Ryan adopts the appropriate tone in discussing the behavior of 14 delinquent Democratic Senators from his home state: Incredulity.
"I didn't like cap and trade, I didn't like Obamacare, I didn't like the stimulus...but I didn't walk out."
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Deal Struck: Wisconsin Assembly Will Vote On Walker Bill Later Today
by Guy Benson
Wisconsin Assembly Democrats have run out of rope and will soon be forced to vote on Governor Walker's budget fix legislation. The bill is expected to pass, as Republicans control both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature:
The Wisconsin State Assembly has reached an agreement to cut off debate on GOP Gov. Scott Walker's budget-fix bill and hold a vote later Thursday.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that state lawmakers will likely vote on the proposal, which would force public employees to pay some of their pension and healthcare benefits and would limit their collective bargaining rights. The measure is expected to pass the Assembly, where Republicans have a 60-38 advantage over Democrats, and head to the state Senate for consideration.
Fourteen Democratic senators have fled the state for Illinois to boycott the legislation. Without a quorum, the Senate cannot take up the bill. The deal was announced at around 6 a.m. on Thursday after debate in the Assembly lasted 40 hours. The deal would cut off debate around noon on Thursday.
Your move, fleebaggers.
UPDATE: In a development that should surprise exactly nobody (except, perhaps, Dick Durbin), a new nationwide survey shows that a large majority of voters frown upon legislators who flee their posts to avoid tough votes:
Half of America’s voters favor public sector unions for government workers, but they strongly oppose the tactic by Wisconsin state senators to flee their state to prevent a vote that would limit the rights of such unions.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that only 25% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of this tactic, while 67% disapprove. State legislators in Indiana have used the same approach to avoid a vote in their state.
Wisconsin Assembly Democrats have run out of rope and will soon be forced to vote on Governor Walker's budget fix legislation. The bill is expected to pass, as Republicans control both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature:
The Wisconsin State Assembly has reached an agreement to cut off debate on GOP Gov. Scott Walker's budget-fix bill and hold a vote later Thursday.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that state lawmakers will likely vote on the proposal, which would force public employees to pay some of their pension and healthcare benefits and would limit their collective bargaining rights. The measure is expected to pass the Assembly, where Republicans have a 60-38 advantage over Democrats, and head to the state Senate for consideration.
Fourteen Democratic senators have fled the state for Illinois to boycott the legislation. Without a quorum, the Senate cannot take up the bill. The deal was announced at around 6 a.m. on Thursday after debate in the Assembly lasted 40 hours. The deal would cut off debate around noon on Thursday.
Your move, fleebaggers.
UPDATE: In a development that should surprise exactly nobody (except, perhaps, Dick Durbin), a new nationwide survey shows that a large majority of voters frown upon legislators who flee their posts to avoid tough votes:
Half of America’s voters favor public sector unions for government workers, but they strongly oppose the tactic by Wisconsin state senators to flee their state to prevent a vote that would limit the rights of such unions.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that only 25% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of this tactic, while 67% disapprove. State legislators in Indiana have used the same approach to avoid a vote in their state.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
We Are Not All Egyptians
by Gary Bauer
The brutal attack on television reporter Lara Logan is the most powerful evidence yet that the Western media's portrayal of the Egyptian revolution has been too optimistic at best, and deceptive at worst.
Logan, CBS News' chief foreign affairs correspondent, was reporting from Cairo's Tahrir Square when she was attacked by a group of as many as 200 male protesters. She suffered, according to the network, "a brutal and sustained sexual assault" that lasted 20 to 30 minutes.
The New York Post reported that the attackers screamed, "Jew! Jew!" as they assaulted Logan (who is not Jewish). CBS waited five days to break the story, doing so only after other news agencies threatened to go public. Even after news of the attack broke, much of the mainstream media buried the story.
It is reasonable to wonder whether the media downplayed the brutal attack because it did not fit the predominant media narrative about the Egyptian "revolution."
Since the crisis began last January, most of the Western media have portrayed the Egyptian people as peace-loving democrats. The crowds in Cairo were characterized as friendly and boisterous. As Michael Graham noted, "Even CBS' own statement said Logan was 'covering the jubilation' and was attacked 'amidst the celebration.' "
New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote from Cairo, "The lion-hearted Egyptians I met on Tahrir Square are risking their lives to stand up for democracy and liberty, and they deserve our strongest support and, frankly, they should inspire us as well."
"Today," he concluded, "we are all Egyptians."
President Obama even compared the protests with those surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall and the American Civil Rights Movement.
I don't doubt that millions of Egyptians want economic opportunity, free elections, and other basic human and political rights. We should do what we can to help them.
But just because Egyptians are clamoring for change does not mean they all embrace Western notions of freedom and democracy. Just because the protesters are using the latest social networking technology such as Twitter and Facebook does not mean they all hold modern views on religious pluralism and women's rights.
In fact, there is ample evidence that millions of Egyptians are sympathetic to the worst elements of radical Islam, including anti-Semitism, hatred of the U.S. and Israel, intolerance of people of different faiths, and, as the sexual assault of Logan demonstrated, hatred of, and hostility toward, women.
Everywhere radical Islamists are in control, "infidel" women are not safe. There are whole neighborhoods in Paris where a French woman can't walk down the street safely. Australian women who sunbathe on the beaches of their country are repeatedly harassed by young Muslim mobs who call them "whores" and "sluts."
Rapes of Scandinavian women by Muslim immigrants are a growing problem in Europe. And, of course, in traditional Muslim societies, Muslim women are deprived the basic rights that American feminists take for granted.
A much-discussed December Pew poll found that huge majorities of Egyptians support forcing men and women to be segregated in the workplace, and favor death sentences for adulterers, and those who convert from Islam to another faith.
The popular perception is that Egyptians are yearning for democracy and freedom. Many are. But the poll found that nearly 60% of those who see a struggle between the country's modernizers and fundamentalists associate with the latter. And a majority supports suicide bombing in at least some circumstances.
Just a couple days ago, hundreds of thousands of people gathered at Tahrir Square to listen to the raving of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent Muslim scholar who routinely attacks Christians, Jews, the U.S., Israel, and Muslims whom he deems insufficiently committed to jihad.
These views set millions of Egyptians distinctly apart from the Judeo-Christian values of Western civilization. The leaders of Europe's three great powers—Great Britain, France, and Germany—have all recently denounced as failures their nations' experiments in multiculturalism. But American liberals continue to promote the idea that Western and Islamic values are wholly compatible.
This delusion not only leads to serious foreign policy mistakes—it has also cost lives right here in the U.S.
A new report from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs highlights the role multiculturalism played in the Fort Hood massacre. Titled "A Ticking Time Bomb," the report details how the gunman, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was repeatedly promoted by superiors who chose to ignore his increasingly Islamist and anti-American beliefs.
Hasan was unfit to serve and a danger to his fellow soldiers. But, the report found, his superiors were paralyzed by political correctness and multiculturalism. They failed to act, because as journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz has written, "In the multiculturalist world, there is no taboo more powerful than the one that forbids acknowledgment of realities not in keeping with the progressive vision."
In his 2009 visit to Cairo, President Obama elaborated the progressive vision regarding Islam, asserting that it, "has a proud tradition of tolerance." Obama said he had come to Egypt "seek[ing] a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world. One based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based on the truth that American and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition."
"Instead," Obama insisted, "they overlap, and share common principles—principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."
Expressions of solidarity with those seeking to be freed from the grip of autocracy and oppression are understandable. But we shouldn't assume that most Egyptians want the same things we do. Nor should we assume they will prevail against those elements who would replace Mubarak's autocratic rule with radical Islamist oppression.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
The brutal attack on television reporter Lara Logan is the most powerful evidence yet that the Western media's portrayal of the Egyptian revolution has been too optimistic at best, and deceptive at worst.
Logan, CBS News' chief foreign affairs correspondent, was reporting from Cairo's Tahrir Square when she was attacked by a group of as many as 200 male protesters. She suffered, according to the network, "a brutal and sustained sexual assault" that lasted 20 to 30 minutes.
