Will Obama condemn this violence?

Muslims launch grenade attack on Christian worshipers

A band of Muslims launched a grenade attack against a crowd of 150 Christians attending an open-air meeting near the Kenyan town of Mtwapa, killing two and wounding more than 30, authorities report.

Human-rights groups say that the Muslim attackers were hyped into action by a militant Muslim preacher holding an alternate rally only 900 feet from the Christian gathering.

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Further reports say that the Muslim preachers were slandering Christianity and that members of the Christian group could hear the Muslim speakers.

International Christian Concern says the grenade assault on the Christians happened at the same time as a bomb attack at a bar in the nearby city of Mombasa.

ICC’s Africa Regional Manager Jonathan Racho said the human rights group is concerned about the increase in anti-Christian violence in Kenya.

“We are deeply concerned about the bomb attack targeting innocent Christians. We urge Kenya to protect its citizens from the growing attacks of the radical Islamists,” Racho said.

Racho noted that Kenya’s increase in anti-Christian violence comes as Nigeria’s Boko Haram has declared war on Christians and as Sudan appears to be facing a new civil war.

“Islamic radicals are carrying out attacks against Christians in Africa. The situation is getting worse in places like Nigeria and Kenya. Security forces must step up their efforts to stem the violence by the radicals,” Racho said.

WND reported in December that a Christian man in Kenya was beaten by a Somali mob that crossed the border for the attack.

International Christian Concern’s Aidan Clay met with the victim of the attack.

“When I saw him a month after the incident, he was still badly bruised, could hardly see out of his right eye which was black, and was missing teeth,” Clay said.

Clay said the attacks are becoming more frequent and more intense.

“Recently, there has been a slight surge of violence targeting Christians inside Kenya, provoked mainly by Somali Muslims, some of whom are likely from the militant group al-Shabaab,” Clay said.

A Pentecostal church in the eastern Kenyan town of Garissa was the target of another Muslim grenade attack in November. A group of Muslim men hurled a grenade into the church compound, killing two church members and injuring scores of others.

WND reported in 2008 a fire bombing that injured more than 50 in Eldoret, Kenya. At that time, the attack was identified as part of violence that followed incumbent Mwai Kbaki’s defeat of President Obama’s Muslim Kenyan friend, Raila Odinga, in Kenya’s presidential election.

WND reported Obama traveled to Kenya to campaign for Odinga.

Obama appeared with Odinga at campaign stops and gave speeches accusing the sitting Kenyan president of being corrupt and oppressive. But Odinga lost, despite attracting Muslim votes through a secret Memorandum of Understanding with Muslim Sheik Abdullah Abdi, the chief of the National Muslim Leaders Forum of Kenya.

In the memo, Odinga promised to rewrite the Kenyan constitution to install Shariah as law in “Muslim declared regions,” elevate Islam as “the only true religion” and give Islamic leaders “oversight” over other religions, establish Shariah courts and ban Christian proselytism

After his loss, Odinga accused Kbaki of rigging the vote and allegedly incited his supporters to riot. Over the next month, some 1,500 Kenyans were killed and more than 500,000 displaced – with most of the violence led by Muslims, who set churches ablaze and hacked Christians to death with machetes.

by Michael Carl

Michael Carl is a veteran journalist with overseas military experience and experience as a political consultant. He also has two Master's Degrees, is a bi-vocational pastor and lives with his family in the Northeast United States.

School to teacher: 'God's not allowed'

FAITH UNDER FIRE

Supremes asked to affirm Constitution's 1st Amendment

By Michael Carl

For 25 years, math teacher Bradley Johnson at Poway High School near San Diego took advantage of a 30-year school policy and hung patriotic posters with sayings such as “God bless America” in his classroom.

But then school officials ordered Johnson to take down the banners, even though other teachers were allowed to keep anti-religious slogans such as John Lennon’s “Imagine,” Buddhist prayer flags and images of Black Muslim leader Malcolm X.

