Lessons from the floating coffin
Sarah Honig - The Jerusalem Post, February 23rd, 2012
Exactly 70 years ago – on February 24, 1942 – 19-year-old David Stoliar terrifyingly clung to bobbing debris in the Black Sea. At first he heard screams in the frigid waters but the voices died down. It eventually emerged that Stoliar was the sole survivor of the Struma, an un-seaworthy vessel chuck-full of frantic Jewish refugees.
World War II was already in fever pitch. Against the enormity of the then-unfolding Holocaust, the loss at sea of 768 Jewish lives (103 of them babies and children) was at most blithely overlooked as a marginal annotation.
Moreover, although these Jews fled the Nazis, in the pedantic literal sense they weren’t executed by Third Reich henchmen.
This atrocity was the coldblooded handiwork of Great Britain (committed while it combated the Germans but remarkably without compassion for their Jewish victims), supposedly neutral Turkey (whose so-called nonalignment didn’t extend to outcast Jewish refugees), by the Arabs (who were openly and unreservedly Nazism’s avid collaborators and who pressured London into denying endangered Jews asylum in the Jewish homeland) and, finally, by the Russians (who targeted the immobilized sardine can that carried Jews to whom nobody would allow a toehold on terra firma).
The entire world seemed united in signaling Jews how utterly unwanted they were anywhere.
Such apathy-cum-enmity hasn’t disappeared. Only its form and context has mutated but the essence is still ultra-relevant to the Jewish state. We’re still threatened with annihilation. Nonetheless, unmistakable harangues from Tehran notwithstanding, the international community worries about an Israeli preemptive strike – not a genocidal strike against Israel.
To put it plainly, our fate today interests other nations just about as much as the fate of the Struma’s Jews did back then, which (to resort to understatement) was hardly much.
Today’s disingenuous post-Holocaust lip-service is invariably accompanied by hand-wringing about lack of foreknowledge of Germany’s fiendish plot to systematically exterminate the defenseless Jewish people (unmistakable harangues from Berlin notwithstanding).
What sets the Struma apart and imbues it with extraordinary significance is that from December 16, 1941, until the afternoon of February 23, 1942, its ordeal was played out before the entire watching but unfeeling world. No country could deny awareness of the impending calamity and yet all countries let it happen in full view.
The Struma, then a 115-year-old Danube cattle barge, was a pitiful peanut-shell of a boat packed with nearly 800 refugees from Romania. Bound for the Land of Israel, they desperately fled Hitler’s hell and the horrors of Bucharest’s fascist regime. Pogroms and ghastly atrocities had already sullied cities like Iasi, where thousands of Jews were assembled in the market square and mowed down with machine guns. Venerable old rabbis and Jewish community leaders were impaled on meat hooks in town centers.
The Struma wasn’t struck suddenly. It was slowly tortured, accentuating with demonic deliberation how disposable Jews were, just when genocide’s monstrous machinery was switched into high gear. This 75-day shipboard melodrama underscored the total helplessness and humiliation of Jews without power.
Struma passengers gathered in the Romanian port of Constanza on December 8, 1941. For four days, Romanian customs officials “examined” their belongings. In fact, they pilfered all they saw – clothing, underwear, jewelry and most important, food. The immigrants left on the perilous journey bereft of provisions and medications. But the Struma did carry 30 doctors, 10 engineers and 15 lawyers.
On December 12, the rickety vessel chugged out to sea. After four hair-raising days (instead of the routine 14 hours) the Struma unsteadily dragged itself into Istanbul Harbor. It couldn’t continue. Its makeshift motor had sputtered its last. There was no fuel, food or water.
Several passengers held valid entry visas into pre-independent Israel. All others were “illegals”. The hope, though, was that once in Turkey, they’d all be allowed to proceed to their destination. After all, with Europe in the throes of war, thousands of Jewish immigration certificates (British Mandate permits) remained unutilized.
But the British authorities refused unequivocally. The Arabs raged and rallied against giving haven to Jewish refugees. Eager to appease pro- Nazi Arab opinion, Britain chillingly declared that under no circumstance could the Struma’s human cargo set foot in Eretz Yisrael.
Furthermore, Britain pressured Turkey not to let anyone off the crippled boat at its end either. Obligingly, the Turkish premier argued that “Turkey cannot be expected to serve as a refuge or surrogate homeland for people unwanted anywhere else”.
Thus hundreds were imprisoned in narrow, unventilated confines. A sign saying “Help!” was suspended over the Struma’s side. One of the visa-holders, who after weeks was allowed ashore, described the boat as a “floating coffin”.
The freezing hull below reeked, but there wasn’t sufficient room on deck. Refugees took turns to climb up for a breath of air. There was no sleeping space for all, no infirmary, no galley, no bathing or sanitary facilities. Minimal food rations, provided by local Jews, were smuggled aboard after enough Turkish palms were greased.
An official Jewish Agency appeal, forwarded to the British on January 19, 1942, stressed that the Struma transported refugees escaping the most tangible threat of massacre. The Mandatory authorities didn’t even dignify the Jewish Agency with a reply.
On the next day, the Struma’s 35th in Istanbul, the Wannsee Conference opened in suburban Berlin to formally decide on “the final solution for the Jewish problem”. Hitler surely hadn’t overlooked this latest demonstration of utter callousness toward hapless Jews.
The British didn’t bother to answer ensuing emotional Jewish Agency entreaties on January 30 and February 10. Then they acquiesced to the entry of four visa-holders, who only at this point were permitted to disembark. More news of the dreadful conditions on the Struma now came out.
The new British line was that the Struma’s refugees were suspect Nazi agents because they came from enemy territory. The assertion that the Germans’ most hideously persecuted victims were their tormenters’ spies was labeled “Satanic” in embryonic Israel.
In a very long February 13 communication to the Mandatory government, the Agency noted that Britain was helping with much fanfare to resettle in the Mideast thousands of non-Jews – Greeks, Yugoslavs, Poles and Czechs – all of whom came from German-controlled areas. More than any of them, Jews had reason to be loyal to the Allies.
On February 15, the British announced they’d make an exception in the case of Struma children aged 11 to 16. Wartime rationing was cited as the pretext for barring younger or older kids. The Jewish Agency guaranteed maintenance for all 103 underage Struma captives. In the end no child was freed.
Meanwhile, Turkey, egged on and emboldened by Britain, threatened to tow the floundering deathtrap beyond its territorial waters. The Jewish Agency warned that “the boat is in total state of disrepair and without life-saving equipment. Any sea-journey for this vessel cannot but end in disaster.”
The Turkish government, however, pitilessly ordered the condemned Struma tugged out to the Black Sea. Hundreds of truncheon-wielding Turkish policemen were dispatched to the Struma on February 23. They viciously clubbed passengers below deck. Despite resistance from the refugees, the anchor was cut, the Struma was towed out and was left paralyzed, to drift precariously without supplies or a drop of fuel.
On February 24, an explosion ripped it apart.
A Soviet submarine, Shchuka-213, patrolled northeast of the Bosporus. Stalking Axis craft, it torpedoed the wobbly barge, which sank in minutes. It’s estimated that as many as 500 were killed outright by the blast. The rest flapped feebly in the waves, till they expired of wounds, fatigue and hypothermia. Stoliar alone hung on, semi-conscious.
In pre-state Israel there was shock and grief. Demonstrations were mounted. For one day all work and commerce were halted and the population imposed a voluntary protest curfew on itself. Posters appeared on exterior walls everywhere bearing British High Commissioner Harold Mac Michael’s photo and announcing that he was “Wanted for Murder”.
The Struma’s heartrending end marked the effective end to most attempts to break Britain’s anti-Jewish blockade until the conclusion of WWII. A few fishing and sporting sailboats briefly tried to ferry handfuls of refugees. Some of them were sunk. Europe’s Jews had no escape left. Embattled Britain took time out from the war to make sure of it.
Stoliar was imprisoned by the Turks for six weeks for the crime of not drowning. He was finally allowed into Mandated Palestine despite Mac Michael’s warnings that “this would open the floodgates” and “completely undermine our whole policy regarding illegal immigrants.”
Today, to most Israelis, Struma is a curious street name in a few towns. Israeli school children barely encounter its esoteric story. Politically correct authors and trendy leftwing filmmakers shun the subject, preferring postmodern portrayals of Arab terrorists as Zionism’s prey.
Oblivion is perhaps the greatest sin against the Struma but also against ourselves. If we forget the Struma, we forget why this country exists, why we struggle for its survival. We forget the justice of our cause.
Dimmed memory and self-destructive perverse morality hinder our ability to protect ourselves from the offspring and torchbearers of the very Arabs who doomed the Struma. They haven’t amended their hostile agenda. We just don’t care to be reminded.
The state the Jews created is threatened with destruction and its population with obliteration. Yet there’s negligible sympathy for Israel and even less practical support to avert tragedy. The Struma’s story is seminal in understanding why the Holocaust was possible and why a second Holocaust cannot be ruled out. More than anything, the Struma powerfully illustrates what happens when Jews rely on others’ goodwill.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
My Lemonade Stand
Opinion
I Tried To Open A Lemonade Stand
By John Stossel
Published February 24, 2012| FoxNews.com
Want to open a business in America? It isn't easy.
In Midway, Georgia, a 14-year-old girl and and her 10-year-old sister sold lemonade from their front yard. Two police officers bought some. But the next day, different officers ordered them to close their stand.
Their father went to city hall to try to find out why. The clerk laughed, and said she didn't know. Eventually, Police Chief Kelly Morningstar explained, "We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, and of what the lemonade was made with."
Give me a break. If she doesn't know, so what? But kids trying their first experiment with entrepreneurship are being shut down all over America. Officials in Hazelwood, Missouri ordered little girls to stop selling Girl Scout cookies.
It made me want to try to jump through the legal hoops required to open a simple lemonade stand in New York City. Here's some of what one has to do:
1) Register as sole proprietor with the County Clerk's Office (must be done in person)
2) Apply to the IRS for an Employer Identification Number
3) Complete 15-hr Food Protection Course!
4) After the course, register for an exam that takes 1 hr. You must score 70 percent to pass. (Sample question: "What toxins are associated with the puffer fish?") If you pass, allow 3-5 weeks for delivery of Food Protection Certificate.
5) Register for sales tax Certificate of Authority
6) Apply for a Temporary Food Service Establishment Permit. Must bring copies of the previous documents and completed forms to the Consumer Affairs Licensing Center.
Then, at least 21 days before opening your establishment, you must:
Arrange for an inspection with the Health Department's Bureau of Food Safety and Community Sanitation. It takes about 3 weeks to get your appointment. If you pass, you can set up a business once you:
- Buy a portable fire extinguisher from a company certified by the FDNY and set up a contract for waste disposal.
- We couldn't finish the process. Had we been able to schedule our health inspection and open my stand legally, it would have taken us 65 days.