The New York Post reported that the attackers screamed, "Jew! Jew!" as they assaulted Logan (who is not Jewish). CBS waited five days to break the story, doing so only after other news agencies threatened to go public. Even after news of the attack broke, much of the mainstream media buried the story.
It is reasonable to wonder whether the media downplayed the brutal attack because it did not fit the predominant media narrative about the Egyptian "revolution."
Since the crisis began last January, most of the Western media have portrayed the Egyptian people as peace-loving democrats. The crowds in Cairo were characterized as friendly and boisterous. As Michael Graham noted, "Even CBS' own statement said Logan was 'covering the jubilation' and was attacked 'amidst the celebration.' "
New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote from Cairo, "The lion-hearted Egyptians I met on Tahrir Square are risking their lives to stand up for democracy and liberty, and they deserve our strongest support and, frankly, they should inspire us as well."
"Today," he concluded, "we are all Egyptians."
President Obama even compared the protests with those surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall and the American Civil Rights Movement.
I don't doubt that millions of Egyptians want economic opportunity, free elections, and other basic human and political rights. We should do what we can to help them.
But just because Egyptians are clamoring for change does not mean they all embrace Western notions of freedom and democracy. Just because the protesters are using the latest social networking technology such as Twitter and Facebook does not mean they all hold modern views on religious pluralism and women's rights.
In fact, there is ample evidence that millions of Egyptians are sympathetic to the worst elements of radical Islam, including anti-Semitism, hatred of the U.S. and Israel, intolerance of people of different faiths, and, as the sexual assault of Logan demonstrated, hatred of, and hostility toward, women.
Everywhere radical Islamists are in control, "infidel" women are not safe. There are whole neighborhoods in Paris where a French woman can't walk down the street safely. Australian women who sunbathe on the beaches of their country are repeatedly harassed by young Muslim mobs who call them "whores" and "sluts."
Rapes of Scandinavian women by Muslim immigrants are a growing problem in Europe. And, of course, in traditional Muslim societies, Muslim women are deprived the basic rights that American feminists take for granted.
A much-discussed December Pew poll found that huge majorities of Egyptians support forcing men and women to be segregated in the workplace, and favor death sentences for adulterers, and those who convert from Islam to another faith.
The popular perception is that Egyptians are yearning for democracy and freedom. Many are. But the poll found that nearly 60% of those who see a struggle between the country's modernizers and fundamentalists associate with the latter. And a majority supports suicide bombing in at least some circumstances.
Just a couple days ago, hundreds of thousands of people gathered at Tahrir Square to listen to the raving of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent Muslim scholar who routinely attacks Christians, Jews, the U.S., Israel, and Muslims whom he deems insufficiently committed to jihad.
These views set millions of Egyptians distinctly apart from the Judeo-Christian values of Western civilization. The leaders of Europe's three great powers—Great Britain, France, and Germany—have all recently denounced as failures their nations' experiments in multiculturalism. But American liberals continue to promote the idea that Western and Islamic values are wholly compatible.
This delusion not only leads to serious foreign policy mistakes—it has also cost lives right here in the U.S.
A new report from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs highlights the role multiculturalism played in the Fort Hood massacre. Titled "A Ticking Time Bomb," the report details how the gunman, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was repeatedly promoted by superiors who chose to ignore his increasingly Islamist and anti-American beliefs.
Hasan was unfit to serve and a danger to his fellow soldiers. But, the report found, his superiors were paralyzed by political correctness and multiculturalism. They failed to act, because as journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz has written, "In the multiculturalist world, there is no taboo more powerful than the one that forbids acknowledgment of realities not in keeping with the progressive vision."
In his 2009 visit to Cairo, President Obama elaborated the progressive vision regarding Islam, asserting that it, "has a proud tradition of tolerance." Obama said he had come to Egypt "seek[ing] a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world. One based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based on the truth that American and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition."
"Instead," Obama insisted, "they overlap, and share common principles—principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."
Expressions of solidarity with those seeking to be freed from the grip of autocracy and oppression are understandable. But we shouldn't assume that most Egyptians want the same things we do. Nor should we assume they will prevail against those elements who would replace Mubarak's autocratic rule with radical Islamist oppression.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
The Audacity of Mobs
by Kevin McCullough
There she was in a moment of serious, genuine indignation.
Rachel Maddow on MSNBC this last week bemoaning the "horrific reality" that not only were abortions NOT being performed in south central Kansas since the death of George Tiller, abortion practitioner, but that pro-life protesters had the nerve to go to the home of the woman and hold signs in silence encouraging her to not open up her new practice.
The sin these people had committed was the brute, horrific, intimidation that their mere presence would signal to any and all who sought the opportunity to kill children while still preborn.
I wonder what Ms. Maddow believes about the rent-a-mobs that President Obama had bussed to Madison, Wisconsin this week.
Late on Friday the news cycle was abuzz that both President Obama's campaign organization as well as the Democratic National Committee were both utilizing significant resources to bring tens of thousands of out-of-state protesters to march on the capital grounds in Madison, Wisconsin to interfere in what amounts to a state matter. Some of those protestors were dispatched to the private home of the Wisconsin Governor. Others to the homes of Republican state legislators.
To be specific the protesters were objecting to ending the ability for union leadership to stifle the attempts for the state to work alongside the union to achieve extremely modest compromises, so that no state workers would lose their job.
What was the Governor asking the state employees to give up? A little bit of money.
How little? 5% towards retirement pensions and 12% towards health care coverage.
In other words the state of Wisconsin was still willing to guarantee 95% of the pension, and 88% of the health care costs for state employees, and in doing so would be able to keep all current state employees, in a word, employed.
In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has been unable to get local teachers' unions to make similar compromises and on Friday announced the city would be slashing the employee count by thousands. Ohio, California, New York, New Jersey and other states all face similar dilemmas.
But let's understand this clearly. A governor of a state, who was elected on a promise of trying to bring fiscal discipline to a state budget process, asks for small sacrifices while still guaranteeing full employment and between 88%-95% of the original benefits promised, is being protested--by largely protestors who were bussed in by the president and all parties who are loyal to him.
Hey - it's Chicago brute politics at its best!
There she was in a moment of serious, genuine indignation.
Rachel Maddow on MSNBC this last week bemoaning the "horrific reality" that not only were abortions NOT being performed in south central Kansas since the death of George Tiller, abortion practitioner, but that pro-life protesters had the nerve to go to the home of the woman and hold signs in silence encouraging her to not open up her new practice.
The sin these people had committed was the brute, horrific, intimidation that their mere presence would signal to any and all who sought the opportunity to kill children while still preborn.
I wonder what Ms. Maddow believes about the rent-a-mobs that President Obama had bussed to Madison, Wisconsin this week.
Late on Friday the news cycle was abuzz that both President Obama's campaign organization as well as the Democratic National Committee were both utilizing significant resources to bring tens of thousands of out-of-state protesters to march on the capital grounds in Madison, Wisconsin to interfere in what amounts to a state matter. Some of those protestors were dispatched to the private home of the Wisconsin Governor. Others to the homes of Republican state legislators.
To be specific the protesters were objecting to ending the ability for union leadership to stifle the attempts for the state to work alongside the union to achieve extremely modest compromises, so that no state workers would lose their job.
What was the Governor asking the state employees to give up? A little bit of money.
How little? 5% towards retirement pensions and 12% towards health care coverage.
In other words the state of Wisconsin was still willing to guarantee 95% of the pension, and 88% of the health care costs for state employees, and in doing so would be able to keep all current state employees, in a word, employed.
In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has been unable to get local teachers' unions to make similar compromises and on Friday announced the city would be slashing the employee count by thousands. Ohio, California, New York, New Jersey and other states all face similar dilemmas.
But let's understand this clearly. A governor of a state, who was elected on a promise of trying to bring fiscal discipline to a state budget process, asks for small sacrifices while still guaranteeing full employment and between 88%-95% of the original benefits promised, is being protested--by largely protestors who were bussed in by the president and all parties who are loyal to him.
