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Saturday, October 13, 2012

Landowner stands ground against government 'shake-down'

by Bob Unruh 

Koontz
You’re the owner of a piece of commercial property, and local regulators are asking you to make sure the impact of work you’d like to do is mitigated: wetlands accommodated, the property fixed up and cleaned up.
So no problem.
Then regulators tell you they also are going to require that you – at an expense estimated up to $150,000 – fix up and clean up a piece of unrelated government property miles away from your project.
Or else.
What do you do?
That’s the question that will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court in a dispute out of Florida that is being handled by the Pacific Legal Foundation.

In the case, the owner of a piece of commercial property in Orange County, Fla., the Koontz family, was told that to get the permits necessary to use their land, they would have to spend thousands of his dollars making improvements to government-owned land miles away – just because that’s what officials decided they wanted.
“Property owners large and small, from coast to coast, should be thankful that the U.S. Supreme Court has accepted this important property rights case,” said Paul Beard, principal attorney for the foundation.
“If the Koontz family can be hit with the government rip-off that happened in this case, then everybody’s property rights are put at risk. The Koontz family merely wanted to exercise their rights as property owners, to develop the family’s land in legal and responsible ways.
“But regulators saw a chance to pounce and make all kinds of costly, unrelated, outrageous demands,” he said. “Without any justification, the government demanded money, labor and resources as the price for allowing the Koontzes to use their own land.

“This was a flat-out shakedown, a form of extortion,” he said.
Family members had tried for years to develop the land, but the local St. Johns River Water Management District would not issue the necessary permits, “because Koontz would not agree to costly and unjustified conditions that the district imposed.”
“Specifically, the district demanded that Koontz dedicate his money and labor to make improvements to 50 acres of district-owned property located miles away from the proposed project,” the legal team explained.
“In other words, what we have here is a classic case of an unconstitutional shakedown. The U.S. Supreme Supreme Court has ruled that the government violates property rights – it commits a ‘taking ‘ in violation of the Fifth Amendment – if it tries to use the permitting process to extract conditions that aren’t related to the impact of the proposed development.”
“Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws”
Some details had been worked out. The Koontzes wanted to develop 3.7 acres of their land, which was in a habitat-protection zone. They agreed to dedicate another 11 acres of their land for conservation.
But the district also demanded the family replace culverts and plug ditches on district land seven miles away, at costs estimated to run as high as $150,000, the legal team said.

The family won the argument at the trial and appellate courts, but the Florida Supreme Court refused “to recognize that the district had imposed an unconstitutional take.”
The Pacific Legal Foundation noted that it won a case in 1987 in the Supreme Court that said governments can’t impose unrelated demands as the price of permits or other regulatory permissions.
See an explanation of the arguments: 

http://youtu.be/I51s5082Wts 

 


The foundation also won a property-rights battle earlier this year over the government’s arbitrary imposition of requirements on a landowner.
In that case, Mike and Chantell Sackett of Priest Lake, Idaho, bought a piece of land in a residential subdivision that was about two-thirds of an acre, purchased the appropriate building permits and started work on their dream home.
Then the federal Environmental Protection Agency arrived, ordered them to restore the land to its pristine condition, protect it for years and then go through a ruinously expensive application process to request permission to use their own land. Further, the EPA, in collusion with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, told the couple they could not even challenge the decision unless they went through the expensive process.
The Supreme Court overturned the appeals court, saying the EPA must provide a process through which a challenge to its decision can be addressed in a meaningful way.
Pacific Legal called the decision a “precedent-setting victory for the rights of all property owners.”
The EPA previously had threatened the couple with fines of up to $75,000 per day for failing to follow the agency’s intrusive “compliance” plan through which federal officials not only effectively seized control of the land but also the couple by demanding their paperwork and other detailed information.

Teen accused of blasphemy now facing juvenile court

by Michael Carl 

rimsha2
A Pakistani teenager accused of blasphemy for allegedly burning pages from a Quran faces charges in juvenile court even as the imam suspected of staging the offense is released from jail.
A report from Pakistan said Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chisti, a cleric who brought the claim against the 14-year-old girl, has been released from jail.
But lawyers say the girl, Rimsha Masih, and her family will remain in Pakistan.
Masih was arrested in August on blasphemy charges and released from an adult jail in September. But now she is expected to appear in juvenile court for the same charges Oct. 17.
The new hearing is expected to present difficulties for Masih’s attorneys, because, as Pakistan’s Herald-Tribune reports, three of the four witnesses on behalf of the girl have turned hostile and have recanted their testimony.

Three of the men now say they were tortured into a confession and that the burned pages were not planted in Masih’s bag by the local imam.
Open Doors Advocacy Director Lindsay Vessey says reports of the men changing their story are accurate. For Vessey, the reason they changed their story is important.
She points to Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy law.
“The blasphemy laws are regularly abused in Pakistan, drawing much condemnation from the international community,” Vessey said. “At the same time, they have majority support within the country of Pakistan.”
Vessey added that supporting change to the blasphemy laws has been deadly in the past.
“Any effort to reform them results in incredible pressure from Islamists within the country, as seen by the murders of Shabaz Bhatti and Salman Taseer,” Vessey said.
Vessey believes it’s very likely that the only reason Masih hasn’t been tried for blasphemy is the international attention the case has received.
“When Rimsha was charged and imprisoned, it drew a lot of international attention and outrage over the laws. So it’s possible that the witnesses coming forward to accuse the cleric were staged and planned to withdraw testimony all along,” Vessey said.

Rimsha may still come out ahead in the ordeal.
“The result is that Rimsha likely won’t be found guilty, and the government can deflect attention from the broader issue of reforming blasphemy laws to dealing with this one imam who abused them,” Vessey said.
“This is pure speculation, but one has to wonder why four witnesses came forward awhile after Rimsha was imprisoned, only to withdraw their statements later,” Vessey said.
Another possibility, she said, is that witnesses have been pressured into retracting their statements.
International Christian Concern’s Pakistan analyst Aidan Clay said that the witnesses were most likely coerced from both directions.
“While reports say that the witnesses were coerced by police to testify against the cleric, my speculation is that the witnesses felt pressured by their community and the cleric to retract their statements,” Clay said.
To many in Masih’s neighborhood, he said, the young girl and anyone who supported her are all equally guilty.
“They were seen as defending the child and therefore being participants in her blasphemous actions. Like Rimsha, they now also face the threat of being killed,” Clay said.
Clay said that even though the case has faded from the headlines, the sense of outrage in Masih’s neighborhood has not subsided.
“There were many angry Muslims in the neighborhood when the cleric was arrested. That anger has not dissipated, and the witnesses likely fear for their lives. It is fear that probably persuaded the witnesses to recant their earlier statements,” Clay said.

He added that people accused of blasphemy in Pakistan aren’t safe, even if they are acquitted in court.
Citing the advocacy group Human Rights First, he said 46 people charged for blasphemy in the past 25 years have been killed by mob justice while awaiting trial or after having been acquitted.
The Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies presented similar findings, he said, reporting that 52 people have been killed by vigilantes since 1990 after being implicated in blasphemy cases..
“This goes to show that whether a suspected offender is officially convicted in a Pakistani court, merely accused of blasphemy by a neighbor, or is a perceived accomplice of an accused blasphemer, the offense may still merit a death sentence, whether that be in court or by a disgruntled neighbor,” Clay said.
WND reported in July 2010 that two Christian men accused of blasphemy were found innocent but were killed by a mob anyway. The Christians were shot and killed on their way out of a courthouse after being accused by Pakistani Muslims of blasphemy because, according to an analyst, innocence in such a situation “doesn’t matter.”
“It’s not rational,” Jonathan Racho of International Christian Concern told WND. “It’s not something you can justify with reasoning. In the minds of radicals, if a Christian is accused of blasphemy, even if the Christian has not done it, and even if the police have proved that the person hasn’t done it, it doesn’t matter for them.”

Tea Party “Terrorists” Now On U.S. Army Kill List?

By  

Tea Party SC Tea Party “Terrorists” now on U.S. Army kill list?
A retired Army colonel and a professor of history at the University of Kansas have co-written an article instructing the U.S. Army how to properly destroy “…extremist militia [insurgents] motivated by the goals of the ‘tea party’ movement.”
Colonel Kevin Benson, who teaches modern warfare to soldiers at the University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Ft. Leavenworth and Associate Professor Jennifer Weber have created a scenario in which activists under the influence of that apogee of American terrorism—Tea Party members—“…take over the government of Darlington, South Carolina, occupying City Hall, disbanding the city council, and placing the mayor under house arrest.”