I sold lemonade anyway. I looked dumb hawking it with my giant fire extinguisher on the table.
Tourists told me they couldn't believe that I had to get "all those permits." A Pakistani man said, "That's crazy! You should move to Pakistan!"
But I don't want to move to Pakistan.
Politicians say, "We support entrepreneurs," but the bureaucrats make it hard. The Feds alone add 80,000 pages of new rules every year. Local governments add more. There are so many incomprehensible rules that even the bureaucrats can't tell you what's legal. In the name of public safety, politicians strangle opportunity.
John Stossel's TV Special on America’s explosion of laws, "Illegal Everything", will air Saturday at 10 pm and Sunday at 3 pm EST.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/02/24/tried-to-open-lemonade-stand/?intcmp=spotlight#ixzz1nbKRarjc
I Tried To Open A Lemonade Stand
By John Stossel
Published February 24, 2012| FoxNews.com
Want to open a business in America? It isn't easy.
In Midway, Georgia, a 14-year-old girl and and her 10-year-old sister sold lemonade from their front yard. Two police officers bought some. But the next day, different officers ordered them to close their stand.
Their father went to city hall to try to find out why. The clerk laughed, and said she didn't know. Eventually, Police Chief Kelly Morningstar explained, "We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, and of what the lemonade was made with."
Give me a break. If she doesn't know, so what? But kids trying their first experiment with entrepreneurship are being shut down all over America. Officials in Hazelwood, Missouri ordered little girls to stop selling Girl Scout cookies.
It made me want to try to jump through the legal hoops required to open a simple lemonade stand in New York City. Here's some of what one has to do:
1) Register as sole proprietor with the County Clerk's Office (must be done in person)
2) Apply to the IRS for an Employer Identification Number
3) Complete 15-hr Food Protection Course!
4) After the course, register for an exam that takes 1 hr. You must score 70 percent to pass. (Sample question: "What toxins are associated with the puffer fish?") If you pass, allow 3-5 weeks for delivery of Food Protection Certificate.
5) Register for sales tax Certificate of Authority
6) Apply for a Temporary Food Service Establishment Permit. Must bring copies of the previous documents and completed forms to the Consumer Affairs Licensing Center.
Then, at least 21 days before opening your establishment, you must:
Arrange for an inspection with the Health Department's Bureau of Food Safety and Community Sanitation. It takes about 3 weeks to get your appointment. If you pass, you can set up a business once you:
- Buy a portable fire extinguisher from a company certified by the FDNY and set up a contract for waste disposal.
- We couldn't finish the process. Had we been able to schedule our health inspection and open my stand legally, it would have taken us 65 days.
I sold lemonade anyway. I looked dumb hawking it with my giant fire extinguisher on the table.
Tourists told me they couldn't believe that I had to get "all those permits." A Pakistani man said, "That's crazy! You should move to Pakistan!"
But I don't want to move to Pakistan.
Politicians say, "We support entrepreneurs," but the bureaucrats make it hard. The Feds alone add 80,000 pages of new rules every year. Local governments add more. There are so many incomprehensible rules that even the bureaucrats can't tell you what's legal. In the name of public safety, politicians strangle opportunity.
John Stossel's TV Special on America’s explosion of laws, "Illegal Everything", will air Saturday at 10 pm and Sunday at 3 pm EST.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/02/24/tried-to-open-lemonade-stand/?intcmp=spotlight#ixzz1nbKRarjc
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Illegal Immigration News
Today's Illegal Immigration News
Thursday, February 23, 2012
GOP HOPEFULS VOW TO FIGHT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
The four Republican presidential candidates vowed to combat illegal immigration during last night’s primary debate in Mesa, Arizona. Mitt Romney said that if elected he would suspend all federal lawsuits against state laws targeting illegal immigration and that Arizona’s approach should be used as a national model. He also voiced support for building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and mandating E-Verify nationwide. Newt Gingrich was the most outspoken in securing the southern border, pledging to construct a double fence and deploy thousands more Homeland Security Department employees to the border area by the end of his first year in office. Rick Santorum also said he would combat illegal immigration though he was less specific than either Gingrich or Romney. And lastly, Ron Paul called the idea of a border wall a waste of taxpayer money but said the problem of illegal immigrations receiving public benefits must be addressed.
LAPD CHIEF SUPPORTS DRIVER’S LICENSES FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said Wednesday that California should issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants though he also says licenses for illegal immigrants should not be identical to standard licenses. Chief Beck believes that the number of hit-and-run accidents would decrease if illegal immigrants were licensed, because they would not have to fear being caught without a license at accidents. He acknowledged that state officials would have to address concerns that licensing illegal immigrants would make it easier for terrorists to go undetected but otherwise would improve road safety and help combat uninsured drivers.
Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, challenged Beck’s notion saying it would “represent a threat to public safety and national security” and that issuing the licenses would be “providing a gold-plated membership card into society” for illegal immigrants. Beck’s support for licensing illegal immigrants comes after he publicly proposed changes to California’s impound laws to prevent the vehicles driven by unlicensed drivers from being impounded if a licensed driver were able to arrive “immediately” or was already in the car.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
GOP HOPEFULS VOW TO FIGHT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
The four Republican presidential candidates vowed to combat illegal immigration during last night’s primary debate in Mesa, Arizona. Mitt Romney said that if elected he would suspend all federal lawsuits against state laws targeting illegal immigration and that Arizona’s approach should be used as a national model. He also voiced support for building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and mandating E-Verify nationwide. Newt Gingrich was the most outspoken in securing the southern border, pledging to construct a double fence and deploy thousands more Homeland Security Department employees to the border area by the end of his first year in office. Rick Santorum also said he would combat illegal immigration though he was less specific than either Gingrich or Romney. And lastly, Ron Paul called the idea of a border wall a waste of taxpayer money but said the problem of illegal immigrations receiving public benefits must be addressed.
LAPD CHIEF SUPPORTS DRIVER’S LICENSES FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said Wednesday that California should issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants though he also says licenses for illegal immigrants should not be identical to standard licenses. Chief Beck believes that the number of hit-and-run accidents would decrease if illegal immigrants were licensed, because they would not have to fear being caught without a license at accidents. He acknowledged that state officials would have to address concerns that licensing illegal immigrants would make it easier for terrorists to go undetected but otherwise would improve road safety and help combat uninsured drivers.
Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, challenged Beck’s notion saying it would “represent a threat to public safety and national security” and that issuing the licenses would be “providing a gold-plated membership card into society” for illegal immigrants. Beck’s support for licensing illegal immigrants comes after he publicly proposed changes to California’s impound laws to prevent the vehicles driven by unlicensed drivers from being impounded if a licensed driver were able to arrive “immediately” or was already in the car.
Obama's Top-Down Shutdown
OBAMA'S TOP-DOWN SHUTDOWN
Halting more than 300,000 pending deportations was not enough. Recalling the National Guard from the U.S.-Mexico border was not enough. Suing every state that attempts to crackdown on illegal immigration using existing federal immigration law was not enough for the Obama administration. And now, all of the pieces are coming together.
Barack Hussein Obama has left the southern border wide open until the technology he favors catches up an estimated two years from now and he has paralyzed the enforcement of federal immigration law at every level. And the mainstream media is too busy with the GOP primaries to warrant his undermining of immigration law the tiniest sound-bite, leaving millions of Americans unaware and uninformed of exactly what Obama has in store for America: Amnesty.
Recently we learned of the newest victim of Barack Hussein Obama’s attack on immigration law enforcement. Under his command, the Department of Homeland Security is starting to shut down a program that deputized local police officers around the country to act as immigration agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The program being targeted by the pro-amnesty administration is known as 287(g). Simply put, it allows officers to check the immigration status of suspects and place immigration holds on them in the absence of an established fingerprint record (or participation in the Secure Communities program). Agencies like the Colorado Department of Public Safety have used their 287(g) officers to crackdown on drug and human smuggling, gang activity and identity theft. But the program was too successful for Obama’s liking.
So, under the guise of making budget cuts and preventing “racial profiling,” Department of Homeland Security officials say they will not sign new contracts for the officers working in the field and will terminate the “least productive” of those agreements in order to save an estimated $17 million. Defenders of the program argue that once again the Obama administration is putting politics above public safety. According to Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, many sheriffs and police chiefs prefer the program to Secure Communities, likely because it does not require an established database to be effective.
If Obama has his way, all contracts between ICE and local police agencies could be terminated in November when the last contract for field officers expires. Of course, the demise of 287(g) has been underway for the past three years. The program reached its peak under George W. Bush, when 60 local agencies signed contracts with ICE, compared to only eight agencies signing up since Obama took office. The last agency to sign up did so in August 2010.
The Obama administration continuously touts the ‘official’ decline in the illegal immigration population as the product of Barack Obama’s doing, but they couldn’t be more mistaken. The decline in the illegal immigrant population stopped when Obama was inaugurated. From January 2007 to January 2009, the illegal immigration population is officially estimated to have dropped from 11.8 million down to 10.8 million.
In 2009 and 2010, there was no further decline. As a matter of fact, the government estimate for January 2011 is expected to show an increase in the illegal immigrant population to 10.9 million. Despite the numbers, Obama refuses to recognize that stepped-up immigration enforcement at the end of the Bush administration and a weaker economy helped start the decline which has since been reversed by the current administration’s undermining of existing federal (and state-level) immigration laws.
Obama is using the media’s focus on the Republican primaries to shore up the Latino vote – and he’ll do anything to get it. After all, members of every other voting bloc previously held by Obama are jumping ship as they see where four more years of class warfare and socialist policies will take this country underwater in a hurry with no chance of rescue.
Between Obama’s failure to physically secure the U.S.-Mexico border (no fence, withdrawing National Guard troops), his failure to enforce federal immigration laws (300,000 deportations halted, backdoor amnesty for countless individuals that meet a criteria on Obama’s laundry list for non-deportation), and his administrations relentless legal attacks on state trying to uphold immigration law, our country does not stand a chance against illegal immigration… unless you and I act today to keep the pressure on our elected representatives on Capitol Hill and to keep America informed.
Obama ran on the idea of uniting America and on the ideas of “hope” and “change.” But little did Americans realize that after three years, our country would be ripping apart at the seams with arguably the most divisive president in American history. For three years, Obama has been doling out “hope” to illegal immigrants and “change” in the form of abolishing immigration law enforcement from the top-down while we U.S. Citizens lose our jobs, our homes, and our country.
Halting more than 300,000 pending deportations was not enough. Recalling the National Guard from the U.S.-Mexico border was not enough. Suing every state that attempts to crackdown on illegal immigration using existing federal immigration law was not enough for the Obama administration. And now, all of the pieces are coming together.
Barack Hussein Obama has left the southern border wide open until the technology he favors catches up an estimated two years from now and he has paralyzed the enforcement of federal immigration law at every level. And the mainstream media is too busy with the GOP primaries to warrant his undermining of immigration law the tiniest sound-bite, leaving millions of Americans unaware and uninformed of exactly what Obama has in store for America: Amnesty.