Hey - it's Chicago brute politics at its best!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Obama, Soros create 'Palestine'
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
Invest in Arab 'country' that lacks recognition
By Aaron Klein
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
JERUSALEM – In partnership with a government fund initiated by Barack Obama, philanthropist and billionaire activist George Soros is investing in a private equity company that just launched in the Palestinian territories.
The company, Siraj Fund Management Company, says it was created "for the sole purpose of managing investment funds in Palestine."
The new company's website repeatedly refers to what it calls the "country" of "Palestine." There is, however, no such country as Palestine. Siraj is apparently referring to territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
Get Aaron Klein's new bestseller, "The Manchurian President," at WND's Superstore!
"Siraj has plans to launch future funds focused on the Palestinian market thereby contributing to the sustainable development of the country," states the website.
This marks the latest involvement of Soros in Middle Eastern affairs.
WND reported last week Soros has been funding groups pushing for democracy in Egypt and is associated with an opposition leader there who has been fueling protests toppling the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, a key U.S. ally in the region.
WND also reported an international "crisis management" group led by Soros long has petitioned for the Egyptian government to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition in Egypt.
This week, Siraj Fund Management Company, the first private equity fund in the Palestinian territories, officially launched in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Soros' Economic Development Fund invested in the new group alongside the U.S. government-owned Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or OPIC.
OPIC is an independent agency of the US government that mobilizes private sector investment in new and emerging markets overseas.
In 2009, OPIC created its Global Technology and Innovation Fund, which invested in Siraj, in response to an initiative by Obama to launch an investment group to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries.
The initiative followed Obama's historic address to the Muslim world from Cairo, Egypt in June 2009.
The U.S. fund invested with Soros in the West Bank's new Siraj Fund Management Company, which was created to manage investment funds in a "country" Siraj repeatedly refers to in its official literature and website as "Palestine."
Palestine is a conventional name used to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The name "Palestine" comes from the ancient word meaning "Philistines" or "Land of the Philistines.” Palestinian Arabs have no relation to ancient Philistines.
"Palestine" previously referred to a future Jewish state in the decades before its founding in 1948. Indeed, the Jerusalem Post, the country's English newspaper, was previously called the Palestine Post. Jerusalem's Jewish philharmonic was previously called the Palestine Orchestra.
The use of "Palestine" by the Siraj Fund Management Company seems to refer to a Palestinian state, which has not yet been established. After the 1967 Six Day War, Palestinians began referring to their desire for a future country possibly called "Palestine."
Siraj Fund's initial closing was $60 million and is expected to close at $80 million in the coming months. The Fund's capital includes about half participation from foreign investors, the other half are Palestinians and Arabs.
Besides the U.S. government and Soros' organization, other foreign investors in Saraj include the Pension Boards of the United Church of Christ and Crescent Investments of the United Arab Emirates.
Soros fingerprints on Mideast chaos
The International Crisis Group, or ICG, which includes Soros among its eight executive committee members, long has petitioned for the Egyptian government to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The ICG also released a report urging the Egyptian regime to allow the Brotherhood to establish an Islamist political party.
The ICG includes on its board Mohamed ElBaradei, one of the main opposition leaders in Egypt, as well as other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In a June 2008 report entitled, "Egypt's Muslim Brothers Confrontation or Integration," Soros' ICG urges the Egyptian regime to allow the group to participate in political life.
The report dismisses Egypt's longstanding government crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood as "dangerously short-sighted."
The ICG report called on Mubarak's regime to "pave the way for the regularization of the Muslim Brothers' participation in political life," including by allowing for the "establishment of a political party with religious reference."
The ICG specifically stressed allowing the Brotherhood to serve as an Islamist party several times in its 2008 report.
The ICG and its personalities also long have petitioned for the Muslim Brotherhood to be allowed to join the Egyptian government.
ElBaradei suspended his board membership in the ICG two weeks ago, after he returned to Egypt to lead the anti-Mubarak protests.
U.S. board members include Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to Jimmy Carter; Samuel Berger, who was Bill Clinton's national security adviser; and retired U.S. ambassador Thomas Pickering, who made headlines in 2009 after meeting with Hamas leaders and calling for the U.S. to open ties to the Islamist group.
Another ICG member is Robert Malley, a former adviser to Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. He resigned after it was exposed he had communicated with Hamas. WND reported Malley long had petitioned for dialogue with Hamas.
The ICG defines itself as an "independent, non-profit, multinational organization, with 100 staff members on five continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict."
Meanwhile, Soros also has other ties to opposition groups in the Middle East.
His Open Society Institute's Middle East and North Africa Initiative has provided numerous grants to a wide range of projects that promote so-called democratic issues across the region, including in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood stands to gain from any future election.
Soros' Open Society also funded the main opposition voice in Tunisia, Radio Kalima, which championed the riots there that led to the ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
In September, Soros' group was looking to expand its operations in Egypt by hiring a new project manager for its Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, which is run in partnership with the Open Society Justice Initiative. The group is seeking to develop a national network of legal empowerment actors for referral of public-interest law cases. Such organizations in the past have helped represent Muslim Brotherhood leaders seeking election or more authority in the country.
Soros himself last Friday made public statements in support of the protests in Egypt, which the Mubarak government has warned will result in the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the country.
In a Washington Post editorial entitled, "Why Obama Has to Get Egypt Right," Soros recognized that if free elections were held in Egypt, "the Brotherhood is bound to emerge as a major political force, though it is far from assured of a majority."
He stated the U.S. has "much to gain by moving out in front and siding with the public demand for dignity and democracy" in Egypt.
He claimed the "Muslim Brotherhood's cooperation with Mohamed ElBaradei … is a hopeful sign that it intends to play a constructive role in a democratic political system."
Soros did not mention his ties to El Baradei.
Soros did, however, single out Israel as "the main stumbling block" in paving the way toward transition in the Middle East.
"In reality, Israel has as much to gain from the spread of democracy in the Middle East as the United States has. But Israel is unlikely to recognize its own best interests because the change is too sudden and carries too many risks," he wrote.
Muslim Brotherhood awakens terrorist wing
WND reported this week an Egyptian Islamist terrorist organization founded by the Muslim Brotherhood is re-establishing itself amid the political upheaval in Cairo
Both Egyptian and Israeli security officials said the group, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, is being reconstituted at the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The officials affirmed Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya serves as the de facto "military" wing of the Brotherhood, which originally founded Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya.
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya is suspected of involvement in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and it took credit for the 1995 attempt on the life of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. It has carried out scores of deadly terrorist attacks, some targeting foreign tourists.
The Muslim Brotherhood seeks to spread Islam around the world. Hamas and al-Qaida are violent Brotherhood offshoots.
While the Brotherhood claimed it abandoned violence to push for a peaceful takeover of Egypt, the group's new spiritual leader, Muhammad Badi, recently publicly has called for violent jihad, including against the U.S.
On Sunday, an Egyptian security official was quoted in the news media stating Egyptian troops had arrested two armed Palestinians from Hamas who entered the country illegally from the Gaza Strip.
The security official told reporters the men had crossed from Gaza into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula using smuggling tunnels and that they were arrested in a stolen car in the town of el-Arish, near the border, along with three Egyptian smugglers.
The official told the Associated Press the two Hamas men were caught with weapons, hand grenades, two RPGs and about $8,600 in cash.
A senior Egyptian security official speaking to WND on Monday said an investigation found the two Hamas men were aiding in the reorganization of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, which, he said, is attempting to reconstitute itself under the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Egyptian security official said Hamas is helping Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya organize into divisions and to arm itself with weapons currently in the Sinai waiting to be smuggled into Gaza.
Both Israel and Egypt say Hamas has amassed a large quantity of weapons in the Sinai Peninsula, where the Islamist group has been attempting to smuggle the weaponry into Gaza.
Now, the Egyptian security official said, some of those weapons are going to arm the reconstituted Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya.
Notorious terrorist attacks
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, and is classified as a terrorist group by the U.S., European Union and Egypt. Like the Muslim Brotherhood, the group is dedicated to the overthrow of Mubarak, seeking to replace his regime with an Islamic state.
