Obama and all the “expertise” of the Foggy Bottom State Department, scores of academics and ultra-liberal no nothings among inane/insane politicians such as Mayor Bloomberg and radio/television “journalists” do not, cannot acknowledge and prefer to remain willfully deaf, dumb and blind by regarding the current dispute over the proposed community center and mosque at Ground Zero as an issue that is a clear cut case of Freedom of Religion. In their view those who oppose it MUST be guilty of Islamophobia, and worse, bigotry of every sort that includes racism, homophobia, greed, and of course, INTOLERANCE and IGNORANCE.

The truth is that the shoe is on the other foot. Not one of these paragons of virtue who claim sophistication and Ivy league degrees can even explain that the American Constitution does NOT ABSOLUTELY guarantee Freedom of Religion and that both Federal and State Law have taken action against the practices (not the beliefs) and consequences of dangerous and immoral behavior. This was the issue that forced the confrontation of the government against Brigham Young and the elders of the Church of the Latter day Saints (Mormons) to alter their “religion” and accept that American law and citizenship were not congruent with plural marriage or the exploitation of young teenage girls. The Utah territory would not have entered the Union without this confrontation when state power forced a “religion” to change its practices.

The same has been true in many Appalachian states, especially Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Arkansas, West Virginia and North Carolina where state authorities forbade the practice of the so called serpent churches among several Pentecostal denominations after the deaths of numerous individuals handing venomous snakes. The states forced churches and church members to accept that the state had a priority to protect individuals from reckless behavior and protect human life in spite of the claims of “religious freedom.”

Had the government moved earlier, the absurd and grotesque suicidal deaths of   more than 900 people, most of whom were American citizens, might have been prevented. These naïve followers of the Reverend James Jones ended their lives in the greatest act of mass suicide in American history. This occurred on Oct. 18, 1978 in Georgetown, capital of Guyana. His “Peoples Temple” was a Church – i.e. a Religion, whom these same Leftwing and Liberal advocates of tolerance for Islam believe is protected by the Constitution ABSOLUTELY without any qualifications.  His “religion” led to the greatest SINGLE LOSS of AMERICAN CIVILIAN LIFE IN A NON-NATURAL DISASTER BEFORE 9/11. The fact that it happened in Guyana was due to the real fear of Jones that he would not be able to continue his church in the United States because he knew that his cult was not permitted ABSOLUTELY by the Constitution to practice acts that could endanger human life.

Yet, the self appointed Liberal, Tolerant Intellectuals who are shedding tears over the possible need to move the Islamic “Cultural Center/mosque” from Ground Zero have undoubtedly never read any part of the Koran or any part of the Sira and Sunnah or done any research on the use of Jihad to expand the Dar al-Islam, yet stridently label anyone as a bigot or intolerant who has, and is aware of the potential danger.

The existing partially-free press in Lebanon, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia, Pakistan and Egypt and the Arabic press in Great Britain admitted in numerous editorials that the conflict in Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has not been a civil war but that jihadi terrorists convinced that theirs is the pure form of Islam have flocked there from as far away as Indonesia and Chechnia to sow death, destruction and mayhem to intimidate all those who oppose the extremist Islamist view of the world. The editorial in the April 15th, 2007 issue of the London based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, the leading Arabic International Daily Newspaper, repeated essentially the same message and had this to say:

“To make the picture clearer… This religious war has nothing to do even with the major issues, slogans related to which are raised in the terrorists’ literature itself, like Palestine, Iraq, the U.S., etc. These are people who want martyrdom, that is, they want to fight war, anywhere in the world, and for any cause that has a religious angle.

They are not fighting for money, public reform, or for… the environment, and they are not nationalists, pan-Arabists, or communists… They are not jokers, hippies, or oppositionists. They are seekers of martyrdom, meaning that they are in a hurry to go to Paradise. They are not interested in the life of this world, and they want to take with them to the grave the greatest number of people possible.

I know that this is an issue that is difficult for the Westerner to understand. It is also difficult for many of the Muslims themselves to accept this, and they always try to justify it with issues that they consider legitimate and comprehensible. But the truth is that these terrorists want death for the sake of Allah… That is, even if the Americans left Iraq tonight, and the Jews fled Palestine, and extremist religious governments were established in Morocco, Algeria, and Egypt - this would not satisfy them… They want Paradise, and for this they will travel to the ends of the earth, to the North Pole and the South Pole, "to fight the infidels.”