Recently we learned of the newest victim of Barack Hussein Obama’s attack on immigration law enforcement. Under his command, the Department of Homeland Security is starting to shut down a program that deputized local police officers around the country to act as immigration agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The program being targeted by the pro-amnesty administration is known as 287(g). Simply put, it allows officers to check the immigration status of suspects and place immigration holds on them in the absence of an established fingerprint record (or participation in the Secure Communities program). Agencies like the Colorado Department of Public Safety have used their 287(g) officers to crackdown on drug and human smuggling, gang activity and identity theft. But the program was too successful for Obama’s liking.
So, under the guise of making budget cuts and preventing “racial profiling,” Department of Homeland Security officials say they will not sign new contracts for the officers working in the field and will terminate the “least productive” of those agreements in order to save an estimated $17 million. Defenders of the program argue that once again the Obama administration is putting politics above public safety. According to Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, many sheriffs and police chiefs prefer the program to Secure Communities, likely because it does not require an established database to be effective.
If Obama has his way, all contracts between ICE and local police agencies could be terminated in November when the last contract for field officers expires. Of course, the demise of 287(g) has been underway for the past three years. The program reached its peak under George W. Bush, when 60 local agencies signed contracts with ICE, compared to only eight agencies signing up since Obama took office. The last agency to sign up did so in August 2010.
The Obama administration continuously touts the ‘official’ decline in the illegal immigration population as the product of Barack Obama’s doing, but they couldn’t be more mistaken. The decline in the illegal immigrant population stopped when Obama was inaugurated. From January 2007 to January 2009, the illegal immigration population is officially estimated to have dropped from 11.8 million down to 10.8 million.
In 2009 and 2010, there was no further decline. As a matter of fact, the government estimate for January 2011 is expected to show an increase in the illegal immigrant population to 10.9 million. Despite the numbers, Obama refuses to recognize that stepped-up immigration enforcement at the end of the Bush administration and a weaker economy helped start the decline which has since been reversed by the current administration’s undermining of existing federal (and state-level) immigration laws.
Obama is using the media’s focus on the Republican primaries to shore up the Latino vote – and he’ll do anything to get it. After all, members of every other voting bloc previously held by Obama are jumping ship as they see where four more years of class warfare and socialist policies will take this country underwater in a hurry with no chance of rescue.
Between Obama’s failure to physically secure the U.S.-Mexico border (no fence, withdrawing National Guard troops), his failure to enforce federal immigration laws (300,000 deportations halted, backdoor amnesty for countless individuals that meet a criteria on Obama’s laundry list for non-deportation), and his administrations relentless legal attacks on state trying to uphold immigration law, our country does not stand a chance against illegal immigration… unless you and I act today to keep the pressure on our elected representatives on Capitol Hill and to keep America informed.
Obama ran on the idea of uniting America and on the ideas of “hope” and “change.” But little did Americans realize that after three years, our country would be ripping apart at the seams with arguably the most divisive president in American history. For three years, Obama has been doling out “hope” to illegal immigrants and “change” in the form of abolishing immigration law enforcement from the top-down while we U.S. Citizens lose our jobs, our homes, and our country.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Obama: More Shenanigans
Editorial?
This is from a former Chicago lawyer now practicing law in Tyler , TX .
This is legit. I checked it out myself at https://www.iardc.org Stands for Illinois Attorney Registration And Disciplinary Committee. It's the official arm of lawyer discipline in Illinois; and they are very strict and mean as hell. (Talk about irony.) Even I, at the advanced age of almost 65, maintain (at the cost of approximately $600/year) my law license that I worked so hard and long to earn.
Big surprise.
Former Constitutional Law Lecturer and U.S. President Makes Up Constitutional Quotes During State Of The Union (SOTU) Address.
Consider this:
1. President Barack Obama, former editor of the Harvard Law Review, is no longer a "lawyer". He surrendered his license back in 2008 in order to escape charges he lied on his bar application.
A "Voluntary Surrender" is not something where you decide "Gee, a license is not really something I need anymore, is it?" and forget to renew your license. No, a "Voluntary Surrender" is something you do when you've been accused of something, and you 'voluntarily surrender" your license five seconds before the state suspends you.
2 Michelle Obama "voluntarily surrendered" her law license in 1993.
3. So, we have the first black President and First Lady - who don't actually have licenses to practice law. Facts.
Source: http://jdlong.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/pres-barack-obama-editor-of-the-Harvard-law-review-has-no-law-license/
4. A senior lecturer is one thing, a fully ranked law professor is another. Barack Obama was NOT a Constitutional Law Professor at the University of Chicago.
5. The University of Chicago released a statement in March 2008 saying Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) "served as a professor" in the law school-but that is a title Obama, who taught courses there part-time, never held, a spokesman for the school confirmed in 2008.
6. "He did not hold the title of Professor of Law," said Marsha Ferziger Nagorsky, an Assistant Dean for Communications and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago School of Law.
Source: http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/03/sweet_obama_did_hold_the_title.html ;
7. The former Constitutional Senior Lecturer (Obama) cited the U.S. Constitution the other night during his State of the Union Address. Unfortunately, the quote he cited was from the Declaration of Independence ... not the Constitution.
8. The B-Cast posted the video: http://www.breitbart.tv/did-obama-confuse-the-constitution-with-the-declaration-of-independence/
9. Free Republic: In the State of the Union Address, President Obama said: "We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal.
10. Um, wrong citing, wrong founding document there Champ, I mean Mr. President. By the way, the promises are not a notion, our founders named them unalienable rights. The document is our Declaration of Independence and it reads:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
11. And this is the same guy who lectured the Supreme Court moments later in the same speech?
When you are a phony it's hard to keep facts straight.
Keep this moving - educate others.
In doubt? check it out through the sources provided
This is from a former Chicago lawyer now practicing law in Tyler , TX .
This is legit. I checked it out myself at https://www.iardc.org Stands for Illinois Attorney Registration And Disciplinary Committee. It's the official arm of lawyer discipline in Illinois; and they are very strict and mean as hell. (Talk about irony.) Even I, at the advanced age of almost 65, maintain (at the cost of approximately $600/year) my law license that I worked so hard and long to earn.
Big surprise.
Former Constitutional Law Lecturer and U.S. President Makes Up Constitutional Quotes During State Of The Union (SOTU) Address.
Consider this:
1. President Barack Obama, former editor of the Harvard Law Review, is no longer a "lawyer". He surrendered his license back in 2008 in order to escape charges he lied on his bar application.
A "Voluntary Surrender" is not something where you decide "Gee, a license is not really something I need anymore, is it?" and forget to renew your license. No, a "Voluntary Surrender" is something you do when you've been accused of something, and you 'voluntarily surrender" your license five seconds before the state suspends you.
2 Michelle Obama "voluntarily surrendered" her law license in 1993.
3. So, we have the first black President and First Lady - who don't actually have licenses to practice law. Facts.
Source: http://jdlong.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/pres-barack-obama-editor-of-the-Harvard-law-review-has-no-law-license/
4. A senior lecturer is one thing, a fully ranked law professor is another. Barack Obama was NOT a Constitutional Law Professor at the University of Chicago.
5. The University of Chicago released a statement in March 2008 saying Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) "served as a professor" in the law school-but that is a title Obama, who taught courses there part-time, never held, a spokesman for the school confirmed in 2008.
6. "He did not hold the title of Professor of Law," said Marsha Ferziger Nagorsky, an Assistant Dean for Communications and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago School of Law.
Source: http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/03/sweet_obama_did_hold_the_title.html ;
7. The former Constitutional Senior Lecturer (Obama) cited the U.S. Constitution the other night during his State of the Union Address. Unfortunately, the quote he cited was from the Declaration of Independence ... not the Constitution.
8. The B-Cast posted the video: http://www.breitbart.tv/did-obama-confuse-the-constitution-with-the-declaration-of-independence/
9. Free Republic: In the State of the Union Address, President Obama said: "We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal.
10. Um, wrong citing, wrong founding document there Champ, I mean Mr. President. By the way, the promises are not a notion, our founders named them unalienable rights. The document is our Declaration of Independence and it reads:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
11. And this is the same guy who lectured the Supreme Court moments later in the same speech?
When you are a phony it's hard to keep facts straight.
Keep this moving - educate others.
In doubt? check it out through the sources provided
Monday, February 20, 2012
Muslim Organizations Co-Opting The FBI
February 16, 2012
A note from Investigative Project on Terrorism Executive Director Steven Emerson:
Please take the time to read this very important story [below] written by a courageous Egyptian liberal intellectual about the Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood lobbies in Washington and the Obama Administration's secret collaboration with these pro-terrorist, anti-Western, anti-women, anti-American and anti-Semitic organizations. This is one of the most important articles I have read in years.
It was just revealed two days ago that FBI Director Mueller secretly met on February 8 at FBI headquarters with a coalition of groups including various Islamist and militant Arabic groups who in the past have defended Hamas and Hizballah and have also issued blatantly anti-Semitic statements. At this meeting, the FBI revealed that it had removed more than 1000 presentations and curricula on Islam from FBI offices around the country that was deemed "offensive." The FBI did not reveal what criteria was used to determine why material was considered "offensive" but knowledgeable law enforcement sources have told the IPT that it was these radical groups who made that determination. Moreover, numerous FBI agents have confirmed that from now on, FBI headquarters has banned all FBI offices from inviting any counter-terrorist specialists who are considered "anti-Islam" by Muslim Brotherhood front groups.
The February 8 FBI meeting was the culmination of a series of unpublicized directives issued in the last three months by top FBI officials to all its field offices to immediately recall and withdraw any presentation or curricula on Islam throughout the entire FBI. In fact, according to informed sources and undisclosed documents, the FBI directive was instigated by radical Muslim groups in the US who had repeatedly met with top officials of the Obama Administration to complain, among other things, that the mere usage of the term of "radical Islam" in FBI curricula was "offensive" and 'racist." And thus, directives went out by Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Mueller to censor all such material. Included in the material destroyed or removed by the FBI and the DOJ were powerpoints and articles that defined jihad as "holy war" or presentations that portrayed the Muslim Brotherhood as an organization bent on taking over the world—a major tenant that the Muslim Brotherhood has publicly stated for decades.
During the next several months, the IPT will be releasing a series of major investigative reports revealing the secret infiltration by and collaboration with radical Islamic organizations by the Obama administration that has spread to the National Security Council, the Dept of Justice, the FBI, the Dept of Homeland Security, the CIA and the State Department as well as local law enforcement.