How exactly do the authors explain such a thing happening?  “After a change in control of the White House and Congress in 2012, the governing party cuts off all funding that had been dedicated to boosting the economy or toward relief.” In short, those evil, rich Republicans have cruelly separated the American public from all of the “free” money and services Big Brother has provided over the past several decades. As a result, “a high-profile and vocal minority has directed the public’s fear and frustration at nonwhites and immigrants.” For as we all know, “after almost ten years of race-baiting and immigrant-bashing by right-wing demagogues, nearly one in five Americans reports being vehemently opposed to immigration, legal or illegal, and even U.S.-born nonwhites have become occasional targets for mobs of angry whites.”

Of course, Benson and Weber make it clear that “mainstream” Americans and politicians react quite negatively to the aggression of the radical right. The insurgents, however, “…invoke the Declaration of Independence and argue that the current form of the federal government is not deriving its ‘just powers from the consent of the governed’…” As a result, they are joined in their maniacal overthrow of the true government by “…other tea party groups, militias, racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, anti-immigrant associations such as the Minutemen, and other right-wing groups.”
The name of this extraordinary piece of work is “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future”. And needless to say, its publication has created something of a stir among rational, non-impaired thinkers across the nation. Most ask a very pointed question: Why are conservatives targeted as the coming threat to the social and political order of the United States rather than Islamic terrorists or members of the radical left? Shouldn’t those who have already proven themselves eager participants in the art of murder and insurrection be the first to command the attention of law enforcement, whether public or military?
Well not if we remember the published warnings of Barack Obama’s Department of Homeland Security. According to Janet Napolitano and her boss, the REAL danger emanates from the:
“Extreme right-wing: groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack and is either lost or that the threat is imminent (for some the threat is from a specific ethnic, racial or religious group), and believe in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism. Groups may also be fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty and believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.” 


According to much of the Department’s description of would-be terrorists, this nation’s Founders would have been in real trouble with the Obama Regime!
Please take the time to read the 5 page, Full Spectrum article of Benson and Weber. It is a chilling reminder of just how important the November election really is.
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Photo credit: formatted_dad (Creative Commons)

Media Blackout of Obama’s likely ‘October Surprise’

Last week, WND reported the breathtaking story, based on impeccable Iranian sources, that Barack Obama sent an emissary to Qatar to meet with a representative of the ayatollah to offer a secret deal – one that would help Obama win his re-election bid.
It was a shocker – even by Obama standards.
The White House was offering Iran a deal to reduce international sanctions against the rogue, terrorist-supporting nation developing nuclear weapons if it simply agreed to suspend uranium enrichment for two weeks before the U.S. election – allowing Obama to announce a phony “diplomatic coup.”
As the story pointed out, this could well be the “October Surprise” Obama planned to overcome his fading support among the American public.
It was quite a story, indeed. But it was not picked up by a single news agency in the country – therefore leaving open the possibility Obama can still pull it off.

Muslim Brotherhood taking aim at Jordan

by Michael Carl 

KingAbdullah
Following successful campaigns in Egypt, Libya and other Middle East and North African nations, the Muslim Brotherhood now is trying to destabilize and possibly overthrow Jordan’s government, according to reports.
The Saudi-owned news channel Al-Arabiya, citing leaked files, reported the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies have sought to destabilize neighboring Jordan by manipulating peaceful demonstrations there and turning them into deadly violence.

The leaks came amid rising political tensions in Jordan. Mass demonstrations in the capital Amman were sparked by a decision by Jordan’s King Abdullah to dissolve the parliament ahead of Muslim Brotherhood protests planned for Friday. Abdullah is calling for early elections.
International Christian Concern’s Middle East analyst, Aidan Clay, says the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the biggest threats to Jordan’s stability.
He said the move to dissolve the parliament as a gesture of compromise was politically risky for the king. The Muslim Brotherhood did not accept the move, Clay noted, considering it to be half-hearted.
“Yet, the king is still a seasoned politician who may be able to offer concessions that the Muslim Brotherhood accepts,” he said.
“The problem is, of course, that once concessions are offered, the Muslim Brotherhood will likely be emboldened and demand even more,” Clay warned. “And, the king will not be able solve this dilemma by holding elections in accordance to country’s current law, which lacks a national consensus.”
Clay said elections “would only deepen the crisis.’
“Greater reforms will have to be made,” he said. “Additionally, the king must deal with government corruption immediately in order to calm the situation, or else protests will continue and gain momentum.”

Dutch human rights activist Martin Janssen reported from Jordan that the Muslim Brotherhood voiced suspicion about the move.
“As in other Arab countries, the Jordanian monarchy is causing dissatisfaction among the people. The Muslim Brotherhood is using that to stir up demonstrations against the government,” Janssen said.
Clay said most Jordanians support the king.
“However, it is also true that every Jordanian is fed up with the widespread corruption within the government,” Clay said. “Moreover, the economy is quickly declining, unemployment is rising, and there is a great rift between the rich and poor. The MB is highlighting these widespread concerns in their pursuit of ‘democratic reform’ which resonates with nearly all Jordanians – whether they are MB sympathizers or not.”

Clay said the cover for many of the “Arab Spring” movements was the call for democracy. The Muslim Brotherhood’s use of the “democracy” line, he said, could tip the balance in their favor.
“Of most concern is that the MB is among the primary groups calling for political reform. If that continues to be the case, then many Jordanians may decide to back the MB, whether or not they agree with the Muslim Brotherhood’s religious ideology,” Clay said.
“Free elections, ending corruption, higher wages, and other claims all sound great, no matter who’s leading the campaign – whether it’s the MB or liberals,” Clay said.
“Many Jordanians just want change and some are willing to join whatever movement promises political reform,” Clay said.
However, there is a gap in the people’s understanding when it comes to the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood. He says the people also aren’t aware of the severity of Jordan’s economic climate.
“What many people here fail to understand, I think, is that Jordan is reliant on international aid. Without it, their economy would collapse, especially with the recent influx of Syrian refugees that the kingdom must now provide for,” Clay said.
“King Abdullah II has a strong alliance with Western nations which has brought stability to Jordan. If the Muslim Brotherhood gains significant political influence, that alliance will no doubt be jeopardized, as is now the case in Egypt,” Clay said.

“It’s a bit early to tell what will happen in Jordan. While the MB’s demonstration last Friday was the largest protest in Jordan in the past 22 months, the turnout was much lower than the 50,000 that the MB predicted. There were actually between 7,000 to 15,000 protesters,” Clay said.
“Moreover, King Abdullah still holds a lot of respect in the country – though calling for reform, most of the opposition is not advocating for the removal of the monarchy,” Clay said.
“One thing is certain – Jordanians, both the Muslim Brotherhood and any moderates, are getting bolder, openly accusing the government of corruption and repression of free speech, calling for a limitation of the monarchy’s powers, and at time, albeit rarely, outright criticizing the king,” Clay said.
“Such public accusations were not seen much in Jordan several years ago and goes to show that whether or not Jordanians agree with the Brotherhood’s wider agenda, they do resonate with, and many are following, the MB’s lead in calling for significant political reforms,” Clay said.


MasterCard for Muslims points way to Mecca

OpEd: Jack
All I can suggest is for everyone to cancel their Master Card accounts...stick with VISA..! No more bowing to Islam... If they get out of control take em' out starting with Mecca!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By Jonathan Berr

A Gulf state-owned bank has rolled out a new MasterCard that not only complies with Islamic laws banning loans with interest but also includes an embedded compass pointing the way to Mecca.
The new card from Al Hillal bank in United Arab Emirates is the latest in a growing array of banking products aimed at the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims that comply with Shariah, or Islamic law.

“We continue to see a growing demand, especially in the Middle East, for Islamic banking in general, and more specifically in our case, for cards that are Shariah-compliant in accordance with the tenets of the Islamic faith,” MasterCard spokesman James Issokson said. Shariah forbids “riba” or the charging of interest on loans because it could enable the rich to exploit the poor, encourages risk, and creates social and economic disharmony, according to Abed Awad, an expert on Islamic law who teaches at Rutgers and Pace universities.
Scholars say Muslims can pay interest when there are no other options to get the funds they need. Credit card operators get around the prohibition by charging users fees instead of interest rates.
In addition to the electronic compass that helps users orient themselves toward for prayers five times day, the new MasterCard offers other benefits. Card users are eligible for travel vouchers that can be used to pay for the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca, which Muslims are required to do at least once in their lifetime if they can afford it.