It is incumbent on all of us to make certain that no connection whatsoever exists between this view of Islam and any request to establish a mosque anywhere.

On April 27, Moroccan authorities announced the dismantling of an Al Qaeda-linked international terrorist network planning to attack security and foreign services in Morocco. The network’s aim was “to hire Moroccan activists to send them to conflict-prone areas, especially in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and the Sahel-Saharan region.” Since the terrorist attacks in Casablanca on 16 May 16, 2003 that killed 45 people among them the suicide-bombers, the Moroccan authorities have been able to upset several terrorist plots and made more than a thousand arrests.

Following Morocco’s detention of Al-Qaeda linked terrorist cells, King Mohammad VI in a July 30 speech from the throne said “Morocco will continue to defend its sovereignty, national unity and territorial integrity with the resolve not to give up any inch of Western Sahara.”

July 30 marks the eleventh anniversary of his enthronement. The King warned that “Actions to integrate the Western Sahara will be carried out with the expectation that  Algeria stops thwarting the logic of history, geography, legitimacy and legality on the Moroccan Sahara, and gives up its desperate maneuvers aimed in vain at derailing the momentum of our autonomy initiative for our southern provinces.”

He added that “Morocco will continue to move forward in implementing the “ambitious vision that we outlined in our last Green March speech, ensuring that the Moroccan Sahara is a top beneficiary of the advanced regionalization process and by continuing unabated efforts to promote the common development of our southern provinces.”

Source African Press Agency

Efraim Karsh is THE preeminent historian of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. His latest book “ “Palestine Betrayed (which I intend to review if no one else does in the next 3 months) reveals the abundant PRIMARY SOURCES in Arabic to how those Palestinian Arab elements ready, willing BUT UNABLE  able to reach a compromise with the Jews were betrayed by the extremists who wrecked the chance of any independent Palestinian entity. Unbelievably, this appeared in the NYTimes:

IT has long been conventional wisdom that the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a prerequisite to peace and stability in the Middle East. Since Arabs and Muslims are so passionate about the Palestine problem, this argument runs, the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate feeds regional anger and despair, gives a larger rationale to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and to the insurgency in Iraq and obstructs the formation of a regional coalition that will help block Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons.

What, then, are we to make of a recent survey for the Al Arabiya television network finding that a staggering 71 percent of the Arabic respondents have no interest in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks? “This is an alarming indicator,” lamented Saleh Qallab, a columnist for the pan-Arab newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat. “The Arabs, people and regimes alike, have always been as interested in the peace process, its developments and particulars, as they were committed to the Palestinian cause itself.”

But the truth is that Arab policies since the mid-1930s suggest otherwise. While the “Palestine question” has long been central to inter-Arab politics, Arab states have shown far less concern for the well-being of the Palestinians than for their own interests.

For example, it was common knowledge that the May 1948 pan-Arab invasion of the nascent state of Israel was more a scramble for Palestinian territory than a fight for Palestinian national rights. As the first secretary-general of the Arab League, Abdel Rahman Azzam, once admitted to a British reporter, the goal of King Abdullah of Transjordan “was to swallow up the central hill regions of Palestine, with access to the Mediterranean at Gaza. The Egyptians would get the Negev. Galilee would go to Syria, except that the coastal part as far as Acre would be added to the Lebanon.”

From 1948 to 1967, when Egypt and Jordan ruled the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the Arab states failed to put these populations on the road to statehood. They also showed little interest in protecting their human rights or even in improving their quality of life — which is part of the reason why 120,000 West Bank Palestinians moved to the East Bank of the Jordan River and about 300,000 others emigrated abroad. “We couldn’t care less if all the refugees die,” an Egyptian diplomat once remarked. “There are enough Arabs around.”

Continue reading here.

The dropping of charges by District Attorney Eric Holder against members of the so called “New Black Panther Party,” observed on video in their uniforms and carrying police batons “discouraging” white voters and chasing away Republican monitors at the time of the 2008 election in Philadelphia, is the most blatant outrageous example of an administration committed to total abandonment of the principles on which this nation WAS built and finally achieved a generation ago with the passage of civil rights legislation and first and foremost, protection of voters at the polls to cast their ballot. It is proof, if any more were needed, that Barak Obama’s electoral campaign was a fraud and that instead of a color blind society we are in a new age where the administration relies on pandering to minorities to ensure its survival.

