Secret, Foreign Money Floods Into Obama Campaign
Monday, September 29, 2008 9:23 PM
By: Kenneth R. Timmerman
More than half of the whopping $426.9 million Barack Obama has raised has come from small donors whose names the Obama campaign won't disclose.
And questions have arisen about millions more in foreign donations the Obama campaign has received that apparently have not been vetted as legitimate.
Obama has raised nearly twice that of John McCain's campaign, according to new campaign finance report.
But because of Obama’s high expenses during the hotly contested Democratic primary season and an early decision to forgo public campaign money and the spending limits it imposes, all that cash has not translated into a financial advantage — at least, not yet.
The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee began September with $95 million in cash, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
The McCain camp and the Republican National Committee had $94 million, because of an influx of $84 million in public money.
But Obama easily could outpace McCain by $50 million to $100 million or more in new donations before Election Day, thanks to a legion of small contributors whose names and addresses have been kept secret.
Unlike the McCain campaign, which has made its complete donor database available online, the Obama campaign has not identified donors for nearly half the amount he has raised, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).
Federal law does not require the campaigns to identify donors who give less than $200 during the election cycle. However, it does require that campaigns calculate running totals for each donor and report them once they go beyond the $200 mark.
Surprisingly, the great majority of Obama donors never break the $200 threshold.
“Contributions that come under $200 aggregated per person are not listed,” said Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the FEC. “They don’t appear anywhere, so there’s no way of knowing who they are.”
The FEC breakdown of the Obama campaign has identified a staggering $222.7 million as coming from contributions of $200 or less. Only $39.6 million of that amount comes from donors the Obama campaign has identified.
It is the largest pool of unidentified money that has ever flooded into the U.S. election system, before or after the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms of 2002.
Biersack would not comment on whether the FEC was investigating the huge amount of cash that has come into Obama’s coffers with no public reporting.
But Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for CRP, a campaign-finance watchdog group, dismissed the scale of the unreported money.
“We feel comfortable that it isn’t the $20 donations that are corrupting a campaign,” he told Newsmax.
But those small donations have added up to more than $200 million, all of it from unknown and unreported donors.
Ritsch acknowledges that there is skepticism about all the unreported money, especially in the Obama campaign coffers.
“We and seven other watchdog groups asked both campaigns for more information on small donors,” he said. “The Obama campaign never responded,” whereas the McCain campaign “makes all its donor information, including the small donors, available online.”
The rise of the Internet as a campaign funding tool raises new questions about the adequacy of FEC requirements on disclosure. In pre-Internet fundraising, almost all political donations, even small ones, were made by bank check, leaving a paper trail and limiting the amount of fraud.
But credit cards used to make donations on the Internet have allowed for far more abuse.
“While FEC practice is to do a post-election review of all presidential campaigns, given their sluggish metabolism, results can take three or four years,” said Ken Boehm, the chairman of the conservative National Legal and Policy Center.
Already, the FEC has noted unusual patterns in Obama campaign donations among donors who have been disclosed because they have gone beyond the $200 minimum.
FEC and Mr. Doodad Pro
When FEC auditors have questions about contributions, they send letters to the campaign’s finance committee requesting additional information, such as the complete address or employment status of the donor.
Many of the FEC letters that Newsmax reviewed instructed the Obama campaign to “redesignate” contributions in excess of the finance limits.
Under campaign finance laws, an individual can donate $2,300 to a candidate for federal office in both the primary and general election, for a total of $4,600. If a donor has topped the limit in the primary, the campaign can “redesignate” the contribution to the general election on its books.
In a letter dated June 25, 2008, the FEC asked the Obama campaign to verify a series of $25 donations from a contributor identified as “Will, Good” from Austin, Texas.
Mr. Good Will listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You.”
A Newsmax analysis of the 1.4 million individual contributions in the latest master file for the Obama campaign discovered 1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, most of them for $25.
In total, Mr. Good Will gave $17,375.
Following this and subsequent FEC requests, campaign records show that 330 contributions from Mr. Good Will were credited back to a credit card. But the most recent report, filed on Sept. 20, showed a net cumulative balance of $8,950 — still well over the $4,600 limit.
There can be no doubt that the Obama campaign noticed these contributions, since Obama’s Sept. 20 report specified that Good Will’s cumulative contributions since the beginning of the campaign were $9,375.
In an e-mailed response to a query from Newsmax, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt pledged that the campaign would return the donations. But given the slowness with which the campaign has responded to earlier FEC queries, there’s no guarantee that the money will be returned before the Nov. 4 election.
Similarly, a donor identified as “Pro, Doodad,” from “Nando, NY,” gave $19,500 in 786 separate donations, most of them for $25. For most of these donations, Mr. Doodad Pro listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You,” just as Good Will had done.
But in some of them, he didn’t even go this far, apparently picking letters at random to fill in the blanks on the credit card donation form. In these cases, he said he was employed by “VCX” and that his profession was “VCVC.”
Following FEC requests, the Obama campaign began refunding money to Doodad Pro in February 2008. In all, about $8,425 was charged back to a credit card. But that still left a net total of $11,165 as of Sept. 20, way over the individual limit of $4,600.
Here again, LaBolt pledged that the contributions would be returned but gave no date.
In February, after just 93 donations, Doodad Pro had already gone over the $2,300 limit for the primary. He was over the $4,600 limit for the general election one month later.
In response to FEC complaints, the Obama campaign began refunding money to Doodad Pro even before he reached these limits. But his credit card was the gift that kept on giving. His most recent un-refunded contributions were on July 7, when he made 14 separate donations, apparently by credit card, of $25 each.
Just as with Mr. Good Will, there can be no doubt that the Obama campaign noticed the contributions, since its Sept. 20 report specified that Doodad’s cumulative contributions since the beginning of the campaign were $10,965.
Foreign Donations
And then there are the overseas donations — at least, the ones that we know about.
The FEC has compiled a separate database of potentially questionable overseas donations that contains more than 11,500 contributions totaling $33.8 million. More than 520 listed their “state” as “IR,” often an abbreviation for Iran. Another 63 listed it as “UK,” the United Kingdom.
More than 1,400 of the overseas entries clearly were U.S. diplomats or military personnel, who gave an APO address overseas. Their total contributions came to just $201,680.
But others came from places as far afield as Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa, Beijing, Fallujah, Florence, Italy, and a wide selection of towns and cities in France.
Until recently, the Obama Web site allowed a contributor to select the country where he resided from the entire membership of the United Nations, including such friendly places as North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Unlike McCain’s or Sen. Hillary Clinton’s online donation pages, the Obama site did not ask for proof of citizenship until just recently. Clinton’s presidential campaign required U.S. citizens living abroad to actually fax a copy of their passport before a donation would be accepted.
With such lax vetting of foreign contributions, the Obama campaign may have indirectly contributed to questionable fundraising by foreigners.
In July and August, the head of the Nigeria’s stock market held a series of pro-Obama fundraisers in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. The events attracted local Nigerian business owners.
At one event, a table for eight at one fundraising dinner went for $16,800. Nigerian press reports claimed sponsors raked in an estimated $900,000.
The sponsors said the fundraisers were held to help Nigerians attend the Democratic convention in Denver. But the Nigerian press expressed skepticism of that claim, and the Nigerian public anti-fraud commission is now investigating the matter.
Concerns about foreign fundraising have been raised by other anecdotal accounts of illegal activities.
In June, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a public speech praising Obama, claiming foreign nationals were donating to his campaign.
“All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man,” the Libyan leader said. “They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency..."
Though Gadhafi asserted that fundraising from Arab and African nations were “legitimate,” the fact is that U.S. federal law bans any foreigner from donating to a U.S. election campaign.
The rise of the Internet and use of credit cards have made it easier for foreign nationals to donate to American campaigns, especially if they claim their donation is less than $200.
Campaign spokesman LaBolt cited several measures that the campaign has adopted to “root out fraud,” including a requirement that anyone attending an Obama fundraising event overseas present a valid U.S. passport, and a new requirement that overseas contributors must provide a passport number when donating online.
One new measure that might not appear obvious at first could be frustrating to foreigners wanting to buy campaign paraphernalia such as T-shirts or bumper stickers through the online store.
In response to an investigation conducted by blogger Pamela Geller, who runs the blog Atlas Shrugs, the Obama campaign has locked down the store.
Geller first revealed on July 31 that donors from the Gaza strip had contributed $33,000 to the Obama campaign through bulk purchases of T-shirts they had shipped to Gaza.
The online campaign store allows buyers to complete their purchases by making an additional donation to the Obama campaign.
A pair of Palestinian brothers named Hosam and Monir Edwan contributed more than $31,300 to the Obama campaign in October and November 2007, FEC records show.
Their largesse attracted the attention of the FEC almost immediately. In an April 15, 2008, report that examined the Obama campaign’s year-end figures for 2007, the FEC asked that some of these contributions be reassigned.
The Obama camp complied sluggishly, prompting a more detailed admonishment form the FEC on July 30.
The Edwan brothers listed their address as “GA,” as in Georgia, although they entered “Gaza” or “Rafah Refugee camp” as their city of residence on most of the online contribution forms.
According to the Obama campaign, they wrongly identified themselves as U.S. citizens, via a voluntary check-off box at the time the donations were made.
Many of the Edwan brothers’ contributions have been purged from the FEC database, but they still can be found in archived versions available for CRP and other watchdog groups.
The latest Obama campaign filing shows that $891.11 still has not been refunded to the Edwan brothers, despite repeated FEC warnings and campaign claims that all the money was refunded in December.
A Newsmax review of the Obama campaign finance filings found that the FEC had asked for the redesignation or refund of 53,828 donations, totaling just under $30 million.
But none involves the donors who never appear in the Obama campaign reports, which the CRP estimates at nearly half the $426.8 million the Obama campaign has raised to date.
Many of the small donors participated in online “matching” programs, which allows them to hook up with other Obama supporters and eventually share e-mail addresses and blogs.
The Obama Web site described the matching contribution program as similar to a public radio fundraising drive.
“Our goal is to bring 50,000 new donors into our movement by Friday at midnight,” campaign manager David Plouffe e-mailed supporters on Sept. 15. “And if you make your first online donation today, your gift will go twice as far. A previous donor has promised to match every dollar you donate.”
FEC spokesman Biersack said he was unfamiliar with the matching donation drive. But he said that if donations from another donor were going to be reassigned to a new donor, as the campaign suggested, “the two people must agree” to do so.
This type of matching drive probably would be legal as long as the matching donor had not exceeded the $2,300 per-election limit, he said.
Obama campaign spokesman LaBolt said, “We have more than 2.5 million donors overall, hundreds of thousands of which have participated in this program.”
Until now, the names of those donors and where they live have remained anonymous — and the federal watchdog agency in charge of ensuring that the presidential campaigns play by the same rules has no tools to find out.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
FBI Hunts Americans
FBI hunts American citizens trained overseas for terror
Feds launch dragnet to stop 'October surprise' attack
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: September 29, 2008
1:00 am Eastern
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=76415
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
As Pakistani investigators hunt the terrorists behind the massive Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad, FBI agents in the U.S. have begun aggressively hunting for Americans who have recently returned from trips to Pakistan where they may have trained at al-Qaida camps, WND has learned.
A coast-to-coast dragnet has been launched partly in response to leads developed in the arrest of one of al-Qaida's "fixers" in the U.S., say FBI officials. They report the bureau is in a race against time to identify Pakistan-trained sleeper cells and disrupt a possible pre-election "October surprise."
For the first time since 9/11, counterterrorism field agents have been authorized to spy on young Muslim men and women – including American citizens – who have traveled to Pakistan without any specific evidence of wrongdoing.
Controversial new investigative guidelines approved by the Justice Department allow agents to monitor suspects and conduct undercover interviews even before opening formal investigations.
FBI headquarters has ordered its field offices to aggressively pursue anonymous tips and report back any suspicious activities in their Muslim communities. The intelligence will be immediately analyzed and shared in a threat matrix to avoid a repeat of the so-called "Phoenix memo" intelligence failure, officials say.
In the weeks prior to 9/11, an alert agent in the FBI's Phoenix office noted that several radical Middle Eastern men were taking flying lessons. He drafted a memo and sent it to headquarters, which promptly buried it, missing an opportunity to act before the disastrous hijackings of 9/11.
The FBI's new rules and current sense of urgency follow the recent interrogation of al-Qaida operative Aafia Siddiqui, an M.I.T.-educated scientist who fled to Pakistan after 9/11. She was arrested this summer in Afghanistan and brought back to the U.S. after sustaining injuries from a gun battle.
According to a federal indictment, Siddiqui was found with handwritten notes that referred to a "mass casualty attack" and listed various locations in the U.S. including Wall Street, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Plum Island and the Brooklyn Bridge. In addition, certain notes referred to the construction of "dirty bombs," chemical and biological weapons and other explosives.
Siddiqui's notes also discussed "mortality rates associated with certain of these weapons and explosives," the indictment says. Other notes referred to various ways to attack "enemies," including destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs and using gliders.
A computer thumb drive in Siddiqui's possession contained electronic correspondence that referred to specific "cells" and "attacks" by certain "cells," the indictment says. Other documents referred to "enemies," including the U.S., and discussed recruitment and training.
Officials say subsequent interrogations have revealed that possibly hundreds of American Muslims, many of them of Pakistani descent, have traveled to Pakistan in recent years to train at al-Qaida and Taliban madrassas and terror camps and have returned to the U.S. to carry out suicide attacks.
The revelation has shocked the politically sensitive FBI into abandoning its long-held policy of coordinating investigations in the Muslim community with Muslim-rights groups. Officials say it's more important than ever to track down Muslims who have traveled to Pakistan, and gather and disseminate intelligence quickly to disrupt possible terror plots before they can develop to an operational stage.
"There's some worry we may be in another Phoenix moment," one official said, "but this time we're determined to leave no stone unturned."
The formation of al-Qaida training camps inside Pakistan has been a major concern among U.S. security agencies since at least 2004, when Washington issued a rare intelligence directive to border agents to check young Pakistani male travelers –including Americans – for physical signs of military training.
As WND first reported, they were asked to look for "rope burns," "unusual bruises," "scars" and other possible injuries suffered from obstacle courses, firearms or explosives.
"Many of the individuals trained in the Pakistani camps are destined to commit illegal activities in the United States," warned the two-page DHS advisory that launched the special action.
According to another internal DHS document obtained by WND, the department more recently directed customs officers to escort passengers identified by "one-day lookouts" to secondary inspection, where they are subjected to a battery of questions to determine if they have visited terror camps in Pakistan.
American citizens of Pakistani descent also are under increased scrutiny. Over the past few years, U.S. authorities have arrested or investigated several Pakistani-American men who have trained at the camps during trips to Pakistan. One camp used photos of President Bush for target practice.
"The camps are a big concern," said a DHS official, who requested anonymity. "We are questioning U.S. citizens, as well as Pakistani nationals, as they come back to the states if the computer says they might have terrorist ties."
FBI Director Robert Mueller earlier this month cited the threat posed by the Pakistani terror-training camps while briefing Congress about the bureau's expanded investigative powers, which officially go into effect Oct. 1.