The group has carried out numerous deadly attacks.
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya may have been involved indirectly in Sadat's assassination. The group's leader has talked publicly about collaborating in planning the murder with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was blamed for the killing.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya carried out scores of terrorist acts in Egypt, including the murders and attempted murders of prominent Egyptian writers and intellectuals. The group also targeted tourists and foreigners.
In 1997, it carried out the notorious Luxor massacre in Luxor, Egypt, killing 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians. Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya went on a shooting rampage in that attack, even reportedly mutilating the bodies of victims. A note praising Islam was found inside one disemboweled body.
One year earlier, in 1996, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya carried out a shooting rampage at the Europa Hotel in Cairo, killing 18 Greek tourists.
In 1995, the group took responsibility for a car bomb attack on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, murdering 16 people.
After a massive Egyptian crackdown on the group in 1997 following the Luxur attack, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya brokered a deal with the Egyptian government that is known as the Nonviolence Initiative, in which some leaders of the movement said they renounced violence.
Still, exiled leaders of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya maintained the group would not give up its violence.
Brotherhood declares war on U.S.
Multiple prominent U.S. commentators also have been claiming the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate organization and denying any Islamist plot to seize power.
In November, the Brotherhood's new supreme guide, Muhammad Badi, delivered a sermon entitled, "How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny."
"Resistance is the only solution," stated Badi. "The United States cannot impose an agreement upon the Palestinians, despite all the power at its disposal. [Today] it is withdrawing from Iraq, defeated and wounded, and is also on the verge of withdrawing from Afghanistan because it has been defeated by Islamist warriors."
Badi went on to declare the U.S. is easy to defeat through violence, since it is "experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading toward its demise."
With research by Brenda J. Elliott
Read more: Obama, Soros create 'Palestine' http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=262077#ixzz1Dgx4QPcr
Invest in Arab 'country' that lacks recognition
By Aaron Klein
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
JERUSALEM – In partnership with a government fund initiated by Barack Obama, philanthropist and billionaire activist George Soros is investing in a private equity company that just launched in the Palestinian territories.
The company, Siraj Fund Management Company, says it was created "for the sole purpose of managing investment funds in Palestine."
The new company's website repeatedly refers to what it calls the "country" of "Palestine." There is, however, no such country as Palestine. Siraj is apparently referring to territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
Get Aaron Klein's new bestseller, "The Manchurian President," at WND's Superstore!
"Siraj has plans to launch future funds focused on the Palestinian market thereby contributing to the sustainable development of the country," states the website.
This marks the latest involvement of Soros in Middle Eastern affairs.
WND reported last week Soros has been funding groups pushing for democracy in Egypt and is associated with an opposition leader there who has been fueling protests toppling the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, a key U.S. ally in the region.
WND also reported an international "crisis management" group led by Soros long has petitioned for the Egyptian government to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition in Egypt.
This week, Siraj Fund Management Company, the first private equity fund in the Palestinian territories, officially launched in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Soros' Economic Development Fund invested in the new group alongside the U.S. government-owned Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or OPIC.
OPIC is an independent agency of the US government that mobilizes private sector investment in new and emerging markets overseas.
In 2009, OPIC created its Global Technology and Innovation Fund, which invested in Siraj, in response to an initiative by Obama to launch an investment group to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries.
The initiative followed Obama's historic address to the Muslim world from Cairo, Egypt in June 2009.
The U.S. fund invested with Soros in the West Bank's new Siraj Fund Management Company, which was created to manage investment funds in a "country" Siraj repeatedly refers to in its official literature and website as "Palestine."
Palestine is a conventional name used to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The name "Palestine" comes from the ancient word meaning "Philistines" or "Land of the Philistines.” Palestinian Arabs have no relation to ancient Philistines.
"Palestine" previously referred to a future Jewish state in the decades before its founding in 1948. Indeed, the Jerusalem Post, the country's English newspaper, was previously called the Palestine Post. Jerusalem's Jewish philharmonic was previously called the Palestine Orchestra.
The use of "Palestine" by the Siraj Fund Management Company seems to refer to a Palestinian state, which has not yet been established. After the 1967 Six Day War, Palestinians began referring to their desire for a future country possibly called "Palestine."
Siraj Fund's initial closing was $60 million and is expected to close at $80 million in the coming months. The Fund's capital includes about half participation from foreign investors, the other half are Palestinians and Arabs.
Besides the U.S. government and Soros' organization, other foreign investors in Saraj include the Pension Boards of the United Church of Christ and Crescent Investments of the United Arab Emirates.
Soros fingerprints on Mideast chaos
The International Crisis Group, or ICG, which includes Soros among its eight executive committee members, long has petitioned for the Egyptian government to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The ICG also released a report urging the Egyptian regime to allow the Brotherhood to establish an Islamist political party.
The ICG includes on its board Mohamed ElBaradei, one of the main opposition leaders in Egypt, as well as other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In a June 2008 report entitled, "Egypt's Muslim Brothers Confrontation or Integration," Soros' ICG urges the Egyptian regime to allow the group to participate in political life.
The report dismisses Egypt's longstanding government crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood as "dangerously short-sighted."
The ICG report called on Mubarak's regime to "pave the way for the regularization of the Muslim Brothers' participation in political life," including by allowing for the "establishment of a political party with religious reference."
The ICG specifically stressed allowing the Brotherhood to serve as an Islamist party several times in its 2008 report.
The ICG and its personalities also long have petitioned for the Muslim Brotherhood to be allowed to join the Egyptian government.
ElBaradei suspended his board membership in the ICG two weeks ago, after he returned to Egypt to lead the anti-Mubarak protests.
U.S. board members include Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to Jimmy Carter; Samuel Berger, who was Bill Clinton's national security adviser; and retired U.S. ambassador Thomas Pickering, who made headlines in 2009 after meeting with Hamas leaders and calling for the U.S. to open ties to the Islamist group.
Another ICG member is Robert Malley, a former adviser to Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. He resigned after it was exposed he had communicated with Hamas. WND reported Malley long had petitioned for dialogue with Hamas.
The ICG defines itself as an "independent, non-profit, multinational organization, with 100 staff members on five continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict."
Meanwhile, Soros also has other ties to opposition groups in the Middle East.
His Open Society Institute's Middle East and North Africa Initiative has provided numerous grants to a wide range of projects that promote so-called democratic issues across the region, including in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood stands to gain from any future election.
Soros' Open Society also funded the main opposition voice in Tunisia, Radio Kalima, which championed the riots there that led to the ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
In September, Soros' group was looking to expand its operations in Egypt by hiring a new project manager for its Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, which is run in partnership with the Open Society Justice Initiative. The group is seeking to develop a national network of legal empowerment actors for referral of public-interest law cases. Such organizations in the past have helped represent Muslim Brotherhood leaders seeking election or more authority in the country.
Soros himself last Friday made public statements in support of the protests in Egypt, which the Mubarak government has warned will result in the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the country.
In a Washington Post editorial entitled, "Why Obama Has to Get Egypt Right," Soros recognized that if free elections were held in Egypt, "the Brotherhood is bound to emerge as a major political force, though it is far from assured of a majority."
He stated the U.S. has "much to gain by moving out in front and siding with the public demand for dignity and democracy" in Egypt.
He claimed the "Muslim Brotherhood's cooperation with Mohamed ElBaradei … is a hopeful sign that it intends to play a constructive role in a democratic political system."
Soros did not mention his ties to El Baradei.
Soros did, however, single out Israel as "the main stumbling block" in paving the way toward transition in the Middle East.
"In reality, Israel has as much to gain from the spread of democracy in the Middle East as the United States has. But Israel is unlikely to recognize its own best interests because the change is too sudden and carries too many risks," he wrote.
Muslim Brotherhood awakens terrorist wing
WND reported this week an Egyptian Islamist terrorist organization founded by the Muslim Brotherhood is re-establishing itself amid the political upheaval in Cairo
Both Egyptian and Israeli security officials said the group, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, is being reconstituted at the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The officials affirmed Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya serves as the de facto "military" wing of the Brotherhood, which originally founded Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya.
