This weekend I’ll be participating in the Is the (Real) News Dead? International Conference at Pepperdine University in Malibu.

The conference is being put on by American Freedom Alliance and the list of participants can be found here.

I’ll tentatively be speaking on two different panels:

The first is “Impact of the media on the political process,” a breakout panel in the morning.

The second is an afternoon breakout panel exploring social media: “News in 140 Characters or Less: What role does social media play in shaping the news?”

I have plenty of things to say on both subjects but if anyone has any ideas to suggest then please let me know in the comments below.

As part of my military reserve duty, I’ve been in New York City this past week helping to administer Fleet Week. Fleet Week is a big annual New York event that involves thousands of Sailors and Marines in the Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps. The aim is to promote greater understanding and awareness of the nation’s maritime military services.

Since today is Sunday, I attended Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. (Though, truth be told, this was my first time in church in a while, I’m not proud to admit.)

Navy Admiral John C. Harvey, Jr. and Marine Corps Lieutenant General Dennis J. Hejlik led roughly 50 Sailors and Marines into St. Patrick’s. (Yeah, the ACLU will cry “violation of church and state,” but they’re wrong.) The attendees all clapped, and many rose to their feet, when we entered and left the church. The recessional hymn was America the Beautiful. These gestures were very nice and very touching.

Of course, the church congregants weren’t clapping for us personally. They were clapping, instead, for U.S. military personnel, past and present, whom we represented. These are the men and women who risk life and limb so that we might be free. None of us in St. Patrick’s pews, after all, were being shot at, or are at risk of losing a limb or our lives.

On this Memorial Day weekend, let us remember and honor our fellow Americans who have gone into harm’s way to protect and defend us, and who continue to answer the call to duty. They are truly our nation’s best; and we do not understand or appreciate them enough.

–

John R. Guardiano is a writer and analyst in Arlington, Virginia. You can follow him on Twitter (@Guardian0).

Now, whatever they do, if and when they feel like getting around to capturing him, he'll supposedly face trial in Yemen. That does not inspire confidence, given Yemen's track record for letting jihadists walk, and for the series of mixed signals on al-Awlaki prior to this announcement.

Friend-and-Ally, or, Yemen the Jihadist "Bus Station" Update. "Yemen refuses to let U.S. try cleric," by Eli Lake for the Washington Times, May 12:

Yemen's government has announced it will not extradite Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born jihadist cleric who is credited with inspiring the recent wave of anti-American terrorist plots by al Qaeda recruits.

Over the weekend, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al Qirbi said Mr. al-Awlaki would be tried in the Arabian Peninsula state once he is captured.

"The man the U.S. wants to be extradited will stand trial in Yemen under the national law," Mr. al Qirbi was quoted as saying in the Yemen state news agency, al Saba.

Earlier in the weekend, Mr. al Qirbi told the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Dar that "because of his recent terrorist activity, al-Awlaki is now wanted by the Yemeni government. Hence, he must be tried ... in his homeland, but never by other governments."...

There are also apparently constitutional issues, as described later in the article, but it is curious that al-Qirbi does not cite them.

The weekend Chris Matthews show is generally made up of echo-chamber panels who– no matter what the polling– assure each other enthusiastically that Barack Obama is a political genius besides being our Dear Leader.

Today, after everyone had loudly proclaimed that the Obama proposed takover of the financial system was a political home run, not to mention real leadership on the tough issues, they turned to those intransigent contrary nasty Republicans.

Chris Matthews started babbling about the party of Teddy Roosevelt, then burst outL

MATTHEWS: It’s funny you have to keep reminind Republicans about Teddy Roosevelt, he’s only the most popular Republican EVER!

Uh, no, Chris.  I know you hate to admit it, but Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican President; and no on has more reverential biographies published about them on an annual basis; and only Jesus has more books written gaining life lessons from his example.

Easily the most ingenious calculation for instant bestsellerdom has to be the book above.  Combining the always popular subject of Honest Abe with the current fad of all things vampire is a marketing gold.

Now, if we could just figure out who sucked all the good sense out of Chris Matthews’s brain…

Our Joseph Klein already did a terrific job of parsing Time Magazine’s Joe Klein’s deranged outburst on the weekend Chris Matthews Show that Sarah Palin and Glenn beck were guilty of “sedition.”

(It’s gotta be tough to keep up with making sure that people know the difference between Joe and Joseph.  I remember the first time I saw an article by Joseph on Frontpage I briefly thought, “Really, Joe Klein wrote THAT?”  Then, like when I get an email purporting that George Carlin or Robin Williams said something patriotic, I immediately thought better of it.  At least if there is something crazy floating around under the name David Forsmark, people are sure where to come about it!)

So, it’s understandable that Joseph focused on Joe and missed that the co-author of the season’s big political book, Game Change, John Heilemann also chimed in:

JOHN HEILEMANN: “And Joe’s right and I’ll name another person, I’ll name Rush Limbaugh who uses this phrase constantly and talks about the Obama Administration as a regime.  That phrase which has connotations of tyranny.

This is beyond funny, since Rush has started with the “regime” gag to specifically bug Chris Matthews’s hypocrisy in objecting to the term on this basis—and Heilemann has himself in the past used the term to apply to BOTH the Bush and Obama Administrations!

This weekend’s Chris Matthews Show featured a fevered discussion about the Tea Party movement in which Norah O’Donnell, who approached a black guy at a Tea Party and asked if he was uncomfortable ranted about the huge increase in “hate groups and militias” and Kathleen Parker, the supposed “conservative” who just got a Pulitzer Prize for Palin Derangement Syndrome nodded sagely and said Republicans were going to suffer when “something happens.”

Heilemann continued his rant:

JOHN HEILEMANN: And what’s so interesting about it to me, to get to Norah’s point – what is the focus, what is the cause of this? You think back to 1994, there was Ruby Ridge. There was Waco. There were triggering incidents. There’s been nothing like that. The only thing that’s changed in the last 15 months is the election of Barack Obama. And as far as I can see, in terms of the policies that Obama has implemented, there’s nothing.”