"We know that in western Pakistan now that there are camps in which individuals are being trained. The U.K. knows that very well because individuals who were involved in the 2005 attacks and later attacks had traveled to Pakistan for training in the camps and then come back," Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee. "I believe the American public would want us to do what is necessary to try to identify persons who had traveled to Pakistan, whatever their heritage, whatever their background, whatever their ethnicity, to determine who has gone to Pakistan to obtain that training and may be coming back to the United States to undertake an attack."
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., complained the new investigative rules would give FBI agents license to racially profile citizens.
FBI officials noted that the Marriott blast, which killed both U.S. Defense and State Department officials, signaled new techniques by al-Qaida-trained suicide terrorists. The dump-truck bomb they used was so massive, leaving a crater 30 feet deep and 60 feet wide, that it managed to severely damage the building even from beyond the concrete barriers protecting the perimeter of the building.
Also, investigators said that the hotel – a high-profile target that was used by Western diplomats as well as the CIA – had been targeted at least twice previously for attack, just as the U.S. embassy in Yemen had been hit in minor operations before this month's full-scale attack.
The repeat attacks indicate the terrorists are testing security, experts say. It also indicates they will keep coming back to the same target until they are successful in destroying it.
In the U.S., the World Trade Center was first attacked in 1993 and then again in 2001. A target the hijackers intended to strike but failed to hit on 9/11 was the U.S. Capitol. Terror analysts believe the Pentagon remains an al-Qaida target as well, since it was only partially damaged in the 9/11 operation.
Feds launch dragnet to stop 'October surprise' attack
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: September 29, 2008
1:00 am Eastern
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=76415
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
As Pakistani investigators hunt the terrorists behind the massive Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad, FBI agents in the U.S. have begun aggressively hunting for Americans who have recently returned from trips to Pakistan where they may have trained at al-Qaida camps, WND has learned.
A coast-to-coast dragnet has been launched partly in response to leads developed in the arrest of one of al-Qaida's "fixers" in the U.S., say FBI officials. They report the bureau is in a race against time to identify Pakistan-trained sleeper cells and disrupt a possible pre-election "October surprise."
For the first time since 9/11, counterterrorism field agents have been authorized to spy on young Muslim men and women – including American citizens – who have traveled to Pakistan without any specific evidence of wrongdoing.
Controversial new investigative guidelines approved by the Justice Department allow agents to monitor suspects and conduct undercover interviews even before opening formal investigations.
FBI headquarters has ordered its field offices to aggressively pursue anonymous tips and report back any suspicious activities in their Muslim communities. The intelligence will be immediately analyzed and shared in a threat matrix to avoid a repeat of the so-called "Phoenix memo" intelligence failure, officials say.
In the weeks prior to 9/11, an alert agent in the FBI's Phoenix office noted that several radical Middle Eastern men were taking flying lessons. He drafted a memo and sent it to headquarters, which promptly buried it, missing an opportunity to act before the disastrous hijackings of 9/11.
The FBI's new rules and current sense of urgency follow the recent interrogation of al-Qaida operative Aafia Siddiqui, an M.I.T.-educated scientist who fled to Pakistan after 9/11. She was arrested this summer in Afghanistan and brought back to the U.S. after sustaining injuries from a gun battle.
According to a federal indictment, Siddiqui was found with handwritten notes that referred to a "mass casualty attack" and listed various locations in the U.S. including Wall Street, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Plum Island and the Brooklyn Bridge. In addition, certain notes referred to the construction of "dirty bombs," chemical and biological weapons and other explosives.
Siddiqui's notes also discussed "mortality rates associated with certain of these weapons and explosives," the indictment says. Other notes referred to various ways to attack "enemies," including destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs and using gliders.
A computer thumb drive in Siddiqui's possession contained electronic correspondence that referred to specific "cells" and "attacks" by certain "cells," the indictment says. Other documents referred to "enemies," including the U.S., and discussed recruitment and training.
Officials say subsequent interrogations have revealed that possibly hundreds of American Muslims, many of them of Pakistani descent, have traveled to Pakistan in recent years to train at al-Qaida and Taliban madrassas and terror camps and have returned to the U.S. to carry out suicide attacks.
The revelation has shocked the politically sensitive FBI into abandoning its long-held policy of coordinating investigations in the Muslim community with Muslim-rights groups. Officials say it's more important than ever to track down Muslims who have traveled to Pakistan, and gather and disseminate intelligence quickly to disrupt possible terror plots before they can develop to an operational stage.
"There's some worry we may be in another Phoenix moment," one official said, "but this time we're determined to leave no stone unturned."
The formation of al-Qaida training camps inside Pakistan has been a major concern among U.S. security agencies since at least 2004, when Washington issued a rare intelligence directive to border agents to check young Pakistani male travelers –including Americans – for physical signs of military training.
As WND first reported, they were asked to look for "rope burns," "unusual bruises," "scars" and other possible injuries suffered from obstacle courses, firearms or explosives.
"Many of the individuals trained in the Pakistani camps are destined to commit illegal activities in the United States," warned the two-page DHS advisory that launched the special action.
According to another internal DHS document obtained by WND, the department more recently directed customs officers to escort passengers identified by "one-day lookouts" to secondary inspection, where they are subjected to a battery of questions to determine if they have visited terror camps in Pakistan.
American citizens of Pakistani descent also are under increased scrutiny. Over the past few years, U.S. authorities have arrested or investigated several Pakistani-American men who have trained at the camps during trips to Pakistan. One camp used photos of President Bush for target practice.
"The camps are a big concern," said a DHS official, who requested anonymity. "We are questioning U.S. citizens, as well as Pakistani nationals, as they come back to the states if the computer says they might have terrorist ties."
FBI Director Robert Mueller earlier this month cited the threat posed by the Pakistani terror-training camps while briefing Congress about the bureau's expanded investigative powers, which officially go into effect Oct. 1.
"We know that in western Pakistan now that there are camps in which individuals are being trained. The U.K. knows that very well because individuals who were involved in the 2005 attacks and later attacks had traveled to Pakistan for training in the camps and then come back," Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee. "I believe the American public would want us to do what is necessary to try to identify persons who had traveled to Pakistan, whatever their heritage, whatever their background, whatever their ethnicity, to determine who has gone to Pakistan to obtain that training and may be coming back to the United States to undertake an attack."
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., complained the new investigative rules would give FBI agents license to racially profile citizens.
FBI officials noted that the Marriott blast, which killed both U.S. Defense and State Department officials, signaled new techniques by al-Qaida-trained suicide terrorists. The dump-truck bomb they used was so massive, leaving a crater 30 feet deep and 60 feet wide, that it managed to severely damage the building even from beyond the concrete barriers protecting the perimeter of the building.
Also, investigators said that the hotel – a high-profile target that was used by Western diplomats as well as the CIA – had been targeted at least twice previously for attack, just as the U.S. embassy in Yemen had been hit in minor operations before this month's full-scale attack.
The repeat attacks indicate the terrorists are testing security, experts say. It also indicates they will keep coming back to the same target until they are successful in destroying it.
In the U.S., the World Trade Center was first attacked in 1993 and then again in 2001. A target the hijackers intended to strike but failed to hit on 9/11 was the U.S. Capitol. Terror analysts believe the Pentagon remains an al-Qaida target as well, since it was only partially damaged in the 9/11 operation.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Barack Obama and Slavery
Barack Obama and Slavery
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted GMT 9-26-2008 7:10:19
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Slavery still stalks the American consciousness, its wounds yet festering in many hearts. If Barack Obama were to set his mind to it, he could heal much of the damage this peculiar institution wrought on our national soul. This great and tragic error that must be given justice. Obama is the best person in the world who can recognize, remember and honor the deaths of 125 million and the enslavement of tens of millions of people.
His unique qualifications can be found in his names. Until he was 20 years old, he went by the first name Barry. Then he decided to be called Barack Hussein Obama, his original birth name.
Many people seem to the names "Barack" and "Obama" are African names. They are not.
Baraq [Barack] was the name of the winged horse-like creature that took Mohammed to Paradise in the Night Journey. Baraq can also mean God's blessing. Obama is Swahili for Osama, who was one of Mohammed's chief warriors. Osama also means lion. Hussein reminds some Americans of Saddam Hussein, and Obama's supporters get upset if it is used. Hussein was the name of Mohammed's grandson. So Obama's entire name is based upon Islamic mythology and African conquest. Barack Hussein Obama means [Allah's blessing] [Mohammed's grandson] [One of Mohammed's finest warriors].
Obama's name reveals a part of history that is unknown or hidden about America, Africa and slavery. It also reveals a history of the destruction of native African civilization. His name came from his father, a so-called Arab African. The word Arab is the clue to the hidden history.
Kafirs (non-Muslims) rarely refer to Islam, but call it by an ethnic name whenever they can. When Islam conquered the Middle East, the conquerors were not called Muslims, but Arabs. In Eastern Europe the Muslim invaders were called Turks. In Spain conquering Muslims were referred to as Moors. Thus it is that the Islamic culture in Africa, Arab African, is referred to with an ethnic name, Arab Africans, like Obama's father, are Muslims who leave behind their African culture and adopt the Arab culture.
The Arab African Muslim has always been associated with slavery because Islam is the driving force in the history of world slavery.
Islam's connection with slavery starts with Mohammed. The exact details of how slaves are taken are described in detail in the Sira, Mohammed's biography. The Sira is a sacred text since it relates Mohammed's words and deeds, called the Sunna. Everything he did is the perfect pattern of behavior for all Muslims.
Mohammed was involved in every single aspect and detail of slavery. He bought and sold slaves both retail and wholesale. He gave them as gifts, used them for sex, received them as gifts, stood by as slaves were beaten, attacked. He enslaved tribes, and owned black slaves. Indeed, his rise to political success was financed, in part, by the profit of his slave trade.
So the sacred pattern of Mohammed and Islam is the enslavement of non-Muslims, kafirs. For 1400 years Islam has enslaved all races and cultures including Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Zoroastrians, animists, and atheists. Only Muslims are free of being enslaved.
What Obama could do
Obama could tell us that there is only one way to understand Africa and slavery and that is to understand political Islam. For 1400 years Islam has steadily been at work in Africa. The easiest place for Americans to see Islam's annihilation of kafir civilization is in North Africa and Egypt. Egypt used to be a Christian and Coptic (the descendants of the Pharaohs) country. North Africa was a Greek and Christian culture, and at one time a part of the Roman Empire.
The first Islamic assault on African culture was the jihad that annihilated Coptic Egyptian culture and Greek culture in Northern Africa. Today these areas are Arabic and Islamic.
That was just the thin end of the jihad wedge. Over the next 1400 years, Islam took approximately 25 million slaves out of Africa. An Arabic word for African is abd, the same word that is used for black slave. Arabic has about 40 words for slaves. White slaves are mamluk. Islam took more than a million European slaves into slavery. The highest priced slave in the Meccan slave market was a white woman.
There is great deal of collateral damage when a slave is taken. A warring party attacks a tribe and when enough of the protectors are killed, the rest will surrender and become slaves. All of those who were strong enough to work were taken away in a forced march for days. But there are many who are left behind -- the young, the old, and the sick and injured.
Estimates vary, but from 5 to 10 people left behind died as the result of taking one slave. So for 25 million slaves, we have the deaths of 125 million Africans over a 1400-year period.
When the story of slavery is told in America, as in the movie Roots, the sailors get off the boats and capture the Africans and make them slaves. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
When the white slaver showed up in his wooden ship, he made a business deal with a Muslim wholesaler. Jihad was the machinery that Mohammed used, and his model worked well in Africa as slavers filled the slave pens for the same reason that Mohammed did it: profit. Whites only traded slaves with Islam for about 200 years. Islam was in the slave trade before and after selling to the West.
If you would like to learn about the Arab African slave traders that came from the same area of Africa that Obama's father came from, read Tippu Tip and the East African Slave Trade (Leda Farrant, Northumberland Press, 1975). Tippu Tip looked African, but he was 100% Arab and Muslim. By the way, Arab is not a racial term, but a cultural/language term.
But the slave trade had another effect. Africa slowly became Islamic. Jihad worked in many ways to bring about conversion. Sometimes trade introduced Islam and a hybrid Islam/native African religion evolved. Then jihad was used to purify and remove the African culture to result in a purer Islam. But in the end, half of Africa fell to Islam.
The oddest thing is that many people have the idea that an Arab African is the same as African. When the Arab culture replaces the native African culture the culture is not African. African culture is no more Arab than Hindu culture is Arab. Sharia law is just as foreign to native African culture as it is to ours.
The magnitude of this problem is seen in Darfur, where Arab Africans are destroying Africans who are not yet Arab enough. This is a centuries-long jihad to annihilate the native African culture. This process is no different than the process by which Coptic Egypt became Arab Egypt. Islam is not a religion but a complete civilization whose stated goal is to replace all other civilizations. There has never been a historical example of a country that kept its native culture after Islam entered. So Africa is an ordinary historical example.
The ignorance about the history behind Obama's names is the root of why he can achieve such an impact. Obama represents the chance to help heal the curse of slavery in America by revealing its complete history. He is a descendant of a white woman who had slave owners in her ancestry. His African father descended from those who enslaved the Africans. Obama is descended from slave owners and slave traders, but he does not have a single drop of slave blood in him.
Since race trumps all, everyone sees him as being representative of America's slave descendants. It becomes true simply because in a race/culture-obsessed society, some want it to be true. Obama's slave ancestry is a fiction and not reality.
So Obama is half enslaver, by ancestry, and half slave, by choice. He is the most uniquely positioned to tell the truth, the complete truth about Islam, Africa, America and slavery.
Now here is the last little twist to Obama's name. He called himself Barry, an Irish name, for many years in America. He changed what he wanted to be called after he went to Pakistan for a three-week stay. He left America as Barry and returned as Barack.
Some whites may have bought slaves from Islam for 200 years, but after that, their culture was first to outlaw slavery. So Obama changed his name from a culture that abolished slavery to a name from a culture that has enslaved others for 1400 years and has a highly detailed doctrine of slavery.
This is the world that Obama spans: from slavery abolition to the eternal enslaver. He represents hope to many American descendants of slaves, but his ancestors were never enslaved. No one else could tell the story that Obama knows. He could tell the story of how 125 million Africans died. He could tell the story of how 25 million Africans became slaves. There is an enormous irony that descendants of the slaves that his ancestors created now look to him for justice. And he could give them real justice by telling the complete truth of their enslavement. Only he has the power to make others listen.
Obama has shown himself to be a world citizen with his speech in Berlin, and his speaking the truth of the complete story of slavery would be historic, and could reverse centuries of ignorance and lies. He can stand up and tell the world the true complete story of slavery. It would change history far beyond the election cycle.
By Bill Warner
www.americanthinker.com
Bill Warner is director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam.
© 2008 2008, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights Reserved.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted GMT 9-26-2008 7:10:19
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Slavery still stalks the American consciousness, its wounds yet festering in many hearts. If Barack Obama were to set his mind to it, he could heal much of the damage this peculiar institution wrought on our national soul. This great and tragic error that must be given justice. Obama is the best person in the world who can recognize, remember and honor the deaths of 125 million and the enslavement of tens of millions of people.
His unique qualifications can be found in his names. Until he was 20 years old, he went by the first name Barry. Then he decided to be called Barack Hussein Obama, his original birth name.
Many people seem to the names "Barack" and "Obama" are African names. They are not.