So he went to court, and now the case is on its way to the highest court in the land.

The legal ordeal started in 2007 when school officials are alleged to have suddenly reversed the policy that allowed teachers to display banners, posters and signs that reflected their personal beliefs.

Poway officials told Johnson that his banners violated the establishment clause of the Constitution because they advocated a “Judeo-Christian worldview.”

Johnson pointed to what other teachers displayed, but the district dismissed his concerns.

Thomas More Law Center represented Johnson, and he won the first round in California federal district court, where Judge Robert Benitez said the teacher was within his First Amendment rights.

Benitez extolled the virtues of education while concluding Johnson doesn’t lose his liberties after walking through the school house doors.

“May a school district censor a high school teacher’s expression because it refers to Judeo-Christian views while allowing other teachers to express views on a number of controversial subjects, including religion and anti-religion? On undisputed evidence, this Court holds that it may not,” Benitez wrote.

Benitez also says that the federal courts should use restraint in dealing with local schools.

“Courts should not quickly intervene in the daily operation of schools and school systems, for that task is committed primarily to local school boards,” Benitez wrote.

But he said when a constitutional question is at the heart of the dispute, the courts have a valid role to play in the matter.

“The vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools,” Benitez wrote.

The school took the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most overturned appellate court in the nation, and Benitez’s ruling was reversed. That means Johnson has nowhere left to go but to the Supreme Court.

The Thomas More Law Center said the issue arose because of criticism from one of Johnson’s colleagues.

“The banners became a problem as a result of a complaint by one of Johnson’s fellow teachers,” the organization’s report said.

Johnson defended his banners because he says other teachers were apparently free to display religious signs. Thomas More said the school ordered Johnson to remove his banners because they believe they can.

“Basically, the school said, ‘we can tell teachers what to do.’ And school officials claim the use of the phrase ‘God’ in each of those phrases violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution,” a Thomas More spokesman said.

Buddha, on the other hand, is scientific, according to the district, the spokesman said.

“Additionally, they consider the image of Buddha to be more of a scientific interest than a religious symbol.”

The Poway district issued a statement saying school officials believe they were within their rights asking Johnson to remove the banner.

“The Poway Unified School District has believed from the beginning of this case that the removal of a teacher’s banners was consistent with the requirements of the United States Constitution,” the statement said.

“On September 13, 2011, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously agreed that the district acted correctly, holding that public-school teachers do not have a First Amendment right to say anything they want when teaching to a captive student audience. A month later, the entire 9th Circuit denied the teacher’s request to rehear the appeal,” the statement said.

School system attorney Jack Sleeth Jr. said in the statement that he believes the 9th Circuit acted appropriately.

“We believe that the 9th Circuit properly followed the Constitution and Supreme Court case law in ensuring that all students have a proper environment for learning. The 9th Circuit correctly found that teachers have no First Amendment right to espouse their personal religious beliefs in the classroom,” Sleeth said in the statement.

Civil rights attorney and legal writer Rees Lloyd disagrees with both the school and the 9th Circuit opinion.

“This 9th Circuit decision represents a dangerous, discriminatory, secular-cleansing, anti-Christian precedent, as well as a travesty of justice,” Lloyd said.

“The decision is sure to be perceived for what it is – another monument to arrogant judicial tyranny, transforming the nation beyond all recognition from its founding,” Lloyd said.

“The 9th Circuit, the most liberal and most reversed circuit in the United States, has now held that government school bureaucrats may establish policies creating a right of teachers to express their personal points of view in the classroom,” Lloyd said.

“That includes political, atheist, agnostic, irreligious, non-religious, and religious points of view, except the expression of words and symbols associated with the Judeo-Christian values upon which the American nation was founded, which those school bureaucrats can censure and ban because they find that point of view unacceptable,” Lloyd said.

Lloyd added that the 9th Circuit’s opinion fails to address the issue of whether Buddhist displays may offend Christians.