A percentage of the money spent using the card is donated to local charities, said Issokson.
Islamic banking is a huge industry with more than 500 Shariah-compliant funds around the world holding $1.5 trillion in assets, a third of which were launched in the past seven years, according to the Gulf Daily News, a publication based in Bahrain. Some of the products are available in the United States, where there are about 2.5 million Muslims.
Michigan-based University Bank offers Shariah compliant home financing, deposit products and commercial financing through its University Islamic Financial Corp business. Guidance Residential, which is based in Reston, Va., offers residential mortgages in more than a dozen states, according to its website.

Watch Iranians, they believe war is near, expert warns

WND Exclusive
trinity_test2
A man whose sources inside Iran have revealed the existence of a special underground operation where scientists are working on nuclear bomb components says the world needs to be watching closely, because Iranians believe war is near.
The comments come from Reza Kahlili, a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and author of the award-winning book “A Time to Betray.” He currently serves on the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and the advisory board of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran.

He recently revealed in an exclusive WND report that a source said Iran would agree to a temporary halt to uranium enrichment before next month’s U.S. election in a move to save Barack Obama’s presidency.
The source, who remains unamed for security reasons, said a three-person delegation of the Obama administration, led by a woman, engaged in secret negotiations with a representative of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The delegation urged the Iranian leader to announce a halt to enrichment, even if temporary, before the Nov. 6 election, promising removal of some sanctions.
The source said the delegation warned that a Mitt Romney presidency would change the U.S. relationship with Iran regarding its nuclear program.

Read the blockbuster ‘Atomic Iran” that reveals the campaign by the world’s most dangerous nation to get the bomb.
The U.S. representatives reminded the Iranians that President Obama has stood in front of Israel, preventing the Jewish state from attacking Iran over its illicit nuclear arms policy.

In a subsequent exclusive WND report, Kahlili revealed that his sources had confirmed that Iranian scientists are nearing completion of a nuclear warhead, having already successfully tested an implosion system and neutron detonator at a secret site while enriching uranium to weapons grade.
The information comes from Hamidreza Zakeri, formerly with the Islamic regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and National Security, or MOIS.
Zakeri previously testified at the federal district court in Manhattan in the Havlish v. bin Laden civil lawsuit, where he provided proof that Iran had materially aided and supported al-Qaida before and after 9/11.
Zakeri, who has in the past provided credible information on another site to Western intelligence agencies, said that after the revelation of the existence of the Iranian atomic research facility in Lavizan-Shian, the team of scientists moved to a secret location in 2003.
Kahlili’s sources said the new site is in the province of Isfahan on the outskirts of the small city of Najafabad. The report said to avoid suspicion, the site was built below the medicine factory, “Abu Reyhan.”

The report said the facility beneath the factory has three levels, with two underground entrances away from the facility.
Then, this week on the Wall Street Journal’s “Daily Wrap with Michael Castner,” Kahlili reported the revelation of the new nuclear program site “should be a serious concern,” and international nuclear regulators or others need to watch.

“There are assets in Iran, I’m sure, who could monitor the place. The IAEA could ask for an inspection,” he said.
“Sources have verified fissile material being transferred [there],’ he said. And “Iranian officials are adamant that war is close.”
Kahlili said Iranians don’t believe the U.S. would attack, because of the actions and statements of Barack Obama, but they remain uncertain about Israel.
“They don’t think Israel will wait that long,” he reported.


Overview of medicine plant location (Google image)
The original report also said sources have reported seeing the transfer of equipment labeled “radiation warning” into the secret facility.

Mitt Romney: Biden ‘doubling down on denial’ on Libya

by Ed O'Keefe

RICHMOND, Va. — Mitt Romney criticized Vice President Biden on Friday for “directly contradicting the sworn testimony of State Department officials” during Thursday night’s vice-presidential debate, picking up on GOP attacks leveled at Biden in the hours since the exchange.
“He’s doubling down on denial, and we need to understand exactly what happened as opposed to just having people brush this aside,” Romney told a crowd gathered outside an auto dealership in Richmond. “When the vice president of the United States directly contradicts the sworn testimony of State Department officials, American citizens have the right to know just what’s going on.”
Biden said that “we” were unaware of security concerns in Libya. White House officials clarified Friday that the vice president was speaking for himself and President Obama. State Department officials, they said, had not passed on requests for more security.
Speaking Friday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton avoided specifics about the Benghazi post’s security but broadly defended the need to station U.S. diplomats in dangerous places to support the Arab world’s emerging democracies.

Vowing that “we will not retreat,” she said the United States “will never prevent every act of violence or terrorism, or achieve perfect security.” She added: “Our people can’t live in bunkers and do their jobs. But it is our solemn responsibility to constantly improve, to reduce the risks our people face and make sure they have the resources they need.”
Clinton noted that “diplomacy, by its very nature, is often practiced in dangerous places.” Supporting democratic transitions is “not a matter of idealism” for the United States but “a strategic necessity,” she told the think tank audience. “We will not pull back our support for emerging democracies when the going gets tough. That would be a costly strategic mistake that would undermine both our interests and our values.”
Romney credited his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), for his debate performance, calling the lawmaker “thoughtful, respectful, steady, poised, the kind of person you want to turn to in a crisis.”
Referring to Biden later, Romney said: “The other candidate of course just attacked. The American people are looking for answers, not attacks.”
Romney’s decision to zero in on Biden’s comments regarding the attack last month on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi guarantees that Republicans will continue attempting to chip away at the Obama administration’s foreign policy record in the closing weeks of the campaign.

Making the argument in Virginia — a state with a significant military population — could help Romney close the gap here as the race appears to be tightening. It is the second time this week that the GOP nominee has discussed foreign policy in the state, after giving a speech on his foreign policy agenda Monday at the Virginia Military Institute.
The Republican ticket holds a one-point lead over the president in Virginia in a poll released this week by NBC News and Marist College, while Obama holds a five-point edge over Romney in a poll published by CBS News, the New York Times and Quinnipiac University.
Romney arrived in Richmond on Friday with his senior aides and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who has served as a stand-in for Obama during debate rehearsals. Romney watched the vice-presidential debate with Portman and senior campaign aides Thursday night at a mountainside resort in Asheville, N.C. after meeting Rev. Billy Graham for the first time and receiving an endorsement from the evangelical leader.
After his Virginia stop, Romney is scheduled to return to Ohio, where he has spent most of this week, for a dinnertime rally with Ryan. He will make three more stops across Ohio on  Saturday before taking a day off Sunday at his Massachusetts home.

State Department Spokeswoman Says She’s Paid To Be “Dumb” When Talking About Terror Attack In Benghazi



State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland ended a series of questions about the Obama Administration’s changing narrative about the terrorist attack in Benghazi by saying that she’s paid to be “dumber” than other government officials.
“Look, I’m generally dumber than most of the rest of the government,” Nuland told reporters yesterday. “I mean, that’s what I’m paid to be.”
The comment drew a laugh, but Nuland was serious about not taking any more questions on the topic. “We’re not going to parse this any further,” she said sternly. “We’re just not.” (You can watch video of Nuland’s briefing above. To see these remarks, made towards the end of that dialogue, start at the 21:45 mark.)
That was her ultimate response to questions about whether the Obama Administration knew immediately that the attack “was more than a spontaneous attack.” The comment about being paid to be dumb came after she stood by Ambassador Susan Rice’s claim that it was spontaneous.

“Look, I’m not going to parse this 17 ways from this podium,” Nuland said. “What I am going to say is, obviously when one goes out and tries to represent what the totality of what we know, the intelligence community plays a large role in that. And they had given an assessment to the entire government, which was the basis on which Ambassador Rice spoke on Sunday, they themselves have talked very explicitly about how their assessment has evolved over time.”
These comments came after a reporter reminded her that a State Department official had contradicted the idea that the State Department thought a protest had sparked the attack.
“On the conference call on Tuesday night, the briefer said that an agent at the TOC instantly saw dozens of armed men flooding into the compound, that one of them – that the agent instantly yelled, “Attack, attack,” and that the agent immediately notified Washington of what was going on,” a reporter had asked Nuland. “On the same call, one of the senior officials said it was, quote, “not our conclusion that in the first several days, this was – that this was prompted by the anti-Islam video.” So how is it that Ambassador Rice came to such a different conclusion when she was on a Sunday show?”