Baraq [Barack] was the name of the winged horse-like creature that took Mohammed to Paradise in the Night Journey. Baraq can also mean God's blessing. Obama is Swahili for Osama, who was one of Mohammed's chief warriors. Osama also means lion. Hussein reminds some Americans of Saddam Hussein, and Obama's supporters get upset if it is used. Hussein was the name of Mohammed's grandson. So Obama's entire name is based upon Islamic mythology and African conquest. Barack Hussein Obama means [Allah's blessing] [Mohammed's grandson] [One of Mohammed's finest warriors].
Obama's name reveals a part of history that is unknown or hidden about America, Africa and slavery. It also reveals a history of the destruction of native African civilization. His name came from his father, a so-called Arab African. The word Arab is the clue to the hidden history.
Kafirs (non-Muslims) rarely refer to Islam, but call it by an ethnic name whenever they can. When Islam conquered the Middle East, the conquerors were not called Muslims, but Arabs. In Eastern Europe the Muslim invaders were called Turks. In Spain conquering Muslims were referred to as Moors. Thus it is that the Islamic culture in Africa, Arab African, is referred to with an ethnic name, Arab Africans, like Obama's father, are Muslims who leave behind their African culture and adopt the Arab culture.
The Arab African Muslim has always been associated with slavery because Islam is the driving force in the history of world slavery.
Islam's connection with slavery starts with Mohammed. The exact details of how slaves are taken are described in detail in the Sira, Mohammed's biography. The Sira is a sacred text since it relates Mohammed's words and deeds, called the Sunna. Everything he did is the perfect pattern of behavior for all Muslims.
Mohammed was involved in every single aspect and detail of slavery. He bought and sold slaves both retail and wholesale. He gave them as gifts, used them for sex, received them as gifts, stood by as slaves were beaten, attacked. He enslaved tribes, and owned black slaves. Indeed, his rise to political success was financed, in part, by the profit of his slave trade.
So the sacred pattern of Mohammed and Islam is the enslavement of non-Muslims, kafirs. For 1400 years Islam has enslaved all races and cultures including Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Zoroastrians, animists, and atheists. Only Muslims are free of being enslaved.
What Obama could do
Obama could tell us that there is only one way to understand Africa and slavery and that is to understand political Islam. For 1400 years Islam has steadily been at work in Africa. The easiest place for Americans to see Islam's annihilation of kafir civilization is in North Africa and Egypt. Egypt used to be a Christian and Coptic (the descendants of the Pharaohs) country. North Africa was a Greek and Christian culture, and at one time a part of the Roman Empire.
The first Islamic assault on African culture was the jihad that annihilated Coptic Egyptian culture and Greek culture in Northern Africa. Today these areas are Arabic and Islamic.
That was just the thin end of the jihad wedge. Over the next 1400 years, Islam took approximately 25 million slaves out of Africa. An Arabic word for African is abd, the same word that is used for black slave. Arabic has about 40 words for slaves. White slaves are mamluk. Islam took more than a million European slaves into slavery. The highest priced slave in the Meccan slave market was a white woman.
There is great deal of collateral damage when a slave is taken. A warring party attacks a tribe and when enough of the protectors are killed, the rest will surrender and become slaves. All of those who were strong enough to work were taken away in a forced march for days. But there are many who are left behind -- the young, the old, and the sick and injured.
Estimates vary, but from 5 to 10 people left behind died as the result of taking one slave. So for 25 million slaves, we have the deaths of 125 million Africans over a 1400-year period.
When the story of slavery is told in America, as in the movie Roots, the sailors get off the boats and capture the Africans and make them slaves. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
When the white slaver showed up in his wooden ship, he made a business deal with a Muslim wholesaler. Jihad was the machinery that Mohammed used, and his model worked well in Africa as slavers filled the slave pens for the same reason that Mohammed did it: profit. Whites only traded slaves with Islam for about 200 years. Islam was in the slave trade before and after selling to the West.
If you would like to learn about the Arab African slave traders that came from the same area of Africa that Obama's father came from, read Tippu Tip and the East African Slave Trade (Leda Farrant, Northumberland Press, 1975). Tippu Tip looked African, but he was 100% Arab and Muslim. By the way, Arab is not a racial term, but a cultural/language term.
But the slave trade had another effect. Africa slowly became Islamic. Jihad worked in many ways to bring about conversion. Sometimes trade introduced Islam and a hybrid Islam/native African religion evolved. Then jihad was used to purify and remove the African culture to result in a purer Islam. But in the end, half of Africa fell to Islam.
The oddest thing is that many people have the idea that an Arab African is the same as African. When the Arab culture replaces the native African culture the culture is not African. African culture is no more Arab than Hindu culture is Arab. Sharia law is just as foreign to native African culture as it is to ours.
The magnitude of this problem is seen in Darfur, where Arab Africans are destroying Africans who are not yet Arab enough. This is a centuries-long jihad to annihilate the native African culture. This process is no different than the process by which Coptic Egypt became Arab Egypt. Islam is not a religion but a complete civilization whose stated goal is to replace all other civilizations. There has never been a historical example of a country that kept its native culture after Islam entered. So Africa is an ordinary historical example.
The ignorance about the history behind Obama's names is the root of why he can achieve such an impact. Obama represents the chance to help heal the curse of slavery in America by revealing its complete history. He is a descendant of a white woman who had slave owners in her ancestry. His African father descended from those who enslaved the Africans. Obama is descended from slave owners and slave traders, but he does not have a single drop of slave blood in him.
Since race trumps all, everyone sees him as being representative of America's slave descendants. It becomes true simply because in a race/culture-obsessed society, some want it to be true. Obama's slave ancestry is a fiction and not reality.
So Obama is half enslaver, by ancestry, and half slave, by choice. He is the most uniquely positioned to tell the truth, the complete truth about Islam, Africa, America and slavery.
Now here is the last little twist to Obama's name. He called himself Barry, an Irish name, for many years in America. He changed what he wanted to be called after he went to Pakistan for a three-week stay. He left America as Barry and returned as Barack.
Some whites may have bought slaves from Islam for 200 years, but after that, their culture was first to outlaw slavery. So Obama changed his name from a culture that abolished slavery to a name from a culture that has enslaved others for 1400 years and has a highly detailed doctrine of slavery.
This is the world that Obama spans: from slavery abolition to the eternal enslaver. He represents hope to many American descendants of slaves, but his ancestors were never enslaved. No one else could tell the story that Obama knows. He could tell the story of how 125 million Africans died. He could tell the story of how 25 million Africans became slaves. There is an enormous irony that descendants of the slaves that his ancestors created now look to him for justice. And he could give them real justice by telling the complete truth of their enslavement. Only he has the power to make others listen.
Obama has shown himself to be a world citizen with his speech in Berlin, and his speaking the truth of the complete story of slavery would be historic, and could reverse centuries of ignorance and lies. He can stand up and tell the world the true complete story of slavery. It would change history far beyond the election cycle.
By Bill Warner
www.americanthinker.com
Bill Warner is director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam.
© 2008 2008, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights Reserved.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
When School Bus Turns to Hell Bus
"When School Bus turns to Hell Bus"
"Rakan Bin Williams may be your neighbor and may be your colleague at work or a member of the local police... Imagine if "Uncle Brian," the school bus driver carrying your children to school every morning is someone other than he claims to be? Just imagine, you very, very stupid American."
By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director
25 September 2008: Among Muslims who have immigrated to the United States over the last quarter century, there is a certain element that has not arrived with the intention to adapt, to make a new life for themselves or their families, to make a living, or to be thankful for the country that has openly accepted and embraced them.
That particular element has arrived with the surreptitious agenda of Islamizing America; to convert our country that is rooted in Judeo-Christian principles to Islam. They are here to corrupt our country from within, exploit the freedoms they have been granted, our multicultural tolerance, and our laws for the purpose of eradicating our democracy and establishing a one-world caliphate. They have, in fact, admitted as much.
This process has increased exponentially over the last decade, and consists of the influx of a much more dangerous portion of the element referenced above. While the former group consists of individuals who are cunning but patient, supportive of terrorism but covertly so, the latter group is arriving to avenge what they perceive as the evils committed by the Great Satan and our friends and partners in the Middle East, Israel.
Although they employ different tactics the majority of the time, both groups of this same vitriolic element share the same basic philosophy and objectives. Despite deceptive outward appearances, neither group of this element is here to assimilate, to tolerate, or to exist peaceably.
There is yet another element, perhaps more insidious, one that is indigenous to the United States. This element consists of those born in America who converted to the Muslim religion, sharing, however, the same ideological and political objectives of those who have arrived in the U.S. for nefarious purposes. Many such converts have been recruited through Wahabbi funded outreach programs, through our prison systems, and by other means fashioned to take advantage of those who feel disenfranchised and vulnerable.
It is this group of terrorists who adhere to the Islamic philosophy of jihad, who by all outward appearances look like an average person you might see sitting next to you on a bus, train, or even at a ball game. It was in November of 2006 that a message appeared on an Arabic language Internet forum that initially described the individuals who just might carry out the next wave of attacks inside the U.S. The post referenced this type of individual by a single name: Rakan bin Williams.
Described as Western or European in appearance, the attackers would be Muslim converts, perhaps those who have appeared to assimilate and even become respected in our society. It is this group that is the subject of the post printed below that was just published to an Arabic language web forum.
Mindful of that threat, consider this chilling communication by an individual who promises revenge against American children for the deaths of children in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. The words of this poster should speak for themselves:
[Translated from Arabic and excerpted]:
"Imagine in America, terrorists are living in the same building and riding the same train, and watching movies every Saturday in the cinema hall frequented by residents at the end of the week.
Rakan Bin Williams may be your neighbor and may be your colleague at work or a member of the local police. Oh my God! Oh My God!
Just imagine, you very, very stupid American.
Imagine if "Uncle Brian," the school bus driver carrying your children to school every morning is someone other than he claims to be?
Just imagine, you very, very stupid American.
Uncle Brian walks to his bus, waves to the police patrol in the middle of some small town. He’s always smiling, everyone knows him and he is respected and recognized by everyone. He plays and laughs with the children, but believes you are a very, very stupid American. Uncle Brian has changed significantly…
Imagine if he was [a] Rakan bin Williams?
Imagine as he drove his bus to the rail crossing that cut through the city, and the gate closed as the train approached, but the bus crashes the gate and stops suddenly on the rail track!!! And the train continues. Uncle Brian stays on the tracks and keeps the door closed as the train approaches rapidly. Maybe they’ll say that Uncle Brian might have lost his mind?
Or perhaps he was thinking of the little children massacred and pictures of the children killed where our children died.
Imagine if there were hundreds of "Uncle Brians" among you?
This is just a little hint of what’s to come. I want you to clearly understand that it is too late. Yes, it is too late.
The people of the U.S. are very, very stupid and they will pay dearly, Do you understand??
Your neighbor might have become of us. Perhaps your boss at work as well.
It is not just a nightmare, you stupid American."
"Rakan Bin Williams may be your neighbor and may be your colleague at work or a member of the local police... Imagine if "Uncle Brian," the school bus driver carrying your children to school every morning is someone other than he claims to be? Just imagine, you very, very stupid American."
By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director
25 September 2008: Among Muslims who have immigrated to the United States over the last quarter century, there is a certain element that has not arrived with the intention to adapt, to make a new life for themselves or their families, to make a living, or to be thankful for the country that has openly accepted and embraced them.
That particular element has arrived with the surreptitious agenda of Islamizing America; to convert our country that is rooted in Judeo-Christian principles to Islam. They are here to corrupt our country from within, exploit the freedoms they have been granted, our multicultural tolerance, and our laws for the purpose of eradicating our democracy and establishing a one-world caliphate. They have, in fact, admitted as much.
This process has increased exponentially over the last decade, and consists of the influx of a much more dangerous portion of the element referenced above. While the former group consists of individuals who are cunning but patient, supportive of terrorism but covertly so, the latter group is arriving to avenge what they perceive as the evils committed by the Great Satan and our friends and partners in the Middle East, Israel.
Although they employ different tactics the majority of the time, both groups of this same vitriolic element share the same basic philosophy and objectives. Despite deceptive outward appearances, neither group of this element is here to assimilate, to tolerate, or to exist peaceably.
There is yet another element, perhaps more insidious, one that is indigenous to the United States. This element consists of those born in America who converted to the Muslim religion, sharing, however, the same ideological and political objectives of those who have arrived in the U.S. for nefarious purposes. Many such converts have been recruited through Wahabbi funded outreach programs, through our prison systems, and by other means fashioned to take advantage of those who feel disenfranchised and vulnerable.
It is this group of terrorists who adhere to the Islamic philosophy of jihad, who by all outward appearances look like an average person you might see sitting next to you on a bus, train, or even at a ball game. It was in November of 2006 that a message appeared on an Arabic language Internet forum that initially described the individuals who just might carry out the next wave of attacks inside the U.S. The post referenced this type of individual by a single name: Rakan bin Williams.
Described as Western or European in appearance, the attackers would be Muslim converts, perhaps those who have appeared to assimilate and even become respected in our society. It is this group that is the subject of the post printed below that was just published to an Arabic language web forum.
Mindful of that threat, consider this chilling communication by an individual who promises revenge against American children for the deaths of children in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. The words of this poster should speak for themselves:
[Translated from Arabic and excerpted]:
"Imagine in America, terrorists are living in the same building and riding the same train, and watching movies every Saturday in the cinema hall frequented by residents at the end of the week.
Rakan Bin Williams may be your neighbor and may be your colleague at work or a member of the local police. Oh my God! Oh My God!
Just imagine, you very, very stupid American.
Imagine if "Uncle Brian," the school bus driver carrying your children to school every morning is someone other than he claims to be?
Just imagine, you very, very stupid American.
Uncle Brian walks to his bus, waves to the police patrol in the middle of some small town. He’s always smiling, everyone knows him and he is respected and recognized by everyone. He plays and laughs with the children, but believes you are a very, very stupid American. Uncle Brian has changed significantly…
Imagine if he was [a] Rakan bin Williams?
Imagine as he drove his bus to the rail crossing that cut through the city, and the gate closed as the train approached, but the bus crashes the gate and stops suddenly on the rail track!!! And the train continues. Uncle Brian stays on the tracks and keeps the door closed as the train approaches rapidly. Maybe they’ll say that Uncle Brian might have lost his mind?
Or perhaps he was thinking of the little children massacred and pictures of the children killed where our children died.
Imagine if there were hundreds of "Uncle Brians" among you?
This is just a little hint of what’s to come. I want you to clearly understand that it is too late. Yes, it is too late.
The people of the U.S. are very, very stupid and they will pay dearly, Do you understand??
Your neighbor might have become of us. Perhaps your boss at work as well.
It is not just a nightmare, you stupid American."
Connecticut Dems to Censure Lieberman
Connecticut Dems Circulate Censure Resolution on Lieberman
by Associated Press
Thursday, September 25, 2008
HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut Democrats, angry that Sen. Joe Lieberman is campaigning for the Republican presidential candidate and criticizing his own party’s nominee, agreed Wednesday to circulate a resolution to censure the veteran politician but won’t consider acting on it until after Election Day.
The state party’s central committee Wednesday agreed to send copies of the resolution to every Democratic town committee in the state. The resolution condemns Lieberman for speaking at the Republicans’ convention and backing John McCain.