“Nowhere in the 9th Circuit opinion is there any discussion of whether those displays (the Dalai Lama, etc.) might be offensive to Christians or Jewish students. It is only the American flag, and words associated with Judeo-Christian points of view, upon which the nation was founded, that the school bureaucrats, and the 9th Circuit judges find might give offense,” Lloyd said.

Obama stimulus funded 'guns-to-drug-lords' plan

BELTWAY GUNRUNNERS

Spending bill gave $10 million of taxpayers' funding to effort

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By Michael Carl

© 2011 WND

Just a day after U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., called for Attorney General Eric Holder's removal, alleging a White House connection to the "Project Gunrunner" that allowed weapons to be delivered to Mexican drug lords, confirmation has come that the program originated at the highest levels of the Obama administration.

The link is the $10 million in taxpayer dollars designated to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for Project Gunrunner in Obama's 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, otherwise known as the Stimulus Bill.

Section 5, Division A, Title II, under the heading of "Office of Justice Programs," says the money is set aside for border regions.

For an additional amount for 'State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance,' $90,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2014, for competitive grants to provide assistance and equipment to local law enforcement along the Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the Southern border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred to 'Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses' for the ATF Project Gunrunner.

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Gun Owners of America President Larry Pratt believes stimulus money was given to a drug dealer to buy guns.

"Ten million dollars, and one of the ways they were spending it was a paid FBI informant who was a drug dealer they had flipped. So he was buying lots of guns with that stimulus money," Pratt said.

Pratt said that the stimulus bill enhanced one industry in particular.

"We can say there's one thing that was stimulated by the stimulus bill and that was the Mexican undertaker business," Pratt said. "Mexican authorities say that 150 people were murdered using these guns."

Listen to an interview with Pratt:

Pratt said that the gun buyer involved was the subject of what he calls an "aspect of tragic comedy."

"This FBI informant was being surveilled by the ATF that was running the Fast and Furious Operation and they had no idea that he was an FBI informant," Pratt observed.

"But obviously they didn't need to be informed because they didn't care. They just wanted the guns to walk," he stated.

Today, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he would support the call for a special prosecutor if members of Congress investigating the issue believe that is the best solution.

Appearing on the Steve Gill show, he said, "The point of our inquiry is to find out who really signed off on this operation. Who is the one who said 'yeah, this is a good thing to do.' It might have sounded like a good idea, but it ended up with the murder of Mr. Terry, a border control agent, and two of the guns were found at the scene of that murder."

A report in the San Francisco Chronicle says that FBI informants were connected to the ATF's Project Gunrunner.

Firearms law analyst and writer David Codrea believes that even if there is evidence to prove that known criminals used taxpayer money to get guns to take to Mexico, nothing is likely to be done with the evidence.

"If left to Holder's Justice Department, nothing, because it shows this had to be top-level DoJ-authorized," Codrea explained.

Reports say other federal agencies have also been drawn into the operation. The DEA, FBI and upper-level DOJ officers, including the U. S. Attorney's office in Phoenix, have been named.

Attorney General Holder's office has not responded to WND's request for comment.

Codrea believes that it's possible that ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson's office was bypassed in decision-making about the operation.

"It's absolutely possible and may even be probable that they bypassed Melson in the operation. However, that does not excuse him from having no control of his agency," Codrea said.

"But this kind of thing cannot take place in your agency unless you have unless you have people ... who are absolutely flat-out lying to you," he said.

Pratt also believes that some of the guns were purchased by the Mexican cartels directly from federal agents.

"One of the founders of the cartel, one of their top 14 directors if you will, a guy whose nickname is El Mamito, has said that he was buying guns directly from the federal government," Pratt explained.

Jesus Rejon Aguilar, nicknamed El Mamito or "Pretty Boy," the third highest ranking member of the drug gang Los Zetas, was captured Monday by Mexican authorities.