Nope, just the takeover of GM and Chrysler, the bailout of Goldman Sachs, the adding of $2 Trillion of national debt in about 5 minutes, the attempted takeover of the health care system which settled for un-Constitutional methods to take the first step in that direction, the proposal of an energy tax/regulation that will control every aspect of the economy, and talk of amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens in time to vote for Obama.

What else could motivate these people besides race?

Even funnier was the insistence by Matthews, Heilemann and Joe Klein that 60s antiwar protesters were “fun” and protested with a “smile” unlike the angry Tea Party seditious mobs.

Right, actively trying to make your country lose a war is so much more legitimate than objecting to the list above!

The silver lining is that compared to the pathetic viewership of the weekend Chris Matthews Show, his MSNBC program is a ratings juggernaut.

Yesterday, I told you about the troubling yet somehow not very surprising incident that took place in Canada’s national capital last weekend: two young supporters of Israel (one Jewish, one not) were threatened with a machete by an Arabic speaking gang.

(Let’s hope the same Ottawa constabulary that primly informed Ann Coulter that they “couldn’t guarantee her safety” will do a better job protecting ordinary folks from angry Jew haters roaming the streets.)

Last night, Michael Coren interviewed one of the young men, Nick Bergamini, about his experiences. Coren (a veteran broadcaster at Another Network) was particularly amused by the fellow’s experiences with the tax payer funded (if not necessarily “supported”) Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

Apparently, the CBC wanted to interview Nick, but told him they could only put him on the air  if they could find a representative from “the other side.”

Alas, the CBC was unable to locate any prominent members of the Machete Wielding Community to provide “balance.”

Luckily, Michael Coren and his producers at (privately owned and operated) CTS didn’t let their inability to speak to the star of Friday the 13th via satellite prevent them from doing their jobs:

The Burlington, Vermont School District does not give students a day off to commemorate the September 11 attacks, but on Friday, September 10, 2010 Burlington schools will close early for the weekend to celebrate an Islamic Feast.

Chaired by once-disbarred lawyer and admitted embezzler Fredrick Lane, the Burlington School Board on March 9 voted 8-1 to add Eid al-Fitr and Yom Kippur to the school calendar starting this Fall.

School officials claim it is all about maximizing attendance.  The Burlington Free Press reports:

School Superintendent Jeanne Collins said Burlington High School Principal Amy Mellencamp told her and School Board members that about 75 of the high school’s roughly 1,100 students were absent on Eid last year. About 50 students are absent on a typical day, she said….

But, in 2009, Eid al-Fitr was on a weekend–running from sunset on Saturday, September 19 through sunset Sunday, September 20.  In 2008, most of Eid al-Fitr fell on Tuesday, September 30–the same day as Rosh Hashanah.  According to the Burlington daily,

(Board Chair Fred) Lane said the Burlington school system has long had a sizable Jewish population and now has an increasing number of Muslims. Jewish and Muslim students often take days off on their respective holidays. If the schools close the on those holidays, some of the attendance problems go away, Lane said.

Of course the “progressives” never saw fit to honor a Jewish holiday until it was needed as a smokescreen for the Islamic holiday.  Neither of the last two years attendance figures could give any actual reflection of any possible Muslim students skipping school.  The ability to slip by with lame excuses like “attendance” is a key motivation to incubate such counter-cultural Gramscian initiatives in “progressive” colonies where they are likely to go unquestioned before being cloned to deploy against the rest of the US and the world.

In recent months, Islamists and their “progressive” appeasers have been working overtime to add Islamic holidays to the calendar in other liberal jurisdictions.

In Hawaii, the State Legislature last year voted to celebrate Islam Day on September 24, 2009–a day which signifies nothing in the Islamic calendar, but just so happens to coincide with September 11 in the old Julian calendar favored by the Eastern Orthodox Christians conquered by Islam.

In New York City, a coalition of community organizers, unions and Muslims won a non-binding City Council vote to celebrate Eid a-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

Because Burlington schools have a long summer vacation, and Islam uses a lunar calendar, the Eid al-Fitr Islamic Feast day will not actually appear on the school calendar again for eight or nine years — until either June 15, 2018 or June 4, 2019.  So Burlington “progressives” were running against the clock.  If they had not acted this year, they would have lost their chance to use Eid al-Fitr in an effort to further the break down America’s formerly dominant cultural paradigm.  Yom Kippur falls on Saturdays in 2010 and 2011.

The culture war has been an interest of Lane’s since at least 2000.  He has been a sporadic DailyKos diarist since 2005.  In 2006, he authored, “The Decency Wars: The Campaign to Cleanse American Culture.”  In 2008 Lane published “The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right’s Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court.”  He promotes himself as a nationwide speaker on his own website.

In his Amazon.com biography, Lane proudly lists his engagements:

On August 23, 2006, I had the honor of appearing on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” to discuss The Decency Wars. I have also appeared as a guest on a variety of other national television programs, including ABC’s “Good Morning America Weekend,” NBC’s “Weekend Today,” ABC’s “Nightline,” CBS’s “60 Minutes,” and assorted BBC documentaries. In addition to those televised appearances, I have been interviewed by numerous radio shows, magazines, and newspapers around the world on topics relating to my books.

Over the last fifteen years, I have frequently been invited to lecture before college, university, and professional audiences to lecture on Internet technology, workplace and personal privacy, computer forensics, and censorship issues.

With Lane having done so much to smash the dominant paradigm, on April 18, 2008 the Vermont Professional Responsibility Board found him to have been “rehabilitated”, and recommended readmission to the Bar.   As evidence of rehabilitation, the report explains: “Amy Werbel, his domestic partner, testified at some length about his success in putting his personal life back together.  He is now divorced, as is Werbel.”

Regarding “…the risk to client money if Lane should resume law office practice”,  the 2008 report states:

“(Lane) acknowledged to the Panel that this might be a concern, but he had no present intention of returning to practice, and if he did so, it would not be as a solo practitioner, but rather in association with other lawyers.  While this is no guarantee, it is additional assurance to the Panel that client monies would not be at risk.”