Party officials said the group plans to get input from the town officials and revisit the issue in December.
“When we have someone who is our elected senator, as a Democrat, standing in front of not only a national, but an international audience, speaking in support of Sen. McCain, it was the final straw for me personally,” said Audrey Blondin, a 30-year party veteran who helped to put together the resolution.
Lieberman was re-elected to the Senate as an independent after losing the Democratic primary in 2006 to businessman Ned Lamont. While he calls himself an “independent Democrat” in the Senate, he remains a registered Democrat and has said he has no plans to change his party affiliation.
Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000 and ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2004.
Lieberman and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have been caucusing with Democrats in Washington, giving the party control of the Senate with what is effectively a 51-49 majority — even though each party has 49 members. Democrats, in turn, have made Lieberman chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Blondin said Lieberman’s speech at the Republican National Convention, in which he praised McCain and criticized Democrat Barack Obama, convinced her that state Democrats needed to take a stand.
“Our point is not that Joe should in some way be prohibited from supporting McCain or speaking at the National Republican Convention. That’s not the issue,” Blondin said. “The issue is, he’s a Democrat. And Joe, in our opinion, needs to reconsider membership in our party.”
Lieberman, speaking earlier Wednesday to a radio station, said that he was surprised by the move to censure him.
“Honestly, I thought that was the kind of thing that happened only in the former Soviet Union. I understand that people are unhappy, but, you know, I’m doing something that I really believe,” Lieberman told WICH-AM. “I thought in this country you don’t get punished for that. So, I hope that in the end, my colleagues will understand and life will go on either way.”
by Associated Press
Thursday, September 25, 2008
HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut Democrats, angry that Sen. Joe Lieberman is campaigning for the Republican presidential candidate and criticizing his own party’s nominee, agreed Wednesday to circulate a resolution to censure the veteran politician but won’t consider acting on it until after Election Day.
The state party’s central committee Wednesday agreed to send copies of the resolution to every Democratic town committee in the state. The resolution condemns Lieberman for speaking at the Republicans’ convention and backing John McCain.
Party officials said the group plans to get input from the town officials and revisit the issue in December.
“When we have someone who is our elected senator, as a Democrat, standing in front of not only a national, but an international audience, speaking in support of Sen. McCain, it was the final straw for me personally,” said Audrey Blondin, a 30-year party veteran who helped to put together the resolution.
Lieberman was re-elected to the Senate as an independent after losing the Democratic primary in 2006 to businessman Ned Lamont. While he calls himself an “independent Democrat” in the Senate, he remains a registered Democrat and has said he has no plans to change his party affiliation.
Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000 and ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2004.
Lieberman and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have been caucusing with Democrats in Washington, giving the party control of the Senate with what is effectively a 51-49 majority — even though each party has 49 members. Democrats, in turn, have made Lieberman chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Blondin said Lieberman’s speech at the Republican National Convention, in which he praised McCain and criticized Democrat Barack Obama, convinced her that state Democrats needed to take a stand.
“Our point is not that Joe should in some way be prohibited from supporting McCain or speaking at the National Republican Convention. That’s not the issue,” Blondin said. “The issue is, he’s a Democrat. And Joe, in our opinion, needs to reconsider membership in our party.”
Lieberman, speaking earlier Wednesday to a radio station, said that he was surprised by the move to censure him.
“Honestly, I thought that was the kind of thing that happened only in the former Soviet Union. I understand that people are unhappy, but, you know, I’m doing something that I really believe,” Lieberman told WICH-AM. “I thought in this country you don’t get punished for that. So, I hope that in the end, my colleagues will understand and life will go on either way.”
CAIR Files Complaint
CAIR files FEC complaint: Obsession distribution a Zionist plot
Jihad Watch
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022817.php
Despite the fact that the film Obsession contains no political content and was made well before the 2008 election cycle began, CAIR, those paragons of Islamic moderation and honesty, would now have you believe that the national distribution of the DVD was an Israeli plot to elect John McCain.
This is a very revealing action for CAIR to take. It reveals in particular two key aspects of CAIR's mindset:
It further shows CAIR yet again on the wrong side of the jihad, as they are again and again. The Flying Imams threaten the ability of airline passengers to report suspicious behavior without getting harassed legally, and CAIR is right there. Sami Al-Arian for years bamboozles the Left into thinking he is a gallant freedom fighter for the Palestinians without the shadow of a hint of support for terrorism, and CAIR backs him all the way. The Patriot Act? CAIR was against it -- and not just the legitimately questionable parts, either. Has CAIR ever sponsored a single anti-terror initiative that would actually make it easier for law enforcement to identify and apprehend jihad terrorists? Nope.
Yet this shady group still enjoys mainstream media support, and is routinely depicted as a neutral "civil rights" organization.
"CAIR Asks FEC to Probe Anti-Muslim DVDs Sent to Swing States," from MarketWire, September 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):
WASHINGTON, DC - A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today announced that it has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over the distribution of an anti-Muslim film to 28 million homes in presidential election swing states.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is urging the FEC to investigate whether the Clarion Fund, a non-profit organization that distributed DVDs containing "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," is really a front for an Israel-based group seeking to help Sen. John McCain win the U.S. presidential election. (No information about a board of directors, staff or even a physical address is offered on the fund's website.)
In its complaint to the FEC, CAIR wrote in part:
"The Clarion Fund recently financed the distribution of some 28 million DVDs containing the film 'Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West' in what many political analysts describe as 'swing' states in the upcoming presidential elections. Those same analysts say the distribution of the 'Obsession' DVD was designed to benefit a particular presidential candidate, namely Sen. John McCain...
"According to the website for the Secretary of State for New York, Clarion Fund Inc. is incorporated in New York as a Delaware-based foreign not-for-profit corporation. According to the Delaware Department of Corporations, Robert (Rabbi Raphael) Shore, Rabbi Henry Harris and Rebecca Kabat incorporated Clarion Fund. All three of whom are reported to serve as employees of Aish HaTorah International, an organization apparently based in Israel. Also according to the Delaware Department of Corporations, the incorporators of the Clarion Fund used Aish HaTorah's New York City address (150 West 46th Street, New York) to incorporate Clarion Fund in Delaware... [SEE: http://www.aish.com/aishint/wwprogram.asp]
"It appears that the funding for the production, marketing and distribution of 'Obsession' may have originated from Israel-based Aish HaTorah International." [...]
"American voters deserve to know whether they are the targets of a multi-million-dollar campaign funded and directed by a foreign group seeking to whip up anti-Muslim hysteria as a way to influence the outcome of our presidential election," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad....
American voters also deserve to know whether they are the targets of a campaign, multimillion-dollar or no, funded and directed by Islamic supremacists to mislead and deceive them about Islamic jihad terrorism as a way to influence the outcome of our presidential election, and to influence much more besides.
Jihad Watch
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022817.php
Despite the fact that the film Obsession contains no political content and was made well before the 2008 election cycle began, CAIR, those paragons of Islamic moderation and honesty, would now have you believe that the national distribution of the DVD was an Israeli plot to elect John McCain.
This is a very revealing action for CAIR to take. It reveals in particular two key aspects of CAIR's mindset:
1. It shows that CAIR is fully aware that the jihad against Israel is an integral part of the global jihad, and is not just a struggle to recover Palestinian "stolen land." Thus a film that reveals the nature and goals of that global jihad -- Obsession -- benefits Israel.
2. It also shows that CAIR believes that John McCain will fight against the global jihad in a way that Barack Obama will not -- and that it believes therefore the distribution of an anti-jihad film, which in a sane world would be welcomed by both the Left and the Right since the global jihad wishes to destroy and remake the West utterly, must be some partisan plot.
It further shows CAIR yet again on the wrong side of the jihad, as they are again and again. The Flying Imams threaten the ability of airline passengers to report suspicious behavior without getting harassed legally, and CAIR is right there. Sami Al-Arian for years bamboozles the Left into thinking he is a gallant freedom fighter for the Palestinians without the shadow of a hint of support for terrorism, and CAIR backs him all the way. The Patriot Act? CAIR was against it -- and not just the legitimately questionable parts, either. Has CAIR ever sponsored a single anti-terror initiative that would actually make it easier for law enforcement to identify and apprehend jihad terrorists? Nope.
Yet this shady group still enjoys mainstream media support, and is routinely depicted as a neutral "civil rights" organization.
"CAIR Asks FEC to Probe Anti-Muslim DVDs Sent to Swing States," from MarketWire, September 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):
WASHINGTON, DC - A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today announced that it has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over the distribution of an anti-Muslim film to 28 million homes in presidential election swing states.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is urging the FEC to investigate whether the Clarion Fund, a non-profit organization that distributed DVDs containing "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," is really a front for an Israel-based group seeking to help Sen. John McCain win the U.S. presidential election. (No information about a board of directors, staff or even a physical address is offered on the fund's website.)
In its complaint to the FEC, CAIR wrote in part:
"The Clarion Fund recently financed the distribution of some 28 million DVDs containing the film 'Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West' in what many political analysts describe as 'swing' states in the upcoming presidential elections. Those same analysts say the distribution of the 'Obsession' DVD was designed to benefit a particular presidential candidate, namely Sen. John McCain...
"According to the website for the Secretary of State for New York, Clarion Fund Inc. is incorporated in New York as a Delaware-based foreign not-for-profit corporation. According to the Delaware Department of Corporations, Robert (Rabbi Raphael) Shore, Rabbi Henry Harris and Rebecca Kabat incorporated Clarion Fund. All three of whom are reported to serve as employees of Aish HaTorah International, an organization apparently based in Israel. Also according to the Delaware Department of Corporations, the incorporators of the Clarion Fund used Aish HaTorah's New York City address (150 West 46th Street, New York) to incorporate Clarion Fund in Delaware... [SEE: http://www.aish.com/aishint/wwprogram.asp]
"It appears that the funding for the production, marketing and distribution of 'Obsession' may have originated from Israel-based Aish HaTorah International." [...]
"American voters deserve to know whether they are the targets of a multi-million-dollar campaign funded and directed by a foreign group seeking to whip up anti-Muslim hysteria as a way to influence the outcome of our presidential election," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad....
American voters also deserve to know whether they are the targets of a campaign, multimillion-dollar or no, funded and directed by Islamic supremacists to mislead and deceive them about Islamic jihad terrorism as a way to influence the outcome of our presidential election, and to influence much more besides.
Monday, September 22, 2008
White House Warned 17 Times
White House warned 17 times about problems with Fannie and Freddie
September 22, 2008 - 11:07 ET
For many years the President and his Administration have not only warned of the systemic consequences of financial turmoil at a housing government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) but also put forward thoughtful plans to reduce the risk that either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac would encounter such difficulties. President Bush publicly called for GSE reform 17 times in 2008 alone before Congress acted. Unfortunately, these warnings went unheeded, as the President's repeated attempts to reform the supervision of these entities were thwarted by the legislative maneuvering of those who emphatically denied there were problems.
2001
April: The Administration's FY02 budget declares that the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is "a potential problem," because "financial trouble of a large GSE could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity."
2002
May: The President calls for the disclosure and corporate governance principles contained in his 10-point plan for corporate responsibility to apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (OMB Prompt Letter to OFHEO, 5/29/02)
2003
January: Freddie Mac announces it has to restate financial results for the previous three years.
February: The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) releases a report explaining that "although investors perceive an implicit Federal guarantee of [GSE] obligations," "the government has provided no explicit legal backing for them." As a consequence, unexpected problems at a GSE could immediately spread into financial sectors beyond the housing market. ("Systemic Risk: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Role of OFHEO," OFHEO Report, 2/4/03)
September: Fannie Mae discloses SEC investigation and acknowledges OFHEO's review found earnings manipulations.
September: Treasury Secretary John Snow testifies before the House Financial Services Committee to recommend that Congress enact "legislation to create a new Federal agency to regulate and supervise the financial activities of our housing-related government sponsored enterprises" and set prudent and appropriate minimum capital adequacy requirements.
October: Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error.
November: Council of the Economic Advisers (CEA) Chairman Greg Mankiw explains that any "legislation to reform GSE regulation should empower the new regulator with sufficient strength and credibility to reduce systemic risk." To reduce the potential for systemic instability, the regulator would have "broad authority to set both risk-based and minimum capital standards" and "receivership powers necessary to wind down the affairs of a troubled GSE." (N. Gregory Mankiw, Remarks At The Conference Of State Bank Supervisors State Banking Summit And Leadership, 11/6/03)
2004
February: The President's FY05 Budget again highlights the risk posed by the explosive growth of the GSEs and their low levels of required capital, and called for creation of a new, world-class regulator: "The Administration has determined that the safety and soundness regulators of the housing GSEs lack sufficient power and stature to meet their responsibilities, and therefore…should be replaced with a new strengthened regulator." (2005 Budget Analytic Perspectives, pg. 83)
February: CEA Chairman Mankiw cautions Congress to "not take [the financial market's] strength for granted." Again, the call from the Administration was to reduce this risk by "ensuring that the housing GSEs are overseen by an effective regulator." (N. Gregory Mankiw, Op-Ed, "Keeping Fannie And Freddie's House In Order," Financial Times, 2/24/04)
June: Deputy Secretary of Treasury Samuel Bodman spotlights the risk posed by the GSEs and called for reform, saying "We do not have a world-class system of supervision of the housing government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), even though the importance of the housing financial system that the GSEs serve demands the best in supervision to ensure the long-term vitality of that system. Therefore, the Administration has called for a new, first class, regulatory supervisor for the three housing GSEs: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banking System." (Samuel Bodman, House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Testimony, 6/16/04)
2005
April: Treasury Secretary John Snow repeats his call for GSE reform, saying "Events that have transpired since I testified before this Committee in 2003 reinforce concerns over the systemic risks posed by the GSEs and further highlight the need for real GSE reform to ensure that our housing finance system remains a strong and vibrant source of funding for expanding homeownership opportunities in America… Half-measures will only exacerbate the risks to our financial system." (Secretary John W. Snow, "Testimony Before The U.S. House Financial Services Committee," 4/13/05)
2007
July: Two Bear Stearns hedge funds invested in mortgage securities collapse.
August: President Bush emphatically calls on Congress to pass a reform package for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying "first things first when it comes to those two institutions. Congress needs to get them reformed, get them streamlined, get them focused, and then I will consider other options." (President George W. Bush, Press Conference, The White House, 8/9/07)
September: RealtyTrac announces foreclosure filings up 243,000 in August – up 115 percent from the year before.
September: Single-family existing home sales decreases 7.5 percent from the previous month – the lowest level in nine years. Median sale price of existing homes fell six percent from the year before.
December: President Bush again warns Congress of the need to pass legislation reforming GSEs, saying "These institutions provide liquidity in the mortgage market that benefits millions of homeowners, and it is vital they operate safely and operate soundly. So I've called on Congress to pass legislation that strengthens independent regulation of the GSEs – and ensures they focus on their important housing mission. The GSE reform bill passed by the House earlier this year is a good start. But the Senate has not acted. And the United States Senate needs to pass this legislation soon." (President George W. Bush, Discusses Housing, The White House, 12/6/07)
2008
January: Bank of America announces it will buy Countrywide.
January: Citigroup announces mortgage portfolio lost $18.1 billion in value.
