Durbin to Bloggers: Drop Dead

Dec. 9, 2009

Western Journalism

Dick Durbin’s formal definition of a journalist deserving of protection under a proposed federal shield law has set the blogosphere on fire, namely because the blogosphere isn’t included.

Dick Durbin has declared war on the blogosphere

Under an amendment backed by Durbin and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.), only those working for “a newspaper, book, magazine, or other periodical” would be shielded from testifying in court about their confidential sources.

“Not included: student journalists, amateur bloggers, or even freelancers working without a contract,” reports the Nieman Journalism Lab.

The rightosphere and the leftosphere have joined together to make Durbin a marked man.

“Democrats trying to criminalize citizen journalism,” the Washington Examiner says.

“Help! Help! I’m/You’re being repressed! (seriously),” Firedoglake says.
Even traditional media is outraged.

Read More: By STEVE RHODES, NBC Chicag

Sean Hannity says Obama should show real Birth Certificate

The Post & E-Mail

by John Charlton

Hannity’s comments mark a new level in the information war between FOX and the White House, as insiders await Obama’s response to Nathan Deal

(Dec. 9, 2009) — Last night Sean Hannity affirmed that the desire of millions of U.S. Citizens to see the real birth certification of Barack Hussein Obama was legitimate.

His argument was, that if Obama was bold enough to vaunt an electronic image to “prove” anything, that he should not be cowardly to hide the real mcoy.

Hannity’s actual comments were quoted by World Net Daily, in an article published nearly 4 hours ago:

“What was so wrong in saying that, ‘Can we see your birth certificate?’ … We were told early on that, in fact, somebody else had looked at it and confirmed that it was legitimate. So, I mean, what was wrong with people saying, ‘Wait a minute. You know what? In light of the fact of where your, your father came from, et cetera, uh, let’s just make sure that this is a legitimate birth certificate’? … It was not asked by the mainstream media. It was asked by places like WorldNetDaily, who, I think, were just doing due diligence considering it’s a constitutional mandate. … I think a lot of people were just afraid to ask the question.”

Hannity’s Comments are revealing

Hannity’s comments are not just significant, because of his exposure as a television personality, but revealing because of what they say and do not say. The Post & Email will therefore comment on them in turn:

“What was so wrong in saying that, ‘Can we see your birth certificate?’ …”

Evidently, this is made in the context of a reporter who has been consistently told by his editors not to mention the topic, and badgered by colleagues who disdain its discussion.  It reflects a work environment which is nothing like one in which freedom of speech and the freedom of the press flourish.

It also reflects a professional environment where political correctness has replaced ethical standards and the common sense notions of duty and loyalty to the nation, first and foremost.

“We were told early on that, in fact, somebody else had looked at it and confirmed that it was legitimate.“

Evidently, Hannity admits that he recognized from the beginning the difference between the claim made by the image of the online COLB, published by Obama’s campaign, and the actual document.

Obama’s supporters, however, seem politically obligated or at least mentally afflicted, to such an extent as to deny this distinction.

“So, I mean, what was wrong with people saying, ‘Wait a minute. You know what? In light of the fact of where your, your father came from, et cetera, uh, let’s just make sure that this is a legitimate birth certificate’?”

There is, however, a fundamental error or erroneous concept of the issue, presented here — promoted by World Net Daily too — that the birth certificate alone will resolve the controversy.  If the birth certificate proved that his father was another person — say Frank Marshall Davis — a known U.S. citizen, then it would; but as Obama claimed a British subject as his father, if original vital records, whose authenticity were established in court, confirmed this, even if they did also confirm his birth in U.S. territory, then Obama would still be ineligible to hold and exercise the office of President, because he would not be a natural born citizen.

“It was not asked by the mainstream media.”

The understatement of the year.

“It was asked by places like WorldNetDaily, who, I think, were just doing due diligence considering it’s a constitutional mandate.”

Here is the only time Hannity comes close to indicating that he is thinking of the natural born citizen issue, because the Constitution no where requires that a candidate for President be a U.S. citizen, rather it requires that he be a natural born U.S. citizen.

“I think a lot of people were just afraid to ask the question.”

People are only afraid if they:

1) Stand to lose something by asking,

2) Are threatened with adverse action against them if they asked.