H/T Breitbart




Friday, October 12, 2012

Were Obama 'Allah ring' images photoshopped?

by Jerome R. Corsi 

obamaring
Were images that formed the basis for the determination by Arabic-language experts that Barack Obama’s ring is Islamic manipulated to “fit an agenda”?
That’s the charge in a posting by the blog ObamaReleaseYourRecords.com that cites an unnamed “computer software and graphics expert.” The source contends computer-imaging software was used to deepen shadows to make details in the lighted areas “look more like an Arabic letter rather than a squiggly design.”

Joel Gilbert, who was first to conclude that the ring bears the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada, explained that the only adjustment he made to images from a 2010 Huffington Post feature was to reduce the contrast about 50 percent. His aim was to enable the detail in the ring to be seen without being overwhelmed by the background light.
In his analysis, he included a photo of the original, without any change in contrast, to show that he made no alterations in the ring’s patterns.
As WND reported in the original story, Obama has worn the gold band on his wedding-ring finger since his college years, more than a decade before his marriage to Michelle Robinson.
In a follow-up story, WND will address a high-resolution photograph cited in the ObamaReleaseYourRecords.com posting, which is distributed by Getty Images. An About.com blogger was first to use the photo to argue that the ring’s swirling pattern is just a stylistic design, not Arabic symbols.
Meanwhile, in addition to the Arabic-language experts who already have concluded that part of the Shahada is inscribed on the ring, staffers in Jordan, with William J. Murray’s Religious Freedom Coalition have weighed in on the Huffington Post photos.
“I sent the photographs to my office in Amman,” Murray wrote WND in an email. “This is the response: Yes, it is the Shahada, and the second part of the profession of faith is probably inscribed inside the ring.”

The Amman staffers said they have seen other rings like it.
Egyptian-born Islamic scholar Mark A. Gabriel, Ph,D., as well as a native-Arabic speaker employed by WND who has provided translations of critical Arabic statements, both confirmed Gilbert’s conclusion. A Duke professor interviewed by Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze.com news service also confirmed it.
Gilbert has issued a detailed analysis he prepared with the assistance of Yousef Shehadeh, a native Arabic speaker from Nazareth who studied Arabic for 13 years in the Holy Land and now works as a graphic artist in Los Angeles.
Gilbert, who has studied Arabic himself, told WND he sent close-up photographs of the ring to Shehadeh “cold,” without offering any opinion, and asked him to evaluate them.
Shehadeh replied to Gilbert that the script on Obama’s ring is Arabic, and it is the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith.
The WND story was picked up today by the Saudi-owned paper Al-Arabiya.

The Huffington Post photographs were published in a March 18, 2010, article by Anya Strzemien, “Obama’s ‘Intricate’ Indonesian Wedding Band: A CLOSE-UP.”

Exhibit 1: Obama wedding ring photo No. 1, Huffington Post, March 18, 2010

Exhibit 2: Obama wedding ring photo No. 2, Huffington Post, March 18, 2010

A comparison of Exhibits 1 and 2 with the original Huffington Post article shows the photos, as presented in Gilbert’s analysis, were not altered, Gilbert contends.
ObamaReleaseYourRecords.com’s unnamed “computer software and graphics expert” concludes, however, “This is a major hoax in my opinion.”
The source pointed to a graphic analysis prepared by Gilbert that was posted on the website for his documentary film on Obama, “Dreams from My Real Father.”

Exhibit 3: Joel Gilbert graphic of Obama ring

But Gilbert insists he “made no alteration whatsoever” to the pattern on the ring.
The ring image in the lower left corner of his graphic, marked “Original,” he said, is the image found in the Huffington Post article, “with no computer manipulation done on the image of the ring itself.”
To demonstrate how the Arabic script letters fit over the unaltered Huffington Post photograph, Gilbert produced Exhibit 4.

Exhibit 4: Graphic by Joel Gilbert of Huffington Post photo, with overlay of Arabic script

He argues that while the original Huffington Post photograph loses some resolution on being enlarged, the details of the engraving remain clear, as does the fit between the letters engraved on the ring and Gilbert’s overlaid Arabic script.

Obama’s Adolescent Country

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As the Obama presidency has dragged on for what seems interminable time, it occurs to me that he is a man in some different country I do not recognize. His and his administration’s policies are so anti-Constitutional as a general matter, that I wonder just in what country does Barack Obama think he is. I could list all of the executive orders and Czars, the agency regulations, the Democrat bills he has signed, and the matter of attacks against Christianity, the foreign and military policies, etc., but most everyone reading this blog knows what they are and at this point it is almost too crushing to even go back over them all. Suffice it to say, I don’t think Obama gets up on any one day of his life and says he wants to uphold the United States Constitution for the American people.

The Obama show came to Mt. Holly, NC back in March, a town about 8 miles from where I live. The local Democrat operatives were all a dither putting together as many smiling sycophants for his visit as they could. They made sure only certain Democrats with certain credentials had personal moments with him. (While Obama’s credentials are still in doubt, by the way.) His ear is only available to those who prop up his agenda, which at this point could be described as a hybrid of socialism, fascism, dictatorship, and crony capitalism. The show in Mt. Holly was to excite the people about a few hundred jobs at a Daimler-Benz truck plant where thousands used to work. The plant is all union labor, of course. Obama made hay out of hybrid trucks and green energy again, the green energy that is putting us into debtors prison. (Actually, if he could make hay, he would be worth more as a human being than he is now.) The local newspaper printed several pages of pictures of happy Obama followers and Obama smiling and hugging them. One woman said she felt the “spirit of the Lord” come over her as she swooned and fainted. Really. That is what she said. I thought about the adolescent adoration of rock star fans for charismatic musicians. I wonder who are these people who appear to be adults, but are so easily returned to adolescent displays on the sight of this elected official? Old enough to vote, but unable to grow up.

The 5000 Leap” is a book that describes how the genius of ages past managed to culminate in the great minds of the Founders of America. The founding of America is owed to great and learned men who studied history and realized the failures of tyrannies and monarchies over centuries. The “leap” was to allow people to rule themselves with as much freedom as possible. The assumption was that man had finally reached some level of moral refinement and knowledge that would prevail over stupidity. Maybe that was too much of a “leap.” Now we have a country of men and women who are proving themselves unworthy of self-rule, and even worse than that, are swooning at the sight of a man who wishes to be dictator of their lives.
The Sandra Fluke testimony to Congress demanding all Americans pay for Georgetown coeds’ contraceptives is the perfect example of Obama’s country of adolescents. She is thirty years old but wants you to pay for her sexual and /or women’s sexual decisions. (The same people who say they want government out of their bedrooms want you to pay for their sexual activities. I can never figure that one out.)

Our nation is being led by an immature, illogical, emotionally hysterical, historically illiterate rock star and his fans. That is Obama’s country. He’s enjoying every minute of it, I might add. When the adolescents are through wrecking the place, some adults are going to be kept busy for decades trying to clean up the disaster that is Obama’s country. If we are lucky. Meanwhile, swooning continues……


ATF Whistleblower Fired in Parking Lot

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On Wedhesday ATF (Alcohol, Tabacco, Firarms & Explosives) Special Agent Vince Cefalu was fired in the parking lot of a Denny’s restaurant near Lake Tahoe. After being in the Bureau for more than 25 years and being involved in the whistle blowing that took place regarding Operation Fast and Furious, he was asked to meet with Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Field Division Joseph Riehl, where he was served termination papers.
What was unknown to Mr. Riehl, was that the entire episode was captured on video.

 

The video, shaky at times from being handheld, and with color imbalance streaking happening inadvertently in the uploading to YouTube, was recorded by a confidential source and shows Cefalu approached by two ATF management representatives including Joseph M. Riehl, Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Field Division, which encompasses Northern California and Nevada field offices, the latter being in the news of late because the Reno U.S. Attorney’s Office has refused to prosecute local ATF cases until as yet unidentified issues are resolved, prompting congressional inquiries to find out why.
ATF managers terminating whistleblowing special agent Vince Cefalu.
Video: Cefalu TerminationRiehl, seen talking to Cefalu through his Jeep window and reportedly telling him he couldn’t leave because he had to sign papers, had been criticized on the CUATF forum, and Gun Rights Examiner is attempting to track down audit reports to determine what an independent assessment reveals about the allegations there. But the bottom line is, an employee with over 25 years of service who has been a leading spokesman for whistleblowers was unceremoniously canned in a public parking lot by senior division management.

