Comparing Apples to Oranges

Special Ops and News

By Randy Wyles
Executive Editor
Dec. 16, 2009

I’m tired of the double standard we accept as “politically correct”.  To be truthful, I’m tired of “politically correct” in and of itself.  It’s an excuse for minorities to continue to whine and for the rest of us to get shoved to the back of the bus.  People should exercise their right to have an opinion – and express it.

This is a country where freedom of opinion and speech are supposedly protected – but that’s not really the case, because if you think free speech really exists here, you’re wrong.  The basic rights of expression and free thought are being denied to people everyday who oppose what is “politically correct.”

Try it sometime.  Go ahead.  Go out on a limb.

At your next meeting with staff or co-workers about, say, a company vendor – and it turns out that the vendor was chosen based on criteria that included the vendor being a minority owned business – ask, out loud, “Now, this a minority company, right?”

I’ll bet the first reaction you get is a look of scorn from a good many non-black co-workers – and by that I mean “white” co-workers – who are so brainwashed by liberal rhetoric that they really believe that a white person today is somehow responsible for what a white person did four-hundred years ago.   Forget that fact that the white person living four-hundred years ago took procession of that African slave only after he was captured by another African – or that a southern planter bought the African slave from a northern slave trader.

Meanwhile, back at the meeting you’ve just stopped cold, you’ll get the scrunched up nose, “go to hell” look from a good many black co-workers – those who believe that they are oppressed because they happen to be born black, not because they were actually enslaved themselves.  Of course, these are the same people who won’t publicly say that Obama is doing a bad job, though his poll numbers have dipped so low now as to encroach into the black population that voted for him to begin with.

No, the issue currently stinking up the room is “that vendor’s minority status is not relevant” and “just what did you mean?”  Unless the very next words out of your mouth extol the virtues of and the fine job being done by that vendor, you’ll be ostracized.  You may well be anyway, just because you’ve had the audacity to actually mention the phrase “minority company” in public.

Now, here’s the problem I have with this; if it was important that the vendor be a “minority” vendor to begin with – perhaps even a requirement – then what’s the problem with seeking minority status clarification while reviewing the vendor’s work?

If blacks use their minority status to get in, then they should be forced to stick with the label from then on.  Otherwise, they can’t play the race card at all.  And if they’re doing a poor job, they should be treated just as if they were white and doing a poor job – no more, no less.  No prepping of “special files” built up to protect the company against the inevitable discrimination lawsuit filed by the black worker.  No special “extended time” to learn the same job – on the job – that a white person was suppose to have known at the time he or she was hired.

No, employees, vendors, subcontractors, politicians and everyone else should be held to the same standard – and language.  Using certain words that are unacceptable in public, are not suddenly acceptable because you’re a minority.  If they are unacceptable by one group, they should not be acceptable at all – and not because its akin to a “hate crime”, whatever that is – it should be unacceptable because your momma told you it wasn’t nice.

If minorities want to be treated like everyone else – and that should, indeed, be the case – they need to stop being the “Black or Hispanic or Native American” whatever.  And they need to stop waiting, like cats ready to pounce on mice, for non-minorities to say something that can, by twisting it around like a Bonsai tree, be interpreted in some ill fashion.

Do you know which minority candidates for office I’ve always liked? – The ones who ran for the office based on the fact that they were the best candidate – not the best minority candidate.  I like Sarah Palin instead of Hillary Clinton because Sarah’s smarter, has actually run a state government, rather than merely be the First Lady of State and because she is a candidate – not a woman candidate.

I don’t like Obama because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s a Muslim suck-up and he’s dishonest.  It’s that simple.  He isn’t qualified to be president of his own fan club, much less the chief executive of the country.  It has nothing to do with that fact that he’s black or partially black or whatever he is – since we still don’t have a birth certificate proving whether he’s even an American.  It has to do with the fact that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he panders to Muslims and he is dishonest.

Still, his choices to be a Muslim lackey and not send out Christmas cards, yet, celebrate Ramadan in the White House are just that, his choices – though I find them very disheartening.  And I believe that, come November 2012, so will most American voters.

The United Nations: Public Enemy Number One

The UN has got to go — before it does any more damage.