February: Assistant Secretary David Nason reiterates the urgency of reforms, says "A new regulatory structure for the housing GSEs is essential if these entities are to continue to perform their public mission successfully." (David Nason, Testimony On Reforming GSE Regulation, Senate Committee On Banking, Housing And Urban Affairs, 2/7/08)
March: Bear Stearns announces it will sell itself to JPMorgan Chase.
March: President Bush calls on Congress to take action and "move forward with reforms on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They need to continue to modernize the FHA, as well as allow State housing agencies to issue tax-free bonds to homeowners to refinance their mortgages." (President George W. Bush, Remarks To The Economic Club Of New York, New York, NY, 3/14/08)
April: President Bush urges Congress to pass the much needed legislation and "modernize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [There are] constructive things Congress can do that will encourage the housing market to correct quickly by … helping people stay in their homes." (President George W. Bush, Meeting With Cabinet, the White House, 4/14/08)
May: President Bush issues several pleas to Congress to pass legislation reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the situation deteriorates further.
"Americans are concerned about making their mortgage payments and keeping their homes. Yet Congress has failed to pass legislation I have repeatedly requested to modernize the Federal Housing Administration that will help more families stay in their homes, reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure they focus on their housing mission, and allow State housing agencies to issue tax-free bonds to refinance sub-prime loans." (President George W. Bush, Radio Address, 5/3/08)
"[T]he government ought to be helping creditworthy people stay in their homes. And one way we can do that – and Congress is making progress on this – is the reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That reform will come with a strong, independent regulator." (President George W. Bush, Meeting With The Secretary Of The Treasury, the White House, 5/19/08)
Congress needs to pass legislation to modernize the Federal Housing Administration, reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure they focus on their housing mission, and allow State housing agencies to issue tax-free bonds to refinance subprime loans." (President George W. Bush, Radio Address, 5/31/08)
June: As foreclosure rates continued to rise in the first quarter, the President once again asks Congress to take the necessary measures to address this challenge, saying "we need to pass legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." (President George W. Bush, Remarks At Swearing In Ceremony For Secretary Of Housing And Urban Development, Washington, D.C., 6/6/08)
July: Congress heeds the President's call for action and passes reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as it becomes clear that the institutions are failing.
(White House Press Release)
September 22, 2008 - 11:07 ET
For many years the President and his Administration have not only warned of the systemic consequences of financial turmoil at a housing government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) but also put forward thoughtful plans to reduce the risk that either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac would encounter such difficulties. President Bush publicly called for GSE reform 17 times in 2008 alone before Congress acted. Unfortunately, these warnings went unheeded, as the President's repeated attempts to reform the supervision of these entities were thwarted by the legislative maneuvering of those who emphatically denied there were problems.
2001
April: The Administration's FY02 budget declares that the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is "a potential problem," because "financial trouble of a large GSE could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity."
2002
May: The President calls for the disclosure and corporate governance principles contained in his 10-point plan for corporate responsibility to apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (OMB Prompt Letter to OFHEO, 5/29/02)
2003
January: Freddie Mac announces it has to restate financial results for the previous three years.
February: The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) releases a report explaining that "although investors perceive an implicit Federal guarantee of [GSE] obligations," "the government has provided no explicit legal backing for them." As a consequence, unexpected problems at a GSE could immediately spread into financial sectors beyond the housing market. ("Systemic Risk: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Role of OFHEO," OFHEO Report, 2/4/03)
September: Fannie Mae discloses SEC investigation and acknowledges OFHEO's review found earnings manipulations.
September: Treasury Secretary John Snow testifies before the House Financial Services Committee to recommend that Congress enact "legislation to create a new Federal agency to regulate and supervise the financial activities of our housing-related government sponsored enterprises" and set prudent and appropriate minimum capital adequacy requirements.
October: Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error.
November: Council of the Economic Advisers (CEA) Chairman Greg Mankiw explains that any "legislation to reform GSE regulation should empower the new regulator with sufficient strength and credibility to reduce systemic risk." To reduce the potential for systemic instability, the regulator would have "broad authority to set both risk-based and minimum capital standards" and "receivership powers necessary to wind down the affairs of a troubled GSE." (N. Gregory Mankiw, Remarks At The Conference Of State Bank Supervisors State Banking Summit And Leadership, 11/6/03)
2004
February: The President's FY05 Budget again highlights the risk posed by the explosive growth of the GSEs and their low levels of required capital, and called for creation of a new, world-class regulator: "The Administration has determined that the safety and soundness regulators of the housing GSEs lack sufficient power and stature to meet their responsibilities, and therefore…should be replaced with a new strengthened regulator." (2005 Budget Analytic Perspectives, pg. 83)
February: CEA Chairman Mankiw cautions Congress to "not take [the financial market's] strength for granted." Again, the call from the Administration was to reduce this risk by "ensuring that the housing GSEs are overseen by an effective regulator." (N. Gregory Mankiw, Op-Ed, "Keeping Fannie And Freddie's House In Order," Financial Times, 2/24/04)
June: Deputy Secretary of Treasury Samuel Bodman spotlights the risk posed by the GSEs and called for reform, saying "We do not have a world-class system of supervision of the housing government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), even though the importance of the housing financial system that the GSEs serve demands the best in supervision to ensure the long-term vitality of that system. Therefore, the Administration has called for a new, first class, regulatory supervisor for the three housing GSEs: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banking System." (Samuel Bodman, House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Testimony, 6/16/04)
2005
April: Treasury Secretary John Snow repeats his call for GSE reform, saying "Events that have transpired since I testified before this Committee in 2003 reinforce concerns over the systemic risks posed by the GSEs and further highlight the need for real GSE reform to ensure that our housing finance system remains a strong and vibrant source of funding for expanding homeownership opportunities in America… Half-measures will only exacerbate the risks to our financial system." (Secretary John W. Snow, "Testimony Before The U.S. House Financial Services Committee," 4/13/05)
2007
July: Two Bear Stearns hedge funds invested in mortgage securities collapse.
August: President Bush emphatically calls on Congress to pass a reform package for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying "first things first when it comes to those two institutions. Congress needs to get them reformed, get them streamlined, get them focused, and then I will consider other options." (President George W. Bush, Press Conference, The White House, 8/9/07)
September: RealtyTrac announces foreclosure filings up 243,000 in August – up 115 percent from the year before.
September: Single-family existing home sales decreases 7.5 percent from the previous month – the lowest level in nine years. Median sale price of existing homes fell six percent from the year before.
December: President Bush again warns Congress of the need to pass legislation reforming GSEs, saying "These institutions provide liquidity in the mortgage market that benefits millions of homeowners, and it is vital they operate safely and operate soundly. So I've called on Congress to pass legislation that strengthens independent regulation of the GSEs – and ensures they focus on their important housing mission. The GSE reform bill passed by the House earlier this year is a good start. But the Senate has not acted. And the United States Senate needs to pass this legislation soon." (President George W. Bush, Discusses Housing, The White House, 12/6/07)
2008
January: Bank of America announces it will buy Countrywide.
January: Citigroup announces mortgage portfolio lost $18.1 billion in value.
February: Assistant Secretary David Nason reiterates the urgency of reforms, says "A new regulatory structure for the housing GSEs is essential if these entities are to continue to perform their public mission successfully." (David Nason, Testimony On Reforming GSE Regulation, Senate Committee On Banking, Housing And Urban Affairs, 2/7/08)
March: Bear Stearns announces it will sell itself to JPMorgan Chase.
March: President Bush calls on Congress to take action and "move forward with reforms on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They need to continue to modernize the FHA, as well as allow State housing agencies to issue tax-free bonds to homeowners to refinance their mortgages." (President George W. Bush, Remarks To The Economic Club Of New York, New York, NY, 3/14/08)
April: President Bush urges Congress to pass the much needed legislation and "modernize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [There are] constructive things Congress can do that will encourage the housing market to correct quickly by … helping people stay in their homes." (President George W. Bush, Meeting With Cabinet, the White House, 4/14/08)
May: President Bush issues several pleas to Congress to pass legislation reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the situation deteriorates further.
June: As foreclosure rates continued to rise in the first quarter, the President once again asks Congress to take the necessary measures to address this challenge, saying "we need to pass legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." (President George W. Bush, Remarks At Swearing In Ceremony For Secretary Of Housing And Urban Development, Washington, D.C., 6/6/08)
July: Congress heeds the President's call for action and passes reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as it becomes clear that the institutions are failing.
(White House Press Release)
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Tancredo Introduces Anti-Sharia Bill
Tancredo introduces anti-Sharia "Jihad Prevention Act"
September 19, 2008
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022771.php
In the wake of Britain's capitulation to Sharia, this is just the kind of law we need. I am very glad to see Congressman Tancredo doing this, and hope that it will at very least ignite a national debate about this issue.
"Tancredo Proposes Anti-Sharia Measure in Wake of U.K. Certification of Islamic Courts," from Borderfire Report, September 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):
WASHINGTON, DC – Amid disturbing revelations that the verdicts of Islamic Sharia courts are now legally binding in civil cases in the United Kingdom, U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) moved quickly today to introduce legislation designed to protect the United States from a similar fate.
According to recent news reports, a new network of Sharia courts in a half-dozen major cities in the U.K. have been empowered under British law to adjudicate a wide variety of legal cases ranging from divorces and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.
“This is a case where truth is truly stranger than fiction,” said Tancredo. “Today the British people are learning a hard lesson about the consequences of massive, unrestricted immigration.”
Sharia law, favored by Muslim extremists around the world, often calls for brutal punishment – such as the stoning of women who are accused of adultery or have children out of wedlock, cutting off the hands of petty thieves and lashings for the casual consumption of alcohol. Under Sharia law, a woman is often required to provide numerous witnesses to prove rape allegations against an assailant – a near impossible task.
“When you have an immigration policy that allows for the importation of millions of radical Muslims, you are also importing their radical ideology – an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the foundations of western democracy – such as gender equality, pluralism, and individual liberty,” said Tancredo. “The best way to safeguard America against the importation of the destructive effects of this poisonous ideology is to prevent its purveyors from coming here in the first place.”
Tancredo’s bill, dubbed the “Jihad Prevention Act,” would bar the entry of foreign nationals who advocate Sharia law. In addition, the legislation would make the advocacy of Sharia law by radical Muslims already in the United States a deportable offense.
Tancredo pointed to the results of a recent poll conducted by the Centre for Social Cohesion as evidence that the U.S. should act to prevent the situation in Great Britain from replicating itself here in the United States. The poll found that some 40 percent of Muslim students in the United Kingdom support the introduction of Sharia law there, and 33 percent support the imposition of an Islamic Sharia-based government worldwide.
“We need to send a clear message that the only law we recognize here in America is the U.S. Constitution and the laws passed by our democratically elected representatives,” concluded Tancredo. “If you aren’t comfortable with that concept, you aren’t welcome in the United States.”
September 19, 2008
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022771.php
In the wake of Britain's capitulation to Sharia, this is just the kind of law we need. I am very glad to see Congressman Tancredo doing this, and hope that it will at very least ignite a national debate about this issue.
"Tancredo Proposes Anti-Sharia Measure in Wake of U.K. Certification of Islamic Courts," from Borderfire Report, September 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):
WASHINGTON, DC – Amid disturbing revelations that the verdicts of Islamic Sharia courts are now legally binding in civil cases in the United Kingdom, U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) moved quickly today to introduce legislation designed to protect the United States from a similar fate.
According to recent news reports, a new network of Sharia courts in a half-dozen major cities in the U.K. have been empowered under British law to adjudicate a wide variety of legal cases ranging from divorces and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.
“This is a case where truth is truly stranger than fiction,” said Tancredo. “Today the British people are learning a hard lesson about the consequences of massive, unrestricted immigration.”
Sharia law, favored by Muslim extremists around the world, often calls for brutal punishment – such as the stoning of women who are accused of adultery or have children out of wedlock, cutting off the hands of petty thieves and lashings for the casual consumption of alcohol. Under Sharia law, a woman is often required to provide numerous witnesses to prove rape allegations against an assailant – a near impossible task.
“When you have an immigration policy that allows for the importation of millions of radical Muslims, you are also importing their radical ideology – an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the foundations of western democracy – such as gender equality, pluralism, and individual liberty,” said Tancredo. “The best way to safeguard America against the importation of the destructive effects of this poisonous ideology is to prevent its purveyors from coming here in the first place.”
Tancredo’s bill, dubbed the “Jihad Prevention Act,” would bar the entry of foreign nationals who advocate Sharia law. In addition, the legislation would make the advocacy of Sharia law by radical Muslims already in the United States a deportable offense.
Tancredo pointed to the results of a recent poll conducted by the Centre for Social Cohesion as evidence that the U.S. should act to prevent the situation in Great Britain from replicating itself here in the United States. The poll found that some 40 percent of Muslim students in the United Kingdom support the introduction of Sharia law there, and 33 percent support the imposition of an Islamic Sharia-based government worldwide.
“We need to send a clear message that the only law we recognize here in America is the U.S. Constitution and the laws passed by our democratically elected representatives,” concluded Tancredo. “If you aren’t comfortable with that concept, you aren’t welcome in the United States.”
China's View of the Jews
China's View of the Jews
China good for the Jews
A book titled 'The Jews - Why Are They Rich?' would be considered anti- Semitic in every other country in the world. In China , however, it's a sort of compliment. Ronen Medzini elaborates on the Chinese people's idolization of the Jewish mind.
When I present myself to a Chinese person, it always boosts my ego. 'A Jew? Very smart !' is the immediate response. It is mostly followed by 'you are very good at business.'
There is no doubt, however, that my favorite response is 'you're like Einstein!' There is indeed a certain similarity between Einstein and myself. And the proof is that only this week I managed to repair a leakage in my washer's pipe system all by myself.
From time immemorial, and in many parts of the world to this day, the Jews have suffered from anti-Semitism and discrimination. In China , there are also prejudices against the Jews and Israel , but surprisingly enough, most of them are positive.
Although the large majority of the Chinese have never met a Jew, the prevailing opinion in China praises and glorifies the Jews and the State of Israel . Other pearls of wisdom by the Chinese include: ' Israel is small and surrounded by enemies, but manages to survive and succeed,' and ' China and Judaism are the only things that have maintained their character throughout history.'
'Israel and China are close friends,' the Chinese like to boast, showing impressive proficiency in the history of China 's Jews. And indeed, the Jews owe a lot to China , which served as a haven of rest for Diaspora Jews throughout the pervious century.
Jewish bubble in China
Historic documentations estimate that the first Jews arrived in China in the eighth century from Persia , through the Silk Road . The first Jewish community in China was founded in the year 1163 in the city of Kai-Fang in the Nan district, where the first Chinese synagogue was built.
In the end of the 19th century, Russian Jews settled in the cities of Tianjin and Dalian in northern China . But the biggest community at the time, which was comprised of some 25,000 Jews at its
peak, was established in the city of Harbin , where Jews arrived following the extension of the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
Teddy Kaufman, chairman of the Israel-China Society, was born in Harbin in 1924 and immigrated to Israel in 1950. His childhood in the city was quiet and normative. He had several Chinese friends who studied with him at school, and he took part in the active and routine community life.
'We knew nothing of what was taking place in Europe . We were completely disconnected from the Jewish world,' he told me. When I asked if he had ever encountered acts of anti-Semitism, he said, 'Of course, on the part of the Russians in the city.' And on the part of the Chinese 'Never.'