It didn’t surprise me that apart from Fox News, this item has not been reported at all by the New York Times and major network media except for interviews of the New Black Panther Party representatives accusing Fox News of “scare tactics.” In these interviews, pains are taken to convince the audience that the New Black Panther Party has nothing to do with the “old Black Panthers” founded in 1966 in Oakland by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton with its explicit doctrine calling not just for protection of African Americans from “police brutality” but a passionate espousal of  communist (Mao variety) ideology and Black Nationalism.

Watching the news on t.v. a few nights ago brought back my own confrontation with the Black Panthers then at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (circa 1970-71) where I was a graduate student and the similar total cowardice and neglect of their responsibility by University administration officials to protect their students on the campus. I attended a showing of the political cult film “Battle of Algiers” glorifying the terrorism of the FLN in their fight against French Colonialism (nevertheless, the largest number of victims were Muslims who refused to cooperate with the FLN). I believe, if memory does not fail me, that the event was also in support of Angela Davis, who was then trying to run for political office in California. After the showing of the film (the reason I had attended the event), several uniformed members of the Black Panther Party stood on the stage and posted several of their colleagues at the rear of the auditorium barring exit from the auditorium.

When I and several other students got up to leave. The uniformed “chairman” on stage (dressed in exactly the same get-up as the “new Black Panthers” but minus the batos, who barred entrance to the polling booths in Philadelphia in the 2008 election), loudly proclaimed “Nobody is to leave!”

I immediately shouted back that I had come to watch the film and had no interest in the rest of the event and intended to leave and that nobody was going to prevent me. This produced a cheer by another dozen or so students who followed me to the exits where the uniformed “monitors” looked doubtful about how to prevent us from leaving. I was prepared to use force but was very grateful that the leader on stage “relented” and gave orders to his henchmen to step aside and “let the fascist pigs pass.”

This was an event in which no one from the administration was present but my attempt to protest the lack of any supervision by the University the next day was met with the official response that I did not have “proof” of my allegations (unless I could contact others who were present and could verify my accusations). This was the line taken by a university that continues to call itself a great liberal institution of higher learning dedicated to education and the promotion of equality, harmony, tolerance and diversity, etc., etc. (just like the Obama administration today and its anemic Department of Justice under Eric Holder).

Norman Berdichevsky (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974)

I had to read this twice and then rub my eyes and read it again! Spain with its obscene foreign policy strategy to play blackmail to Arab terrorism to protect themselves and denigrate Israel as well as heap praise on how Islam is another great civilization now joins Belgium, France and Switzerland with moves that would cause advocates of political correctness in the U.S. to be aghast – banning the burqa and niqab.

Spain and Belgium wanted to put Ariel Sharon on trial in their own countries! Now the people through their representatives have begun to sense where the real existential threat against their own identity, traditions and liberty come from.

Raphael Minder writes in the New York Times, June 23:

(hat tip: Jihadwatch)

This is absolutely amazing COLOR footage of Israel right before and right after independence. It was recently discovered in a private home in Boston.

President Obama’s feigned humility stands in blinding contrast to the true modesty of Hank Aaron following his lifetime achievement of surpassing Babe Ruth’s home run record. Aaron, like other Black stars deserve to be recalled by their elevation of American culture to world-wide prominence, the simple pleasure and inspiration they provided to millions here and abroad, their generosity, integrity, yes – even the nobility of their character, and the dedicated service they paid to their homeland beyond sports and entertainment in refuting the ugly lies hurled at the United States by proponents of Soviet style communism. They were entitled to more than a Noble Prize or a special prize for the elimination of the vestiges of real racism and a major contribution by their art and personal example to a more peaceful world – Jackie Robinson, Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Joe Louis, Sammy Davis Junior and Louis Armstrong. Each was celebrated and then mourned in the minds and hearts of millions without the idolatrous media hype-glitzz of a Michael Jackson or Barack Obama.