Crosby said Cefalu was fired for “lack of candor.” He did not elaborate.
Cefalu has hired an Atlanta law firm to fight the dismissal.
“I have just been trying to do my job: make good cases, put away the bad guys, keep the our citizens and our agents safe,” he said in a statement after his termination. “ATF management has been bending the rules and breaking the rules. The agents want ATF to be the proud agency it once was, not a place where some managers jeopardize our citizens and our cases. The behavior of ATF management has been speaking for itself with all the transfers, reassignments, resignations. It has been a mess and an embarrassment. That’s not the ATF I have devoted my career and life to, and I do not regret trying to change it.”
Cefalu was placed on administrative leave a year and a half ago after speaking out on Operation Fast and Furious. He also launched a website in 2009 to aid ATF agents to anonymously blow the whistle on corrupt behavior.
His attorney, Zahra S. Karinshak, who is with Krevolin & Horst issued a statement:

“Vince has tremendous courage. Anyone who infiltrates the KKK and biker gangs to bring them to justice has an incredible sense of dedication. Vince has a team who will fight for him in court as aggressively as he fought violent crime on our streets.”
Though ATF had attempted to fire Cefalu in 2011, he appealed the termination. That termination became effective on Tuesday resulting in the papers being delivered to him on Wednesday.
Special Agent Jay Dobyns wrote back in June of 2011 why Cefalu was targeted by the ATF. “ATF has done everything within their power to break this agent. They have been proactive in the destruction of his reputation, killed his career, ruined his personal finances and have had immense negative influence on his personal relationships and family members.
“Why?” Dobyns asked. “Because he didn’t go along to get along. He didn’t shut his mouth when ordered to. He didn’t sit back like a coward when he saw things being done wrong, unethically and illegally. Now they are proposing to take the last thing they still have control over but, have yet to act on, his job.”



Netflix making 'Dreams' a nightmare for Obama

WND Exclusive
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Joel Gilbert, director and writer of “Dreams from My Real Father,” says the documentary now is available on the Netflix streaming service, giving another 27 million households across America access.
“Netflix is now Obama’s worst nightmare, because millions of Americans will instantly learn about Barack Obama’s real family history and his hidden political agenda,” said Gilbert.

The film presents evidence Communist Party activist and pornographer Frank Marshall Davis was Obama’s biological as well as ideological father.
Gilbert said he gets hundreds of emails per day from viewers who are shocked to learn that so much about the president’s background and political foundation is hidden by establishment media.
“Folks are outraged once they see my film. I hear it again and again, ‘Good people don’t like it when they’ve been lied to,’” he said.
The more than 27 million households that subscribe to the Netflix streaming service can access the film as part of a monthly subscription.
According to a recent Consumer Reports study cited by ABC News, Netflix’s popularity has surpassed all broadcast and cable networks, as households that have Netflix spent more time on that service than any particular network.
Gilbert said “Dreams from My Real Father” is also a big hit on Amazon Instant video, and the DVD is selling well, being the No. 1 documentary on Amazon for the past two months.
Gilbert said Obama falsely “sold himself to America as the multicultural ideal, a man who stood above politics.”

“As a result, many Americans perceived Obama as a nice man with an inspiring family story,” he said. “In fact, President Obama intentionally hid a deeply disturbing family background in order to obscure his Marxist political foundation. While voters will overlook some fudging by politicians, promoting a false family background to hide an agenda irreconcilable with American values is an unacceptable manipulation of the electorate.”
Obama, Gilbert says, is a “Red Diaper Baby,” like adviser David Axelrod, as both had parents who were Communist Party USA members.
“This is a known phenomenon in the radical left,” Gilbert said, as many of the leaders of the SDS and Weather Underground Marxist terrorist groups were children of Communist Party USA members, including Katherine Boudin and Jeff Jones.
Gilbert says that Obama’s new campaign theme, “helping middle class families,” is merely a ruse.
“To Obama, the middle class are merely pawns. Socialist economies don’t have a middle class! They have just one big lower class with a handful of political elites controlling the wealth,” he said.

Gilbert said Obama’s plans for his next term are to “give away middle class health care to the poor and illegals, and to tax and regulate their employers out of business.”
“Then, middle America’s retirement will evaporate into a bankrupt socialist state, and the middle class will disappear,” he said. “America will be irreversibly socialist without ever realizing how it happened.”
No Netflix? Get “Dreams from My Real Father” at the WND Superstore

See the “Dreams from My Real Father” trailer: 

http://youtu.be/6jrrnkKmUzo 

Hands in the Proverbial Cookie Jar...! #Congress

 

Let's be honest...both sides of the aisle are guilty as charged...when it comes to the Social Security/Medicare debate. Both would be solvent today if there was a lock box on the funds...Democrat as well as Republican administrations have been stealing from the funds since inception. Now comes the Obamacare fiasco here we go again...massive stealing from the fund to the tune of 716 billion....this is no different than the stealing from the 'Medicare' fund to supplement the funding of 'Medicaid' for Illegal Alien medical programs which fund 'Anchor Babies' /Abortion Clinics 'Planned Parenthood'

As for Social Security maybe it is past due time to put all Congressmen, Senators as well as the President and VP into Social Security retirement / Medicare programs..They are Civil Servants and work for 'we the people'...should they not also receive the same benefits as we...they should not be entitled to extravagant retirement programs!
I suspect if they were placed into the same retirement system/medical as we...they would not raid the cookie jar...as it would effect their benefits! nor would they make it a career job...it was not intended to be..per our founding fathers.

What say you?


'Oblivious' Obama not behind Osama raid

WND Exclusive
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The decision to raid Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and kill him was made without President Obama – and actually was kept from him until after the helicopters already were in Pakistani airspace – according to a new report from a retired major general who cites a senior intelligence source.
The raid was handled by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Director of Central Intelligence Leon Panetta and others in this way because Obama had vetoed multiple earlier opportunities to attack the man behind the 9/11 terror attacks, the report said.

The report comes from U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, who retired in 1993 as deputy commanding general, Pacific Command, and has served as a senior military analyst for Fox News. He is now chairman of Stand Up America, which calls itself the standard bearer for the conservancy of the U.S. Constitution.
The group has briefed the FBI, Congress, law enforcement and other agencies on terrorism and “anything that affects the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of our citizenry and way of life.”
In a column published today by WND, Vallely said a “senior and sensitive intelligence community source” affirmed to a Stand Up America research team that Obama “did not know of the raid in Abbottabad to kill Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011, until after the helicopters with SEAL Team 6 had crossed into Pakistani airspace.”
The source said Obama was notified “at the golf course … which is why he was sitting in the strange sitting position in the picture that documented the White House operations room event.”
The source told Stand Up America that Panetta “was the key player who organized and supported this daring raid.”

“He signed the ‘execute orders’ with only a few people aware: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Adm. Bill Mullen and Gen. David Petraeus.”
The source explained the White House “was closed out of the decision because the president, through Valerie Jarrett, had turned down two or three other earlier proposals.”
Panetta, Vallely’s source reported, “and his covert planning team were extremely frustrated at all the denials, so saw the opportunity slipping away, as implausible as it seems.”
The report said Panetta convinced his other principals to make the decision and received their full-fledged support but the president, according to the official, “remained clueless on the mission.”
“This tremendously serious and sensitive information was relayed by a source who has been very frustrated with the continued dishonesty within the White House,” Vallely reported.
Vallely, who served in Vietnam and retired in 1991 from the U.S. Army as deputy commanding general for the Pacific, previously has called for “We the People” to stop the nation’s “progressive socialist, treasonous death march.”
He graduated from West Point and was commissioned in the Army in 1961. He served in theaters in Europe and the Pacific Rim and saw two tours of combat duty in Vietnam.
CBS has reported that “Obama’s decision to send operatives after Osama bin Laden” was described by White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan as “one of the most gutsiest calls of any president.”