-------
Islamist Lobbies' Washington War on Arab and Muslim Liberals
by Essam Abdallah
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3453/islamist-lobbies-washington-war-on-arab
The most dramatic oppression of the region's civil societies and the Arab Spring is not by means of weapons, or in the Middle East. It is not led by Gaddafi, Mubarak, Bin Ali, Saleh, or Assad. It is led by the powerful Islamist lobbies in Washington DC. People may find my words curious if not provocative. But my arguments are sharp and well understood by many Arab and middle eastern liberals and freedom fighters. Indeed, we in the region, who are struggling for real democracy, not for the one time election type of democracy have been asking ourselves since January 2011 as the winds of Arab spring started blowing, why isn't the West in general and the United States Administration in particular clearly and forcefully supporting our civil societies and particularly the secular democrats of the region? Why were the bureaucracies in Washington and in Brussels partnering with Islamists in the region and not with their natural allies the democracy promoting political forces?
Months into the Arab Spring, we realized that the Western powers, and the Obama Administration have put their support behind the new authoritarians, those who are claiming they will be brought to power via the votes of the people. Well, it is not quite so.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Nahda of Tunisia, the Justice Party of Morocco and the Islamist militias in Libya's Transitional National Council have been systematically supported by Washington at the expense of real liberal and secular forces. We saw day by day how the White House guided carefully the statements and the actions of the US and the State Department followed through to give all the chances to the Islamists and almost no chances to the secular and revolutionary youth. We will come back to detail these diplomatic and financial maneuvers which are giving victory to the fundamentalists while the seculars and progressives are going to be smashed by the forthcoming regimes.
In the US, there are interests that determine foreign policy. And there are lobbies that put pressure to get their objectives met in foreign policy. One of the most powerful lobbies in America under the Obama Administration is the Muslim Brotherhood greater lobby, which has been in action for many years. This lobby has secured many operatives inside the Administration and has been successful in directing US policy towards the Arab world. Among leading advisors sympathetic to the Ikhwan is Daliah Mogahed (Mujahid) and her associate, Georgetown Professor John Esposito. Just as shocking, there is also a pro-Iranian lobby that has been influencing US policy towards Iran and Hezbollah in the region.
One of the most important activities of the Islamist lobby in the US is the waging of political and media wars on the liberal Arabs and Middle Eastern figures and groups in America. This battlefield is among the most important in influencing Washington's policies in the Arab world. If you strike at the liberal and democratic Middle Eastern groups in Washington who are trying to gain support for civil societies in the region, you actually win a major battle. You will be able to influence the resources of the US Government to support the Islamists in the Middle East and not the weak democrats. This huge war waged by the Islamist lobbies in America started at the end of the Cold war and continued all the way till the Arab spring. The two main forces of this lobby are the Muslim Brotherhood fronts and the Iranian fronts. According to research available in the US, the Ikhwan fronts such as CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations), led by Hamas supporter Nihad Awad, as well as the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Islamic Society of North America, and others waged their political war to block the representatives of Arab liberals and Muslim moderates from making their case to the American public. The Iranian lobby, exemplified by the National Iranian American Committee (NIAC), led by Trita Parsi, has been hitting at Iranian exiles.
Since the 1990s CAIR and its allies have attacked Copts, Southern Sudanese, Lebanese, Syrian reformers, Assyrians and Chaldeans, and Muslim dissidents in the United States. The Ikhwan of America demonized any publication, book, article, or interview in the national media or local press raising the issue of secular freedoms in the Middle East. The Islamists wanted to eliminate the liberal cause in the Arab world and replace it with the cause of the Islamists. What is also shocking is that CAIR and its allies stood by the oppressive regimes and visited them, claiming they speak on behalf of the peoples. CAIR and the Brotherhood fronts in America destroyed systematically every project that would have defended the seculars and liberals originating from the Middle East. The notorious and well-funded Islamists of the US allowed no book, documentary, or show on the liberals in Arab civil societies to see the light.
Thanks to this powerful lobbying campaign, the American public was not given a chance to learn about the deep feelings on the youth in the region. Americans were led to believe that all Muslims, all Arabs and all Middle Easterners were a strange species of humans who cannot appreciate freedom. Instead, the American Islamists, helped by apologists on the petrodollars payrolls, convinced the mainstream media that the Arab world has authoritarians and Islamists only.
Dr Shawki Karas, president of the American Coptic Association, told me in the late 1990s how he was harassed by Islamist activists for speaking up against the Mubarak regime and the Muslim Brotherhood in America. He was threatened with losing his job at the college where he taught. Reverend Keith Roderick, who has assembled a coalition of more than 50 group rights from the Muslim world, was severely attacked by the Islamists and was threatened to be removed from his church position. Muslim American leaders who are conservative and secular, such as Dr Zuhdi Jasser, were crucified by CAIR and the Brotherhood for daring to challenge the Party line of the Islamists in America and claiming that the Jihadists are the problem in the region. Muslim liberal dissidents such as Somali Ayan Hirsi Ali, Saudi Ali al Yammi, Syrian Farid Ghadri, Iranian Manda Ervin, and many others were trashed by the Islamist lobbies to block them from defending the causes of secular liberty in the US. Egyptian liberals as well as seculars and democracy activists from Iraq, Sudan, Syria, and other countries have been attacked by CAIR and allies. The pro-Iranian lobby targeted most Iranian-American groups and tried to discredit them, particularly with the rise of the Green Revolution in Iran. By smearing the Muslim liberal exiles, the Islamists were trying to destroy their causes in the mother countries. In the 1990s and the years that followed 9/11 the region's dictators supported the efforts by Islamist lobbies to crush the liberal exiles. The Mubarak, Bashir, Gaddafi, Assad, and Khomeinist regimes fully supported the so-called Islamophobia campaign waged by CAIR and its Iranian counterpart NIAC against dissidents for calling for secular democracy in the region. The dissidents were accused of being pro-Western by both the Islamists and the dictators.
The Islamist lobbies also severely attacked members of the US Congress such as Democrats Tom Lantos, who has since passed away, Eliot Engel, Howard Berman, Gary Ackerman, and Joe Lieberman as well as Republicans Frank Wolfe, Chris Smith, Trent Franks, John McCain, Rick Santorum, and Sam Brownback for their efforts in passing legislative acts in support for democracy and liberty in the Middle East. CAIR and NIAC heavily savaged President Bush's speeches on Freedom Forward in the Middle East, deploying all the resources they had to block US support to liberal democrats in the region. Islamist lobbies in Washington are directly responsible for killing any initiative in the US Government to support Darfur, southern Sudan, Lebanon, the Kurds, liberal women in the Muslim world, and true democrats in the Arab world and Muslim Africa.
In the think tank world, CAIR and its allies aggressively attacked scholars who raised the issue of persecution against seculars or minorities in the Arab world and Iran. Among those attacked were Nina Shea and Paul Marshal from the Hudson Institute and the founder of an anti-slavery group, Dr Charles Jacobs, who was exposing the Sudan regime for its atrocities. Last but not least is the Islamists' relentless campaign to stirke at top scholars who advise Government and appear in the media to push for democratic liberation in the region. The vast and vicious attacks leveled against Professor Walid Phares—initially by CAIR's Nihad Awad and then widened by pro-Hezbollah and Muslim Brotherhood operatives online—has revealed to Arab and Middle Eastern liberal and seculars how ferocious is the battle for the Middle East in the US. Phares's books, particularly the latest one, The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East (2010), hit the Islamist agenda hard by predicting the civil society revolts in the Middle East and then predicting how the Islamists would try to control them. Phares was attacked by an army of Jihadist militia online like no author since Samuel Huntington in the 1990s. As a freedom activist from the Middle East, Mustafa Geha, wrote, Phares is a hero to Muslim liberals. Along with dissidents, lawmakers, experts, and human rights activists, Phares is a force driving for a strategic change in US foreign policy towards supporting secular democracies in the region. This explains why the Islamists of America are fighting the battle for the forthcoming regimes with all the means they have.
Dr. Essam Abdallah is an Egyptian liberal intellectual who teaches at Ain Shams University and writes for the leading Arab liberal publication Elaph.
A note from Investigative Project on Terrorism Executive Director Steven Emerson:
Please take the time to read this very important story [below] written by a courageous Egyptian liberal intellectual about the Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood lobbies in Washington and the Obama Administration's secret collaboration with these pro-terrorist, anti-Western, anti-women, anti-American and anti-Semitic organizations. This is one of the most important articles I have read in years.
It was just revealed two days ago that FBI Director Mueller secretly met on February 8 at FBI headquarters with a coalition of groups including various Islamist and militant Arabic groups who in the past have defended Hamas and Hizballah and have also issued blatantly anti-Semitic statements. At this meeting, the FBI revealed that it had removed more than 1000 presentations and curricula on Islam from FBI offices around the country that was deemed "offensive." The FBI did not reveal what criteria was used to determine why material was considered "offensive" but knowledgeable law enforcement sources have told the IPT that it was these radical groups who made that determination. Moreover, numerous FBI agents have confirmed that from now on, FBI headquarters has banned all FBI offices from inviting any counter-terrorist specialists who are considered "anti-Islam" by Muslim Brotherhood front groups.
The February 8 FBI meeting was the culmination of a series of unpublicized directives issued in the last three months by top FBI officials to all its field offices to immediately recall and withdraw any presentation or curricula on Islam throughout the entire FBI. In fact, according to informed sources and undisclosed documents, the FBI directive was instigated by radical Muslim groups in the US who had repeatedly met with top officials of the Obama Administration to complain, among other things, that the mere usage of the term of "radical Islam" in FBI curricula was "offensive" and 'racist." And thus, directives went out by Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Mueller to censor all such material. Included in the material destroyed or removed by the FBI and the DOJ were powerpoints and articles that defined jihad as "holy war" or presentations that portrayed the Muslim Brotherhood as an organization bent on taking over the world—a major tenant that the Muslim Brotherhood has publicly stated for decades.
During the next several months, the IPT will be releasing a series of major investigative reports revealing the secret infiltration by and collaboration with radical Islamic organizations by the Obama administration that has spread to the National Security Council, the Dept of Justice, the FBI, the Dept of Homeland Security, the CIA and the State Department as well as local law enforcement.
-------
Islamist Lobbies' Washington War on Arab and Muslim Liberals
by Essam Abdallah
http://www.investigativeproject.org/3453/islamist-lobbies-washington-war-on-arab
The most dramatic oppression of the region's civil societies and the Arab Spring is not by means of weapons, or in the Middle East. It is not led by Gaddafi, Mubarak, Bin Ali, Saleh, or Assad. It is led by the powerful Islamist lobbies in Washington DC. People may find my words curious if not provocative. But my arguments are sharp and well understood by many Arab and middle eastern liberals and freedom fighters. Indeed, we in the region, who are struggling for real democracy, not for the one time election type of democracy have been asking ourselves since January 2011 as the winds of Arab spring started blowing, why isn't the West in general and the United States Administration in particular clearly and forcefully supporting our civil societies and particularly the secular democrats of the region? Why were the bureaucracies in Washington and in Brussels partnering with Islamists in the region and not with their natural allies the democracy promoting political forces?