3) Or both, such as in the termination of their contract as media personality, or journalist,etc..

One commentator at Free Republic mentioned that in a subsequent interview with Mark Levin, Hannity danced around the issue.  Another mentioned that the Main Stream Media have gone into full disinformation mode, by emphasizing the doubts that Trig is the natural son of Sarah Palin.

There is one documented and official reason why Obama won’t show his original birth certificate:  he ain’t got one.  This was affirmed by Dr. Fukino of the Hawaiian Department of Health in late July of this year, when she stated that the Vital Records office of the State has on file “original vital records”; a detailed analysis of Hawaiian laws shows that only where there is some doubt as to the authenticity of the original filing, or in the case of an adoption or amendment, do there exist more than one original vital record.  Why Obama has more than one, lies at the heart of the reason why he won’t reveal them.

New Charges Tie Chicago Man to Mumbai Terror Attacks

Dec. 9, 2009

Family Security Matters

Steve Emerson

A Chicago man’s reconnaissance trips to India played a pivotal role in the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, federal prosecutors said Monday. David Coleman Headley has been charged with six counts of conspiracy to bomb public places in India, to murder Americans and others in India, and to provide material support to the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Headley originally was arrested in October on charges he planned attacks on high profile targets in Denmark and India that included the Danish newspaper facilities of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper and its employees. The new charges filed in the Northern District of Illinois accuse Headley, an American citizen born in Pakistan, of helping facilitate last year’s deadly Mumbai attacks that killed approximately 170 people, including six Americans, and injured hundreds. Additionally, a criminal complaint also unsealed in federal court in Chicago charges Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed (Abdur Rehman), a retired Pakistan military official, of conspiring to plot an attack against Jyllands-Posten and its employees.

Headley allegedly attended terrorist training camps run by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which is believed to be behind the Mumbai attacks. Headley reportedly conspired with members of the LeT to plot attacks in Denmark and India. Over a span of two years, authorities say, Headley conducted extensive surveillance of sites targeted in the Mumbai attacks.

If convicted on all the charges, both Headley and Rehman face a maximum sentence of life in prison. In a release, prosecutors disclose that Headley is cooperating with federal investigators. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald indicated these charges may not be the last filed in this case.

“This investigation remains active and ongoing. The team of prosecutors and agents will continue to seek charges against the other persons responsible for the attacks,” Fitzgerald said in a statement.

Headley, born in Pakistan as Daood Gilani, changed his name in 2005 to escape notice as a Muslim or Pakistani and allow for easy transit through immigration on his reconnaissance missions to India for LeT. Headley also ran an immigration office out of Mumbai to serve as a cover for his surveillance activities.

Between 2006 and 2008, he reportedly made five trips to Mumbai, where he checked out possible targets, including the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, the Nariman House, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station, and the Leopold Café. Each of those places was attacked by terrorists in November 2008. Headley allegedly returned to Pakistan after each trip to India to brief Lashkar members and show photos and videos of potential targets.

During a March 2008 visit, Headley discussed potential landing sites for terrorists to enter India from Pakistan, via the Arabian Sea, in preparation for the Mumbai attacks. In those attacks, 10 armed terrorists from the Pakistani port of Karachi landed in Mumbai by boat to carry out attacks on prominent targets in the city.

Headley allegedly conspired with Ilyas Kashmir, leader of al Qaeda’s deadly 311 Brigade and the Azad Kashmir section of the Harkat Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) that has carried out terrorist attacks in Kashmir, to plan an attack against facilities of Jyllands-Posten and two of its employees. The Danish newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad four years ago that resulted in violent protests across the Muslim world. In January 2009, Headley reportedly traveled from Chicago to Copenhagen in Denmark to conduct surveillance of the Jyllands-Posten offices. Headley reportedly met with Kashmiri in Pakistan on several occasions to discuss plans for the attack and review surveillance videos. Headley in fact was arrested in October 2009 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport while he was on his way to Pakistan to deliver the approximately 13 surveillance videos of the Jyllands-Posten offices to Kashmiri.

The new charges against Abdur Rehman allege that he facilitated contacts between Headley and members of Lashkar and other terrorist groups in Pakistan including a 2009 trip to Pakistan in which Abdur Rehman helped set up a meeting between Headley and Kashmiri to solicit support of Kashmiri’s group in the planned attack on Jyllands-Posten.