However, the Mail Online in London reported a book by Richared Miniter documented that three “kill” missions were canceled by Obama in January, February and March of 2011.
The SEAL mission was in May 2011.
Miniter reported it was Jarrett who kept urging Obama to cancel plans to get bin Laden.
The Ulsterman Report blog earlier said Obama did not make the attack decision.
That blog said, “He can say he did and the people who really know what happened are inside the Pentagon, are in the military and the military isn’t allowed to speak out against the commander-in-chief so his secret is safe.”

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Report: Duke professor confirms Arabic on Obama ring

WND Exclusive
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WND’s report that Arabic-language and Islamic experts claim the gold band Obama has been wearing on his wedding-ring finger for more than 30 years is adorned with the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith naturally was met with skepticism in some circles, but Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze.com news service published a report citing a Duke professor who confirmed the WND experts’ assessment.
Earlier today, before it published the report, four members of The Blaze editorial team, including Editor-in-Chief Scott Baker, cautiously discussed the Obama ring story in their “Blazecast Rewind” Internet broadcast, without mentioning WND.

Baker, noting he had been inundated with links to the WND article, said he approached the story as he does other “memes” that float around the Internet and need to be either debunked or verified.
TheBlaze.com reporter Billy Hallowell told Baker he spoke with a professor from Duke who read the article, examined the photos and affirmed the conclusion of the WND experts.
“Based on what he saw, he said that this is, essentially, Arabic script on the ring and that it is the first part of the Shahada,” Hollowell said.
Hallowell pointed out the professor, who declined to be named, also cautioned that there is Islamic teaching that forbids wearing gold.
In WND’s report, Egyptian-born Islamic scholar Mark A. Gabriel, Ph.D., explained that despite prohibitions in Islamic law, many Muslim men wear gold rings, even in strict Muslim countries, particularly if they contain a religious message.
The Duke professor told Hollowell that it is, indeed, common for gold jewelry of that sort to be worn in the Middle East but often for superstitious reasons.
“Outside of the religious realm, it’s more about warding off bad spirits or protecting people from snake bites,” Hollowell said, citing the professor.

Later, TheBlaze.com posted a story by Hollowell reporting the WND article “has been making its way across social media and the blogosphere.”
In addition to citing the Duke professor who confirmed that the script appears to be Arabic and includes the first part of the Shahada, Hollowell reported he spoke with Harvard University’s Ali Asani
Asani, a professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures, said that the images of Obama’s ring were not clear enough to make a determination.
“I’d actually have to see it much closer to see exactly what it says,” Asani told TheBlaze.com
Like the Duke professor, Asani believes that the first half of the Shahada is a statement that any monotheist, including a Christian, could accept, that there is only one God. Only the second part of the Shahada is exclusive, he said, declaring Muhammad is his prophet.

Meanwhile, a posting at the blog Irregular Times by JClifford compared photographs of Obama’s ring to examples of Shahada rings on the Web and concluded Obama’s ring “looks like it’s got some decorative swirls on it, and nothing more.”
However, Joel Gilbert, who was first to conclude that the ring bears the Shahada, has issued a more detailed follow-up report he prepared with the assistance of Yousef Shehadeh, a native Arabic speaker from Nazareth who studied Arabic for 13 years in the Holy Land and now works as a graphic artist in Los Angeles.
Gilbert, who has studied Arabic himself, told WND he sent close-up photographs of the ring to Shehadeh “cold,” without offering any opinion, and asked Shehadeh to evaluate them.
Shehadeh replied to him that the script on Obama’s ring is Arabic, and it is the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith.


Obama 'thinks rule of Islamic law good thing'

by Bob Unruh 

The director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, said that should the ring on Barack Obama’s finger prove to include an inscription of an Islamic prayer, it could explain his foreign policy attitudes and actions regarding freedom in the Middle East.
The comment comes from Robert Spencer, who has authored 12 books, including “The Truth About Muhammad,” “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)” and “Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam’s Obscure Origins.”

He’s a recognized expert on Islam and has written hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism. He’s investigated stealth jihad, how jihadist groups are advancing their agenda in the U.S. with and without terror attacks, and his works have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Korean and Bahasa Indonesia, among other languages.
He was reacting to WND’s report that the ring Obama has been wearing for more than 30 years is adorned with the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada: “There is no god except Allah.”
The Shahada is the first of the Five Pillars of Islam, expressing the two fundamental beliefs that make a person a Muslim: There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s prophet.
A sincere recitation of the Shahada is the only requirement for becoming a Muslim, as it expresses a person’s rejection of all other gods.

That the ring carries the inscription was affirmed by Egyptian-born Islamic scholar Mark A. Gabriel, Ph,D., who said, “There can be no doubt that someone wearing the inscription ‘There is no god except Allah’ has a very close connection to Islamic beliefs.”
Spencer told WND that if the ring “is what it appears to be, it only underscores the clear affection and high regard that Obama has for Islam, whether or not he is currently a practicing Muslim.”

“This regard has manifested itself in his energetic support for Islamic supremacist, pro-Shariah revolutionaries in Egypt, Libya, and Syria, and his indifference toward demonstrators who were trying to topple an Islamic state in Iran in 2009,” Spencer said.
“Clearly, he thinks the rule of Islamic law is a good thing for societies, and has done all he can to foster it.”
Spencer’s expertise on Islam has been utilized by the New York Post, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News, the U.K.’s Guardian, Canada’s National Post, National Review Online and many more national outlets. He’s appeared to discuss such topics on the BBC, ABC, CNN, Fox, PBS, MSNBC, CNBC, C-Span, France24 and Croatia National Television.
His seminars have taken him to Dartmouth, Stanford, Brown, William and Mary and other colleges, and as an adjunct fellow with the Free Congress Foundation a decade ago he wrote monographs on Islam.
He tells his readers up front that they should believe his perspectives on Islam because his books “are made up largely of quotations from Islamic jihadists and the traditional Islamic sources to which they appeal to justify violence and terrorism.”
Andrew Bostom, author of “The Legacy of Jihad,” said in an email: “Assuming Jerome Corsi’s chain of evidence about Obama’s ring, and Mark Gabriel’s analysis of the calligraphy it features being an abbreviated version of the Shahada, are sound — as they appear to be — the report raises new doubts about Obama’s declared Christian faith.”

Bostom, a professor at Brown University Medical School known for his writings on Islam, explained that the Shahada is an exclusively Muslim profession of faith.
“This testimony, furthermore, expresses a pious Muslim’s willingness to wage jihad for Islam, and die a martyr for the creed,” he said.
He said the fact that Obama has been wearing “such a profound symbol of commitment to Islam” for so long adds another perspective Islam expert Daniel Pipes’ five-part series on Obama’s Islamic background.
Pipes presented evidence of Obama’s Muslim upbringing as a child, including his recitation of the Adhan, the call to prayer that includes the Shahada. He asserted that Obama’s recitation of the Adhan in class in 1970 made him a Muslim then and it made him one once again when he recited it again for New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff in 2007.
Activist, author and Atlas Shrugs blogger Pamela Geller, says she wouldn’t be surprised if Obama’s ring is Islamic.
“I’d like to see one member of the press corps ask Obama about this,” said Geller, author of  “Stop the Islamization of America.”
“It certainly gibes with Obama’s Islamophilia and his pro-Shariah foreign policies, and with his extensive Muslim background, as detailed in my book, ‘The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America.’”

She said Obama’s “anti-freedom, pro-jihad foreign policy has given the global jihad a new lease on death, and clearly he is happy about that, as this ring indicates.”
Movie producer Joel Gilbert, whose recent project, “Dreams From My Real Father,” investigates Obama’s personal history, saw the markings on Obama’s ring through photographs of the president and determined they were an Islamic inscription.
Gilbert, an expert on Islamic history, said the ring provides “context for what Obama meant when he told the Islamic audience in Cairo that he has ‘known Islam on three continents.’”
He told WND the use of Arabic script in art is not unusual, and it’s also fairly common that images of the characters sometimes are overlaid, such as would appeared to be the case with the ring.
He’s produced a video arguing the ring is Islamic and it indicates Obama is Muslim: 

http://youtu.be/LOHkZey5v08 


Read More: http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/obama-thinks-rule-of-islamic-law-good-thing/

BREAKING: CIA Turns On Obama – Indicating Significant Cover-Up

by Twana Blevins

Less than a month ago a United States ambassador and three other Americans were killed during a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.  For days the Obama administration denied the attacks were terrorist related.  Now intelligence figures from within the American government are letting it be known how the Obama White House has repeatedly ignored and then covered up information and events that put the safety and security of the United States in danger. 