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya is suspected of involvement in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and it took credit for the 1995 attempt on the life of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. It has carried out scores of deadly terrorist attacks, some targeting foreign tourists.
The Muslim Brotherhood seeks to spread Islam around the world. Hamas and al-Qaida are violent Brotherhood offshoots.
While the Brotherhood claimed it abandoned violence to push for a peaceful takeover of Egypt, the group's new spiritual leader, Muhammad Badi, recently publicly has called for violent jihad, including against the U.S.
On Sunday, an Egyptian security official was quoted in the news media stating Egyptian troops had arrested two armed Palestinians from Hamas who entered the country illegally from the Gaza Strip.
The security official told reporters the men had crossed from Gaza into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula using smuggling tunnels and that they were arrested in a stolen car in the town of el-Arish, near the border, along with three Egyptian smugglers.
The official told the Associated Press the two Hamas men were caught with weapons, hand grenades, two RPGs and about $8,600 in cash.
A senior Egyptian security official speaking to WND on Monday said an investigation found the two Hamas men were aiding in the reorganization of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, which, he said, is attempting to reconstitute itself under the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Egyptian security official said Hamas is helping Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya organize into divisions and to arm itself with weapons currently in the Sinai waiting to be smuggled into Gaza.
Both Israel and Egypt say Hamas has amassed a large quantity of weapons in the Sinai Peninsula, where the Islamist group has been attempting to smuggle the weaponry into Gaza.
Now, the Egyptian security official said, some of those weapons are going to arm the reconstituted Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya.
Notorious terrorist attacks
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, and is classified as a terrorist group by the U.S., European Union and Egypt. Like the Muslim Brotherhood, the group is dedicated to the overthrow of Mubarak, seeking to replace his regime with an Islamic state.
The group has carried out numerous deadly attacks.
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya may have been involved indirectly in Sadat's assassination. The group's leader has talked publicly about collaborating in planning the murder with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was blamed for the killing.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya carried out scores of terrorist acts in Egypt, including the murders and attempted murders of prominent Egyptian writers and intellectuals. The group also targeted tourists and foreigners.
In 1997, it carried out the notorious Luxor massacre in Luxor, Egypt, killing 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians. Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya went on a shooting rampage in that attack, even reportedly mutilating the bodies of victims. A note praising Islam was found inside one disemboweled body.
One year earlier, in 1996, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya carried out a shooting rampage at the Europa Hotel in Cairo, killing 18 Greek tourists.
In 1995, the group took responsibility for a car bomb attack on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, murdering 16 people.
After a massive Egyptian crackdown on the group in 1997 following the Luxur attack, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya brokered a deal with the Egyptian government that is known as the Nonviolence Initiative, in which some leaders of the movement said they renounced violence.
Still, exiled leaders of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya maintained the group would not give up its violence.
Brotherhood declares war on U.S.
Multiple prominent U.S. commentators also have been claiming the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate organization and denying any Islamist plot to seize power.
In November, the Brotherhood's new supreme guide, Muhammad Badi, delivered a sermon entitled, "How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny."
"Resistance is the only solution," stated Badi. "The United States cannot impose an agreement upon the Palestinians, despite all the power at its disposal. [Today] it is withdrawing from Iraq, defeated and wounded, and is also on the verge of withdrawing from Afghanistan because it has been defeated by Islamist warriors."
Badi went on to declare the U.S. is easy to defeat through violence, since it is "experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading toward its demise."
With research by Brenda J. Elliott
Read more: Obama, Soros create 'Palestine' http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=262077#ixzz1Dgx4QPcr
De-Fund the Predators of Planned Parenthood
By Michelle Malkin
Thanks to the persistent investigative work of young pro-life journalists, Planned Parenthood's ruthless, money-grubbing colors are on full, fresh YouTube display. But as shocking as the illicit new videos from Live Action Films are, the routine, parental authority-sabotaging advice the taxpayer-funded abortion racket gives teens every day deserves more front-page headline news, too.
Live Action is a California-based "new media, investigative and educational organization committed to the protection and respect of all human life" led by Internet undercover pioneer Lila Rose. The group's latest video footage at abortion clinics in Perth Amboy, N.J., the Bronx and four cities in Virginia shows Planned Parenthood officials aiding and abetting individuals posing as criminal sex traffickers seeking abortions for underage girls.
Abortion activists first attacked the videos as "doctored," then claimed they had already taken steps to rectify problems at the targeted clinics, then fired a worker after the tapes had been released and finally denied any systemic failures while patting Planned Parenthood on the back for ordering new re-training measures for their employees this week.
Those who dismiss the scandal as an anomaly are in denial or abjectly ignorant.
In 2007, while an undergrad at UCLA, Rose visited a local campus Planned Parenthood clinic posing as a 14-year-old minor seeking an abortion after being impregnated by a 23-year-old man. California's mandatory reporting laws require abortion providers to report statutory rape involving girls under the age of 16. Rose secretly captured video of her visit in which the staff advised her to "figure out a birth-date that works," to obtain the abortion and avoid getting the man in trouble with the law. Instead of vowing to do more to protect girls from predators, Planned Parenthood threatened to sue Rose to shut her up.
That same year, a teenager came forward in Ohio to blow the whistle on how a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Cincinnati had ignored her cries for help after her father -- who had been molesting her for three years from the age of 13 -- forced her to have an abortion. She told an abortion staffer, who was required by state law to report suspected abuse to police. But the women's health provider so beloved by liberals on Capitol Hill did nothing.
Another Ohio teenage victim of sexual abuse filed suit against Planned Parenthood after the soccer coach who abused her at age 14 forced her to undergo an abortion. "Although she used a junior-high school I.D. and the coach, 21, paid with a credit card and driver's license," the Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune reported, "Planned Parenthood failed to report the abuse."
Thanks to the persistent investigative work of young pro-life journalists, Planned Parenthood's ruthless, money-grubbing colors are on full, fresh YouTube display. But as shocking as the illicit new videos from Live Action Films are, the routine, parental authority-sabotaging advice the taxpayer-funded abortion racket gives teens every day deserves more front-page headline news, too.
Live Action is a California-based "new media, investigative and educational organization committed to the protection and respect of all human life" led by Internet undercover pioneer Lila Rose. The group's latest video footage at abortion clinics in Perth Amboy, N.J., the Bronx and four cities in Virginia shows Planned Parenthood officials aiding and abetting individuals posing as criminal sex traffickers seeking abortions for underage girls.
Abortion activists first attacked the videos as "doctored," then claimed they had already taken steps to rectify problems at the targeted clinics, then fired a worker after the tapes had been released and finally denied any systemic failures while patting Planned Parenthood on the back for ordering new re-training measures for their employees this week.
Those who dismiss the scandal as an anomaly are in denial or abjectly ignorant.
In 2007, while an undergrad at UCLA, Rose visited a local campus Planned Parenthood clinic posing as a 14-year-old minor seeking an abortion after being impregnated by a 23-year-old man. California's mandatory reporting laws require abortion providers to report statutory rape involving girls under the age of 16. Rose secretly captured video of her visit in which the staff advised her to "figure out a birth-date that works," to obtain the abortion and avoid getting the man in trouble with the law. Instead of vowing to do more to protect girls from predators, Planned Parenthood threatened to sue Rose to shut her up.
That same year, a teenager came forward in Ohio to blow the whistle on how a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Cincinnati had ignored her cries for help after her father -- who had been molesting her for three years from the age of 13 -- forced her to have an abortion. She told an abortion staffer, who was required by state law to report suspected abuse to police. But the women's health provider so beloved by liberals on Capitol Hill did nothing.
Another Ohio teenage victim of sexual abuse filed suit against Planned Parenthood after the soccer coach who abused her at age 14 forced her to undergo an abortion. "Although she used a junior-high school I.D. and the coach, 21, paid with a credit card and driver's license," the Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune reported, "Planned Parenthood failed to report the abuse."