For “progressive” culture manipulators, the clock is ticking on two other Islamic holidays.  Eid al-Adha will fall on September 11 in the year 2016.  Islamic New Year–1 Muharram–will fall on September 11, 2018.  After that it will be decades before the next opportunity.  For this reason,   Gramscian strategy dictates that some “progressives” will become eager to celebrate these holidays over the next six to eight years with interest peaking in early 2016 and early 2018, respectively.

Date symbolism is not just a “progressive” fetish.  It is very important to al-Qaeda as well.

September 11, 2001 marked the 318th anniversary of the defeat of the Turkish Ottoman army as it laid siege to Vienna September 11 and 12, 1683.  After 1,059 years of Islamic conquest of the Persian Sassanids and then the Byzantine Romans, Christian victory at Vienna marked the beginning of an Islamic decline which would continue unabated until Christian Europe had colonized nearly all Islamic countries.  The climax came at the end of World War One with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the abolition of the final Islamic Caliphate by Turkish secularist rebels led by Kemal Ataturk.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the world’s key Islamist movement, was founded in 1928 to re-create this lost Caliphate.  Muslim Brotherhood agents lead most US Islamist organizations.  Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood operative, became the number two person in al-Qaeda after leading his Egyptian Islamic jihad group to merge with Osama bin-Laden’s “base” in 1998.

By attacking the “New Rome” on September 11, al-Qaeda makes the claim that Allah intends for Muslims to re-ignite the old wars of Islamic conquest.

Oh, and Fred Lane?  What was he doing around the time of September 11, 2001?  According to his 2002 disbarment report, Lane had been Treasurer of the Chittenden County, Vermont Democratic Party.  The report explains:

“Without having permission to do so, the Respondent wrote checks to cash and used the money for personal reasons.  Between July of 2001 and March of 2002, the Respondent removed between $1,500 and $2,000 from the Party’s account and used it for personal expenses.

“As a result of the fact that the Respondent was using the Party’s money for personal reasons, the account was often overdrawn.  The bank charged a daily fee to the overdrawn account.  The fee eventually rose to slightly more than $300.”

In resigning from the Vermont Bar, Lane in 2002 agreed that “The material facts upon which these allegations are based are true.”

At the time, Lane has just published his first book, “Obscene Profits: The Entrepreneurs of Pornography in the Cyber Age.”  His removal from the Bar came shortly after he was elected to the Burlington School Board.

In Lane’s last post on DailyKos, he complains that:

“Senator John McCain employed the services of former ‘American Idol’ make-up artist Tifanie White to get the Senator camera-ready at televised events earlier this year.

“The cost? According to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, $5,583.43 during the last reporting period. That certainly blows away the $400 that John Edwards spent on his notorious haircut.”

According to the signature line on the post, Lane is beginning work on a new book, titled “People in Glass Houses….”

Professor Karol Sikora, the London-based doctor who examined Megrahi and predicted he would be dead by last October, admitted this weekend that the fact the bomber is still alive might be “difficult” for the families of the 270 victims of the attack.

Read the whole thing.

The Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) gathering this weekend included some odd moments, some odd speakers, and some odd outcomes. But it also included some fine moments and impressive speeches — especially one fantastic address by columnist George Will.

In his remarks, Will laid out the fundamental difference between conservatism and modern-day liberalism on the issue of equality of opportunity (which conservatives tend to support) vs. equality of outcomes (which liberals tend to support). This difference has led liberals to actively favor creating dependency on the state. Much of Will’s speech demonstrates why he believes this proposition is true.

Read more here.

“I think Barack Obama is a one-term president,” he said.

Mr. Cheney’s appearance was greeted by a standing ovation, with some even getting on top of their chairs.

“Unbelievable! Thank you!” shouted one, while a small group shouted, “Run, Dick, run.”

“A run like that is almost enough to make me want to run for office. But I’m not gonna do it,” Mr. Cheney said.

Read more here.

The Tea Party convention held this past weekend in Nashville wasn’t the biggest such gathering (600 people) or the most representative (the ticket price was more than $500) but it did give the national media a pretty good angle on the views and direction of this disparate movement.

First, it's clear the group has no leader, although Sarah Palin is certainly the honorary Queen Bee in the eyes of many attendees. Her Saturday night speech was given rapturous applause. Second, the Tea Partiers are unlikely to succumb to the temptation to form a Third Party, especially this close to the mid-term elections. They will follow Ms. Palin’s suggestion that the group remain distinct from either party and work within both parties towards electing candidates closer to the movement’s views.

Ms. Palin provided some examples of how she follows her own advice. Last week, she endorsed Rand Paul, son of former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, for an open U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky. Mr. Paul's opponent in the GOP primary is Trey Grayson, the secretary of state and a protégé of Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. Ms. Palin was criticized for endorsing someone holding the libertarian views that Rand Paul does, but she stood her ground: “He wants the states to have more say and [respects] the 10th amendment in our Constitution.”

via Who Rules the Tea Party Empire? – WSJ.com.

As someone who was a working film critic for nearly 20 years—and, I’m pretty sure, the only Baptist to win 2 Catholic Press awards for movie reviews—I probably owe Chicago Sun Time film critic Roger Ebert (and his late partner Tribune critic Gene Siskel) a nod of tribute for popularizing such writing.

Siskel and Ebert were, no doubt, reliably liberal, with a Baby Boomer love of 70s film as the height of artistic expression.  Plotless character studies like The Last Picture Show earned their endless rapture. However they also had a populist edge that escaped their colleagues like the New Yorker’s Pauline Kael.    Ebert wrote of Dirty Harry, for instance, “The movies moral position is fascist.  No doubt about it.”  Then, unlike other hoity toity critics, gave it a “Thumbs Up.”

But like the rest of the liberal press since the Bush Administration, Ebert has become more openly partisan, and his reviews—still published under the aegis of the Chicago Sun Times and syndicated to places which have eliminated film critics like my hometown newspaper The Flint Journal– are often nothing but political lectures.