Pratt said he believes for the guns to go across at a designated location, there had to be coordination between several federal law enforcement agencies.

"There had to be some kind of a deal with the Border Patrol. ... We know that in that '09 meeting that set-up Fast and Furious, those four or five agencies were all part of the deal," Pratt said.

Pratt said that it's not likely that many of the representatives who voted for the stimulus package were aware that money was allocated for Project Gunrunner.

"Anyone who voted for the stimulus bill has another reason to regret their vote. Obviously they didn't read the bill," Pratt asserted. "They don't read most of the bills up there at all."

Pratt illustrated his comment by citing former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comment about the health care bill: "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy."

Several border state representatives contacted about the stimulus package and its allocation of $10 million for Project Gunrunner have not returned WND's calls.

Pratt also said that he's supportive of West's call for the removal of Holder and for a special prosecutor to be appointed.

"This is something that is very appropriate. While Rep. Issa was very correct in his choice of words, he said he didn't think Attorney General Eric Holder told the truth," Pratt said. "He could have said it more sharply, that he thinks Eric Holder is a liar, but it comes out the same in the wash."

Codrea believes that the pressure felt by the administration may be the leverage needed for the Justice Department or the White House to force Melson to resign.

"I think they were hoping they could have him quietly transferred out but he saw what was going on and he has to understand which way the wind blows and he has things on higher ups and they want him to keep quiet," Codrea commented.

"It looks like [Melson] decided that going quietly is not in his best interest. What was in his best interest is to lawyer up and to go and talk to the congressional oversight committee," he said.

Listen in an interview with Codrea:

Codrea and Pratt believe that the issue is going to get bigger as more details become public. Pratt believes that if Issa's committee continues its work, the entire scenario may rise to the level of Watergate.

"Just like Watergate became the only thing the Richard Nixon administration could think about, I think 'Fast and Furious' is coming to the point where it's going to be an all consuming issue," Pratt said.

"It's going to take the Obama regime off their stride and they're going to have to be playing defense."

Read more: Obama stimulus funded 'guns-to-drug-lords' plan http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=320221#ixzz1RcQTHHqx

Ryder to abortionists - Not with our trucks

MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH

Rental firm denies equipment for disposal of aborted babies

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By Michael Carl

© 2011 WND

In a major victory for the pro-life movement, Ryder System, Inc., one of the nation's leading truck leasing companies, has notified the Campaign to Stop Stericycle that the corporate giant no longer will allow medical waste disposal company Stericycle to use its trucks to service abortion clinics.

Campaign to Stop Stericycle director Michael Marcavage, also the leader of Repent America, says Ryder's decision is a "blessing."

"This is another victory for the cause of the unborn and Ryder's decision to distance itself from Stericycle's involvement with the abortion industry is another step towards ending Stericycle's facilitation of the abortion holocaust," Marcavage declared.

"We hope the remaining truck leasing [companies] will follow Ryder and Penske's lead to stop providing resources to Stericycle to assist abortion facilities in carrying out their evil deeds," Marcavage said.

Read about the fight: "Struggling for Life: How our Tax Dollars and Twisted Science Target the Unborn"

It was another major truck leasing firm, Penske Truck Leasing, that announced earlier it no longer would allow its trucks to be used to service at abortion clinics.

Penske Corp. President Brian Hard told the campaign, "We have been, and you have my word that we will continue to be, proactive in stopping Stericycle from using our trucks to service abortion clinics."

Marcavage says his campaign isn't stopping with Ryder and Penske.

"Our hope is to keep pressure on the other truck leasing companies to remove themselves as well," Marcavage said.

Stericycle picking up abortion clinic waste (Repent America photo)

Marcavage gives the truck leasing companies the benefit of the doubt when they are confronted, and so far when notified about Stericycle's connection to the abortion business, the firms ordered their trucks to be removed from abortion clinic service.