When I asked if he was grateful to the Chinese for their fair treatment of the Jews, he answered immediately, 'Without a doubt.'
In 1931, and following the Japanese takeover of the Manchuria district in northern China , the Jews' situation worsened. They were forced to live under supervision and restrictions on their businesses and comply with Japanese laws. In the coming years, some 4,500 Jews emigrated from northern China to Shanghai , before the Japanese took control of
the city.
Haven of Rest in Shanghai
The world seems to be divided into two: Places where Jews can't live, and places which Jews can't enter,' Chaim Weizmann wrote in 1936, after the Nazis rose to power in Europe and other countries banned Jews from entering them. An exception was the city of Shanghai , which in the 1930s was the only place in the world which did not require an entry visa. In the 1930s and during World War II, some 18,000 Jews who fled Nazi Europe found refuge in the city.
They joined two waves of Jewish immigration which had already reached Shanghai . The first in 1848 of wealthy Jews from Baghdad , who had accumulated a lot of power and property in the city, and the second of Russian Jews in the 1930s
Most of the Jewish immigrants arrived with no assets whatsoever, and were financially supported by the rich Baghdad Jews and donations raised by the Joint organization in the United States . The Jewish community developed an independent life in Shanghai , which included schools, hospitals, cemeteries, theatres and even sports teams.
In 1937, Shanghai was occupied by the Japanese, and in 1942, following Nazi Germany 's pressure on the Japanese authorities, the Japanese instructed all 'the residents of Shanghai without a citizenship' (a political wording directed at the Jews) to move to a crowded area of more than 1 square-kilometer, in the poor quarter of Hongkou.
The quarter, which was known as 'the Shanghai ghetto' was the land of the city's poor, and the Jews lived there together with the Chinese. The living conditions in the Ghetto was extremely difficult, there was a great food shortage, and outbreaks of diseases due to the harsh sanitation conditions. In Shangahi, however, as opposed to the rest of the world, nearly all the Jews survived the war.
The Chinese were also persecuted and massacred by the Japanese at the time. 'The Chinese and Jews had a special brotherhood, a brotherhood of persecuted people,' I was told by Shalom Greenberg, Shanghai 's rabbi. 'Today too, the Jews are thankful to the Chinese for treating them as equals, as human beings.'
Upon the State of Israel 's foundation, and following the rise of Communism in China , which did not benefit minorities and different religions, almost all Jews left the city. Most of them immigrated to Israel , the rest moved to other countries. Today, Dvir Ben-Gal guides tours in the trail of the Jewish community in Shanghai .
The Jewish community in Shanghai is comprised of some 2,000 Jews today, all newcomers. This year, at least 500 people are expected to take part in the Passover night service which will be held by the Chabad House in the city and will be conducted by Rabbi Greenberg.
'The Jewish road to wealth'
A common basic assumption in China and the world is that Jews have money and power. The difference is in the approach towards this assumption. While in many parts of the world the Jews' businesses and dominance are viewed with a feeling of disgust, the Chinese have developed great admiration, even idolization, for the Jewish mind.
What is the main reason for this? China doesn't feel, and never felt, threatened by the Jews. On the contrary, China views
Judaism as an ancient and wise culture like its own, and respects the high moral and family values emphasized in the Bible.
Thus, the global suspicion/hatred/jealousy towards Jews' money and dominance has been replaced in China by another phenomenon: Curiosity. The question 'why are the Jews so dominant in the world?' is asked by many Chinese.
I found proof in the local bookstore. In the business section, I caught sight of one book with an interesting title: 'The Jewish Road to Wealth.' When I asked the saleswoman if there were similar books, she referred me to an entire section of business books using the Jewish motif to attract readers.
Another book, which I immediately caught sight of, includes an illustration of Moses grasping the Tables of the Covenant and carries the title, 'The Ancient and Great Jewish Writings for Getting Rich.'
When I asked the saleswoman which of these books was a best seller, she handed me the book 'The Jews' Business Wisdom and the Art of Proper Behavior According to the Talmud.' I do not recall learning how to become rich in school, but this is definitely an original way to make the lessons more interesting.
Other books I found on the shelves included: 'The Most Effective Methods for Jewish Businesses,' 'Interpreting the Jewish Merchants - how they sell and succeed' and 'The Jews - why are they rich?'
It is very likely that books with similar titles published in any other country would be considered anti-Semitic and
racist. In China , however, they can be viewed as a sort of distorted compliment to our heritage. After all, when I told the saleswoman I was a Jew, she immediately uttered, 'Wow, you're smart!'
China good for the Jews
A book titled 'The Jews - Why Are They Rich?' would be considered anti- Semitic in every other country in the world. In China , however, it's a sort of compliment. Ronen Medzini elaborates on the Chinese people's idolization of the Jewish mind.
When I present myself to a Chinese person, it always boosts my ego. 'A Jew? Very smart !' is the immediate response. It is mostly followed by 'you are very good at business.'
There is no doubt, however, that my favorite response is 'you're like Einstein!' There is indeed a certain similarity between Einstein and myself. And the proof is that only this week I managed to repair a leakage in my washer's pipe system all by myself.
From time immemorial, and in many parts of the world to this day, the Jews have suffered from anti-Semitism and discrimination. In China , there are also prejudices against the Jews and Israel , but surprisingly enough, most of them are positive.
Although the large majority of the Chinese have never met a Jew, the prevailing opinion in China praises and glorifies the Jews and the State of Israel . Other pearls of wisdom by the Chinese include: ' Israel is small and surrounded by enemies, but manages to survive and succeed,' and ' China and Judaism are the only things that have maintained their character throughout history.'
'Israel and China are close friends,' the Chinese like to boast, showing impressive proficiency in the history of China 's Jews. And indeed, the Jews owe a lot to China , which served as a haven of rest for Diaspora Jews throughout the pervious century.
Jewish bubble in China
Historic documentations estimate that the first Jews arrived in China in the eighth century from Persia , through the Silk Road . The first Jewish community in China was founded in the year 1163 in the city of Kai-Fang in the Nan district, where the first Chinese synagogue was built.
In the end of the 19th century, Russian Jews settled in the cities of Tianjin and Dalian in northern China . But the biggest community at the time, which was comprised of some 25,000 Jews at its
peak, was established in the city of Harbin , where Jews arrived following the extension of the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
Teddy Kaufman, chairman of the Israel-China Society, was born in Harbin in 1924 and immigrated to Israel in 1950. His childhood in the city was quiet and normative. He had several Chinese friends who studied with him at school, and he took part in the active and routine community life.
'We knew nothing of what was taking place in Europe . We were completely disconnected from the Jewish world,' he told me. When I asked if he had ever encountered acts of anti-Semitism, he said, 'Of course, on the part of the Russians in the city.' And on the part of the Chinese 'Never.'
When I asked if he was grateful to the Chinese for their fair treatment of the Jews, he answered immediately, 'Without a doubt.'
In 1931, and following the Japanese takeover of the Manchuria district in northern China , the Jews' situation worsened. They were forced to live under supervision and restrictions on their businesses and comply with Japanese laws. In the coming years, some 4,500 Jews emigrated from northern China to Shanghai , before the Japanese took control of
the city.
Haven of Rest in Shanghai
The world seems to be divided into two: Places where Jews can't live, and places which Jews can't enter,' Chaim Weizmann wrote in 1936, after the Nazis rose to power in Europe and other countries banned Jews from entering them. An exception was the city of Shanghai , which in the 1930s was the only place in the world which did not require an entry visa. In the 1930s and during World War II, some 18,000 Jews who fled Nazi Europe found refuge in the city.
They joined two waves of Jewish immigration which had already reached Shanghai . The first in 1848 of wealthy Jews from Baghdad , who had accumulated a lot of power and property in the city, and the second of Russian Jews in the 1930s
Most of the Jewish immigrants arrived with no assets whatsoever, and were financially supported by the rich Baghdad Jews and donations raised by the Joint organization in the United States . The Jewish community developed an independent life in Shanghai , which included schools, hospitals, cemeteries, theatres and even sports teams.
In 1937, Shanghai was occupied by the Japanese, and in 1942, following Nazi Germany 's pressure on the Japanese authorities, the Japanese instructed all 'the residents of Shanghai without a citizenship' (a political wording directed at the Jews) to move to a crowded area of more than 1 square-kilometer, in the poor quarter of Hongkou.
The quarter, which was known as 'the Shanghai ghetto' was the land of the city's poor, and the Jews lived there together with the Chinese. The living conditions in the Ghetto was extremely difficult, there was a great food shortage, and outbreaks of diseases due to the harsh sanitation conditions. In Shangahi, however, as opposed to the rest of the world, nearly all the Jews survived the war.
The Chinese were also persecuted and massacred by the Japanese at the time. 'The Chinese and Jews had a special brotherhood, a brotherhood of persecuted people,' I was told by Shalom Greenberg, Shanghai 's rabbi. 'Today too, the Jews are thankful to the Chinese for treating them as equals, as human beings.'
Upon the State of Israel 's foundation, and following the rise of Communism in China , which did not benefit minorities and different religions, almost all Jews left the city. Most of them immigrated to Israel , the rest moved to other countries. Today, Dvir Ben-Gal guides tours in the trail of the Jewish community in Shanghai .
The Jewish community in Shanghai is comprised of some 2,000 Jews today, all newcomers. This year, at least 500 people are expected to take part in the Passover night service which will be held by the Chabad House in the city and will be conducted by Rabbi Greenberg.
'The Jewish road to wealth'
A common basic assumption in China and the world is that Jews have money and power. The difference is in the approach towards this assumption. While in many parts of the world the Jews' businesses and dominance are viewed with a feeling of disgust, the Chinese have developed great admiration, even idolization, for the Jewish mind.
What is the main reason for this? China doesn't feel, and never felt, threatened by the Jews. On the contrary, China views
Judaism as an ancient and wise culture like its own, and respects the high moral and family values emphasized in the Bible.
Thus, the global suspicion/hatred/jealousy towards Jews' money and dominance has been replaced in China by another phenomenon: Curiosity. The question 'why are the Jews so dominant in the world?' is asked by many Chinese.
I found proof in the local bookstore. In the business section, I caught sight of one book with an interesting title: 'The Jewish Road to Wealth.' When I asked the saleswoman if there were similar books, she referred me to an entire section of business books using the Jewish motif to attract readers.
Another book, which I immediately caught sight of, includes an illustration of Moses grasping the Tables of the Covenant and carries the title, 'The Ancient and Great Jewish Writings for Getting Rich.'
When I asked the saleswoman which of these books was a best seller, she handed me the book 'The Jews' Business Wisdom and the Art of Proper Behavior According to the Talmud.' I do not recall learning how to become rich in school, but this is definitely an original way to make the lessons more interesting.
Other books I found on the shelves included: 'The Most Effective Methods for Jewish Businesses,' 'Interpreting the Jewish Merchants - how they sell and succeed' and 'The Jews - why are they rich?'
It is very likely that books with similar titles published in any other country would be considered anti-Semitic and
racist. In China , however, they can be viewed as a sort of distorted compliment to our heritage. After all, when I told the saleswoman I was a Jew, she immediately uttered, 'Wow, you're smart!'
Thursday, September 11, 2008
My Problems with Quran
My Story with the Quran and Losing My Religion
by Mumin Salih
08 Sep, 2008
"Without raising an eyebrow, I also read about Mohammed's genocide of the Jewish tribe of Bani Quryza. I had developed the concept that committing Islamic genocides against the Jews are no more disturbing to an Arab than slaughtering a herd of cattle."
Introduction
I was reluctant to write the story of my departure from Islam, because it lacks any of the moral elements of the kind mentioned in some of the touching testimonies published on the Internet. I cannot claim that I wasn't aware of Mohammed's assassinations of his adversaries, because I read about it and accepted it as a justifiable action against the enemies of Allah. Neither I can claim that I wasn't aware of Mohammed's pedophilic marriage to Aysha because I knew about it and accepted it as a perfectly normal practice during Mohammed's time. Without raising an eyebrow, I also read about Mohammed's genocide of the Jewish tribe of Bani Quryza. I had developed the concept that committing Islamic genocides against the Jews are no more disturbing to an Arab than slaughtering a herd of cattle.
My problem with Islam was mainly about the Quran which seemed to continuously require external human boasters in the form of interpretations and reinterpretations and endless justifications for much of the Quran's inanities. For a person with a free mind and good knowledge of the Arabic language, it is a fierce struggle with the mind to accept anything about the Quran; its language, style and contents. The Quran is only convincing for those whose knowledge in Arabic is nonexistent or poor, which is the case in the vast majority of Muslims including the Arabs. It is especially true for those who are conditioned to read it year after year with only one thing in their minds- to earn hasanat that helps them to avoid hell fire. For decades, I belonged to the second group, but although my starting point was the false assumption that the Quran is absolutely correct, as all Muslims do, I found it increasingly harder to accept all that collection of nonsense as my knowledge of Arabic developed over the years.
I am afraid that in my case, the language and logical absurdities of the Quran sent a louder alarm than the cruelties of Mohammed. I rejected the Quran because I expected from Allah a much better book!
A Muslim Child
I was brought up in a small village in southern Syria in the early 1950s. My parents were ordinary farmers with simple education. Like the rest of the villagers, they performed the prayers and observed Ramadan fasting, which were more of a social and cultural duties. Like the rest of the children in the village, I was taught to recite some of the Quranic verses by heart well before the school age. It is still customary for the Middle Eastern parents to teach their young children to recite at least the first sura of the Quran, known as alfatiha. Some parents begin to work on this from the moment their children start to talk!
That was my first encounter with Quran but by no means the only one; the Quran was always around me whatever I did and wherever I went. In the background, there was always that voice of the Quari who reads the Quran in a distinguished tajweed style that spreads an atmosphere of gravity and fear. Such recitations seemed to go forever; they came from the mosque's loud speakers as well as from the radio and other audio devices. No ceremony or gathering or activity could start, or finish, without reciting some verses from the Quran. It is not only that I could hear the Quran all the time, but also I could see it all the time. Wherever I turned my eyes I could see some verses of the Quran written in special calligraphy and framed on the walls of every house or every shop, even means of transport were decorated with Quranic verses.
I attended the village's only school, which was an ordinary government school that had no particular emphasis on religious education. In the beginning of every school year, children were handed the relevant books for that particular year. Those books kept changing year after year except for one book-the Quran, which we called mushaf. The Quran was a truly intimidating book to any child; it was so intimidating to me that I couldn't even express my feelings towards it. Children dare not say anything negative about the Quran. I even didn't dare to allow any negative thoughts about it to surface in my mind for the fear of extreme punishment from Allah. I was taught to respect the book and do the Islamic washing ritual before even touching it, and never to hold it with my left hand. I was told to kiss the book immediately after I hold it and touch it with my forehead as a sign of respect. I was also taught of the special ritual of how to finish reading from the book. I mustn't stop reading before finishing the verse; even if it was a long one. After finishing the recitation I had to say in Arabic sadka allahu alazeem meaning 'Allah told the truth'. Then I was allowed to close the book respectfully and place it on top of the other books. I wasn't allowed to place any book on top of the Quran.