Months into the Arab Spring, we realized that the Western powers, and the Obama Administration have put their support behind the new authoritarians, those who are claiming they will be brought to power via the votes of the people. Well, it is not quite so.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Nahda of Tunisia, the Justice Party of Morocco and the Islamist militias in Libya's Transitional National Council have been systematically supported by Washington at the expense of real liberal and secular forces. We saw day by day how the White House guided carefully the statements and the actions of the US and the State Department followed through to give all the chances to the Islamists and almost no chances to the secular and revolutionary youth. We will come back to detail these diplomatic and financial maneuvers which are giving victory to the fundamentalists while the seculars and progressives are going to be smashed by the forthcoming regimes.
In the US, there are interests that determine foreign policy. And there are lobbies that put pressure to get their objectives met in foreign policy. One of the most powerful lobbies in America under the Obama Administration is the Muslim Brotherhood greater lobby, which has been in action for many years. This lobby has secured many operatives inside the Administration and has been successful in directing US policy towards the Arab world. Among leading advisors sympathetic to the Ikhwan is Daliah Mogahed (Mujahid) and her associate, Georgetown Professor John Esposito. Just as shocking, there is also a pro-Iranian lobby that has been influencing US policy towards Iran and Hezbollah in the region.
One of the most important activities of the Islamist lobby in the US is the waging of political and media wars on the liberal Arabs and Middle Eastern figures and groups in America. This battlefield is among the most important in influencing Washington's policies in the Arab world. If you strike at the liberal and democratic Middle Eastern groups in Washington who are trying to gain support for civil societies in the region, you actually win a major battle. You will be able to influence the resources of the US Government to support the Islamists in the Middle East and not the weak democrats. This huge war waged by the Islamist lobbies in America started at the end of the Cold war and continued all the way till the Arab spring. The two main forces of this lobby are the Muslim Brotherhood fronts and the Iranian fronts. According to research available in the US, the Ikhwan fronts such as CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations), led by Hamas supporter Nihad Awad, as well as the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Islamic Society of North America, and others waged their political war to block the representatives of Arab liberals and Muslim moderates from making their case to the American public. The Iranian lobby, exemplified by the National Iranian American Committee (NIAC), led by Trita Parsi, has been hitting at Iranian exiles.
Since the 1990s CAIR and its allies have attacked Copts, Southern Sudanese, Lebanese, Syrian reformers, Assyrians and Chaldeans, and Muslim dissidents in the United States. The Ikhwan of America demonized any publication, book, article, or interview in the national media or local press raising the issue of secular freedoms in the Middle East. The Islamists wanted to eliminate the liberal cause in the Arab world and replace it with the cause of the Islamists. What is also shocking is that CAIR and its allies stood by the oppressive regimes and visited them, claiming they speak on behalf of the peoples. CAIR and the Brotherhood fronts in America destroyed systematically every project that would have defended the seculars and liberals originating from the Middle East. The notorious and well-funded Islamists of the US allowed no book, documentary, or show on the liberals in Arab civil societies to see the light.
Thanks to this powerful lobbying campaign, the American public was not given a chance to learn about the deep feelings on the youth in the region. Americans were led to believe that all Muslims, all Arabs and all Middle Easterners were a strange species of humans who cannot appreciate freedom. Instead, the American Islamists, helped by apologists on the petrodollars payrolls, convinced the mainstream media that the Arab world has authoritarians and Islamists only.
Dr Shawki Karas, president of the American Coptic Association, told me in the late 1990s how he was harassed by Islamist activists for speaking up against the Mubarak regime and the Muslim Brotherhood in America. He was threatened with losing his job at the college where he taught. Reverend Keith Roderick, who has assembled a coalition of more than 50 group rights from the Muslim world, was severely attacked by the Islamists and was threatened to be removed from his church position. Muslim American leaders who are conservative and secular, such as Dr Zuhdi Jasser, were crucified by CAIR and the Brotherhood for daring to challenge the Party line of the Islamists in America and claiming that the Jihadists are the problem in the region. Muslim liberal dissidents such as Somali Ayan Hirsi Ali, Saudi Ali al Yammi, Syrian Farid Ghadri, Iranian Manda Ervin, and many others were trashed by the Islamist lobbies to block them from defending the causes of secular liberty in the US. Egyptian liberals as well as seculars and democracy activists from Iraq, Sudan, Syria, and other countries have been attacked by CAIR and allies. The pro-Iranian lobby targeted most Iranian-American groups and tried to discredit them, particularly with the rise of the Green Revolution in Iran. By smearing the Muslim liberal exiles, the Islamists were trying to destroy their causes in the mother countries. In the 1990s and the years that followed 9/11 the region's dictators supported the efforts by Islamist lobbies to crush the liberal exiles. The Mubarak, Bashir, Gaddafi, Assad, and Khomeinist regimes fully supported the so-called Islamophobia campaign waged by CAIR and its Iranian counterpart NIAC against dissidents for calling for secular democracy in the region. The dissidents were accused of being pro-Western by both the Islamists and the dictators.
The Islamist lobbies also severely attacked members of the US Congress such as Democrats Tom Lantos, who has since passed away, Eliot Engel, Howard Berman, Gary Ackerman, and Joe Lieberman as well as Republicans Frank Wolfe, Chris Smith, Trent Franks, John McCain, Rick Santorum, and Sam Brownback for their efforts in passing legislative acts in support for democracy and liberty in the Middle East. CAIR and NIAC heavily savaged President Bush's speeches on Freedom Forward in the Middle East, deploying all the resources they had to block US support to liberal democrats in the region. Islamist lobbies in Washington are directly responsible for killing any initiative in the US Government to support Darfur, southern Sudan, Lebanon, the Kurds, liberal women in the Muslim world, and true democrats in the Arab world and Muslim Africa.
In the think tank world, CAIR and its allies aggressively attacked scholars who raised the issue of persecution against seculars or minorities in the Arab world and Iran. Among those attacked were Nina Shea and Paul Marshal from the Hudson Institute and the founder of an anti-slavery group, Dr Charles Jacobs, who was exposing the Sudan regime for its atrocities. Last but not least is the Islamists' relentless campaign to stirke at top scholars who advise Government and appear in the media to push for democratic liberation in the region. The vast and vicious attacks leveled against Professor Walid Phares—initially by CAIR's Nihad Awad and then widened by pro-Hezbollah and Muslim Brotherhood operatives online—has revealed to Arab and Middle Eastern liberal and seculars how ferocious is the battle for the Middle East in the US. Phares's books, particularly the latest one, The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East (2010), hit the Islamist agenda hard by predicting the civil society revolts in the Middle East and then predicting how the Islamists would try to control them. Phares was attacked by an army of Jihadist militia online like no author since Samuel Huntington in the 1990s. As a freedom activist from the Middle East, Mustafa Geha, wrote, Phares is a hero to Muslim liberals. Along with dissidents, lawmakers, experts, and human rights activists, Phares is a force driving for a strategic change in US foreign policy towards supporting secular democracies in the region. This explains why the Islamists of America are fighting the battle for the forthcoming regimes with all the means they have.
Dr. Essam Abdallah is an Egyptian liberal intellectual who teaches at Ain Shams University and writes for the leading Arab liberal publication Elaph.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Medicare Rant
Medicare Rant
Dear Congressman Doggett,
My tax preparer told me yesterday that with FHA mortgage, we now have to buy “mortgage insurance”. Excuse my language, but wtf?
Sir, we’re barely hanging on. PLEASE get this repealed! Not just for us, but for the many thousands of FHA mortgage holders out there.
2)
Also, and this is critical to so many people with various ailments, the news about the cancer medication Methotrexate (childhood Leukemia medication) which is in “shortage”...nonsense! It’s being held up in production because it’s inexpensive, and any day now the FDA and pharmaceutical companies will roll out an “improved” version or new drug, at huge expense—believe me on this. Meanwhile, this particular drug absence will surely cause death for many, mostly children.
I’m an RN, I’ve watched how suddenly there were ads on TV for cervical cancer...and I told my husband, watch, they’ll have a vaccine out in about a month. Lo and Behold, I was right. Suddenly there’s a new medication for gout which I’m sure is quite expensive, the old medication Allopurinol works just fine, is not dangerous and is cheap!
Same for quinine—quinine is nearly harmless, yet suddenly after using quinine for several centuries that I’m aware of, it’s labeled “a dangerous drug.” Nonsense!
Someone needs to hold both pharmaceutical companies AND the FDA accountable. This is so ridiculously wrong it borders on evil.
3)
Lastly, Medicare. Do you know that this wretched organization (from an RN perspective) has forced nurses to collect what’s known as Oasis data on everyone over the age of 16. It’s 80 some odd questions. This nonsense has been going on since I started nursing in 1993, without any compensation to nurses, I might add.
Do you know in Home Health, the gathering of Oasis data alone, takes more than an hour of time, sometimes MUCH longer depending on patients condition, family interference (I mean that in a kind way), and whether or not the patient is a good historian. It’s exhausting for both patient and nurse.
Oasis data has been gathering this information so Medicare can pigeon hole “disease processes”. Unfortunately it’s rare a patient fits into their model. For example, a patient with Congestive Heart Failure or CHF, is now allowed only 3 visits to the hospital for treatment under Medicare. The 4th trip will be charged to the patient. I do understand, and probably most nurses teach our patients how to manage their care by calling their doctor when they have a sudden weight gain—an obvious signature trait of CHF. However, other problems aren’t so easily controlled or obvious.
Medicare is just wrong to place the burden of this Oasis nonsense on nurses, it’s not only on admission, but if the patient has a stay in the hospital for longer than 24 hours, we have to do an ENTIRE Oasis admission, this is absurd and a waste of time, as 90% of the information isn’t going to change in most cases. Then every 8 weeks we have to “recertify” the patient, which takes roughly the same amount of time as the admission process. It’s insane. Nurses are leaving the profession in droves.
So if you or one of your colleagues is looking at Medicare waste and fraud—they should start with Medicare itself!
Thanks for letting me rant,
Dear Congressman Doggett,
My tax preparer told me yesterday that with FHA mortgage, we now have to buy “mortgage insurance”. Excuse my language, but wtf?
Sir, we’re barely hanging on. PLEASE get this repealed! Not just for us, but for the many thousands of FHA mortgage holders out there.
2)
Also, and this is critical to so many people with various ailments, the news about the cancer medication Methotrexate (childhood Leukemia medication) which is in “shortage”...nonsense! It’s being held up in production because it’s inexpensive, and any day now the FDA and pharmaceutical companies will roll out an “improved” version or new drug, at huge expense—believe me on this. Meanwhile, this particular drug absence will surely cause death for many, mostly children.
I’m an RN, I’ve watched how suddenly there were ads on TV for cervical cancer...and I told my husband, watch, they’ll have a vaccine out in about a month. Lo and Behold, I was right. Suddenly there’s a new medication for gout which I’m sure is quite expensive, the old medication Allopurinol works just fine, is not dangerous and is cheap!