Pajamas Media

December 16, 2009 – by David Solway

Page 1 of 2  Next ->

In their 1974 book A Dangerous Place: The United Nations as a Weapon in World Politics, Abraham Yeselson and Anthony Gaglione warned that the United Nations was a cesspool of special interests, political subversion, and dictatorial regimes intent on pursuing their anti-democratic policies. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Yeselson said: “It will be extraordinarily difficult now to rationalize continued involvement in an organization [the UN] which sponsors wars, passes one-sided or unenforceable resolutions, provides forums for international insult instead of diplomacy, and is guilty of the most outrageous examples of selective justice.” Similarly, in his 1975 book of that title, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patrick Moynihan also described the world organization as a “dangerous place.” He meant, of course, a dangerous place for the United States and the free world — or, at least, that part of the free world that wished to remain free. Subsequent developments at the UN have only served to confirm his dire admonitions.

Historian Richard Landes has coined the term “demopaths” to describe such institutions. Demopaths “use democratic language and invoke human rights only when it serves their interests. Demopaths demand stringent levels of human ‘rights’ but do not apply these basic standards … to their own behavior.”

The UN is the demopathic organization par excellence and its spokesmen persist in plying their trade. Its elections for the post of secretary-general have generally drawn from a pool of dubious mediocrities with little sympathy for or knowledge of the history of Western humanism, such as Kurt Waldheim, Kofi Annan, and Ban Ki-moon. The Russian and Chinese stranglehold on the Security Council has always meant that decisions favoring the West would inevitably succumb to their veto power. The Organization of the Islamic Conference effectively dominates the General Assembly, which is in any case often headed by anti-Western, socialist-inspired figures like Father Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann or representatives of tyrannical regimes like its current president Ali Abdussalam Treki, who hails from, of all places, Libya.

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has dedicated its attention almost exclusively to the denunciation of Israel, the only genuine democracy in the Middle East. The Council features two agendas at its annual session: one allotted to Israel, the other to the rest of the world. Anyone speaking out in defense of Israel is liable to be removed from the premises, as happened recently to UN-accredited Anne Bayevsky, a professor of political science at York University and director of the Touro Law Center’s Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust. To add injury to injury, the UNHRC has gone soft on Sharia, announcing on June 16, 2008, that criticism of Sharia law would now be contraindicated.

The result of so bigoted and sectarian an agenda is a foregone conclusion, as witness the infamous Goldstone Report reprehending Israel for war crimes in Operation Cast Lead — by all unbiased accounts a defensive campaign doing its utmost to avoid civilian casualties — while essentially acquitting Hamas, among the world’s most flagrant terrorist organizations, for the crimes it did commit. The dossier has now been forwarded to the Security Council with a view to referring it to the International Criminal Court. As has been pointed out by many commentators, it is not only Israel that may find itself in the prisoner’s dock, but any nation which has the audacity to defend itself against terrorist attacks, including the United States.

President Obama’s incomprehensible decision to bring the United States into the UNHRC’s fold will ineluctably come back to haunt it. (Perhaps this lamentable move is one of the reasons that Obama was fulsomely praised by Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi, who called him “our son” and “our Obama,” wishing him president for life.) The U.S. has announced its good intentions, but it should be evident to any rational observer that so corrupt an institution as the UNHRC cannot be reformed or deterred — only abolished.

The United Nations has, in point of fact, become a safe haven for international terrorists and abuser nations. It has yet to define the notion and practice of “terrorism” and has chosen to ignore its own Convention on Genocide, under Articles 3 and 8 of which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to take a most conspicuous example, should be indicted for incitement to genocide. As of this date, no action has been taken to subpoena the Iranian president for threatening to “wipe Israel off the map” — quite the opposite. When Ahmadinejad received his third annual invitation to address the UN plenum and delivered what amounted to a virulent anti-Semitic speech, he was warmly embraced by Father Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann to the cheering and clapping of a plenum of delegates. Let us remember, too, that it was from the UN building in Vienna that nuclear expert Timothy Hampton, a member of the Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, mysteriously fell to his death on October 20, 2009, one day before the resumption of nuclear disarmament talks with Iran. The UN has refused to investigate the incident.

Mosque At the World Trade Center: Muslim Renewal Or Insult Near Ground Zero

December 16, 2009
by Youssef M. Ibrahim

Hudson New York

An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building steps away from where the WorldTrade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques.

At the moment the building, the old Burlington Coat Factory, already serves as a mini-mosque: an iron grill lifts every Friday afternoon for a little known Imam leading prayers a few yards away from where Osama Bin Laden’s airborne Islamist bombers killed nearly 3000 people back in 2001.

The Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, told the New York Times — which put the story on its front page Wednesday — that he has assembled several million dollars to turn it into ‘’an Islamic center near the city’s most hallowed piece of land that would stand as one of ground zero’s more unexpected and striking neighbors.’’

The 61-year-old Imam said he paid $4.85 million for it — in cash, records show. With 50,000 square feet of air rights and enough financing, he plans an ambitious project of $150 million, he said, akin to the Chautauqua Institution, the 92 Street Y or the Jewish Community Center.

The origins of such monies are unexplained; neither are the countries or entity advancing such huge donations. Most US mosques, including many in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx are funded directly or indirectly by Saudi Arabia the country to which 15 of the 19 hijackers who bombed the World TradeCenter belonged. The UAE, Qatar and Iran are other major sponsors across the USA.

The money trail is an important question that must be answered by the Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg with more than a bland comment by one of his spokesmen, Andrew Brent, who quipped to the Times, “If it’s legal, the building owners have a right to do what they want.”

At the moment, the location is not designated a mosque, but rather an overflow prayer space for another mosque, Al Farah, at 245 West Broadway in TriBeCa, where Imam Feisal is the spiritual leader. Call this creeping annexation. On 9/11, the Burlington building, with 80 employees in its basement, is where a piece of a plane plunged through the roof, from either Flight 11 or Flight 175 crashing into the south tower at 9:03 a.m..

One of the investors for future oncoming funds is listed as the Cordoba Initiative, defined as an ‘’interfaith group’’ – and founded by Imam Feisal. Cordoba is the name militant Muslims often invoke when they recall the glory of Muslim empire in the centuries they occupied Spain.

As a former New York Times and Wall Street Journal correspondent, and as a New York Sun columnist who covered Islamic Fundamentalism extensively overseas and in the USA, I find the facts oddly lacking. The story as reported fails to answer, and avoid asking, so many pertinent questions.

The source of money matters as a significant part of the hundreds of mosques being built and already erected in this country double up as cultural Islamic centers for distributing literature– Islamist propaganda in fact—from Bay Ridge Brooklyn to Detroit, and for schooling growing Muslim minorities. They house Imams of unknown origin and education, many of whom do not speak a word of English but preach in Arabic and Urdu — radical messages, it often turns out.

As a reporter familiar with the Arab communities of the USA, I doubt the faithful fork out all that money for mega mosques, and if they did, the mayor’s office should prove it, not merely accept someone’s say so. It is an established fact that a significant percentage of the mosques built in the USA in the past two decades are receiving a disproportionate amount of their funds not only from the Saudis, but also the UAE, Qatar and Iran — all problematic Islamists activist nations. The government just discontinued work on a major Iranian-funded mosque and center in New York City, which had operated under the radar since the days of the good old Shah of Iran under the auspices of the Pahlavi Foundation, and has beenowned since 1979 by the Mullahs of Iran.

The context here is that 15 of the 19 perpetrators of the attacks — on the very site where this new mosque shall rise — came from Saudi Arabia.

We saw how, in the case of Major Nidal Hasan of Ft. Hood, it turned out that three of the original participants in 9/11 had listened to the same preacher Major Hasan listened to: a man with a radical violent Islamic website now operating out of Yemen to radicalize American Muslims. In such a context,knowing more about the Imam overseeing a potential multimillion mosque at the World Trade Center site is essential to the story. Nearly 3,000 people were deliberately killed there – and the New York Times is papering over what is about to be built on the site in a nice, beatific pseudo-profile of the Imamoverseeing the mosque? Limiting access to this Imam to some nice quotes, showing him nattily dressed in a suit, and describing him merely as a Sufi, is vacuous, crafted and couched in public relations spin to obscure rather than explain. ‘’What happened that day was not Islam’’ is all that the Times quotes the Imam saying — a rather lame comment given the enormity of his ambition and the iconic status of where he wants to put his mosque.

The mayor’s office should tell us more.

Just as importantly, who Is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf ? And what is his background? Given that much Islamist radicalism originated in mosques at the hands of imams in virtually all the terrorist attacks inAmerica and Europe — as we found over and over again – the omission of this information is a glaring mishap.

All we get learn about the Imam in the Times story about him is some anodyne, rather anemic, focus on a man of peace. No real searching. Mayor Bloomberg’s folks need to tell us what are the Imam’s origins, where he was schooled, whether he is an immigrant, a visitor, of which country is he a citizen, and what is his philosophy, among other relevant questions.