Monday, February 7, 2011
Constitutional Empathy
by Gary Bauer
In 2005, Barack Obama was one of only 22 senators to vote against John Roberts for Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. In explaining his vote against Roberts, Obama outlined his criteria for a judicial appointee, ending with his view that in tough cases he would look for a judge that would apply “the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.”
Federal Judge Roger Vinson probably did not have Obama’s empathy standard in mind last week in ruling that ObamaCare is unconstitutional. Vinson’s decision nevertheless displayed a broad and deep empathy—for our Founders and our founding documents. A New York Times editorial called the ruling “a breathtaking example of judicial activism and overreach.” The White House responded that the decision was “out of the mainstream,” which is true only in the sense that the ruling was out of mainstream of left-wing judicial thought.
Liberals have historically used the courts to enact by judicial fiat laws that they could not persuade the public and its elected representatives to embrace. In striking down ObamaCare, Judge Vinson exercised his judicial discretion and affirmed the will of the American people over a recalcitrant governing party.
The case hinged on the constitutionality of the individual insurance mandate, which Democrats euphemistically refer to as the “individual responsibility” provision. Democrats insisted that the provision be included in the bill, which was odd considering that most liberal policies promote the exact opposite, personal irresponsibility. From no-fault divorce and abortion-on-demand to the industry bailouts and illegal immigration amnesty, liberal policies create moral hazards by compensating large groups of people and entire sections of the economy for reckless behavior.
It was also odd because not so long ago Obama himself argued against the individual mandate.
“If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,” Obama noted during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Since becoming President, Obama has been far less logical in his arguments for ObamaCare. In fact, the two-year effort has been full of lies and distortions—about taxpayer funding of abortion, about the law’s true costs, about whether the individual mandate is a tax, and about whether those happy with the insurance they have can keep it, to name just a few.
Democrats took all this only as seriously as they had to in order to pass the legislation. Even after they jettisoned the government insurance option, the bill gave 2,000 new or expanded powers to the federal government, according to the Center for Health Transformation.
Liberals pushed through ObamaCare without regard for the central question of its constitutionality.
When then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked during a 2009 press conference where the Constitution authorizes Congress to compel Americans to buy health insurance, she responded, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” The reporter’s question was serious, but Pelosi’s was clearly rhetorical.
Many on the Left regard the Constitution as an obstacle to the enactment of its policy agenda rather than as what it was truly meant to be: America’s owner’s manual. Every American politician and judge puts his or her hand on the Bible and swears to uphold the Constitution. But to modern liberals, the Constitution retains as much relevance to policymaking as does the Bible.
Judge Vinson actually took his solemn oath seriously.
As Vinson stated in his ruling, “This case is not about whether the act is wise or unwise legislation, or whether it will solve or exacerbate the myriad problems in our health care system. In fact, it is not really about our health care system at all. It is principally about our federalist system, and it raises very important issues regarding the constitutional role of the federal government. … Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the act with the individual mandate.”
The House of Representatives passed repeal legislation soon after the new Congress convened. A repeal effort was defeated along party lines in the Senate last week. But that loss at least ensures that ObamaCare will remain in the headlines and on the front pages in the buildup to Election Day 2012. As Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn said, “These are the first steps in a long road that will culminate in 2012, whereby we will expose the flaws and the weaknesses of this legislation.”
The ultimate fate of ObamaCare will probably be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a closely divided court, Justice Anthony Kennedy may end up as the ultimate arbiter of the law’s constitutionality. Kennedy’s unpredictability has both sides nervous.
Yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. It would be an appropriate tribute to Reagan, and to the rule of law, if ObamaCare met its demise through Judge Vinson and Justice Kennedy, both of whom were appointed to their current seats by the Gipper.
President Reagan’s respect for limited government is a gift he left for all of us.
---------
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
In 2005, Barack Obama was one of only 22 senators to vote against John Roberts for Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. In explaining his vote against Roberts, Obama outlined his criteria for a judicial appointee, ending with his view that in tough cases he would look for a judge that would apply “the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.”
Federal Judge Roger Vinson probably did not have Obama’s empathy standard in mind last week in ruling that ObamaCare is unconstitutional. Vinson’s decision nevertheless displayed a broad and deep empathy—for our Founders and our founding documents. A New York Times editorial called the ruling “a breathtaking example of judicial activism and overreach.” The White House responded that the decision was “out of the mainstream,” which is true only in the sense that the ruling was out of mainstream of left-wing judicial thought.
Liberals have historically used the courts to enact by judicial fiat laws that they could not persuade the public and its elected representatives to embrace. In striking down ObamaCare, Judge Vinson exercised his judicial discretion and affirmed the will of the American people over a recalcitrant governing party.
The case hinged on the constitutionality of the individual insurance mandate, which Democrats euphemistically refer to as the “individual responsibility” provision. Democrats insisted that the provision be included in the bill, which was odd considering that most liberal policies promote the exact opposite, personal irresponsibility. From no-fault divorce and abortion-on-demand to the industry bailouts and illegal immigration amnesty, liberal policies create moral hazards by compensating large groups of people and entire sections of the economy for reckless behavior.
It was also odd because not so long ago Obama himself argued against the individual mandate.
“If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,” Obama noted during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Since becoming President, Obama has been far less logical in his arguments for ObamaCare. In fact, the two-year effort has been full of lies and distortions—about taxpayer funding of abortion, about the law’s true costs, about whether the individual mandate is a tax, and about whether those happy with the insurance they have can keep it, to name just a few.
Democrats took all this only as seriously as they had to in order to pass the legislation. Even after they jettisoned the government insurance option, the bill gave 2,000 new or expanded powers to the federal government, according to the Center for Health Transformation.
Liberals pushed through ObamaCare without regard for the central question of its constitutionality.
When then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked during a 2009 press conference where the Constitution authorizes Congress to compel Americans to buy health insurance, she responded, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” The reporter’s question was serious, but Pelosi’s was clearly rhetorical.
Many on the Left regard the Constitution as an obstacle to the enactment of its policy agenda rather than as what it was truly meant to be: America’s owner’s manual. Every American politician and judge puts his or her hand on the Bible and swears to uphold the Constitution. But to modern liberals, the Constitution retains as much relevance to policymaking as does the Bible.
Judge Vinson actually took his solemn oath seriously.
As Vinson stated in his ruling, “This case is not about whether the act is wise or unwise legislation, or whether it will solve or exacerbate the myriad problems in our health care system. In fact, it is not really about our health care system at all. It is principally about our federalist system, and it raises very important issues regarding the constitutional role of the federal government. … Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the act with the individual mandate.”
The House of Representatives passed repeal legislation soon after the new Congress convened. A repeal effort was defeated along party lines in the Senate last week. But that loss at least ensures that ObamaCare will remain in the headlines and on the front pages in the buildup to Election Day 2012. As Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn said, “These are the first steps in a long road that will culminate in 2012, whereby we will expose the flaws and the weaknesses of this legislation.”
The ultimate fate of ObamaCare will probably be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a closely divided court, Justice Anthony Kennedy may end up as the ultimate arbiter of the law’s constitutionality. Kennedy’s unpredictability has both sides nervous.
Yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. It would be an appropriate tribute to Reagan, and to the rule of law, if ObamaCare met its demise through Judge Vinson and Justice Kennedy, both of whom were appointed to their current seats by the Gipper.
President Reagan’s respect for limited government is a gift he left for all of us.
---------
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Egypt now fears Obama a 'Manchurian President'
'They are trying to understand why he is acting against U.S. interests'
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
Top members of the Egyptian government say they feel betrayed by President Obama, charging that he is acting against American interests.
"Mubarak's regime feels Obama is pushing the advancement of the Muslim Brotherhood against U.S. interests," said WND's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter Aaron Klein. "They are genuinely trying to understand why Obama is seemingly championing the anti-regime protests."
Klein said that a top Egyptian diplomat with whom he has developed a rapport over the last few years asked him earlier this week to explain Obama's motivation to support the opposition to Mubarak.
"I told him none of this should be a surprise," said Klein, "that the Obama administration has developed an extensive relationship over the last few years with allies of the Muslim Brotherhood.