However, Modern Roger’s biggest offenses come via his Twitter account.  Of course, everyone in the lamestream media has to get their Palin shots in, and Roger is no exception.  This weekend’s was a howler:

EBERT TWITTER: Some distinguished person should patiently explain to Palin why the Constitution protects citizens who “don’t deserve it.”

… and some 3^rd grader should patiently explain to Roger that the word  “citizens” in an American Constitutional sense, does not apply to Nigerians.

This was, of course, in response to Palin’s weekend comments that terrorists like Nigerian underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, do not “deserve” Constitutional rights.

Newspaper editors and publishers have been flailing about, trying to save their dying business model for years, grasping onto the next trending solution like a shipwreck survivor grabs a life preserver.  Unfortunately, most of the time they are like men in holes grabbing shovels to try and dig themselves out.

For a while, the “solution” was “branding.”  Marketing consultants made big bucks telling publishers that their 100 year-old newspaper could fix its image in the community with a snappy new slogan, as long as everything the paper said and did to promote itself tied back into it.

To cut costs, the newspapers cut local content and used more wire service features.  In other words, they got rid of what made them unique, and expected people to pay for articles they could find online for free—and a day earlier.

Then, someone came up with the bright idea that the way to fix a business with falling revenues was to improve the FREE online product—pass the shovel, please!

Now, editors are just as convinced that if writers would just blog, tweet and email, they will attract younger readers even more quickly than their older customer base is dying off.

Want to know why the newspaper business is dying?  It’s condescending crap like this.  J-schools have been churning out PC-trained young skulls full of mush with built-in liberal biases for decades.  Unfortunately for them, the market their advertisers are willing to pay the most to reach are in the mostly REPUBLICAN suburbs.

Nearly every mid-to-large city newspaper has spent a generation alienating those cutomers, just at the time technology is giving them more—and more timely– options for getting their news.

One of Roger’s favorite films is Citizen Kane, the Orson Welles classic about an egomaniacal newspaper publisher who builds an empire, but alienates those who love him.

Citizen Ebert exemplifies how the newspaper business has alienated its natural customer base.  Now that he’s such an online guy, I wonder if Roger has answered any emails from that Nigerian prince…?

No wonder readers are turning thumbs down to newspapers in larger numbers every day.

Rabbi Marc Schneier is a leading exponent of Jewish-Muslim dialogue. As founder of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, he recently described in Newsweek the successes of his second annual “Weekend of Twinning of Synagogues and Mosques.” This interfaith initiative brings together “100 synagogues and 100 mosques” for a weekend of interfaith programming. Unfortunately for the Rabbi, he used, as a local example of mosque-synagogue twinning the case in Buffalo, NY – a case which shows just how easily Jews can be deceived by radical Muslims posing as “moderates.”

“…Coming just days after the horror of extremist violence at Fort Hood ,” wrote Rabbi Schneier, “the Weekend of Twinning was heartening evidence that most Muslims are moderates, and that majorities in both the Muslim and Jewish communities seek better relations…”

It may well be true that most American Muslims are moderate, but the Jews in Buffalo seem to have got themselves snookered.

As the Research Director of an organization that investigates and scrutinizes radical Islamic groups, I was approached last fall by concerned members of the Buffalo Jewish community who asked us to help them understand the recent local efforts to forge Muslim-Jewish interfaith relationships. We were told that some of the groups and individuals behind this initiative are known for being sources of viciously anti-Israel activity and rhetoric. Together, we began a long effort to collect information on the Twinning. What we found was that the entities behind the Buffalo interfaith effort are anything but moderate.

As Rabbi Schneier describes in his Newsweek article, the event was conceived and coordinated by Robert Stall and Othman Shibly – a Jewish geriatrician and a Muslim dentist who worked to provide free health screenings to people in the community without health insurance. The doctors became close after jointly attending a medical conference in Damascus, Syria. During a break in the conference, Dr. Shibly took Dr. Stall to a Damascus mosque and introduced him to a respected Syrian cleric, Sheikh Rajab Deeb. Sheikh Deeb had been the top disciple of Dr. Shibly’s own spiritual mentor, the recently deceased Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro.

In his efforts to convince Buffalo Jewish leaders to join the Twinning, Dr. Stall has characterized Dr. Shibly and his Syrian spiritual leaders as moderate and peace-loving men of faith. Writing to a concerned community member, Dr. Stall said that, “Dr. Shibly’s efforts to improve the world by having different faiths work together, side by side, competing to outdo one another in good works, is to a large extent based in [sic] the teachings of Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro, a Syrian imam who was in many ways ahead of his time.”

As proof of Kuftaro’s progressiveness, Dr. Stall provided links to Kuftaro’s English language articles with titles like “Spirituality in the 21st Century.” Jewish leaders who participated in the Twinning Weekend must have been convinced – Kuftaro’s disciple, Rajab Deeb, was linked in via Skype to address the interfaith event participants through an interpreter.

It is unfortunate that Dr. Stall and the Jewish participants didn’t consult an interpreter earlier, for while the Sheikhs’ English-language websites are full of new-age fluff about interfaith spirituality, the Arab-language sections contained something different.

A video recording of Kuftaro’s August 18, 2003 sermon on “Islam and Terrorism” posted on his website began with a section on, “The control of the Jewish lobby on world opinion,” where he insisted that American claims of Syrian support for terrorism were, “suggested to them by the Jewish lobby, who are the killers of prophets.” Kuftaro has also said that “ Israel is a dagger in the heart of the Muslim nation” and in a meeting with Hamas leaders insisted that “all Muslims are obligated to do jihad upon the Zionists.”

In a video taped on July 5, 2002, Kuftaro turned over his pulpit to Luis Farrakhan, who was visiting his mosque as an honored guest. On November 8, 2002, he gave the same honor to the neo-Nazi preacher William Baker. In online video of both events, Kuftaro looks on from the dais while both anti-Semites give lectures denouncing America and Israel in front of his congregation.

