westminster Abbey — but it is likely to be several months before the rule is actually dropped.

Lawmakers are now debating a bill that proposes loosening oversight of protests and suggests curbing police powers to conduct random searches. Until the bill is passed, however, ministers will have the power to ban protests along much of the wedding route — or to limit the size, duration and noise levels of any planned demonstration.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman Steve Field said Monday that police will provide adequate security for the wedding. Police were criticized Monday for being too slow to realize what some of the protesters over the weekend were planning.

“We need to learn the lessons as we go and make sure we have the right arrangements in place, and that’s what we will do in the case of the royal wedding,” Field said.

A security barrier will be erected around Westminster Abbey but police say it’s too soon to say whether wedding guests or passers-by will be searched. Police make security recommendations to the royal family, which they can choose to enact them or not.

In December, street gangs and hardcore activists infiltrated a student protest against education cuts and attacked a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla.

Several hundred people vandalized government buildings, battled riot police and yelled at the royal couple as they drove to a theater — smashing a window of their Rolls-Royce and splattering the car with paint.

Several are facing charges for the incident. The car itself is being repaired in time to ferry royal fiancee Middleton to the Abbey for the wedding.”

Associated Press writer David Stringer contributed to this report.  I’D BE ASHAMED TO HAVE MY NAME ASSOCIATED WITH THIS REPORT.    ghr