"That my investigating has proven that Obama has been closely associated throughout his political career with radical-left elements who have long petitioned for policies many believe are aimed at weakening the American enterprise both domestically and internationally."
"The Egyptian diplomat seemed surprised," said Klein. "I told him this material was thoroughly documented in my latest book."
The diplomat requested 20 copies of Klein's New York Times bestselling book investigating Obama, "The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's ties to communists, socialists, and other anti-American extremists."
The diplomat said he would deliver the book, which was co-authored by Brenda J. Elliott, to senior officials in Mubarak's embattled government.
Obama in recent days urged Mubarak to give up power in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood forms the main opposition.
Mubarak has been a staunch U.S. ally and a recipient of billions of dollars in military aid. His regime has long been considered a stabilizing force in the Arab world.
The Obama administration's support for the unrest is strikingly reminiscent of Jimmy Carter's support of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, which marked the birth of modern Islamist expansion.
Some Muslim clerics are already calling the riots in Egypt simply an extension of 1979's Islamist conquests.
"Thirty-one years after the victory of the Islamic Republic, we are faced with the obvious fact that these movements are the aftershocks of the Islamic revolution," said Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, as reported by Iran's Radio Zamaneh. "The fate of those who challenge [our] religion is destruction."
Speaking of media and government leaders, Khatami added, "They want to highlight the labor, liberal and democratic issues, but the most important issue, which is the religious streak of these protests, [is] being denied."
The leader of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, Hammam Saeed, warned that the unrest in Egypt will spread across the Mideast until Arabs succeed at toppling leaders allied with the United States.
"The Americans and Obama must be losing sleep over the popular revolt in Egypt," Saeed said at a sympathy protest held outside the Egyptian Embassy in Amman. "Now, Obama must understand that the people have woken up and are ready to unseat the tyrant leaders who remained in power because of U.S. backing."
And on the Internet, the Middle East Media Research Institute reports, prominent Salafi cleric Abu Mundhir Al-Shinqiti issued a fatwa on the website Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal Jihad encouraging the protests in Egypt, claiming Islamist jihadis are now on the verge of a historic moment, an "earthquake" he likened to the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City.
Obama pushes Egyptian 'reform'
According to a senior Egyptian diplomat speaking to WND, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Frank Wisner, specifically told Mubarak on Tuesday the U.S. would not continue to support his rule and he must step down.
Hours later, Mubarak announced he would not seek another term in office.
The Obama administration dispatched Wisner to Egypt last weekend to report to the State Department and White House a general sense of the situation in the country.
WND broke the story yesterday that the Egyptian government has information Wisner secretly met earlier this week with a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Issam El-Erian.
The Muslim Brotherhood seeks to spread Islam around the world, in large part using nonviolent means. Hamas and al-Qaida are violent Brotherhood offshoots.
Muslim Brotherhood declares war on U.S.
Prominent U.S. commentators also have been claiming the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate organization and denying there is any Islamist plot to seize power.
Last Friday, President George W. Bush's former press spokeswoman, Dana Perino, told Fox News, "Don't be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This has nothing to do with religion."
Bruce Reidel, a former CIA analyst and adviser to President Obama, wrote a Daily Beast article in which he claimed, "The Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence years ago. … Its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists."
Reidel's assertion the Brotherhood renounced violence, however, is contradicted by its own statements in recent months, including a call to arms against the West.
In November, the Brotherhood's new supreme guide, Muhammad Badi, delivered a sermon entitled "How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny."
"Resistance is the only solution," stated Badi. "The United States cannot impose an agreement upon the Palestinians, despite all the power at its disposal. [Today] it is withdrawing from Iraq, defeated and wounded, and is also on the verge of withdrawing from Afghanistan because it has been defeated by Islamist warriors."
Badi went on to declare the U.S. is easy to defeat through violence, since it is "experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading toward its demise."
Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center, noted Badi's speech showed "the likelihood that more Brotherhood supporters in the West will turn to violence and fund-raising for terrorism."
Frank Gaffney, president of the American Center for Security Policy, takes it a step further.
"In short, the Muslim Brotherhood – whether it is operating in Egypt, elsewhere in the world or here – is our enemy," he wrote.
Obama quietly builds ties to Muslim Brotherhood
Klein reported for WND yesterday that Obama and top administration officials have troubling relationships with the Muslim Brotherhood and its worldwide allies.
Muslim Brotherhood members were reportedly invited to attend Obama's 2009 address to the Muslim world from Cairo. Khaled Hamza, editor of the Muslim Brotherhood website, confirmed at the time that 10 members of the Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc received official invitations to attend Obama's historic speech.
Also in 2009, the Egyptian daily newspaper Almasry Alyoum ran a report claiming Obama had met with U.S. and European-based representatives of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood that year
According to the report, the Brotherhood members requested that news of the meeting not be publicized. They expressed to Obama their support for democracy and the war on terror.
The newspaper also reported Brotherhood members communicated to Obama their position that they would abide by all agreements Egypt has signed with foreign countries, implying that if they took power in Egypt they would continue that country's peace treaty with Israel.
Besides contact with the Muslim Brotherhood itself, there have been reports the past two years of behind-the-scenes contact with Hamas, which was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas maintains a close alliance with the Brotherhood; the Brotherhood's new leader, Muhammad Badi, serves as a de facto lead spiritual guide for Hamas.
Top leaders of Hamas in Gaza claimed to WND several times they passed messages to Obama through dignitaries who visited the Gaza Strip, including Jimmy Carter and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., – both of whom have a close relationship with the White House.
Kerry, for example, reportedly accepted a letter for Obama from Hamas leaders in Gaza during a February 2009 visit to U.N. installations in the coastal territory.
U.N. relief agency chief in Gaza Karen Abu Zayd told the BBC the Hamas letter had been received by his agency and passed on to an unnamed American official.
In November, 2008, WND first quoted Hamas officials stating they would be sending a letter to Obama.
Immediately after that month's elections, Ahmed Yousef , Hamas' chief political adviser in Gaza, called Obama's win a "historic victory" for the world and told WND that Hamas was sending a letter of congratulation to the president-elect.
Obama ties to Brotherhood's U.S. allies
It is not just Obama's reported contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood and the group's allies in the Middle East that are of concern.
The Obama administration also has evidenced a working relationship with several U.S.-based Islamist organizations that are listed by the Brotherhood as "likeminded" organizations.
One such group is the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, a radical Muslim group that was an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas.
ISNA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document – "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America" – as one of the Brotherhood's likeminded "organizations of our friends" who shared the common goal of transforming countries into Muslim nations.
The White House relationship with ISNA began even before Obama took office. One week before the presidential inauguration, Sayyid Syeed, national director of the ISNA Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances, was part of a delegation that met with the directors of Obama's transition team. The delegation discussed a request for an executive order ending "torture."
ISNA President Ingrid Mattson represented American Muslims at Obama's inauguration, where she offered a prayer during the televised event.
Mattson also has represented ISNA at Obama's annual Ramadan dinners, including the last such event in which Obama announced support for the rights of Muslims to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks.
In June 2009, Obama's top aide, Valerie Jarrett, invited Mattson to work on the White House Council on Women and Girls, which Jarrett leads.
That July, the Justice Department sponsored an information booth at an ISNA bazaar in Washington, D.C.
Also that month, Jarrett addressed ISNA's 46th annual convention. According to the White House, Jarrett attended as part of Obama's outreach to Muslims.
ISNA sponsored a February 2010 question-and-answer session in which Obama's top adviser on counter-terrorism, John Brennan, came under fire for controversial remarks to Muslim law students.
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Read more: Egypt now fears Obama a 'Manchurian President' http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=258937#ixzz1CvcCrINz
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
Top members of the Egyptian government say they feel betrayed by President Obama, charging that he is acting against American interests.
"Mubarak's regime feels Obama is pushing the advancement of the Muslim Brotherhood against U.S. interests," said WND's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter Aaron Klein. "They are genuinely trying to understand why Obama is seemingly championing the anti-regime protests."