On the personal website of Sheikh Rajab Deeb, together with the audio of the sermon he gave at the Buffalo event, is a May 15, 2005 sermon titled, “Jerusalem is Ours.” In the sermon, Deeb claimed that the Holy Land is undergoing a so-called, “process of desecration through the delirious allegations of the presence there of the Jewish Temple .” About Jews, he said: “They want to remove and destroy every trace except for their footsteps and pollute every creed except their faith, and eradicate every race except their race, and they claim to be God’s Chosen People…”

In a position statement on Syria’s army, Deeb said:

“You must set up sophisticated weapons, which are appropriate to the times. The saber and spear were good predecessor weapons, which then evolved into the catapult. This development is still ongoing to the present age, where the weapons became firearms, then artillery, missile and aircraft, and then, with increased development, came the atomic and hydrogen bombs… His eminence [Sheikh Deeb] encourages the development of the national weapons industry; when the State possesses the secrets of these weapons, no enemy can resist it.”

Deeb’s support for Syria ’s national weapons industry is not surprising – in fact both he and Kuftaro have served as top clerics in Bashar Assad’s totalitarian government, known for spreading virulent Jew-hatred. Until Kuftaro’s death in 2003, he was the Grand Mufti of Syria and Deeb is currently the Chief Scholar in the Syrian Ministry of Religion. Considering that Syria has expelled all its Jews, hosts the top leadership of Palestinian terror groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and arms Hizbullah, the tenor of Deeb and Kuftaro’s sermons about Jews is also not surprising.

The Shibly family has promoted a similar pro-terror ideology in Buffalo . Dr. Shibly’s son Hassan Shibly is a prolific blogger who has written that Hizbullah should not be considered a terrorist organization. In a high-profile incident at the Rainbow Bridge in 2004, Hassan and Dr. Shibly’s wife Sawsan Tabbaa, were detained at the border after returning from the controversial “Reviving the Islamic Spirit” annual conference in Toronto . Responding to a discrimination lawsuit filed by the Shiblys against it, the Department of Homeland Security said that: “In this instance, we had credible intelligence that conferences similar to the one from which these individuals were leaving were being used by terrorist organizations to fundraise and to hide the travel of terrorists themselves.” In 2007, the courts rejected the Shibly family’s claims of discrimination and judged that the terror threat associated with the conference justified their detention.

What’s stunning here is that finding this information was not that hard. How is it possible that the Jews taking part in Buffalo interfaith efforts were so easily bamboozled? Surely, no one involved in this “twinning” business would have signed a contract to renovate his bathroom without such minimal due diligence. The answer is the deep obsession with politically correct ideology that pervades many liberal Jewish communities: “It just can’t be true that Islamic radicals would try to take advantage of our good will. If anyone even thinks of this as a possibility, he must be a “racist!”

And why would Islamic radicals pretend to be moderate in order to establish interfaith relationships with Jewish community? I believe that this and many other similar “Twinning Initiatives” around the country have an ulterior purpose. Already, the interfaith relationship as it currently exists in Buffalo is being exploited to intimidate local Jewish groups into forfeiting their freedom to vigorously advocate for Jews everywhere, including Israel . Shortly after the twinning, Dr. Shibly denounced a lecture by Israeli General Effie Eitam at the University of Buffalo . Writing to the event organizers, Dr. Shibly said: “It is so sad as we are trying to bring our communities together and make a historical step to join the national efforts of twinning mosques and Synagogues projects for common good, we get a slap in our face.” Likewise, when the Jewish community wanted to screen “Farewell Israel ,” a thoroughly-researched film about the dangers Israel faces, Shibly again invoked the interfaith threat: “This movie and other programs presented before were misleading and promote islamophobia. They destroy all the bridges and dialogues that we are building to promote peace, love and understanding.”

This type of disingenuous interfaith dialogue with Jewish leaders is also a strategic force-multiplier for extremists. The rest of American society tends to look to Jews on the topic of extremist bigotry and intolerance as the proverbial canary in the coal mine. By embracing radical Islamists in an official interfaith relationship, Jewish leaders give them a ticket into American institutions.

Interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims can be valuable. Yet dialogue is only productive when it occurs with partners who are honest about their true intentions. This doesn’t seem to be the case with Dr. Shibly and his Syrian government clerics. Instead of promoting peace and tolerance, legitimizing such entities through interfaith partnerships will only promote the hatred they preach when they think the Jews aren’t paying attention. Rabbi Marc Schneier and Dr. Richard Stall should be apologizing to the Buffalo Jewish community instead of congratulating themselves on a job well done.

Ilya Feoktistov is Research Director of Americans for Peace and Tolerance.

President Obama carefully weighed his options this weekend. On the front of his desk were The Health of Obamacare and The Health of Haiti.  On this day, our president judged Obamacare to be in more urgent need of his surgical superintendency. Haiti can Waiti. At this point, he had already dispatched Hillary, and he has directed generous US tax dollars to assist the devastated Island nation.

New Orleans, I mean, Haiti, will be there when he gets back to the office. And you have to believe that he felt comforted knowing  that Israel has set up an actual hospital in Port Au Prince to care for the many injured and dying thousands there. We’re all still waiting for the Islamic nations that Obama has so glowingly praised on the world stage for their incalculable gifts to civilization to finally weigh themselves in with a little Haitian relief. Like something…anything.

But President Obama must be acknowledged for doing the right thing, offering financial aid to Haiti. He didn’t ask me, but I approve. Perhaps this marks the first time in Obama’s year-long reign of wild Washington spending when the entire nation actually accedes to his directorship of their dollars. And why is that? Because that’s what we do here in the USA.  Indeed, that is precisely what this  “downright mean country” has always done, Mrs. Obama. In case anyone happens to be concerned with our image, it should be further noted, particularly to the DNC and the White House staff before their next inclination to apologize, that America’s humanitarian and relief generosity is unmatched in the history of this entire planet.