Merely describing the man as a Sufi ‘’who follows a path of Islam focused more on spiritual wisdom than on strict ritual,’’ is far too little . After every terrorist atrocity, any number of Sufi and Muslims savants ritually come out with the hackneyed saying: ‘’Islam is a religion of peace and brotherhood.’’ Accumulated as they are, these statements are added a heap of nothing for those tens of thousands of Muslims killed by other Muslims in suicide and other bombings from Pakistan to Iraq every day.

One would hope for a follow-up story or stories, and that New York City and its citizens at least ask harder questions, rather than submit to being mislead in the interest of political correctness.

Obama’s Communists Now Ruling the USA: Republic is Formally Dead

Canada Free Press

By Sher Zieve  Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The bribes issued by Sen. Harry Reid and the threats issued by the Marxist usurper and dictator-in-Chief in order to garner votes for the ObamaCare Death Plan have now reached almost legendary proportions. In order to end cloture, Reid actually had $300 Millions for Louisiana written into the Senate’s ObamaCare Death Plan version to buy Senator Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) vote.

It worked. Landrieu even bragged about it. Now, the would-be Chicago-style godfather Obama has threatened the hold-out Nebraska Democrat Senator Ben Nelson with closure of Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force base (which employs over 10,000 people and is the headquarters for the US Strategic Command) if he doesn’t play ball with him, the USA’s head mobster, and vote for the bill that will begin the ultimate slavery of the American people.

Note: Obama is so bent upon getting his way and destroying the USA that he is now openly—and in full view of all—threatening to place the country in even more jeopardy. The Communist Obama Government now has a stranglehold on the United States of America, its legislators and its people and he will NOT willingly let go. In fact, as his smile beams even more broadly he is squeezing ever tighter to end our lives and the life of our country.

In order to bring former Democrat and now Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) into line, Obama ordered his minions to go on a search-and-destroy mission against Lieberman’s wife Hadassah. After his Tuesday press conference, it appears that Sen. Lieberman may have folded like the proverbial cheap suit.

Here are only a few of the facts:

1. The ObamaCare Death Plan will gut Medicare by at least $500 Billions—in order to rid Obama & Co of Senior citizens. Seniors were forced into Medicare years ago and now they’re being told it’s time for them to die
2. The pro-abortion language, if removed for the vote, will be added back in when the Senate and House cone together to “blend” the bills
3. The government-run portion of the bill, which was ostensibly removed, will be added back in when the Senate and House cone together to “blend” the bills. Even if it isn’t now done now, the framework for all of the additional Obama-run new government agencies (over 140 of them) will remain in the Obama Death Plan
4. The Marriage Penalty remains in the Obama Death Plan. You didn’t seriously believe this was about health care—did you?
5. The Death Plan includes provisions for the Obama-run government to enter private homes in order to observe how parents are raising their children and to “counsel” said parents

There is so much wrong with this plan and the House plan—think total slavery—that it cannot be fixed. So, they will pass it anyway with a “damn the people” and “damn the Republic” attitude. When this horror passes, folks, it will mark the formal end of our Republic. We will then officially enter the beginnings of the Bondage Phase of our existence. Our rulers in Washington D.C. stopped listening to us some time back. They pay no attention to us when we march and/or question them at Town Hall meetings. Instead, Obama has found a way to ensure that he and his like-minded cohorts are never again voted out of office. The Obama has announced his plan to also shove Amnesty for Illegals and Democrat votes down our throats. Obama & Co pass one set of laws for what used to be We-the-People and another set for themselves—the ruling elite.

This is it. It’s fast approaching the now or never moment. Once more for the troops who understand: “We must no longer reason or deliberate. We only want concord and steadiness. The lot is cast. If we prove victorious, we shall be a just, free and sovereign people. If we are conquered, we shall be traitors, perjured persons and rebels.” John Adams during the American Revolution in 1777.

Islamic attacks on our airline industry

Canada Free Press

Dec. 15, 2009

By Doug Hagmann

Once aboard the plane, they spoke loudly in Arabic. They changed seats without authorization. They roamed the plane over the objections of the flight attendants, entering the first class area without permission or legitimate purpose. They moved their stowed luggage from the overhead bins for no apparent reason. One even attempted to open the cockpit door, explaining that he mistakenly thought it was the lavatory. Their behavior was described as disruptive and suspicious, which so alarmed the flight crew that the Muslim passengers were removed from the airplane by order of the captain.