Klein said that a top Egyptian diplomat with whom he has developed a rapport over the last few years asked him earlier this week to explain Obama's motivation to support the opposition to Mubarak.
"I told him none of this should be a surprise," said Klein, "that the Obama administration has developed an extensive relationship over the last few years with allies of the Muslim Brotherhood.
"That my investigating has proven that Obama has been closely associated throughout his political career with radical-left elements who have long petitioned for policies many believe are aimed at weakening the American enterprise both domestically and internationally."
"The Egyptian diplomat seemed surprised," said Klein. "I told him this material was thoroughly documented in my latest book."
The diplomat requested 20 copies of Klein's New York Times bestselling book investigating Obama, "The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's ties to communists, socialists, and other anti-American extremists."
The diplomat said he would deliver the book, which was co-authored by Brenda J. Elliott, to senior officials in Mubarak's embattled government.
Obama in recent days urged Mubarak to give up power in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood forms the main opposition.
Mubarak has been a staunch U.S. ally and a recipient of billions of dollars in military aid. His regime has long been considered a stabilizing force in the Arab world.
The Obama administration's support for the unrest is strikingly reminiscent of Jimmy Carter's support of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, which marked the birth of modern Islamist expansion.
Some Muslim clerics are already calling the riots in Egypt simply an extension of 1979's Islamist conquests.
"Thirty-one years after the victory of the Islamic Republic, we are faced with the obvious fact that these movements are the aftershocks of the Islamic revolution," said Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, as reported by Iran's Radio Zamaneh. "The fate of those who challenge [our] religion is destruction."
Speaking of media and government leaders, Khatami added, "They want to highlight the labor, liberal and democratic issues, but the most important issue, which is the religious streak of these protests, [is] being denied."
The leader of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, Hammam Saeed, warned that the unrest in Egypt will spread across the Mideast until Arabs succeed at toppling leaders allied with the United States.
"The Americans and Obama must be losing sleep over the popular revolt in Egypt," Saeed said at a sympathy protest held outside the Egyptian Embassy in Amman. "Now, Obama must understand that the people have woken up and are ready to unseat the tyrant leaders who remained in power because of U.S. backing."
And on the Internet, the Middle East Media Research Institute reports, prominent Salafi cleric Abu Mundhir Al-Shinqiti issued a fatwa on the website Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal Jihad encouraging the protests in Egypt, claiming Islamist jihadis are now on the verge of a historic moment, an "earthquake" he likened to the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City.
Obama pushes Egyptian 'reform'
According to a senior Egyptian diplomat speaking to WND, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Frank Wisner, specifically told Mubarak on Tuesday the U.S. would not continue to support his rule and he must step down.
Hours later, Mubarak announced he would not seek another term in office.
The Obama administration dispatched Wisner to Egypt last weekend to report to the State Department and White House a general sense of the situation in the country.
WND broke the story yesterday that the Egyptian government has information Wisner secretly met earlier this week with a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Issam El-Erian.
The Muslim Brotherhood seeks to spread Islam around the world, in large part using nonviolent means. Hamas and al-Qaida are violent Brotherhood offshoots.
Muslim Brotherhood declares war on U.S.
Prominent U.S. commentators also have been claiming the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate organization and denying there is any Islamist plot to seize power.
Last Friday, President George W. Bush's former press spokeswoman, Dana Perino, told Fox News, "Don't be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This has nothing to do with religion."
Bruce Reidel, a former CIA analyst and adviser to President Obama, wrote a Daily Beast article in which he claimed, "The Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence years ago. … Its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists."
Reidel's assertion the Brotherhood renounced violence, however, is contradicted by its own statements in recent months, including a call to arms against the West.
In November, the Brotherhood's new supreme guide, Muhammad Badi, delivered a sermon entitled "How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny."
"Resistance is the only solution," stated Badi. "The United States cannot impose an agreement upon the Palestinians, despite all the power at its disposal. [Today] it is withdrawing from Iraq, defeated and wounded, and is also on the verge of withdrawing from Afghanistan because it has been defeated by Islamist warriors."
Badi went on to declare the U.S. is easy to defeat through violence, since it is "experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading toward its demise."
Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center, noted Badi's speech showed "the likelihood that more Brotherhood supporters in the West will turn to violence and fund-raising for terrorism."
Frank Gaffney, president of the American Center for Security Policy, takes it a step further.
"In short, the Muslim Brotherhood – whether it is operating in Egypt, elsewhere in the world or here – is our enemy," he wrote.
Obama quietly builds ties to Muslim Brotherhood
Klein reported for WND yesterday that Obama and top administration officials have troubling relationships with the Muslim Brotherhood and its worldwide allies.
Muslim Brotherhood members were reportedly invited to attend Obama's 2009 address to the Muslim world from Cairo. Khaled Hamza, editor of the Muslim Brotherhood website, confirmed at the time that 10 members of the Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc received official invitations to attend Obama's historic speech.
Also in 2009, the Egyptian daily newspaper Almasry Alyoum ran a report claiming Obama had met with U.S. and European-based representatives of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood that year
According to the report, the Brotherhood members requested that news of the meeting not be publicized. They expressed to Obama their support for democracy and the war on terror.
The newspaper also reported Brotherhood members communicated to Obama their position that they would abide by all agreements Egypt has signed with foreign countries, implying that if they took power in Egypt they would continue that country's peace treaty with Israel.
Besides contact with the Muslim Brotherhood itself, there have been reports the past two years of behind-the-scenes contact with Hamas, which was founded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas maintains a close alliance with the Brotherhood; the Brotherhood's new leader, Muhammad Badi, serves as a de facto lead spiritual guide for Hamas.
Top leaders of Hamas in Gaza claimed to WND several times they passed messages to Obama through dignitaries who visited the Gaza Strip, including Jimmy Carter and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., – both of whom have a close relationship with the White House.
Kerry, for example, reportedly accepted a letter for Obama from Hamas leaders in Gaza during a February 2009 visit to U.N. installations in the coastal territory.
U.N. relief agency chief in Gaza Karen Abu Zayd told the BBC the Hamas letter had been received by his agency and passed on to an unnamed American official.
In November, 2008, WND first quoted Hamas officials stating they would be sending a letter to Obama.
Immediately after that month's elections, Ahmed Yousef , Hamas' chief political adviser in Gaza, called Obama's win a "historic victory" for the world and told WND that Hamas was sending a letter of congratulation to the president-elect.
Obama ties to Brotherhood's U.S. allies
It is not just Obama's reported contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood and the group's allies in the Middle East that are of concern.
The Obama administration also has evidenced a working relationship with several U.S.-based Islamist organizations that are listed by the Brotherhood as "likeminded" organizations.
One such group is the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, a radical Muslim group that was an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas.
ISNA was named in a May 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document – "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America" – as one of the Brotherhood's likeminded "organizations of our friends" who shared the common goal of transforming countries into Muslim nations.
The White House relationship with ISNA began even before Obama took office. One week before the presidential inauguration, Sayyid Syeed, national director of the ISNA Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances, was part of a delegation that met with the directors of Obama's transition team. The delegation discussed a request for an executive order ending "torture."
ISNA President Ingrid Mattson represented American Muslims at Obama's inauguration, where she offered a prayer during the televised event.
Mattson also has represented ISNA at Obama's annual Ramadan dinners, including the last such event in which Obama announced support for the rights of Muslims to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks.
In June 2009, Obama's top aide, Valerie Jarrett, invited Mattson to work on the White House Council on Women and Girls, which Jarrett leads.
That July, the Justice Department sponsored an information booth at an ISNA bazaar in Washington, D.C.
Also that month, Jarrett addressed ISNA's 46th annual convention. According to the White House, Jarrett attended as part of Obama's outreach to Muslims.
ISNA sponsored a February 2010 question-and-answer session in which Obama's top adviser on counter-terrorism, John Brennan, came under fire for controversial remarks to Muslim law students.
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Read more: Egypt now fears Obama a 'Manchurian President' http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=258937#ixzz1CvcCrINz
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