EXCERPT:

Revolt of the Spooks

Intelligence officials angered by Obama administration cover up of intelligence on Iranian, al Qaeda surge in Egypt and Libya


Weeks before the presidential election, President Barack Obama’s administration faces mounting opposition from within the ranks of U.S. intelligence agencies over what careerofficers say is a “cover up” of intelligence information about terrorism in North Africa.

Intelligence held back from senior officials and the public includes numerous classified reports revealing clear Iranian support for jihadists throughout the tumultuous North Africa and Middle East region, as well as notably widespread al Qaeda penetration into Egypt and Libya in the months before the deadly Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. 


…Intelligence officials pointed to the statement issued Sept. 28 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that raised additional concern about the administration’s apparent mishandling of intelligence. The ODNI statement said that “in the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo.”
Officials say the ODNI’s false information was either knowingly disseminated or was directed to be put out by senior policy officials for political reasons, since the statement was contradicted by numerous intelligence reports at the time of the attack indicating it was al Qaeda-related terrorism.
Officials with access to intelligence reports, based on both technical spying and human agents, said specific reporting revealed an alarming surge in clandestine al Qaeda activity months before the attack in Benghazi.
Yet the Obama administration sought to keep the information from becoming public to avoid exposing what the officials say is a Middle East policy failure by Obama.
The first part of the apparent campaign, officials said, was the false information provided to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who appeared on Sunday television shows after the attack to say the event was a “spontaneous” response to an anti-Muslim video trailer posted online.
Officials said Rice was given the false information to use in media appearances in order to promote the excuse that the obscure video was the cause of the attack, and not the Islamic concept of jihad.
“The Obama Administration is afraid to admit al Qaeda is running rampant throughout the region because it would expose the truth instead of what President Obama so pompously spouted during the Democratic Convention” said the official.
_________________
ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE – WELL WORTH THE READ.
Revolt of the Spooks

Obama fans: We'll riot, leave U.S. if Mitt wins

by Joe Kovacs 

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With Mitt Romney surging in polls since his strong debate performance last week, supporters of President Obama are vowing online to riot nationwide and even leave the U.S. should the Republican challenger oust the incumbent.
Numerous Twitter postings in recent days feature threats of street violence, often poorly worded, as collected by the Twitchy website.
For instance, on Oct. 8, John Kramer@YoungCal626 posted:  “I Hope The USA Is Well Aware That If In The Event This Character Romney Wins The Election, The People Will Start A Country Wide Riot! #Power”
On Oct. 3, Tommy Pickles@ThugPickles wrote: “I Heard Mitt Romney , Tryna Take Away Food Stamps , If He Do .’IMA START A RIOT , IMA START A RIOT’”

One Twitter user, Facey!@daboifacey, apparently felt a sense of rioters’ remorse, as he posted: “Ok,I apologize for that tweet about Romney,It was a joke,I would never start a riot -___- its twitter.”
Beyond the violence threats, many more are vowing to begin a mass exodus out of America if Obama is not re-elected.
Amber Lee@JoseAmbuervo says: “Told my New Zealand friend that if Romney is elected I am moving to her country. She said ‘Deal. We don’t need politics we have ferns.’”
Candice J @Cannadiss posted: “If Romney wins this election, I’m moving to New Zealand because this f–ker is not taking away the sh-t that I believe in.”
Some may even grab the attention of the U.S. Secret Service.
Rafiki the Ukulele@lovingschneider said: “I want to shoot Romney in the penis. Why do we let him talk? If he wins I’m moving to New Zealand.”


Many Obama supporters are threatening to leave the country, start riots, or even shoot Mitt Romney if Romney defeats President Obama in the 2012 election.

Besides New Zealand, other popular countries on the list of post-Obama destinations include Canada, England, Scotland, Australia, Mexico, Ireland and Italy.
Anorb @broNaNa45 says: “I’d rather live in Ireland’s horrible economy then live under Romney as president. So if he wins, a select few can visit me in Ireland.”
“I’m moving to Italy if Romney win; Italian men love black girls,” wrote illest ice@iamDynastyCold
And Eddie Smith@EdFoo89 said: “I will literally have to move to Mexico if Mitt Romney gets elected. I can’t live in a Mormon ruled land. Nope. I won’t do it.”
Even the island paradise of Cuba got some mentions, including Cleopatra @IAMLexxie, saying. “If romney wins & is as horrible a he appears now … Deport me back to cuba .. Ill call them myself.”
And with the campaign recently focusing on “lady parts,” Melissa Beaird@melissabeaird said she’d prefer not even to be on this planet: “If Romney is elected I’m taking my uterus and moving to Mars.”
For his part, President Obama expects the “hand-wringing” among his backers after his lackluster debate performance to dwindle next week. 

“[Vice President Joe] Biden I think will be terrific in the debate this week. I’ve got another debate,” Obama said Wednesday on the Tom Joyner Morning Show. “By next week I think a lot of the hand-wringing will be complete because we’re gonna go ahead and win this thing.” …
“You have a seven game series, you’re up 2-0 and you lose one,” Obama said.
While many Democrats appear to be pressing the panic button, some professional analysts say Obama’s performance in the next debate Oct. 16 will be key, especially if the president does not have a good night.
“My honest and truthful answer is Democrats are not panicked – and I’m not exactly sure why,” longtime Clinton adviser James Carville told Politico, as he thinks Obama will still win. “Maybe I’m being silly here, but I’ve talked to a lot of people today and everybody’s saying the same thing. … Should I be more concerned than I am?
“We’re all trying to talk ourselves into a state of panic, and we’re not quite there yet.”
Meanwhile, Jen Psaki, the Obama campaign’s traveling press secretary, said Wednesday she wasn’t concerned about the fretting among Democrats.
“We don’t get too high when things are high and down when things are down,” Psaki said on CNN’s “Starting Point.”

“We’ve always thought this was going to be a very, very close race, and that’s why we’re running like we’re 5 points down in every single state. We have blinders on. We’re implementing our plan. And ultimately, we think the American people are going to look at the choice and they’re going to vote for President Obama, and that’s why we’re out there every day making the case, but we don’t get too worried with all the ups and downs of the polls and we know [there will] be many, many more before Election Day.”
“We don’t think anything needs to be turned around,” she continued.
“You know, I know people want us to say we’re … depressed or we’re under a table, but we feel much better about our ground game, we feel better about the choice we’re offering the American people than Mitt Romney, and you know, we’ll let him run his own race and we’ll run our own race,” she said.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Scenes From The Circus of Politics Pelosi/Obama/DWS

Political spoof video, Nancy Pelosi saying we have to pass the bill so we can find out what's in it, Obama saying you didn't build that, Debbie Wasserman Shultz denying she lied about what the Israeli Ambassador said, Obama saying, people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide.

http://youtu.be/3TUiNGznCTQ 










NBC’s Brian Williams: ‘Unmitigated Joy’ Over Daughter’s Graphic TV Sex Scenes



NBC anchor Brian Williams likes skin, and doesn’t seem to care whose. He once gushed over a shirtless President Obama. Now, he’s enthusiastic about his own daughter, Allison Williams taking it off (to put it politely) for the public. In a recent interview Williams said he felt “unmitigated joy” about watching his daughter’s graphic sex scenes in Lena Dunham’s new show “Girls.”













In the bleak, amoral world of “Girls,” Allison’s character Marnie is the epitome of first-world entitlement, whining to fellow character Hannah (played by Dunham) about how “respectful” her own boyfriend is, while Hannah is emotionally and physically used by her BDSM-loving sex buddy Adam.
In the second episode of “Girls” Marnie planned an abortion for might-be-pregnant character Jessa. So casual were the friends about the taking of human life treated ending human life that they even brought snacks to celebrate the occasion.
When Jessa failed to show up, Marnie was aghast, commenting, “Can you imagine anything more disrespectful than not showing up to your own abortion?” Shoshanna, the reluctant virgin of the bunch, comforts her saying, “You threw a really good abortion.”
Dad’s joy pride must have really shone when his daughter starred in her very own masturbation scene in “Girls” third episode. Allison’s character headed to a bathroom to pleasure herself after a headstrong young artist tolds her he would f*ck her in the future
Holidays with the Williamses must be a real Norman Rockwell painting.

http://youtu.be/Trpf94u1eyk


Joe Biden...coming to Reno Oct 15 after the VP Debate!