The Quran, a difficult book to read
It didn't escape my notice that the Quran was not a reader friendly book and certainly not a child friendly one, but I attributed that to the greatness of the book! It had no pictures at all and no titles or paragraphs and not even spaces between its verses or chapters; just a continuous writing from the beginning to the end. Its verses cannot be considered full sentences or paragraphs; they are just collections of words. A sentence may start in a verse and end in another one! If you take away the numbering of the verses, the whole Quran would look like one very long paragraph!
As I progressed in school, I became more talented in reading in Arabic, but I always had problems in reading the Quran. My consolation was that I was not alone; all the other children had the same problem. The only chapters I read easily were the ones I already know by heart or the ones I read before many times. Reading a new chapter was always a struggle, but, at the time, I never worked out why.
Even today, I still believe the Quran is not a particularly easy book to read for a first timer. I do not think it is possible for a person to read a page from the Quran for the first time without making many mistakes. The only way to read a chapter from the Quran without making mistakes is actually to read it many times before hand to become familiar with that chapter. Once you become familiar with a chapter, reading it becomes more of a reminder of what you already know (or nearly know ) by heart,.
The Muslim scholars have deliberately made the Quran a very difficult book to read. The Quran is deliberately scribed in a way that violates all the writing protocols of the Arabic language. The Muslim scholars are keen on this bizarre practice to ensure that the Quarn is well wrapped in a thick and dark coat of mystic ambiguity, which is the Quran's fiercest defense.
How can anybody read a book where the standard punctuation marks are not used at all? To confuse the reader even more, the Quran contains what appear to be scriptural errors in every verse. These deliberate violations to the Arabic writing protocols are peculiar to the Quran. As an example the word salat (prayer) is deliberately written like salowat and the word zakat is written like zakowat. Then every letter in every word is surrounded by coded pronunciation marks that are special to the Quran, to describe how that particular letter, in that particular position, should be pronounced. To add to the confusion, those pronunciation marks often look like smaller versions of the normal Arabic letters. Just in case all the above is not enough to confuse the reader, they add to every word the tajweed marks because every letter in the Quran has to be pronounced in a special way, according to its position in the word and sentence, to give a special sound effect, called tajweed, which is the Quran's musical note, as we may put it.
The Quran, a difficult text to hear or understand
Hearing and understanding the Quran were other tortures that my Islamic mind had to put up with. I could listen to the radio for ten minutes and all the Quari has done was to read only few verses that he repeated many times with many pauses in between, which only helps to distract the listener. Reading the interpretations or tafseer books is a true torture. Some tafseer books, especially the modern ones, are massive in volumes and interpreting one word can take many pages.
Such excessive writings intimidate the ordinary readers, which explains why not many people bother to read them, but also follows an imbedded psychological definition for intellectuality as perceived by many Arabs. There is a common misconception among many Arabs that a highly intellectual person is expected to produce highly complex writings. Many Arabs think it is all right if ordinary people cannot understand the complex and lengthy writings of the highly intelligent authors. Many Arabs may become impressed and speak highly of a scholar who writes many pages, or speak for hours explaining one word in the Quran, even though they did not understand a word of it! Simplicity, as some Arabs understand it, is only for the simple people.
Al Mutanabbi (915-965), one of the most talented Arab poets, reflected on such unusual misconception in one of his poems. He described his intelligence by claiming that he says what he wants to say then sleeps well, but the rest of the world spends the night trying to understand it! Almutanabbi said what some Arabs wanted to hear, and reflected a common cultural misconception. To be fair to the man, all his poetry is clear and powerful, but he reminds us with another author who prides himself that he alone can understand what he writes.
"Q.3:7. …but none knows its meanings except Allâh…."
The Quran and black magic
The above intensive and continuous brainwashing process that starts from the moment a child is born to a Muslim family, results in a state where Muslims are unable to consider the Quran in an objective way. The Muslims' minds are never free when it comes to anything to do with the Quran. The fact is that the Quran never looked to Muslims as normal, never sounded as normal and was never understood as normal.
Muslims have been conditioned to think of the Quran in a mystical environment, which reminds me with the way the magicians set the seen to perform their tricks. The stage magicians do not do anything supernatural, but they make the audience believe the do. They dress in dark colours and choose a dark background; they distract their audience's attention by using sound effects and by saying irrelevant words or making irrelevant movements.
Nowadays, black magic is a thriving business in the Middle East, as it had always been. Black magicians perform their tricks by saying some very strange words that do not make any sense. Such strange sayings have no meaning, even to the black magicians who compose them, but it is that ambiguity that serves to stun the confused client. Mohammed has used a lot of these abracadabra-like words in the Quran and the trick seems to work on Muslims! Many chapters in the Quran begin with a random arrangement of letters, sometimes even one letter! Indeed, some entire verses are composed of only few randomly arranged letters!
If any person with sanity receives a 'clear' message that reads H. M. h/she would reject it but Muslims accept it and consider it a miracle! As a matter of fact, the above two letters make the first verse of some suras in the Quran like sura 44. The interpretation books refer to this verse as a miracle! Muslim scholars say that nobody knows the meaning of the verse except Allah, which raises the question of why send a message that cannot be understood by the receiver? The irony is that the very next verse in sura 44 (i.e. 44:2) says "the clear book"! Muslims have been reading such verses for centuries without making any sense of them, their only response is to say with amazement: subhan allah!
The use of strange words does not stop at using random letters; the Quran did actually incorporate strange or foreign words in a similar fashion to the practice of the black magicians. If we refer to the interpretations books to find the meanings for words like ababil(105:3), sijjeel (105:4), ghesleen (69:36) and dozens others we find that they do not agree to a clear meaning, which indicates that such words had no clear meanings to the early Arabs. Mohammed probably used them just to make an impression. The Arab black magicians are known to use foreign or distorted words or even coin new ones that have no meaning at all other than making an impression in the minds of their stupid audience.
A high school lesson
I still vividly remember how one day in the high school, after the teacher spent a long time explaining the wonderful eloquence of the Quran, one of the pupils asked a question about one of the verses discussed that day, which was verse 49: 9
" وإنْ طائفتان من المؤمنين اقتتلوا"
49:9. And if two parties or groups among the believers fall to fighting, then ….
In the above verse, the Quran uses the word iktatalu (translated above as fall to fighting) in a place where it should be iktatala. The question was why? I didn't think the pupil meant to be critical or had any other intentions more than asking a simple grammar question. The question surprised me, but surprised the teacher more. The teacher told the pupil off and warned him that he should be careful and respectful when it comes to discussing the Quran. It was obvious to me that the teacher noticed the above error for the first time; he struggled to find an answer and to demonstrate the non-existent eloquence of the verse. He concluded that the early Arabs were amazed by the Quran, so who are we to disagree.
Verse 49: 9 have an obvious grammatical error that cannot be denied or explained. Muslim scholars go round and round, they twist the rules and change the meanings and go to any length to tell us that the mistake is not only correct, but also is a miracle! This is the verse that was the subject of the question: The Quran has many other grammatical errors, but the one that comes to my mind is in verse 22:19 because it is very similar error to the one above:
" هذان خصمان اختصموا"
22:19. These two opponents dispute with each other ...
In the above verse, the Quran wrongly uses the word ikhtasamu (translated above as dispute with each other) in a place where it should be ikhtasama
It didn't matter to me, that day, how the teacher explained the error, I only wanted to know that there is an explanation. I satisfied myself with the usual Islamic response that is designed to deter the mind from thinking too much about these things, which I still hear from Muslims nowadays. If you bring up the issue to Muslims, you hear their classic response "Do you think all those great Arabs of the past did not notice this? Do you think you are the genius of your time? Are you sure you understand the verse well?"
A liberal Muslim
As a university student, I was a fairly open minded Muslim, as I preferred to describe myself. The only prayers I used to perform were the Friday prayers but that was an acceptable average for university students those days. By the time I started my university education I had already discovered many areas in Islam that I didn't feel comfortable with. My response was to reject most of the ahadith and commit myself only to the Quran. I considered myself to be a true logical Muslim who is truly convinced of Islam and not just inherited it, a claim that I regularly hear from Muslims nowadays.
Deep in my mind, I realized that Mohammed's sira (life story) and his ahadith were too embarrassing to accept or justify. Therefore, to maintain my allegiance to Islam I had to reject them, or most of them, and build my own beliefs around the Quran. This may look bizarre because the Quran is just as bad as ahadith. The reality was that the Quran is an easy ride for a person with good command of Arabic. Its ambiguity and contradictions cater for all tastes, you just say what you want and you can find some words in the Quran that you can use to justify your case. I simply picked what I wanted and explained as I wanted and then turned a blind eye to the rest. That was the reality of my feelings that I managed to suppress all my Islamic years because my Islamic mind couldn't face it.
I practiced islam in a very liberal way, I neglected many of my Islamic duties, sometimes sinned and justified all that from carefully selected verses from the Quran. I decorated the wall of my room with a calligraphy poster of a Quranic verse, which I selected carefully and kept for years. It was verse 39: 53, which used to be one of my favorites because it is one of the few verses that project Allah as a kind and forgiving god.
39: 53. Say: 'O my slaves who have transgressed against themselves despair not of the Mercy of Allâh…'
I had a reputation among my friends to be a fan of the classic Arabic and to have special sensitivity to language mistakes in formal writings or readings. I must have read the above verse thousands of times without ever noticing its obvious error! The verse contains an outrageous language and logical mistake.
Allah is supposed to be talking to Mohammed and asking him to tell Muslims (Allah's slaves) not to despair, but the existing wording implies that Muslims are Mohammed's slaves! The above verse should start like this: 'Say: O Allah's slaves….'
I still find difficult to explain how I read the above verse days and nights for many years without ever noticing such an evident mistake, which I only noticed when I read the Quran with a critical mind some years later. But I am not alone; in fact I never came across an Arab Muslim who noticed the error, although they all would try hard to justify it. It is sad that Muslims are never free when it comes to anything to do with the Quran. Muslims are continuously subjected to an intensive indoctrination process that leaves them with impaired senses and dysfunctional minds. Muslims, under the influence of Islam, are incapable of reading the Quran in an objective way.
I was amazed by the number of blunders, of all kinds, that started to appear as I started to read the Quran in an objective way. Removing the divine halo that surrounds the Quran reveals a very different book that doesn't require any interoperations to understand because all its mysteries are solved by one word- nonsense.
The above verse is not a one off error; actually the Quran is full with them. It is a common practice in the Quran for Allah to suddenly move from the third person to the first person or vice versa with no reason at all. In verse 6:99, such a poor usage of language implies that Allah talks about a different god who sends down rain from the sky while He is responsible for the vegetations:
6:99. It is HE who sends down water from the sky, and with it WE bring forth vegetation of all kinds…
But my favorite example of the Quran's lack of clarity is verse 6: 151, which is a list of the forbidden things that Muslims must avoid. The verse, in theory, should be one of the easiest verses to compose; it is just a matter of listing things one after the other, which the Quran failed miserably to do:
6: 151. Say: "Come, I will recite what your Lord has prohibited you from: Join not anything in worship with Him; be good and dutiful to your parents; kill not your children because of poverty - We provide sustenance for you and for them; come not near to Al-Fawâhish whether committed openly or secretly, and kill not anyone whom Allâh has forbidden, except for a just cause….
The above verse lists the forbidden things that all Muslims must avoid. The verse lists being good and dutiful to parents as one of those sins. Muslim scholars say that 'being good to parents' is not part of the list and we also sincerely hope it not. But why did Allah insert it in that position of the verse then rely on human commonsense to figure out that it is not part of that list? Is there a good writing style in the above verse? Would such writing be acceptable from any writer, past or present?
And my story with the Quran continues..
by Mumin Salih
08 Sep, 2008
"Without raising an eyebrow, I also read about Mohammed's genocide of the Jewish tribe of Bani Quryza. I had developed the concept that committing Islamic genocides against the Jews are no more disturbing to an Arab than slaughtering a herd of cattle."
Introduction
I was reluctant to write the story of my departure from Islam, because it lacks any of the moral elements of the kind mentioned in some of the touching testimonies published on the Internet. I cannot claim that I wasn't aware of Mohammed's assassinations of his adversaries, because I read about it and accepted it as a justifiable action against the enemies of Allah. Neither I can claim that I wasn't aware of Mohammed's pedophilic marriage to Aysha because I knew about it and accepted it as a perfectly normal practice during Mohammed's time. Without raising an eyebrow, I also read about Mohammed's genocide of the Jewish tribe of Bani Quryza. I had developed the concept that committing Islamic genocides against the Jews are no more disturbing to an Arab than slaughtering a herd of cattle.
My problem with Islam was mainly about the Quran which seemed to continuously require external human boasters in the form of interpretations and reinterpretations and endless justifications for much of the Quran's inanities. For a person with a free mind and good knowledge of the Arabic language, it is a fierce struggle with the mind to accept anything about the Quran; its language, style and contents. The Quran is only convincing for those whose knowledge in Arabic is nonexistent or poor, which is the case in the vast majority of Muslims including the Arabs. It is especially true for those who are conditioned to read it year after year with only one thing in their minds- to earn hasanat that helps them to avoid hell fire. For decades, I belonged to the second group, but although my starting point was the false assumption that the Quran is absolutely correct, as all Muslims do, I found it increasingly harder to accept all that collection of nonsense as my knowledge of Arabic developed over the years.
I am afraid that in my case, the language and logical absurdities of the Quran sent a louder alarm than the cruelties of Mohammed. I rejected the Quran because I expected from Allah a much better book!
A Muslim Child
I was brought up in a small village in southern Syria in the early 1950s. My parents were ordinary farmers with simple education. Like the rest of the villagers, they performed the prayers and observed Ramadan fasting, which were more of a social and cultural duties. Like the rest of the children in the village, I was taught to recite some of the Quranic verses by heart well before the school age. It is still customary for the Middle Eastern parents to teach their young children to recite at least the first sura of the Quran, known as alfatiha. Some parents begin to work on this from the moment their children start to talk!
That was my first encounter with Quran but by no means the only one; the Quran was always around me whatever I did and wherever I went. In the background, there was always that voice of the Quari who reads the Quran in a distinguished tajweed style that spreads an atmosphere of gravity and fear. Such recitations seemed to go forever; they came from the mosque's loud speakers as well as from the radio and other audio devices. No ceremony or gathering or activity could start, or finish, without reciting some verses from the Quran. It is not only that I could hear the Quran all the time, but also I could see it all the time. Wherever I turned my eyes I could see some verses of the Quran written in special calligraphy and framed on the walls of every house or every shop, even means of transport were decorated with Quranic verses.
I attended the village's only school, which was an ordinary government school that had no particular emphasis on religious education. In the beginning of every school year, children were handed the relevant books for that particular year. Those books kept changing year after year except for one book-the Quran, which we called mushaf. The Quran was a truly intimidating book to any child; it was so intimidating to me that I couldn't even express my feelings towards it. Children dare not say anything negative about the Quran. I even didn't dare to allow any negative thoughts about it to surface in my mind for the fear of extreme punishment from Allah. I was taught to respect the book and do the Islamic washing ritual before even touching it, and never to hold it with my left hand. I was told to kiss the book immediately after I hold it and touch it with my forehead as a sign of respect. I was also taught of the special ritual of how to finish reading from the book. I mustn't stop reading before finishing the verse; even if it was a long one. After finishing the recitation I had to say in Arabic sadka allahu alazeem meaning 'Allah told the truth'. Then I was allowed to close the book respectfully and place it on top of the other books. I wasn't allowed to place any book on top of the Quran.