 Nidra Poller is already the 2010 version of a female Emile Zola and her J’accuse against Barack Obama will stand the test of time like the French writer’s condemnation of anti-semitism. Never before in our history has so much good will across the racial divide been wasted by so many on such a man who will soon exhaust all revenues of support except his Muslim and Jewish-Liberal-Chicago crony axis. In the words of his former pastor the Reverend Wright “the chickens are comin’ home to roost”. In the words of Abraham Lincoln (Obama’s favorite), you can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time but you can’t fool all the people all the time.

The “whirlwind” program featuring a group of 28 imams and rabbis from 10 European countries who arrived for visits to interfaith centers to “break new ground” (there really isn’t any old ground) on Muslim-Jewish relations and combat Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in each other's communities is a surrealistic delusion. Practically NO decent, sane Italian-American or German-American had faith that such meetings just prior to World War II would change “the hearts and minds” of the German-American Bund or pro-Fascist organizations in America or Europe by 1939.     

Queen Margrethe II of Denmark is one of the few Western heads of state and certainly the only European monarch who has had the courage to warn her fellow countrymen not to tolerate certain behavior which some immigrant Muslims display. She has done this without any euphemisms or the standard political correctness and expression of concern about “fear mongering” and “dangerous stereotypes”  in criticizing Islam, so frequently displayed by Western leaders, most notably former President George W. Bush and Barak Obama.   

In her authorized biography (entitled Margrethe, 2005), she had this to say: "We are being challenged by Islam these years. Globally as well as locally. There is something impressive about people for whom religion imbues their existence, from dusk to dawn, from cradle to grave. There are also Christians who feel this way. There is something endearing about people who give themselves up completely to their faith. But there is likewise something frightening about such a totality, which also is a feature of Islam. A counterbalance has to be found, and one has to, at times, run the risk of having unflattering labels placed on you. For there are some things for which one should display no tolerance. And when we are tolerant, we must know whether it is because of convenience or conviction."

There were none of the usual ifs, ands and buts and no attempt to distinguish Islam by adding the qualifying adjectives of political, extremist, radical or Islamist. As another Dane, Hans Christian Andersen maintained, praising the Emperor’s clothes when he is naked is an illusion that only enriches unscrupulous tailors.

For a majority of American “whites”, one decisive factor in the success of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and support for the epoch making legislation following the death of President Kennedy was simply the recognition and admission of historical wrongs. Beyond that however, was the exemplary character, generosity,  integrity, yes – even the nobility of major Afro-American “stars” in the world of entertainment and sports such as Jackie Robinson, Willy Mays, Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Billy Holiday,  Joe Louis, Sammy Davis Junior and Louis Armstrong. Each in his own way was indeed a role model and an American hero for both whites and blacks. Each was an artist whose talent AND CHARACTER touched people all over the world and each succeeded in spite of prejudice.  Each was mourned in the minds and hearts of millions without the idolatrous media hype-glitzz for Michael Jackson that erased all other news for a week.

A Jew from the tiny village (shtetl) of Zalecie was sent by his firm to Osaka. He arrived at the local station and said to the station attendant  “I want to buy a ticket for Osaka”.

All signs of public opinion in Israel show renewed confidence in the Israeli Army and its code of ethics designed to spare civilian casualties WHEN AT ALL POSSIBLE and a rising support for a victory for Bibi Netanyahu and his right wing allies in the coming Israeli elections. The crocodile tears shed for Palestinian civilians and children are of course an important propaganda weapon used by a weird assortment of Left-wing political and “humanitarian” groups including World War II revisionists such as Pat Buchanan (author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World) who are still bemoaning the injustice of the Versailles Treaty and the fire bombing of Dresden and America’s crime of dropping two atomic bombs on Japan.

The word fida’i (pl. fida’iyin) from the Arabic is “one who sacrifices himself.“ The “mujihadin” are those who carry out “holy war” (jihad) from the common root  J-H-D for the extension of Islam throughout the world. The two terms are in common use throughout the world by Islamic terrorist groups. One does not have to be an expert in the Arabic or Farsi languages to know what the intent of all such groups are - blatant terror and a commitment to commit wholesale massacre and mayhem against all those who are “infidels” and must be eliminated because they stand in the way of Islam’s struggle to convert the entire world into submission (ISLAM). 

On Friday I sent the American Jewish organization, “Conference of Presidents” the following one line e-mail:

Why the Democrats Silenced Enquiries about Senator Kerry’s wife’s  Fortune of  $500,000,000 but are obsessed with Cindy McCain’s wealth and several homes.