Here we go again..old Joe Singing the Praises of the 'Boy King' Obama...sorry Joe ain't gonna work...ya are entertaining and all...but as 'Native Americans' call ya 'Walking Eagle' ...Too full of shit to fly! Get a clue..!

http://youtu.be/wgTPH5y1-ZI


Obama's ring: 'There is no god but Allah'

by Jerome R. Corsi 


Inscription on Obama's ring
NEW YORK – As a student at Harvard Law School, then-bachelor Barack Obama’s practice of wearing a gold band on his wedding-ring finger puzzled his colleagues.
Now, newly published photographs of Obama from the 1980s show that the ring Obama wore on his wedding-ring finger as an unmarried student is the same ring Michelle Robinson put on his finger at the couple’s wedding ceremony in 1992.
Moreover, according to Arabic-language and Islamic experts, the ring Obama has been wearing for more than 30 years is adorned with the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada: “There is no god except Allah.”
The Shahada is the first of the Five Pillars of Islam, expressing the two fundamental beliefs that make a person a Muslim: There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s prophet.
Sincere recitation of the Shahada is the sole requirement for becoming a Muslim, as it expresses a person’s rejection of all other gods.
Egyptian-born Islamic scholar Mark A. Gabriel, Ph.D., examined photographs of Obama’s ring at WND’s request and concluded that the first half of the Shahada is inscribed on it.

“There can be no doubt that someone wearing the inscription ‘There is no god except Allah’ has a very close connection to Islamic beliefs, the Islamic religion and Islamic society to which this statement is so strongly attached,” Gabriel told WND.
Jerome Corsi’s “Where’s the REAL Birth Certificate?” carefully documents the story the establishment media still refuses to tell
“Dreams from My Real Father” producer Joel Gilbert, an Arabic speaker and an expert on the Middle East, was the first to conclude that Obama’s ring, reportedly from Indonesia, bore an Islamic inscription.
Photographs published last week by the New Yorker from Obama’s time at Occidental College, taken by fellows students, indicate that the ring Obama wore three decades ago is the one he is wearing in the White House.

As WND reported in July, previously published photos have shown Obama wearing a gold band on his wedding-ring finger continuously from 1981 at Occidental, through graduation at Columbia in 1983, in a visit to Africa in 1988 and during his time at Harvard from 1988 to 1991. But none, until now, have displayed the ring with enough detail to identify it as the one he currently is wearing.
WND reported a satirical edition of the Harvard Law Review published by students in 1990 contains a mock Dewers Scotch profile advertisement poking fun at Obama. Among a list of Obama’s “Latest Accomplishments” is: “Deflecting Persistent Questioning About Ring On Left Hand.”
The comment suggests the ring was a subject of student curiosity at the time and that Obama was not forthcoming with an explanation.
He still has not explained why he wore the band on his wedding-ring finger before he married Michelle.

Declaration
Gabriel, born to Muslim parents in Upper Egypt, grew up immersed in Islamic culture. He memorized the Quran at age of 12 and graduated in 1990 with a Masters degree from the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the pre-eminent Sunni Muslim institution of learning.
He explained that on Obama’s ring, the declaration “There is no god except Allah” (La Ilaha Illallah) is inscribed in two sections, one above the other.
On the upper section, “There is no god” is written in Arabic letters, from right to left: Lam, Alif, Alif, Lam, Ha.
On the lower section is “except god,” written in Arabic letters from right to left: Alif, Lam, Alif, Alif, Lam, Lam, Ha.In the lower section, the word “Allah” is written partially on top of the word “except,” noted Gabriel, the author of “Islam and Terrorism” and “Journey Inside the Mind of an Islamic Terrorist.”

It is common in Islamic art and Arabic calligraphy, especially when expressing Quranic messages on jewelry, to artfully place letters on top of each other to fit them into the allotted space.
The exhibit below shows how the Arabic inscription fits over the two parts of the Obama ring.

“There is no God except Allah” overlaid on Obama ring
‘First-rate accent’
In an interview during the 2008 presidential campaign, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof questioned Obama about his Islamic education in Indonesia, where he lived from 1967 to 1971.
After acknowledging that he once got in trouble for making faces during Quran study classes in his elementary school, Obama recited for Kristoff the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, the Adhan.
The prayer incorporates the Shahada, the expression of Islamic faith, with each line repeated twice:
Allah is supreme! Allah is supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet
Kristof noted Obama recited the prayer in Arabic “with a first-rate accent.”
“In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as ‘one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset,’” Kristoff wrote.
Gabriel told WND that a person wearing a ring with “There is no god except Allah” demonstrates the significance of Islam in his life.
“Christians never use the statement,” he pointed out. “By wearing the Shahada on jewelry, a person communicates that Allah is in control of all circumstances. Allah controls you; Allah is the one and only one.”
Obama, who attended Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for two decades, has repeatedly insisted he is a Christian.

‘Blessed statement in Islam’
Gabriel emphasized the importance of the Shahada in the profession of faith in Islam.
“Muslims recite the Shahada when they wake up in the morning and before they go to sleep at night,” he said. “It is repeated five times every day in the call to prayer in every mosque. A single honest recitation of the Shahada in Arabic is all that is required for a person to convert to Islam.”
Gabriel believes it would be impossible for Obama not to be aware of what is written on the ring, calling it a “blessed statement in Islam.”
“By wearing this religious statement on one’s hand, it connects the person to Islam,” he said. “It is worn in hopes that Allah’s protections would be with the person, in hopes of gaining favor with Allah.”
He affirmed that Muslim men do wear gold rings, despite prohibitions in Islamic law.
“Though Islamic law prohibits the wearing of gold jewelry by men, it is a widely accepted custom, even in strictly Muslim countries,” he said. “The wearing of gold rings is even more acceptable when it contains a religious message, such as ‘There is no god except Allah.’”
He noted there is also widespread acceptance of men wearing gold jewelry in non-Arab Islamic societies such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Pakistan, where Muslims generally understand that Muslims are subject to strong influences of local non-Arab cultures.
“Therefore, even though technically prohibited, a Muslim man wearing a gold ring is not looked down upon, especially if the jewelry reflects a love of Islam and a connection to Islamic society,” he said. “An even greater level of acceptance is for businessmen who deal with infidels, because such a person would be regarded as a person of influence.”


Obama signing legislation (White House photo)
‘I have known Islam on three continents’
Filmmaker Joel Gilbert, an expert on Islamic history, noted Obama wore the ring during his high-profile speech in Cairo on June 4, 2009, in the first months of his presidency.
“Now we have a new context for what Obama meant when he told the Islamic audience in Cairo that he has ‘known Islam on three continents,” Gilbert said. “He also told the Cairo audience that he considered it part of his responsibility as president of the United States ‘to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.’ All religious Muslims are by definition required to defend Islam.”
Gilbert’s most recent documentary films on the Middle East are “Farewell Israel: Bush, Iran and The Revolt of Islam” and “Atomic Jihad: Ahmadinejad’s Coming War and Obama’s Politics of Defeat”

Obama in Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009, close-up 

The Occidental ring
The photographs published last week by New Yorker magazine indicate Obama was wearing the ring at Occidental College.
One photo shows Obama sitting alongside Occidental roommate Hasan Chandoo in 1981, apparently waiting for a meal to be served.

The Obama wedding ring
The ring was mentioned in a New York Times article in 2009 recounting the Obamas’ wedding.
In the story, Jodi Kantor described its “intricate gold design,” noting it came from Barack Obama’s boyhood home of Indonesia and was not traditional, like Michelle’s.
Kantor wrote:
Just before the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. pronounced Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson man and wife on the evening of Oct. 3, 1992, he held their wedding rings – signifying their new, enduring bonds – before the guests at Trinity United Church of Christ. Michelle’s was traditional, but Barack’s was an intricate gold design from Indonesia, where he had lived as a boy.
There was no mention in the article that Obama already had been wearing the ring for more than a decade.
The photos of the ring from the 1980s can be compared with more recent photos, such as the ones published by the Huffington Post in 2010 in an article by Anya Strzemien, “Obama’s ‘Intricate’ Indonesian Wedding Band: A CLOSE-UP,” seen here.

See More Photos: http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/obamas-ring-there-is-no-god-but-allah/