The Quran, a difficult book to read
It didn't escape my notice that the Quran was not a reader friendly book and certainly not a child friendly one, but I attributed that to the greatness of the book! It had no pictures at all and no titles or paragraphs and not even spaces between its verses or chapters; just a continuous writing from the beginning to the end. Its verses cannot be considered full sentences or paragraphs; they are just collections of words. A sentence may start in a verse and end in another one! If you take away the numbering of the verses, the whole Quran would look like one very long paragraph!
As I progressed in school, I became more talented in reading in Arabic, but I always had problems in reading the Quran. My consolation was that I was not alone; all the other children had the same problem. The only chapters I read easily were the ones I already know by heart or the ones I read before many times. Reading a new chapter was always a struggle, but, at the time, I never worked out why.
Even today, I still believe the Quran is not a particularly easy book to read for a first timer. I do not think it is possible for a person to read a page from the Quran for the first time without making many mistakes. The only way to read a chapter from the Quran without making mistakes is actually to read it many times before hand to become familiar with that chapter. Once you become familiar with a chapter, reading it becomes more of a reminder of what you already know (or nearly know ) by heart,.
The Muslim scholars have deliberately made the Quran a very difficult book to read. The Quran is deliberately scribed in a way that violates all the writing protocols of the Arabic language. The Muslim scholars are keen on this bizarre practice to ensure that the Quarn is well wrapped in a thick and dark coat of mystic ambiguity, which is the Quran's fiercest defense.
How can anybody read a book where the standard punctuation marks are not used at all? To confuse the reader even more, the Quran contains what appear to be scriptural errors in every verse. These deliberate violations to the Arabic writing protocols are peculiar to the Quran. As an example the word salat (prayer) is deliberately written like salowat and the word zakat is written like zakowat. Then every letter in every word is surrounded by coded pronunciation marks that are special to the Quran, to describe how that particular letter, in that particular position, should be pronounced. To add to the confusion, those pronunciation marks often look like smaller versions of the normal Arabic letters. Just in case all the above is not enough to confuse the reader, they add to every word the tajweed marks because every letter in the Quran has to be pronounced in a special way, according to its position in the word and sentence, to give a special sound effect, called tajweed, which is the Quran's musical note, as we may put it.
The Quran, a difficult text to hear or understand
Hearing and understanding the Quran were other tortures that my Islamic mind had to put up with. I could listen to the radio for ten minutes and all the Quari has done was to read only few verses that he repeated many times with many pauses in between, which only helps to distract the listener. Reading the interpretations or tafseer books is a true torture. Some tafseer books, especially the modern ones, are massive in volumes and interpreting one word can take many pages.
Such excessive writings intimidate the ordinary readers, which explains why not many people bother to read them, but also follows an imbedded psychological definition for intellectuality as perceived by many Arabs. There is a common misconception among many Arabs that a highly intellectual person is expected to produce highly complex writings. Many Arabs think it is all right if ordinary people cannot understand the complex and lengthy writings of the highly intelligent authors. Many Arabs may become impressed and speak highly of a scholar who writes many pages, or speak for hours explaining one word in the Quran, even though they did not understand a word of it! Simplicity, as some Arabs understand it, is only for the simple people.
Al Mutanabbi (915-965), one of the most talented Arab poets, reflected on such unusual misconception in one of his poems. He described his intelligence by claiming that he says what he wants to say then sleeps well, but the rest of the world spends the night trying to understand it! Almutanabbi said what some Arabs wanted to hear, and reflected a common cultural misconception. To be fair to the man, all his poetry is clear and powerful, but he reminds us with another author who prides himself that he alone can understand what he writes.
"Q.3:7. …but none knows its meanings except Allâh…."
The Quran and black magic
The above intensive and continuous brainwashing process that starts from the moment a child is born to a Muslim family, results in a state where Muslims are unable to consider the Quran in an objective way. The Muslims' minds are never free when it comes to anything to do with the Quran. The fact is that the Quran never looked to Muslims as normal, never sounded as normal and was never understood as normal.
Muslims have been conditioned to think of the Quran in a mystical environment, which reminds me with the way the magicians set the seen to perform their tricks. The stage magicians do not do anything supernatural, but they make the audience believe the do. They dress in dark colours and choose a dark background; they distract their audience's attention by using sound effects and by saying irrelevant words or making irrelevant movements.
Nowadays, black magic is a thriving business in the Middle East, as it had always been. Black magicians perform their tricks by saying some very strange words that do not make any sense. Such strange sayings have no meaning, even to the black magicians who compose them, but it is that ambiguity that serves to stun the confused client. Mohammed has used a lot of these abracadabra-like words in the Quran and the trick seems to work on Muslims! Many chapters in the Quran begin with a random arrangement of letters, sometimes even one letter! Indeed, some entire verses are composed of only few randomly arranged letters!
If any person with sanity receives a 'clear' message that reads H. M. h/she would reject it but Muslims accept it and consider it a miracle! As a matter of fact, the above two letters make the first verse of some suras in the Quran like sura 44. The interpretation books refer to this verse as a miracle! Muslim scholars say that nobody knows the meaning of the verse except Allah, which raises the question of why send a message that cannot be understood by the receiver? The irony is that the very next verse in sura 44 (i.e. 44:2) says "the clear book"! Muslims have been reading such verses for centuries without making any sense of them, their only response is to say with amazement: subhan allah!
The use of strange words does not stop at using random letters; the Quran did actually incorporate strange or foreign words in a similar fashion to the practice of the black magicians. If we refer to the interpretations books to find the meanings for words like ababil(105:3), sijjeel (105:4), ghesleen (69:36) and dozens others we find that they do not agree to a clear meaning, which indicates that such words had no clear meanings to the early Arabs. Mohammed probably used them just to make an impression. The Arab black magicians are known to use foreign or distorted words or even coin new ones that have no meaning at all other than making an impression in the minds of their stupid audience.
A high school lesson
I still vividly remember how one day in the high school, after the teacher spent a long time explaining the wonderful eloquence of the Quran, one of the pupils asked a question about one of the verses discussed that day, which was verse 49: 9
" وإنْ طائفتان من المؤمنين اقتتلوا"
49:9. And if two parties or groups among the believers fall to fighting, then ….
In the above verse, the Quran uses the word iktatalu (translated above as fall to fighting) in a place where it should be iktatala. The question was why? I didn't think the pupil meant to be critical or had any other intentions more than asking a simple grammar question. The question surprised me, but surprised the teacher more. The teacher told the pupil off and warned him that he should be careful and respectful when it comes to discussing the Quran. It was obvious to me that the teacher noticed the above error for the first time; he struggled to find an answer and to demonstrate the non-existent eloquence of the verse. He concluded that the early Arabs were amazed by the Quran, so who are we to disagree.
Verse 49: 9 have an obvious grammatical error that cannot be denied or explained. Muslim scholars go round and round, they twist the rules and change the meanings and go to any length to tell us that the mistake is not only correct, but also is a miracle! This is the verse that was the subject of the question: The Quran has many other grammatical errors, but the one that comes to my mind is in verse 22:19 because it is very similar error to the one above:
" هذان خصمان اختصموا"
22:19. These two opponents dispute with each other ...
In the above verse, the Quran wrongly uses the word ikhtasamu (translated above as dispute with each other) in a place where it should be ikhtasama
It didn't matter to me, that day, how the teacher explained the error, I only wanted to know that there is an explanation. I satisfied myself with the usual Islamic response that is designed to deter the mind from thinking too much about these things, which I still hear from Muslims nowadays. If you bring up the issue to Muslims, you hear their classic response "Do you think all those great Arabs of the past did not notice this? Do you think you are the genius of your time? Are you sure you understand the verse well?"
A liberal Muslim
As a university student, I was a fairly open minded Muslim, as I preferred to describe myself. The only prayers I used to perform were the Friday prayers but that was an acceptable average for university students those days. By the time I started my university education I had already discovered many areas in Islam that I didn't feel comfortable with. My response was to reject most of the ahadith and commit myself only to the Quran. I considered myself to be a true logical Muslim who is truly convinced of Islam and not just inherited it, a claim that I regularly hear from Muslims nowadays.
Deep in my mind, I realized that Mohammed's sira (life story) and his ahadith were too embarrassing to accept or justify. Therefore, to maintain my allegiance to Islam I had to reject them, or most of them, and build my own beliefs around the Quran. This may look bizarre because the Quran is just as bad as ahadith. The reality was that the Quran is an easy ride for a person with good command of Arabic. Its ambiguity and contradictions cater for all tastes, you just say what you want and you can find some words in the Quran that you can use to justify your case. I simply picked what I wanted and explained as I wanted and then turned a blind eye to the rest. That was the reality of my feelings that I managed to suppress all my Islamic years because my Islamic mind couldn't face it.
I practiced islam in a very liberal way, I neglected many of my Islamic duties, sometimes sinned and justified all that from carefully selected verses from the Quran. I decorated the wall of my room with a calligraphy poster of a Quranic verse, which I selected carefully and kept for years. It was verse 39: 53, which used to be one of my favorites because it is one of the few verses that project Allah as a kind and forgiving god.
39: 53. Say: 'O my slaves who have transgressed against themselves despair not of the Mercy of Allâh…'
I had a reputation among my friends to be a fan of the classic Arabic and to have special sensitivity to language mistakes in formal writings or readings. I must have read the above verse thousands of times without ever noticing its obvious error! The verse contains an outrageous language and logical mistake.
Allah is supposed to be talking to Mohammed and asking him to tell Muslims (Allah's slaves) not to despair, but the existing wording implies that Muslims are Mohammed's slaves! The above verse should start like this: 'Say: O Allah's slaves….'
I still find difficult to explain how I read the above verse days and nights for many years without ever noticing such an evident mistake, which I only noticed when I read the Quran with a critical mind some years later. But I am not alone; in fact I never came across an Arab Muslim who noticed the error, although they all would try hard to justify it. It is sad that Muslims are never free when it comes to anything to do with the Quran. Muslims are continuously subjected to an intensive indoctrination process that leaves them with impaired senses and dysfunctional minds. Muslims, under the influence of Islam, are incapable of reading the Quran in an objective way.
I was amazed by the number of blunders, of all kinds, that started to appear as I started to read the Quran in an objective way. Removing the divine halo that surrounds the Quran reveals a very different book that doesn't require any interoperations to understand because all its mysteries are solved by one word- nonsense.
The above verse is not a one off error; actually the Quran is full with them. It is a common practice in the Quran for Allah to suddenly move from the third person to the first person or vice versa with no reason at all. In verse 6:99, such a poor usage of language implies that Allah talks about a different god who sends down rain from the sky while He is responsible for the vegetations:
6:99. It is HE who sends down water from the sky, and with it WE bring forth vegetation of all kinds…
But my favorite example of the Quran's lack of clarity is verse 6: 151, which is a list of the forbidden things that Muslims must avoid. The verse, in theory, should be one of the easiest verses to compose; it is just a matter of listing things one after the other, which the Quran failed miserably to do:
6: 151. Say: "Come, I will recite what your Lord has prohibited you from: Join not anything in worship with Him; be good and dutiful to your parents; kill not your children because of poverty - We provide sustenance for you and for them; come not near to Al-Fawâhish whether committed openly or secretly, and kill not anyone whom Allâh has forbidden, except for a just cause….
The above verse lists the forbidden things that all Muslims must avoid. The verse lists being good and dutiful to parents as one of those sins. Muslim scholars say that 'being good to parents' is not part of the list and we also sincerely hope it not. But why did Allah insert it in that position of the verse then rely on human commonsense to figure out that it is not part of that list? Is there a good writing style in the above verse? Would such writing be acceptable from any writer, past or present?
And my story with the Quran continues..
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Obama Ineligible to Serve
Barack Obama Constitutionally Ineligible to Serve as President of the United States
www.ObamaCrimes.com - Berg vs. Obama, Civil Action No. 08-cv-4083
A lawsuit has been filed to prevent Barack Obama from being the Democratic Party nominee for president because it has been documented that Barack Obama is not a "natural-born citizen" as required by the U.S. Constitution. Obama Campaign claims that the lawsuit has been dismissed are false. The lawsuit is proceding through the federal courts.
Obama's eligibility must be resolved immediately. If Obama's citizenship isn't resolved now, the Republicans will use it for an October surprise. If Obama doesn't meet the constitutional requirements, we need to know it now so the Democrats can nominate a candidate who is eligible and can win in November - before it is too late to do any good.
The initial press release states in part: (Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania – 08/21/08) - Philip J. Berg, Esquire, (Berg is a former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania; former candidate for Governor; former Chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery County; and former member of Democratic State Committee) filed suit in Federal Court seeking a Declaratory Judgment and an Injunction that Obama does not meet the qualifications to be President of the United States. Berg filed this suit for the best interests of the Democratic Party and the citizens of the United State... The suite states that Senator Obama:
Is not a natural-born citizen; and/or
Lost his citizenship when he was adopted in Indonesia; and/or
Has dual loyalties because of his citizenship with Kenya and Indonesia.
Numerous questions raised about Obama’s background have no satisfactory answers:
Where was Obama born? Hawaii; an island off of Hawaii; Kenya; Canada?
School records list Obama as a citizen of Indonesia. Was he a citizen of Kenya, Indonesia and/or Canada?
Explanation of the names he has used: Barack Obama, Barry Soetoro, Barry Obama, Barack Dunham, & Barry Dunham.
Illinois Bar Application – Obama fails to acknowledge use of names other than Barack Hussein Obama, a blatant lie.
www.ObamaCrimes.com - Berg vs. Obama, Civil Action No. 08-cv-4083
A lawsuit has been filed to prevent Barack Obama from being the Democratic Party nominee for president because it has been documented that Barack Obama is not a "natural-born citizen" as required by the U.S. Constitution. Obama Campaign claims that the lawsuit has been dismissed are false. The lawsuit is proceding through the federal courts.
Obama's eligibility must be resolved immediately. If Obama's citizenship isn't resolved now, the Republicans will use it for an October surprise. If Obama doesn't meet the constitutional requirements, we need to know it now so the Democrats can nominate a candidate who is eligible and can win in November - before it is too late to do any good.
The initial press release states in part: (Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania – 08/21/08) - Philip J. Berg, Esquire, (Berg is a former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania; former candidate for Governor; former Chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery County; and former member of Democratic State Committee) filed suit in Federal Court seeking a Declaratory Judgment and an Injunction that Obama does not meet the qualifications to be President of the United States. Berg filed this suit for the best interests of the Democratic Party and the citizens of the United State... The suite states that Senator Obama:
Is not a natural-born citizen; and/or
Lost his citizenship when he was adopted in Indonesia; and/or
Has dual loyalties because of his citizenship with Kenya and Indonesia.
Numerous questions raised about Obama’s background have no satisfactory answers:
Where was Obama born? Hawaii; an island off of Hawaii; Kenya; Canada?
School records list Obama as a citizen of Indonesia. Was he a citizen of Kenya, Indonesia and/or Canada?
Explanation of the names he has used: Barack Obama, Barry Soetoro, Barry Obama, Barack Dunham, & Barry Dunham.
Illinois Bar Application – Obama fails to acknowledge use of names other than Barack Hussein Obama, a blatant lie.
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