Same for quinine—quinine is nearly harmless, yet suddenly after using quinine for several centuries that I’m aware of, it’s labeled “a dangerous drug.” Nonsense!
Someone needs to hold both pharmaceutical companies AND the FDA accountable. This is so ridiculously wrong it borders on evil.
3)
Lastly, Medicare. Do you know that this wretched organization (from an RN perspective) has forced nurses to collect what’s known as Oasis data on everyone over the age of 16. It’s 80 some odd questions. This nonsense has been going on since I started nursing in 1993, without any compensation to nurses, I might add.
Do you know in Home Health, the gathering of Oasis data alone, takes more than an hour of time, sometimes MUCH longer depending on patients condition, family interference (I mean that in a kind way), and whether or not the patient is a good historian. It’s exhausting for both patient and nurse.
Oasis data has been gathering this information so Medicare can pigeon hole “disease processes”. Unfortunately it’s rare a patient fits into their model. For example, a patient with Congestive Heart Failure or CHF, is now allowed only 3 visits to the hospital for treatment under Medicare. The 4th trip will be charged to the patient. I do understand, and probably most nurses teach our patients how to manage their care by calling their doctor when they have a sudden weight gain—an obvious signature trait of CHF. However, other problems aren’t so easily controlled or obvious.
Medicare is just wrong to place the burden of this Oasis nonsense on nurses, it’s not only on admission, but if the patient has a stay in the hospital for longer than 24 hours, we have to do an ENTIRE Oasis admission, this is absurd and a waste of time, as 90% of the information isn’t going to change in most cases. Then every 8 weeks we have to “recertify” the patient, which takes roughly the same amount of time as the admission process. It’s insane. Nurses are leaving the profession in droves.
So if you or one of your colleagues is looking at Medicare waste and fraud—they should start with Medicare itself!
Thanks for letting me rant,
Saturday, February 18, 2012
How Iran Sees America
Opinion
How Iran sees America and what America does not want to see
By Michael Rubin
Published February 17, 2012
President Obama entered the White House determined to renew diplomacy with Iran. During his campaign, he said he would meet the leaders of Iran "without preconditions.”
In his inaugural address he said, "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
Obama was sincere, but his outreach was doomed before it began. The problem was never American goodwill but rather how Iran’s leaders understand diplomacy.
American diplomacy is based on the assumption that international counterparts operate by common rules.
The Western notion of diplomacy, however, is a relatively recent concept, one that evolved during the Enlightenment and coalesced into a common understanding only in the nineteenth century.
To assume that twenty-first century adversaries, be they in Tehran, Pyongyang, or Beijing, accept a value system rooted in Western culture is naive.
The match-up between Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Obama is not a battle between equals, but rather a historical grudge match between Nizam al-Mulk, the eleventh century Persian Machiavelli, and Neville Chamberlain or Jimmy Carter.
In that game, the White House will always lose, especially when if it refuses to recognize the rules by which Iran plays.
The cultural chasm between American and Iranian diplomats predates the 1979 hostage crisis.
Less than three months before radical students seized the U.S. embassy, Bruce Laingen, the American chargé d’affaires in Tehran, described the Iranian approach to negotiations to the State Department. “Perhaps the single dominant aspect of the Persian psyche is an overriding egoism,” he wrote in a cable, adding, “The practical effect of it is an almost total Persian preoccupation with self and leaves little room for understanding points of view other than one’s own.” “One should never assume that his side of the issue will be recognized,” he concluded.
That, after 32 years, no Iranian official has apologized for seizing the U.S. embassy underscores Laingen’s insight and shows the Iranian regime’s complete rejection of the rules of diplomacy. Iranians have grievances too—the 1953 coup against Iran’s Soviet-leaning premier, for example—but for this successive administrations have apologized.
The Islamic Republic’s embrace of terrorism also underscores the cultural gap. Tehran refuses the terrorist label, only because it believes wanton murder of civilians acceptable. Export of revolution is enshrined in the Islamic Republic’s constitution and the Iranian government has been so bold as to include a line-item for “resistance” in its budget.
During the last administration, critics chastised the President Bush for eschewing realism, the idea that immediate national interest should trump morality in decision making. Obama may believe he embraced realism, but he fails to recognize it in his adversaries: Iranian authorities make no secret that their primary national interest lays in becoming a nuclear power.
Here, again, American strategy is naïve: Obama may, like Bill Clinton before him, believe that he can exploit Iranian factional disputes to his advantage but he ignores that reformists and hardliners both seek a nuclear Iran. Indeed, the biggest dispute between the two poles on the Iranian political spectrum is not whether or not to go nuclear, but rather who should get credit for the achievement.
When Ahmadinejad announces nuclear breakthroughs, as he did on Wednesday, he seeks glory for himself, but reformists say they deserve credit.
In June 2008, for example, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, the spokesman for former president Mohammad Khatami, suggested Khatami’s much-lauded “Dialogue of Civilizations” was merely a tactic to distract the West from Iran’s nuclear progress. Former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani seconded the notion in October 2011, crediting his own insincere diplomacy for enabling Iran to create a nuclear fait accompli.
While many American officials still cling to the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate’s controversial assertion that Iran ceased working on a nuclear weapon in 2003, they ignore the fact that it was during the reformist era that Iran laid the backbone of its program.
Absent sincerity, diplomacy is less a system for problem solving than it is an asymmetric warfare strategy.
Only twice has the Islamic Republic reversed course on its revolutionary goals: First, Ayatollah Khomeini released American hostages, not because of Carter’s diplomacy but rather because Iraq’s 1980 invasion made the price of Iran’s isolation too great to bear.
Then, only after a half million Iranians died, did Khomeini agreed to abandon the Iran-Iraq war short of his goal of ousting Saddam Hussein, likening the decision to drinking a chalice of poison.
Iranians often quip that they play chess while the Americans play checkers. They are wrong. By ignoring the Iranian game, Obama might as well be playing solitaire.
Tehran will feign pragmatism only when the cost of its goals—nuclear acquisition and revolutionary expansion—grow too costly. Only by raising exponentially the cost to Iran of its nuclear defiance can Obama hope to rein in Iranian ambitions.
Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, teaches Iranian history and political culture for the U.S. military and holds a Ph.D. in Iranian history from Yale University.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/02/17/how-iran-sees-america-and-what-america-does-not-want-to-see/#ixzz1mkSEUMLV
How Iran sees America and what America does not want to see
By Michael Rubin
Published February 17, 2012
President Obama entered the White House determined to renew diplomacy with Iran. During his campaign, he said he would meet the leaders of Iran "without preconditions.”
In his inaugural address he said, "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
Obama was sincere, but his outreach was doomed before it began. The problem was never American goodwill but rather how Iran’s leaders understand diplomacy.
American diplomacy is based on the assumption that international counterparts operate by common rules.
The Western notion of diplomacy, however, is a relatively recent concept, one that evolved during the Enlightenment and coalesced into a common understanding only in the nineteenth century.
To assume that twenty-first century adversaries, be they in Tehran, Pyongyang, or Beijing, accept a value system rooted in Western culture is naive.
The match-up between Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Obama is not a battle between equals, but rather a historical grudge match between Nizam al-Mulk, the eleventh century Persian Machiavelli, and Neville Chamberlain or Jimmy Carter.
In that game, the White House will always lose, especially when if it refuses to recognize the rules by which Iran plays.
The cultural chasm between American and Iranian diplomats predates the 1979 hostage crisis.
Less than three months before radical students seized the U.S. embassy, Bruce Laingen, the American chargé d’affaires in Tehran, described the Iranian approach to negotiations to the State Department. “Perhaps the single dominant aspect of the Persian psyche is an overriding egoism,” he wrote in a cable, adding, “The practical effect of it is an almost total Persian preoccupation with self and leaves little room for understanding points of view other than one’s own.” “One should never assume that his side of the issue will be recognized,” he concluded.
That, after 32 years, no Iranian official has apologized for seizing the U.S. embassy underscores Laingen’s insight and shows the Iranian regime’s complete rejection of the rules of diplomacy. Iranians have grievances too—the 1953 coup against Iran’s Soviet-leaning premier, for example—but for this successive administrations have apologized.
The Islamic Republic’s embrace of terrorism also underscores the cultural gap. Tehran refuses the terrorist label, only because it believes wanton murder of civilians acceptable. Export of revolution is enshrined in the Islamic Republic’s constitution and the Iranian government has been so bold as to include a line-item for “resistance” in its budget.
During the last administration, critics chastised the President Bush for eschewing realism, the idea that immediate national interest should trump morality in decision making. Obama may believe he embraced realism, but he fails to recognize it in his adversaries: Iranian authorities make no secret that their primary national interest lays in becoming a nuclear power.
Here, again, American strategy is naïve: Obama may, like Bill Clinton before him, believe that he can exploit Iranian factional disputes to his advantage but he ignores that reformists and hardliners both seek a nuclear Iran. Indeed, the biggest dispute between the two poles on the Iranian political spectrum is not whether or not to go nuclear, but rather who should get credit for the achievement.
When Ahmadinejad announces nuclear breakthroughs, as he did on Wednesday, he seeks glory for himself, but reformists say they deserve credit.
In June 2008, for example, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, the spokesman for former president Mohammad Khatami, suggested Khatami’s much-lauded “Dialogue of Civilizations” was merely a tactic to distract the West from Iran’s nuclear progress. Former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani seconded the notion in October 2011, crediting his own insincere diplomacy for enabling Iran to create a nuclear fait accompli.
While many American officials still cling to the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate’s controversial assertion that Iran ceased working on a nuclear weapon in 2003, they ignore the fact that it was during the reformist era that Iran laid the backbone of its program.
Absent sincerity, diplomacy is less a system for problem solving than it is an asymmetric warfare strategy.
Only twice has the Islamic Republic reversed course on its revolutionary goals: First, Ayatollah Khomeini released American hostages, not because of Carter’s diplomacy but rather because Iraq’s 1980 invasion made the price of Iran’s isolation too great to bear.
Then, only after a half million Iranians died, did Khomeini agreed to abandon the Iran-Iraq war short of his goal of ousting Saddam Hussein, likening the decision to drinking a chalice of poison.
Iranians often quip that they play chess while the Americans play checkers. They are wrong. By ignoring the Iranian game, Obama might as well be playing solitaire.
Tehran will feign pragmatism only when the cost of its goals—nuclear acquisition and revolutionary expansion—grow too costly. Only by raising exponentially the cost to Iran of its nuclear defiance can Obama hope to rein in Iranian ambitions.
Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, teaches Iranian history and political culture for the U.S. military and holds a Ph.D. in Iranian history from Yale University.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/02/17/how-iran-sees-america-and-what-america-does-not-want-to-see/#ixzz1mkSEUMLV
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
A Military Doctor
by Capt. Steven Ellison, MD
A Military Doctor
This should be required reading in every school and college in our country. This Captain, an Army doctor, deserves a medal himself for putting this together. If you choose not to pass it on, fine, but I think you will want to, after you read it.