Rehman’s involvement underscores the role of Pakistan’s military establishment, including its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in backing terrorist groups such as the LeT as a means to wage a low-intensity proxy war against India.

Obama Signed Resolution Describing Him As Ineligible

Dec. 8, 2009

The Obama File

This is an oldie, but it needs to be revisited, since the Obots still argue that Obama is eligible to serve as Commander-in-Chief.

On April 10, 2008, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced a resolution expressing the sense of the U.S. Senate that presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was a ‘natural born Citizen,’ as specified in the Constitution and eligible to run for president.  Sen. McCaskill knew Obama was not a U.S. Citizen, that’s why she introduced this bill — dressing it up to look like it was in Sen. John McCain’s cause.

It was during the bill’s hearing that Sen. Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the following statement:

“Because he was born to American citizens, there is no doubt in my mind that Senator McCain is a natural born citizen,” said Leahy.  “I expect that this will be a unanimous resolution of the Senate.”

At a Judiciary Committee hearing on April 3, Leahy asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, himself a former Federal judge, if he had doubts that McCain was eligible to serve as President.

“My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen,” Chertoff replied.

“That is mine, too,” said Leahy.

What’s interesting here is that Sen. Leahy, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary, confirms that a “natural born” citizen is the child of American citizen parents.

Parents — that’s two.  That’s BOTH parents.

Every time the words, “citizen” and “parent,” are used by Sen. Leahy and Sec. Chertoff, the plural case, “citizens” and “parents,” is used.  The plural case is the operative case.

It is Sen. Leahy’s opinion — his own recorded words, in a formal Senate Resolution and on his U. S. Senate website — that Barack Obama is not a “natural born” citizen, and therefore not eligible to serve as Commander-in-Chief, regardless of his birthplace.

Obama had one American parent –singular — his mother.  His father was a citizen of Kenya, and a subject of Great Britain.

Obama, himself, “at birth,” was a citizen of Kenya, and a subject of Great Britain — he says so on his own campaign website.  This fact introduces the concept of “divided loyalties,” — the reason the founders created the eligibility requirement in the first place — a fact that further underlines Obama’s ineligibility.

The source of this information is Sen. Leahy’s own website.  The webpage contains a statement about the resolution; the resolution, itself; the Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.); and an excerpt of Sec. Chertoff’s testimony.

The plural word “parents” is used four times.  When used to identify the parents, the word “citizens” is used five times.  That’s nine times that Sen. Leahy, on his own website describes the eligibility requirement.  There is NO PLACE in any of these four documents where the singular case of “parent” or “citizen” is used.

The real purpose of this bill was to change article II, section 1, clause 5 of the Constitution of the United States with reference to the requirements of being a “natural born citizen” by the Democratic Party leadership — paving the way for an Obama run.

Both Leahy and Chertoff avoid addressing the “in the US mainland” (jus solis) element of the eligibility requirement and focus solely on parentage (jus sanguinis) in making their arguments and by doing so bring focus to the fundamental reason Obama is not qualified.  He had one American parent and one foreign parent.  Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen — no matter where he was born.

Obama is a co-signer of this resolution. So, I guess he too agrees that one needs two American parents to be eligible for POTUS — except he doesn’t care — after all, he’s the Obamamessiah.  Rules don’t apply to him.

Harry Reid twists Civil Rights history to bash GOP

Canada Free Press

By Frances Rice  Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Confident that liberal historians have successfully re-written civil rights history, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid brazenly compared Republican health care reform opponents to supporters of slavery, ignoring the fact that the Democratic Party fought to expand slavery while the Republican Party fought to end it.  Not satisfied with just playing the race card on the senate floor, the Nevada Democrat also accused Republicans of opposing women’s suffrage, never mind that the Republican Party also championed women’s rights.

Democrats refused to apologize for their racism

Democrats sang a different tune when inner-city minister Rev. Wayne Perryman sued the Democratic Party for that party’s 150-year history of racism, a case that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.  Democrats came into court and, under oath, admitted their racist past that Sen. Reid is now trying to foist on the shoulders of Republicans.  In court, Democrats refused to apologize for their racism and, using an army of lawyers, relied on the legal technicality of “standing” to avoid a court order against them, knowing they can take the black vote for granted.