Well, despite the ill advised trip to Boston, Obama made his executive decision and went there anyway. You have to figure that the president realized after so many campaign gaffes by Coakley, from the misspelling of Massachusetts on a TV campaign ad, to her stating that there are no more terrorists in Afghanistan , to calling Curt Schilling a Yankee fan , to dissing Scott Brown for shaking peoples’ hands in the freezing cold outside of Fenway Park, she needed some powerful help. At her gaffe-rate the people in the commonwealth might think she was running for Joe Biden’s office. Therefore, like Harvey Keitel’s character in “Pulp Fiction” , Obama saw his task as “The Cleaner.” This was a dirty job and Obama knew it was his.  After all, how could he count on his ranking Democrats when even some of them were gaffe prone, like Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) for example, who stated,

“…you know we have a lot of digging to do, but some work needs to be done and this president’s in the process of doing it and we need to get Marcia Coakley to help him to do that.”

Her name is Mar-tha. To be fair to Mr. Kennedy, I’m sure he must have been confusing her name with the famous Kennedy Mansion on Marcia’s Vineyard as he repeatedly made this obvious error .

On the same night, as Scott Brown spoke to a packed auditorium, less than a full house attended Obama’s stump rally for Martha Coakley.  Fearlessly, Mr. Obama commanded the microphone before the Coakley supporters as she smiled nervously at his side, hands clasped together. But the interruptions were loud and frequent. Obama had to pause, begin, pause again, stutter a bit, laugh nervously, and move away from camera view until the crowd settled down. At one point, his speech was completely stopped by a heckler who was shouting while holding up a sign that read “Jesus Loves All Babies.”

Imagine someone with the audacity of attempting to publicly make such an absurd statement.  And in Massachusetts, in America, no less. The heckler’s sign was taken from him, he was restrained, and police security forcefully escorted him away as the Coakley supporters wildly applauded in approval of his forced censorship. Thank God, huh?

Things got pretty ugly out there for The Commander in Chief on this cold night in the Commonwealth. Perhaps these gaffes are symptomatic of some strange pandemic, mutant virus , that seeks Democrats as opportune hosts. For even Barack Obama, the Greatest Statesman of our Nation’s history, was not immune. Throughout his speech, Mr. Obama spoke obsessively about pick-up trucks. Pick-up trucks, of all things, he kept referencing pick-up trucks. Referring to Scott Brown, Obama said,

He’s driving his truck around the commonwealth. And he says that, he’ll, you know, that he gets you – that he’ll fight for you – that he’ll be an independent voice. I don’t know, he might be a nice guy. So I hear her opponent is calling himself an independent. Well, you’ve gotta look under the hood.”

And then I finally snapped. It was because Scott Brown owns a pick-up truck and used it throughout most of his campaign to carry yard signs and to get himself around town to meet with and speak with the people. So it seems the crafty Mr. Obama made these references to mock and belittle Scott Brown for being a pick-up truck driver, and not someone with a sophisticated, proven, track record for fighting for the working people. Apparently most democrats agree that owning a pick-up truck is symbolic for people who cling to their guns and religion. Could it be that Mr. Obama is not aware that pick-up trucks are GM’s biggest sellers? Or that pick-up truck owners constitute a huge chunk of the voting population? The president went on to say,

“Now, more than ever, you don’t need just another politician that just talks the talk… Right now we need somebody who’s got a proven track record.”

We’re in tough economic times right now. People are frustrated and they’re angry, and they have every right to be, I understand. And it can’t come fast enough for people who need help right now – today.

(Achhhh….Haiti!!! )

(Gezundheit!)

(Thank you)

President Barack Obama apparently missed the memo that was sent directly from the Brave-Hearted Breast of Sir Scott of Brown of the Commonwealth, advising him to  “Stay Out of Massachusetts!” Today, I bet he wishes he’d paid more attention. But then again, what can you expect from a Democratic party in such shock over the Bluest of States romantically flirting with an unknown Republican who says insanely heretical things like,

“Taxpayer money should be used to fight terrorists, not on lawyers to defend them?”

Related posts:

1. Obama Heckled, Brown Surges And Dems Panic
2. Massacre in Massachusetts: Brown Annihilates Coakley
3. Will Scott Brown Pull Off An Upset In Massachusetts?

I must have missed the memo, but exactly when did liberals begin caring about religion?

It appears the Democrats are throwing out all stops in an effort to defeat Scott Brown and retain control of “Ted’s seat.” No insult, ridicule or  smear is too low to stoop. Earlier this weekend Chris Matthews fretted the Democrats might not find enough votes to buy in the Massachusetts’ special election for “Ted’s seat” between Brown and Martha Coakley. I guess he didn’t scare up enough voters to attend President Obama’s speech at Coakley’s Sunday rally because he’s kicked into high gear.

Appearing on the Morning Joe show, Matthews played the religion card, reminding voters in the heavily Catholic Massachusetts that Brown is Protestant and Coakley is Catholic.

But this election’s interesting.  I don’t even know what religion–religion seems to play no role in this election, which is so unique in Massachusetts. Brown is a Protestant. Nobody’s even mentioned it—I guess I just did.  And Coakley’s I guess a Catholic, although I don’t think that she sort of squares away that way in terms of her politics.  So I mean it’s just so interesting: it’s sort of post-tribal. 

So now being Protestant is the same as being an evil Republican? What’s next? Will Matthews be going after Brown because he’s male, has hair,…?

Related posts:

1. Massacre in Massachusetts: Brown Annihilates Coakley
2. Chris Matthews Worried There Aren’t Any Votes for Democrats to Buy in MA Tuesday
3. Chris Gone Wild: Matthews Berates Catholic Bishop as Having “Transgressed,” Says He Has No Authority to Advocate Against Abortion in Health Care Bill

Do Muslims have an exclusive monopoly on the use of the word “Allah,” in describing God?

Malaysia is grappling with that linguistic question, and Muslims in that country are enraged because a court has given its answer: No.

An ethnically divided country comprised of Malay Muslims (who make up about 60% of the population), non-Muslim Chinese, Indians and other minorities, Malaysia is bracing for violent demonstrations called by Muslims outraged over a ruling this past weekend that allows the country’s 850,000 Roman Catholics to use the word Allah to describe God.

Malaysia’s Deputy Internal Security Minister Johari Baharum explains the Malaysian Government’s opposition to the ruling:

Only Muslims can use ‘Allah’. It’s a Muslim word, you see. It’s from (the Arabic language). We cannot let other religions use it because it will confuse people. We cannot allow this use of ‘Allah’ in non-Muslim publications, nobody except Muslims. The word Allah’ is published by the Catholics. It’s not right.