For all those who follow baseball with a passion, the current political drama of the 2008 Presidential Electoral campaign offers numerous and obvious points of coincidence. The one that comes most to mind is that of the brilliant “rookie” switch-hitter, Barack H. Obama whose eloquence, demeanor, and campaign achievements in more than two dozen primaries has made him a veritable slugger of Babe Ruth dimensions.  

Yet as the season has lagged on and is about to enter the doldrums of June and July, it is clear that the rookie has not simply fallen into slump but has begun to hit an astounding number of ground balls that have been fielded and converted into classic double-plays by that outstanding team in the field rivaling that great trio from the old World Champion Chicago Cubs team of 1902-1910, Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance.

Newspaper columnist and Chicago native, Franklin Pierce Adams(1881-1960) who frequently wrote for the New York evening Mail and New York Tribune under the pen-name FPA, and was perhaps best known for his newspaper column, "The Conning Tower," and appearances on the radio show Information Please expressed the dismay of many New York fans who were forced to acknowledge the powerful Chicago Cub infield trio with his poem Baseball’s Sad Lexicon….. ..

These are the saddest of possible words:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double --
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."

For the past two months however, Obama has been mired in a terrible slump marked not so much by strike-outs as by his increasing propensity to hit into double plays fielded by his former teammates, the peerless fielding stars of the D.P. art,  “Pfegler-to-Farrakhan-to-Wright. Whenever he has managed to smash a line drive, it has been caught by roving outfielder and ex-All Star team mate, Bill Ayres (Champion pinch hit batter of the Viet-Nam League).   

Baseball is full of such stories of ex-teammates who haunt a former star player that was traded to another team or left of his own free will to follow his quest for stardom and a much bigger salary. The old teammates frequently tell stories of how the great star was once a “regular guy” who shared with them with the same enthusiasm and gusto all the same familiar pleasures of wild nights on the town, fast women, chewing tobacco and the slick tricks of the trade that could turn a hit into an extra base with the proper use of your spikes flying into the face of the second baseman or the use of an illegal extra weighted bat.

 Now that the old hometown team-mate is an “allstar” and shadowed by the press and t.v., he has had to tread the straight and narrow path, pretending that, while his old gang may occasionally resort to such illicit and morally reprehensible tricks, he must reject all such ploys because, as a role model for American youth, he has to be above all such deception and suspicions. It hurts of course to disappoint the home town fans who still delight in the use of the spitball, hidden balks, dangerous baserunning, the weighted bats, and the disruptive behavior of the fans themselves to unnerve the opposition, but everyone knows today that these techniques no longer work before a huge crowd and  nationally televised game. If the baseball analogy holds true going into the World Series, we are likely to witness a repetition of Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s poem, “Casey at the Bat” , The San Francisco Examiner - June 3, 1888. (Substitute Obama for Casey)

 
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore;
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted some one on the stand;
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said "Strike two!"

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer has fled from Casey's lip, the teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.

Few neighboring countries were at war so often with each other from the Middle Ages until the end of the Protestant reformation as Sweden and Denmark--in much the same way as France and Germany from Napoleonic times until World War II. For most Americans this comes as a surprise, since both countries along with the rest of Scandinavia enjoy a modern image of peaceful states that enjoyed neutrality throughout most major modern European conflicts. The many similarities in culture, language, religion, the common reputation as "welfare states" with advanced social legislation and a social security net to prevent outright deprivation have obscured much of the same differences in outlook that distinguish Americans and Brits in spite of a long common history and shared institutions. 

Like the differences that led to the American Revolution and the final separation from England in spite of the presence of a large contingent of loyalists who remained loyal to their king and oath of allegiance, Danes and Swedes could not agree on the form of the union between them. The differences separating them did not constitute an ocean but a common land boundary and narrow stretches of water. What we call Southern Sweden today is known by the regional name of Skåne (with its own flag). It was both in terms of physical geography, landscape, soils, vegetation and climate a part of the Danish Kingdom from the earliest appearance of a state embracing Jutland (Jylland), Skåne across the Øresund and the main Danish islands Funen, (Fyn) and Zealand (Sjæland), lying amidst the two "Belts" in the Kattegat.

Like the case of the English governors and the American colonial houses of representation, the