"Ryder didn't know their trucks were being used for this. Penske didn't know their trucks were being used for this purpose either. When the owner, Roger Penske, found out about it, he said he didn't want any affiliation with that and ultimately had those trucks removed from that service," Marcavage said.

"Stericycle, the nation's leading waste management company, depends entirely upon truck leasing companies like Ryder to provide vehicles for its waste collection routes, which include a reported 586 Planned Parenthood locations and hundreds of other abortion facilities nationwide," the campaign said.

Ryder was not available for comment by press time, although the campaign announcement quoted Ryder legal officer and Executive Vice President Bob Fatovic as saying that the Ryder-Stericycle relationship will be adjusted.

"In approximately 30 days Ryder's trucks will be fully removed from all of Stericycle's routes that service abortion facilities, and may not be used to service the abortion industry 'in any way, shape or form,'" he said.

Marcavage emphasizes his conviction that Stericycle is doing something that is morally wrong.

"Stericycle is the premier provider of medical waste service pick-up to the abortion industry. Our goal is to get Stericycle to stop collaborating with the abortion industry," Marcavage said.

Marcavage believes that companies like Stericycle, other medical waste disposal companies and other related businesses are enabling the abortion business to stay alive.

"It's because of Stericycle that the abortion industry is flourishing in this country because they're the company that a lot of abortion facilities are turning to in order to have their aborted babies and medical tools used to be taken to be incinerated," Marcavage explained.

"Our hope is that we would see Stericycle remove itself from this whole picture," Marcavage added.

Stericycle's website reports it is a "leader" in medical waste disposal.

"As the leader in the collection, treatment and disposal of medical and biohazardous waste, we help ensure maximum infection control throughout the entire process. The Stericycle medical waste disposal service provides complete custody documentation, which is essential for accountability and regulatory compliance of biohazardous materials," the website reported.

"We provide all necessary containers, then pick them up and safely treat and dispose of the medical waste," the company said.

Stericycle's knowledge of the medical waste disposal business is the reason Marcavage says he gives the truck companies the benefit of the doubt, but not Stericycle.

WND reported in January when CSS began its campaign to stop medical waste companies like Stericycle that Stericycle Manager Mara Villalobos, who formerly managed Stericycle's contracts with "multiple regions of Planned Parenthood" – confirmed that Stericycle does indeed accept fetal remains.

In a recording, she explained how the fetal remains go into one box for pickup and disposal, and the other materials, such as blood-soaked towels or gloves, go into another.

"She explained the detailed packaging guidelines for abortion mills, in which fetal remains are placed into red 'soft waste' bags, then into secondary boxes, which are labeled with 'incinerate only' stickers. The fetal remains are then taken to Stericycle's incineration plant in Haw River, N.C., where they are burned into ash," the campaign said.

Stericycle picking up abortion clinic waste (Repent America photo)

"Ryder didn't know that these medical waste companies were using their trucks to make pick-ups at abortion clinics. Stericycle, they're a Goliath in the medical waste industry. They rely entirely on leased trucks to carry out their evil deeds," Marcavage said.

Marcavage, believes that hitting the medical supply and support companies, large and small, is an effective way to end abortion.

"The pressure hasn't been on these medical waste companies that are not as big as Stericycle but have been having this one stop among all of their other stops on their collection route," Marcavage said. "Our issue is when they make that one stop at an abortion facility."

Marcavage hopes that by taking out the bigger Stericycle, there will be a domino effect.

"Stericycle is the giant, and once we get them removed, the smaller companies may not want anything to do with that (abortion clinic business)," Marcavage said.

"As we put pressure on Stericycle, we've found that other smaller companies were also not aware that some of clinics were putting aborted babies in the boxes. They thought the clinics shouldn't be doing that," Marcavage continued.

"So if there's enough public outcry over these companies, I believe that it's going to be difficult for these abortion providers to find medical waste companies that will service them," Marcavage added.

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Read more: Ryder to abortionists: 'Not with our trucks!' http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=315189#ixzz1QPJgRfqF