I am a doctor specializing in the Emergency Departments of the only two military Level One-Trauma Centers, both in San Antonio , TX and they care for civilian Emergencies as well as military personnel. San Antonio has the largest military retiree population in the world living here. As a military doctor, I work long hours and the pay is less than glamorous. One tends to become jaded by the long hours, lack of sleep, food, family contact and the endless parade of human suffering passing before you. The arrival of another ambulance does not mean more pay, only more work. Most often, it is a victim from a motor vehicle crash.
Often it is a person of dubious character who has been shot or stabbed. With our large military retiree population, it is often a nursing home patient. Even with my enlisted service and minimal combat experience in Panama , I have caught myself groaning when the ambulance brought in yet another sick, elderly person from one of the local retirement centers that cater to military retirees. I had not stopped to think of what citizens of this age group represented.
I saw 'Saving Private Ryan.' I was touched deeply. Not so much by the carnage, but by the sacrifices of so many. I was touched most by the scene of the elderly survivor at the graveside, asking his wife if he'd been a good man. I realized that I had seen these same men and women coming through my Emergency Dept.. and had not realized what magnificent sacrifices they had made. The things they did for me and everyone else that has lived on this planet since the end of that conflict are priceless.
Situation permitting, I now try to ask my patients about their experiences. They would never bring up the subject without the inquiry. I have been privileged to an amazing array of experiences, recounted in the brief minutes allowed in an Emergency Dept. encounter. These experiences have revealed the incredible individuals I have had the honor of serving in a medical capacity, many on their last admission to the hospital.
There was a frail, elderly woman who reassured my young enlisted medic, trying to start an IV line in her arm. She remained calm and poised, despite her illness and the multiple needle-sticks into her fragile veins. She was what we call a 'hard stick.' As the medic made another attempt, I noticed a number tattooed across her forearm. I touched it with one finger and looked into her eyes. She simply said, ' Auschwitz ..' Many of later generations would have loudly and openly berated the young medic in his many attempts. How different was the response from this person who'd seen unspeakable suffering.
Also, there was this long retired Colonel, who as a young officer had parachuted from his burning plane over a Pacific Island held by the Japanese. Now an octogenarian, he had a minor cut on his head from a fall at his home where he lived alone. His CT scan and suturing had been delayed until after midnight by the usual parade of high priority ambulance patients.. Still spry for his age, he asked to use the phone to call a taxi, to take him home, then he realized his ambulance had brought him without his wallet. He asked if he could use the phone to make a long distance call to his daughter who lived 7 miles away. With great pride we told him that he could not, as he'd done enough for his country and the least we could do was get him a taxi home, even if we had to pay for it ourselves. My only regret was that my shift wouldn't end for several hours, and I couldn't drive him myself.
I was there the night M/Sgt Roy Benavidez came through the Emergency Dept. for the last time. He was very sick. I was not the doctor taking care of him, but I walked to his bedside and took his hand. I said nothing. He was so sick, he didn't know I was there. I'd read his Congressional Medal of Honor citation and wanted to shake his hand. He died a few days later.
The gentleman who served with Merrill's Marauders,
The survivor of the Bataan Death March,
The survivor of Omaha Beach ,
The 101 year old World War I veteran.
The former POW held in frozen North Korea
The former Special Forces medic - now with non-operable liver cancer
The former Viet Nam Corps Commander..
I may still groan when yet another ambulance comes in, but now I am much more aware of what an honor it is to serve these particular men and women.
I have seen a Congress who would turn their back on these individuals who've sacrificed so much to protect our liberty. I see later generations that seem to be totally engrossed in abusing these same liberties, won with such sacrifice.
It has become my personal endeavor to make the nurses and young enlisted medics aware of these amazing individuals when I encounter them in our Emergency Dept. Their response to these particular citizens has made me think that perhaps all is not lost in the next generation.
My experiences have solidified my belief that we are losing an incredible generation, and this nation knows not what it is losing. Our uncaring government and ungrateful civilian populace should all take note. We should all remember that we must 'Earn this.'
Written By CAPT. Steven R. Ellison, M.D. US Army
If it weren't for the United States Military, soon to be gone,
there'd be NO United States of America !
Steven Ellison, MD
A MILITARY DOCTOR
And now as you have finished reading this, our Congress that enjoys
their free medical care are in the process of charging these people for their medical care and at the same time possibly reducing their retirement pay. A typical political "thank you."
This should be required reading in every school and college in our country. This Captain, an Army doctor, deserves a medal himself for putting this together.
A Military Doctor
This should be required reading in every school and college in our country. This Captain, an Army doctor, deserves a medal himself for putting this together. If you choose not to pass it on, fine, but I think you will want to, after you read it.
I am a doctor specializing in the Emergency Departments of the only two military Level One-Trauma Centers, both in San Antonio , TX and they care for civilian Emergencies as well as military personnel. San Antonio has the largest military retiree population in the world living here. As a military doctor, I work long hours and the pay is less than glamorous. One tends to become jaded by the long hours, lack of sleep, food, family contact and the endless parade of human suffering passing before you. The arrival of another ambulance does not mean more pay, only more work. Most often, it is a victim from a motor vehicle crash.
Often it is a person of dubious character who has been shot or stabbed. With our large military retiree population, it is often a nursing home patient. Even with my enlisted service and minimal combat experience in Panama , I have caught myself groaning when the ambulance brought in yet another sick, elderly person from one of the local retirement centers that cater to military retirees. I had not stopped to think of what citizens of this age group represented.
I saw 'Saving Private Ryan.' I was touched deeply. Not so much by the carnage, but by the sacrifices of so many. I was touched most by the scene of the elderly survivor at the graveside, asking his wife if he'd been a good man. I realized that I had seen these same men and women coming through my Emergency Dept.. and had not realized what magnificent sacrifices they had made. The things they did for me and everyone else that has lived on this planet since the end of that conflict are priceless.
Situation permitting, I now try to ask my patients about their experiences. They would never bring up the subject without the inquiry. I have been privileged to an amazing array of experiences, recounted in the brief minutes allowed in an Emergency Dept. encounter. These experiences have revealed the incredible individuals I have had the honor of serving in a medical capacity, many on their last admission to the hospital.
There was a frail, elderly woman who reassured my young enlisted medic, trying to start an IV line in her arm. She remained calm and poised, despite her illness and the multiple needle-sticks into her fragile veins. She was what we call a 'hard stick.' As the medic made another attempt, I noticed a number tattooed across her forearm. I touched it with one finger and looked into her eyes. She simply said, ' Auschwitz ..' Many of later generations would have loudly and openly berated the young medic in his many attempts. How different was the response from this person who'd seen unspeakable suffering.
Also, there was this long retired Colonel, who as a young officer had parachuted from his burning plane over a Pacific Island held by the Japanese. Now an octogenarian, he had a minor cut on his head from a fall at his home where he lived alone. His CT scan and suturing had been delayed until after midnight by the usual parade of high priority ambulance patients.. Still spry for his age, he asked to use the phone to call a taxi, to take him home, then he realized his ambulance had brought him without his wallet. He asked if he could use the phone to make a long distance call to his daughter who lived 7 miles away. With great pride we told him that he could not, as he'd done enough for his country and the least we could do was get him a taxi home, even if we had to pay for it ourselves. My only regret was that my shift wouldn't end for several hours, and I couldn't drive him myself.
I was there the night M/Sgt Roy Benavidez came through the Emergency Dept. for the last time. He was very sick. I was not the doctor taking care of him, but I walked to his bedside and took his hand. I said nothing. He was so sick, he didn't know I was there. I'd read his Congressional Medal of Honor citation and wanted to shake his hand. He died a few days later.
The gentleman who served with Merrill's Marauders,
The survivor of the Bataan Death March,
The survivor of Omaha Beach ,
The 101 year old World War I veteran.
The former POW held in frozen North Korea
The former Special Forces medic - now with non-operable liver cancer
The former Viet Nam Corps Commander..
I may still groan when yet another ambulance comes in, but now I am much more aware of what an honor it is to serve these particular men and women.
I have seen a Congress who would turn their back on these individuals who've sacrificed so much to protect our liberty. I see later generations that seem to be totally engrossed in abusing these same liberties, won with such sacrifice.
It has become my personal endeavor to make the nurses and young enlisted medics aware of these amazing individuals when I encounter them in our Emergency Dept. Their response to these particular citizens has made me think that perhaps all is not lost in the next generation.
My experiences have solidified my belief that we are losing an incredible generation, and this nation knows not what it is losing. Our uncaring government and ungrateful civilian populace should all take note. We should all remember that we must 'Earn this.'
Written By CAPT. Steven R. Ellison, M.D. US Army
If it weren't for the United States Military, soon to be gone,
there'd be NO United States of America !
Steven Ellison, MD
A MILITARY DOCTOR
And now as you have finished reading this, our Congress that enjoys
their free medical care are in the process of charging these people for their medical care and at the same time possibly reducing their retirement pay. A typical political "thank you."
This should be required reading in every school and college in our country. This Captain, an Army doctor, deserves a medal himself for putting this together.
Saturday, February 04, 2012
Judge: Obama Eligible to be Georgia Candidate
Judge: Obama eligible to be Georgia candidate
By Bill Rankin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
President Barack Obama’s name will remain on the Georgia primary ballot after a state law judge flatly rejected legal challenges that contend he can not be a candidate.
In a 10-page order, Judge Michael Malihi dismissed one challenge that contended Obama has a computer-generated Hawaiian birth certificate, a fraudulent Social Security number and invalid U.S. identification papers. He also turned back another that claimed the president is ineligible to be a candidate because his father was not a U.S. citizen at the time of Obama's birth.
The findings by Malihi, a judge for the State Office of Administrative Hearings, go to Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who will make the final determination. Last month, at a hearing boycotted by Obama's lawyer, Malihi considered complaints brought by members of the so-called "birther" movement.
With regard to the challenge that Obama does not have legitimate birth and identification papers, Malihi said he found the evidence "unsatisfactory" and "insufficient to support plaintiffs' allegations."
A number of the witnesses who testified about the alleged fraud were never qualified as experts in birth records, forged documents and document manipulation and "none ... provided persuasive testimony," Malihi wrote.
Addressing the other claim that contends Obama cannot be a candidate because his father was never a U.S. citizen, Malihi said he was persuaded by a 2009 ruling by the Indiana Court of Appeals decision that struck down a similar challenge. In that ruling, the Indiana court found that children born within the U.S. are natural-born citizens, regardless of the citizenry of their parents.
Obama "became a citizen at birth and is a natural-born citizen," Malihi wrote. Accordingly, Obama is eligible as a candidate for the upcoming presidential primary in March, the judge said.