So, what did the Democrats admit under oath?  Below are highlights of civil rights history.  For additional details, see the NBRA Civil Rights Newsletter posted on the website of the National Black Republican Association.

Democratic Party is the party of the four S’s:  slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism

As author Michael Scheuer stated, the Democratic Party is the party of the four S’s:  slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism.  Democrats have been running black communities for the past 40 years, and the failed socialist policies of the Democrats have turned those communities into economic and social wastelands.  Incredibly, Democrats blame Republicans for the deplorable conditions created by Democrats.  Since the so-called War on Poverty of the 1960’s, over nine trillion dollars have been spent on poverty-related programs, with no movement in the poverty needle.

Etched in history and exposed in Perryman’s book, “Unfounded Loyalty”, is the sordid details of Democratic Party racism – past and present.  The Democratic Party, through its racist agenda and “States’ Rights” claim to own slaves, sought to protect and preserve the institution of slavery from 1792 to 1865, thus keeping enslaved millions of blacks. Democrats formed the Confederacy, seceded from the Union and fought a Civil War (1861 to 1865), a war where over 600,000 citizens were killed, including many thousands of blacks.  In his book, Perryman also provides the details about how the Republican Party was started in 1854 as the anti-slavery party, fought to free blacks from slavery and championed civil rights for blacks and women.

During the Civil War, Republican President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 which ordered the freeing of slaves in states that were rebelling against Union forces.  Republicans passed the Thirteenth Amendment on January 31, 1865 that was ratified on December 6, 1865 to abolish all slavery in the United States.

Democrats passed discriminatory Black Codes in 1865 to suppress, restrict, and deny blacks the same privileges as whites.  The Codes forced blacks to serve as apprentices to their former slave masters.  Democrats also prevented blacks from getting the promised “40 acres and a mule”.

Ku Klux Klan was started by Democrats to lynch and terrorize Republicans, black and white

In 1866, the Ku Klux Klan was started by Democrats to lynch and terrorize Republicans, black and white, and the Ku Klux Klan became the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party.  Over 3,000 Republicans were killed by the Klan, of whom 1,000 were white and 2,000 were black.  Details about the Democratic Party and the Ku Klux Klan can be found in the book “A Short History of Reconstruction” by Dr. Eric Foner.

To counter the discriminatory and terrorizing actions by Democrats, Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 that were designed to establish a new government system in the Democrat-controlled South, one that was fair to blacks.  Further, the Fourteenth Amendment championed by Republicans was ratified in 1868 that granted blacks citizenship.  The Fifteenth Amendment also championed by Republicans was ratified in 1870 that granted blacks the right to vote.

Determined to stop blacks from having equal rights, Democrats passed discriminatory Jim Crow Laws starting in 1875 to restrict the rights of blacks to use public facilities.  In response, Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which prohibited racial discrimination in public facilities.

Shamefully, Democrats fought against anti-lynching laws, and when the Democrats regained control of Congress in 1892, they passed the Repeal Act of 1894 that overturned civil right laws enacted by Republicans.

Further, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Democrats and against blacks in the case of “Plessy v. Ferguson” in 1896 where the Supreme Court established the “separate but equal” doctrine.  That opinion stated that it was not a violation of the U.S. Constitution to have separate facilities for blacks.  It took Republicans nearly six decades to end these restrictions and finally get the civil rights laws of the 1950’s and 1960’s passed over the objection of the Democrats.

During the civil rights era of the 1960’s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. fought to stop Democrats from denying civil rights to blacks.  It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican as has been affirmed by one of his nieces.

Dr. King fought against Democrat Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor in Birmingham who let loose vicious dogs and turned skin-burning fire hoses on black civil rights demonstrators.

Democrat Georgia Governor Lester Maddox famously brandished ax handles to prevent blacks from patronizing his restaurant.  Democrat Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the entrance of two black students at the University of Alabama in 1963 and thundered, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”.  All of these racist Democrats remained Democrats until the day they died. In fact, racist Democrats declared that they would rather vote for a “yellow dog” than a Republican because the Republican Party was known as the party for blacks.