It all started back in 2008 when the Malaysian Government, on the grounds of “national security,” told the editors of The Herald, a Roman Catholic weekly, to stop the use the word Allah when referring to God in their newspaper. The paper had been translating the word for God as Allah in order to reach certain Malay-speaking indigenous tribes who had converted to Christianity decades ago.

The Arab word Allah has been used by Malay-speaking Christians for centuries, much as it is used by Christians in Arabic-speaking countries or in certain parts of Indonesia. Sikhs use the term in their religion in referring to God. In fact, use of the term pre-dates Islam itself. The word was used by the citizens of Mecca as a reference to the supreme deity in pre-Islamic Arabia. Hebrew, Aramaic and other Semitic languages all contain cognates of Allah used to describe a deity.

The semantic conundrum facing the Christian Churches in Malaysia, according to Rev. Lawrence Andrew, editor of The Herald, is that there is no other appropriate term for God in the Malay language.

So The Herald sued, claiming that it had a constitutional right to refer to God as Allah, as it was using a term already in common usage by Christians and was in no way attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity. The Malaysian High Court agreed. In a decision over the weekend, Justice Lau Bee Lan issued a ruling allowing The Herald to continue to use the term:

Under Malaysian law, Christians have “a constitutional right to use [the word] Allah.

Muslim rage was almost immediate.

An influential mufti (Sunni Islamic Scholar), Harussani Zakaria, called the verdict “an insult to Muslims in this country.”

Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad predicted a violent Muslim backlash:

What I am afraid of is that the term ‘Allah’ might be used in such a way that could inflame the anger of Muslims, if [non-Muslims] were to use it on banners or write something might not reflect Islam.

Immediately after the ruling, as many as 10,000 Muslim protesters had signed onto a Facebook group page calling for the government to appeal the decision, while calling moderate Muslims who agreed with the decision (including opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim), as “traitors to Islam.”

The government has made it quite clear that it does not agree with the ruling and has announced that it will vigorously appeal the decision.

In the meantime, the anti-Christian backlash has begun, with the The Herald being the first casualty: its website was shut down by hackers yesterday.

Related posts:

1. Barney Frank Competes with Jesus Christ
2. One Cannot Be Both a Soldier of Allah and a Soldier of America
3. Muslims Score a Major Victory

Iran’s Islamic regime may be in denial about sanctions and anti-nuclear proliferation proposals, but after a long weekend of renewed and intense demonstrations, it cannot deny the thousands of disenchanted and daring Iranians who took to protest despite government threats, beatings and cold-blooded murder.

Up to 9 are reported dead and hundreds wounded as tens of thousands of Iranian protestors clashed with government security forces in what was the bloodiest and most violent demonstrations since the aftermath of President Ahmadinejad’s allegedly fraudulent re-election six months ago. The number of deaths is reported through sites that cannot be verified, though eyewitnesses confirmed the murder of at least four protestors when guards opened fire in Tehran’s central neighborhood College Square mid-morning Sunday.

Websites report that clashes were not limited to the capital city of Tehran. Demonstrations were also held in Isfahan, Mashad, Shiraz and surprisingly, the Shiite clerical headquarter, Qom.

The demonstrations began two days prior and led up to Sunday’s commemoration of Ashura, the Islamic day of mourning the martyrdom of Imam Hossein, the third Imam and grandson of Prophet Mohammad.  Hossein was overcome by his nemesis and heretic to Islam, Yazid, at the Battle of Karbala in the seventh century.  On this day, Shiite Muslims traditionally congregate at mosques and hold public processions of flagellation and reenactments of his death.

Hossein’s death is commonly referred to as the battle between good and evil, as he is said to have spoken out against oppressive rulers. Though protesters have chanted anti-Islamic and anti-regime slogans since the initial hours after the presidential election, they used this religious day to voice grievances against their own modern-day oppressive rulers.

Anticipating large-scale protests this weekend, the regime made threats about participating in these events, instituted a 7pm curfew and forbid the assembling of groups larger than three.

In some areas reports say early shots were fired in the air Saturday morning to deter rioters. In other areas, witnesses say tear gas was used to disperse crowds.

Similar to the violence we have seen in previous Iran protests, Basiji militiamen freely used batons and in some cases, reports indicate that daggers and knives were used. The only difference is that this time around there were also reports of protestors fighting back, and in some cases, successfully restraining security forces.

Losing presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi made no official statements encouraging people to participate in protest. However, over the past two weeks, non-affiliated political activists called on Iranians of all backgrounds via websites, Facebook, Twitter and text messages, to come out in this new round of demonstrations.

The protests also coincided with the seventh day of mourning the death of 87-year-old reformist cleric Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, Iran’s most senior dissident religious figure and architect of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.  Montazeri’s death last week played a significant role in igniting demonstrations which have sporadically taken place since the elections, but gave the opposition a significant running start for this weekend’s upheaval.

When funeral attendees clashed with security forces in the religious city of Qom last week, the regime lost its religious constituency and the opposition gained bragging rights to an emerging opposition that is colorful and diverse and not just comprised of secular Tehranis but of conservative Muslims as well.  Supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s order to attack funeral attendees made a serious and significant escalation in the plot of this boiling Iranian Revolution.

The rift was further intensified this past weekend when the government ordered violent and unwarranted attacks during the holy day of Ashura.  Traditionally, this day is a peaceful, reflective one. During the eight year Iran-Iraq war, there was no fighting in honor of this holiday, and even during the 1979 Revolution, political activists took advantage of Ashura, coming out in protest knowing that the Shah would not order attacks out of respect for the holiday. Violating this sacred holiday by not just any government, but an Islamic one, reaffirmed that the regime’s hunger for power and tyrannical rule run deeper than the ‘absolute’ religious doctrines they have purported at the heart of their leadership and have utilized in gaining legitimacy.