Even though Malihi ruled in Obama's favor, he expressed displeasure that the president's lawyer, Michael Jablonski of Atlanta, refused to attend the recent hearing.
"By deciding this matter on the merits, the court in no way condones the conduct or legal scholarship of defendant's attorney, Mr. Jablonski," Malihi wrote. "This decision is entirely based on the law, as well as the evidence and legal arguments presented at the hearing."
Copy Of Obama's Kenyan Birth Certificate
By Bill Rankin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
President Barack Obama’s name will remain on the Georgia primary ballot after a state law judge flatly rejected legal challenges that contend he can not be a candidate.
In a 10-page order, Judge Michael Malihi dismissed one challenge that contended Obama has a computer-generated Hawaiian birth certificate, a fraudulent Social Security number and invalid U.S. identification papers. He also turned back another that claimed the president is ineligible to be a candidate because his father was not a U.S. citizen at the time of Obama's birth.
The findings by Malihi, a judge for the State Office of Administrative Hearings, go to Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who will make the final determination. Last month, at a hearing boycotted by Obama's lawyer, Malihi considered complaints brought by members of the so-called "birther" movement.
With regard to the challenge that Obama does not have legitimate birth and identification papers, Malihi said he found the evidence "unsatisfactory" and "insufficient to support plaintiffs' allegations."
A number of the witnesses who testified about the alleged fraud were never qualified as experts in birth records, forged documents and document manipulation and "none ... provided persuasive testimony," Malihi wrote.
Addressing the other claim that contends Obama cannot be a candidate because his father was never a U.S. citizen, Malihi said he was persuaded by a 2009 ruling by the Indiana Court of Appeals decision that struck down a similar challenge. In that ruling, the Indiana court found that children born within the U.S. are natural-born citizens, regardless of the citizenry of their parents.
Obama "became a citizen at birth and is a natural-born citizen," Malihi wrote. Accordingly, Obama is eligible as a candidate for the upcoming presidential primary in March, the judge said.
Even though Malihi ruled in Obama's favor, he expressed displeasure that the president's lawyer, Michael Jablonski of Atlanta, refused to attend the recent hearing.
"By deciding this matter on the merits, the court in no way condones the conduct or legal scholarship of defendant's attorney, Mr. Jablonski," Malihi wrote. "This decision is entirely based on the law, as well as the evidence and legal arguments presented at the hearing."
Copy Of Obama's Kenyan Birth Certificate
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
‘Islamist Firster’ president not what he claimed
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
‘Islamist Firster’ president not what he claimed
GOLAN HEIGHTS — Surveying the live minefields, cratered roads and mortar-pocked concrete buildings along the border here between Syria and Israel, it is hard not to be reminded of the historic and monumental disappointment President Obama has been.
When he was campaigning to become the most powerful man in the last standing superpower on Earth, he spoke passionately about changing the world, restoring America’s greatness and bringing more peace and fairness to everyone.
In both foreign and domestic matters, Mr. Obama had unique credibility to change things as few presidents ever had.
Despite his background as a liberal street organizer, he campaigned on tax cuts and personal responsibility and preached that the government simply cannot be the answer to every problem. Republicans would have no choice but to go along with an agenda to shrink the tax burden and get the federal government out of our everyday lives.
Instead, Mr. Obama has devoted his administration to raising taxes, adding to the byzantine structure of the federal government, and has created a whole new massive bureaucracy he claims really will cure our every little boo-boo.
As for the rest of the world, Mr. Obama promised to devote himself to healing the grave injustices and halting the atrocities that have afflicted the world since the rise of radical, violent jihadism. With his Muslim roots, Mr. Obama was positioned better than any leader on the global stage to speak with authority to radical Islamists and finally bring about permanent peace.
Instead, Mr. Obama chose to unilaterally alienate perhaps our most strategically important ally in the world and do all he can to cozy up to the very people who are dedicated to destroying not only Israel, but America as well.
Leading Democrats have been in the news lately sliming Americans who stick up for Israel as being “Israel Firsters.” Well, Mr. Obama has become an “Islamist Firster.”
Since becoming president, he has not once visited our greatest ally in the region. Rather, he has gone to places like Cairo to tell the Muslim world how much he likes it. He also stunningly trashed the oath of office he took by saying it is “part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”
And, of course, he apologized for the “sexuality” and “mindless violence” from the West permeating the Internet. But Internet porn and creepy videos are little match for virginity tests, stoning women and beheading Jews — all for the fun of it.
When Mr. Obama finally addressed Israel, he shockingly said the tiny country should further retrench so its well-armed enemies can retake high ground from which to fire rockets at Israelis and move closer so they can hit major population centers such as Tel Aviv.
Such a twisted and half-baked view of justice is bad enough in a president. But things are about to get much more terrifying when Iran finally gets its hands on a nuclear warhead, which appears likely to happen in a matter of months.
It will be a very complicated situation because the most powerful man in the last remaining superpower on the planet is an Islamist Firster.
• Charles Hurt may be reached at charleshurt@live.com
‘Islamist Firster’ president not what he claimed
GOLAN HEIGHTS — Surveying the live minefields, cratered roads and mortar-pocked concrete buildings along the border here between Syria and Israel, it is hard not to be reminded of the historic and monumental disappointment President Obama has been.
When he was campaigning to become the most powerful man in the last standing superpower on Earth, he spoke passionately about changing the world, restoring America’s greatness and bringing more peace and fairness to everyone.
In both foreign and domestic matters, Mr. Obama had unique credibility to change things as few presidents ever had.
Despite his background as a liberal street organizer, he campaigned on tax cuts and personal responsibility and preached that the government simply cannot be the answer to every problem. Republicans would have no choice but to go along with an agenda to shrink the tax burden and get the federal government out of our everyday lives.
Instead, Mr. Obama has devoted his administration to raising taxes, adding to the byzantine structure of the federal government, and has created a whole new massive bureaucracy he claims really will cure our every little boo-boo.
As for the rest of the world, Mr. Obama promised to devote himself to healing the grave injustices and halting the atrocities that have afflicted the world since the rise of radical, violent jihadism. With his Muslim roots, Mr. Obama was positioned better than any leader on the global stage to speak with authority to radical Islamists and finally bring about permanent peace.
Instead, Mr. Obama chose to unilaterally alienate perhaps our most strategically important ally in the world and do all he can to cozy up to the very people who are dedicated to destroying not only Israel, but America as well.
Leading Democrats have been in the news lately sliming Americans who stick up for Israel as being “Israel Firsters.” Well, Mr. Obama has become an “Islamist Firster.”
Since becoming president, he has not once visited our greatest ally in the region. Rather, he has gone to places like Cairo to tell the Muslim world how much he likes it. He also stunningly trashed the oath of office he took by saying it is “part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”
And, of course, he apologized for the “sexuality” and “mindless violence” from the West permeating the Internet. But Internet porn and creepy videos are little match for virginity tests, stoning women and beheading Jews — all for the fun of it.
When Mr. Obama finally addressed Israel, he shockingly said the tiny country should further retrench so its well-armed enemies can retake high ground from which to fire rockets at Israelis and move closer so they can hit major population centers such as Tel Aviv.
Such a twisted and half-baked view of justice is bad enough in a president. But things are about to get much more terrifying when Iran finally gets its hands on a nuclear warhead, which appears likely to happen in a matter of months.
It will be a very complicated situation because the most powerful man in the last remaining superpower on the planet is an Islamist Firster.
• Charles Hurt may be reached at charleshurt@live.com
Illegal Immigration News
Today's Illegal Immigration News
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
FOUR IN TEN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS CAUGHT DID NOT FACE ‘ENFORCEMENT WITH CONSEQUENCES’
Only about 60 percent of illegal immigrants apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol in 2010 faced “enforcement with consequences,” according to a January 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report. This is a significant improvement over the 1 percent of illegal immigrants that faced ‘enforcement with consequences’ in 1999, but it is not enough.
The report, entitled Border Security: Immigration Enforcement Between Ports of Entry, also indicated that the number of immigration-related crimes has more than tripled in the last twenty years with removals increasing fourteen-fold from 12,867 to 189,653. The DHS’ approach to border control, according to the report, has allowed illegal immigrants at the border to be simply let go and not charged with a crime leading to unknown numbers of repeated illegal re-entry into the United States.
Also worth taking note is that non-Mexican illegal immigrants apprehended at the border are “allowed to remain at large in the United States pending a formal deportation or removal hearing.”
KS BUSINESS COALITION WORKING TOWARD BACKDOOR AMNESTY PLAN
As of December 2011, there were 95,507 unemployed U.S. Citizens in Kansas, but a coalition of business groups, including the Kansas Chamber of Congress, are proposing that Kansas start a new program to allow illegal immigrants to remain in the state. According to the coalition, illegal immigrant labor is necessary to avoid “labor shortages” in agriculture and other industries, such as landscaping, roofing, construction.
State officials and backers do not have any hard numbers for how many jobs are in “danger of going unfilled,” but estimate the number of illegal-immigrant workers at 45,000 – just under half the total number of unemployed Americans in the state. Opponents to the coalition include conservative leaders in the state who argue that the business groups’ plan “amnesty” for such immigrants and are working in conjunction with the Obama administration.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
FOUR IN TEN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS CAUGHT DID NOT FACE ‘ENFORCEMENT WITH CONSEQUENCES’
Only about 60 percent of illegal immigrants apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol in 2010 faced “enforcement with consequences,” according to a January 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report. This is a significant improvement over the 1 percent of illegal immigrants that faced ‘enforcement with consequences’ in 1999, but it is not enough.
The report, entitled Border Security: Immigration Enforcement Between Ports of Entry, also indicated that the number of immigration-related crimes has more than tripled in the last twenty years with removals increasing fourteen-fold from 12,867 to 189,653. The DHS’ approach to border control, according to the report, has allowed illegal immigrants at the border to be simply let go and not charged with a crime leading to unknown numbers of repeated illegal re-entry into the United States.
Also worth taking note is that non-Mexican illegal immigrants apprehended at the border are “allowed to remain at large in the United States pending a formal deportation or removal hearing.”
KS BUSINESS COALITION WORKING TOWARD BACKDOOR AMNESTY PLAN
As of December 2011, there were 95,507 unemployed U.S. Citizens in Kansas, but a coalition of business groups, including the Kansas Chamber of Congress, are proposing that Kansas start a new program to allow illegal immigrants to remain in the state. According to the coalition, illegal immigrant labor is necessary to avoid “labor shortages” in agriculture and other industries, such as landscaping, roofing, construction.
State officials and backers do not have any hard numbers for how many jobs are in “danger of going unfilled,” but estimate the number of illegal-immigrant workers at 45,000 – just under half the total number of unemployed Americans in the state. Opponents to the coalition include conservative leaders in the state who argue that the business groups’ plan “amnesty” for such immigrants and are working in conjunction with the Obama administration.
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