As a matter of fact, the timely death of a revered clergy member coupled with violent escalations breaching one of the holiest Shiite days succeeded in giving the opposition what it has been lacking surely for the past six months, if not 30 years; homogenization.

Within one week, the regime helped bring the conservative and religious factions of Iran’s population to the streets. Dejected and disillusioned, members of the clergy and other conservative Iranians seamlessly joined the secular opposition.

It was apparent in the demonstration footage. Some demonstrators wore green, and others wore black.  Many did not color coordinate, believing that their cause was obvious absent visual manifestation.

Developments in Iran’s opposition movement seem promising. At the very least, these demonstrations have and continue to weaken and divide the clerical regime, and at best, they can be integral in eradicating this regime altogether. For the last six months, the opposition movement has endured bloodshed and brutality, proving to the international community and their own government that they will stop at nothing to get their country back.  They have and will continue to sacrifice their lives, jobs, families and more to overcome this tyrannical regime, and more importantly, they have showed that they will continue to resist with or without the help of the United States or any other world power.

Ironically, anti-American propaganda has long helped in legitimizing this regime’s absolute reign over its people.  From its inception, the government made its people believe that the United States and Israel, the two Satans, large and small, will dutifully stand in the way of Iranian advancement. Synonymous with Iranian patriotism was hatred for the United States. The people of Iran may have believed this at first, possibly while still under the spell of this regime, but now they are awake and cynical of religion and the clerics’ regime.

So commonplace is the role of anti-Americanism in the backdrop of this regime’s reign that if the United States had sided with the people of Iran, it would have naturally been a huge blow to their rule.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration made another attempt at curbing Iran’s nuclear proliferation agenda this week with a year-end deadline, to which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad simply scoffed, and said he is not afraid.

How many attempts will it take for our ivy-league educated leaders to recognize that diplomacy will not work with Iran?

As a result, America has isolated the Iranians to have to take on their government on their own. There are sound arguments as to why this is actually to their benefit. This may be the case, however, that would hold true only if America was completely absent from the Iranian political scene; not involved in a sideshow attempting to fruitlessly engage this regime or to daunt them with meaningless deadlines.

Even if the United States did not prioritize human rights in Iran, the single way to eliminate it as a nuclear threat is to weaken its government; a task only within the capabilities of its people.  Diplomacy is not seasonal, and it is not a temporary way to achieve a goal. It is establishing a lasting relationship between powerful and sovereign countries, similar to the relationship Iran and the United States had under the late Shah. If our administration were after true diplomacy in the region, then they would sooner side with the 70 million Iranians who have looked our way for an approving nod.

After 30 years, the people of Iran have come to the conclusion—the same conclusion that should now be the obvious one to President Obama after failing to successfully engage the Islamic Republic; We cannot change the actions or philosophy of this terrorist government; The only thing we can change is the government. We can only hope that the pivotal moment will come soon, when those outside Iran can join those inside in unanimously acknowledging that the only solution in the case of Iran is regime change.

via Security System Failed, Napolitano Acknowledges – NYTimes.com.

Mohamed Saleban Bare

Holding true to his campaign promise to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo), Cuba, President Barack Obama has again made the world a little less safe, by releasing twelve more jihadists from that facility over the weekend.

Four Afghans, two Somalis, and six Yemenis were sent back home, presumably to live happily ever after. Amy Goodman, the Marxist journalist whose mission is to disparage the US at every opportunity, took the time to profile one of the ex-prisoners, a Somali named Mohamed Saleban Bare, on her program Democracy Now!. Bare’s story, which kept Goodman spellbound, centered on his description of Gitmo as being “hell on earth.”

Goodman’s source was an interview Bare gave to Agence France Presse upon his release, whereby Bare, using a broad rhetorical brush, painted a dismal portrait of his eight years at Gitmo:

Some of my colleagues in the prison lost their sight, some lost their limbs and others ended up mentally disturbed. I’m OK compared to them. At Bagram and Kandahar, the situation was harsh, but when we were transferred to Guantanamo the torture tactics changed. They use a kind of psychological torture that kills you mentally.

Why would Goodman care about this particular prisoner, anyway?

Well, reading the Agence France Press article, it becomes apparent that Goodman is sympathetic to this jihadist because she thinks he is innocent, which he obviously is, since he says so himself.

According to Bare, he was just minding his business in the Pakistani port city of Karachi two months after the 9/11 attacks when he was picked up by security forces. He was only in Pakistan to visit with relatives, who had fled the violence in Somalia and were hoping to find asylum in a western state. That’s his story, and it’s good enough for Goodman.

One statement in the article, however, which may be troubling to more objective readers of the Agence France Press piece, was either missed by Goodman or not deemed important enough to merit a further look:

Bare was reluctant to answer questions about his alleged ties with Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiya, a Somali Islamist movement, which produced many of the current leaders of the al Qaeda-linked Shebab [terror group].

Bare was released despite having possible ties to an al-Qaeda linked group?

Bare can’t talk about that, but he’s given a forum by a French news service to speak of alleged mistreatments, which is then picked up by Democracy Now!, and reported as fact.

Another example of Marxist “journalism” at its best.

Related posts:

1. Obama Has Just Made the Country a Lot Less Safe: Moving Gitmo Terrorists to Illinois
2. Democrats Have Found the Perfect Place for Gitmo Terrorists
3. Al Qaeda’s Useful Idiots: Homegrown, Home Fed Delivered Right to Your Door

The warrant charged Ms. Livni—the current leader of the Knesset opposition—with war crimes allegedly committed by Israeli forces during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last winter. Ms. Livni and other Israeli leaders have always staunchly defended their operation against Hamas, and the arrest warrant was withdrawn Monday when it became clear Ms. Livni would not be in Britain as previously scheduled. But the fallout from this misguided warrant will linger long after it fades from the headlines.

Universal jurisdiction originated centuries ago to deal with hostes humani generis (“the enemies of all mankind”) such as pirates or slavers, who were not under any state’s control but legitimately concerned them all. It has grown explosively in recent years, as self-styled human-rights advocates have pushed to criminalize national actions that they find offensive.

via John Bolton: Democracy Under Arrest – WSJ.com.