More…

The Fort Hood massacre & “Toronto 18” connection

Canada Free Press

By Doug Hagmann  Tuesday, December 15, 2009

There is a direct connection between the Islamic terrorist attack at Fort Hood to the members of the so-called “Toronto 18,” an Islamic terrorist cell broken up by counter-terrorism authorities in 2006. That nexus is Anwar Nasser al-Awlaki (a/k/a Aulaqi), the former Imam of the Dar al Hijrah Mosque in Falls Church, Virginia. Al Awlaki privately counseled at least three of the 9/11 terrorists in the months prior to 9/11, and was found to be in contact with Nidal Malik HASAN, the Muslim terrorist who murdered 14 Americans (including one unborn child) at Fort Hood on November 7, 2009 in the weeks and months leading up to that attack.

The convoluted relationship of terror suspects also involves two Muslim Americans who embarked on a week-long trip to meet with Canadian terror suspects in a March 2005 “Islamic terror summit” in Toronto, Ontario. Both were sentenced last week to lengthy prison terms for their planning terrorist attacks, and the recruitment and training of others.

On 20 July 2006, Canada Free Press & the Northeast Intelligence Network were the first to report that two terror suspects from the U.S., Syed Haris AHMED and Ehsanul SADEQUEE met with other subjects of ongoing counter-terrorism investigation in Toronto, Ontario “to engage in activities in support of violent jihad.” They met with several members of the group subsequently dubbed the “Toronto 18” as first reported in this CFP June 4, 2006 exclusive. The “Toronto 18” were originally charged with plotting to engage in various terrorism acts including the importation of weapons, plotting various bombings and assassinations, and other acts of terrorism against public officials and facilities in Ontario.

Yesterday, the U.S. Justice Department announced that Syed Haris AHMED, convicted in June of conspiring to support terrorism in the US and abroad was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge William S. Duffey, Jr. to 13 years in prison followed by 30 years of probation. SADEQUEE, who was convicted on August 12, 2009,  was sentenced to 17 years in prison followed by 30 years of supervised release.

More…

Obama Still Blames Others

by  Brian Darling

12/15/2009

Human Events

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Last Wednesday, President Barack Obama whined that Republicans should “stop trying to frighten the American people.”  The President is in power, but out of touch.  His policies failed as unemployment soared into double digits.  His party is striving to infinitely expand the powers of the federal government.  His administration has executed a foreign policy that bows to other nations.

Yet the President blames political opponents for his record unpopularity.  Liberals can’t understand why Gallup has the audacity to report Obama has a 47% job approval rating, the lowest ever recorded for any President at the end of his first year.  But that poll result is simply the consequence of Obama’s actions.

This President needs to stop blaming others for all of his problems and take a long hard look in the mirror.

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Yes, Obamacare Can be Stopped

Many conservatives are asking:  Can Obamacare be stopped in the Senate? It’s possible, but conservatives need to use every parliamentary tool they have.

Filibuster Most Important Tool
The most powerful is the filibuster.  Any senator can say, “I object” when the leaders of both parties try to set up a vote on a particular amendment.  This would require a two-day wait before the Senate could vote on that amendment.  If conservatives in the Senate filibuster everything, it might slow down Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D.-Nev.) efforts to use the amendment process to clean up his healthcare bill.

Try Many Amendments

The second tool is the amendment process.  Conservatives should force votes on the following issues: Ending the TARP program, restoring the right of D.C. residents to own a firearm, permanent elimination of the death tax, term limits for members of Congress, and restoring missile-defense spending cut made by the Obama Administration. These issues have nothing to do with Obamacare, of course, but they are allowed during this debate.

Time for Niceness has Passed

Finally, conservatives need to stop acting so nice during this debate. Last week, Majority Leader Harry Reid viciously accused Senate Republicans of displaying the same mindset as those who defended slavery.  It would be reasonable for a politician slandered in this way to shut down the Senate until Reid apologized. That didn’t happen. Republicans merely complained, then went on with business as usual.

Conservatives are deeply concerned that many Republicans in the Senate don’t seem to be up to fighting off the most radical change to healthcare in our lifetimes. Americans need to see conservatives such as Senators Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Tom Coburn (R.-Okla.), Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.) and David Vitter (R.-La.) get angry and start pushing back.

Obamacare Mandate Unconstitutional

The personal mandate to buy health insurance is unprecedented and unconstitutional, according to The Heritage Foundation in a recently released analysis.  The Heritage Foundation argues that “an individual mandate to enter into a contract with or buy a particular product from a private party is literally unprecedented, not just in scope but in kind, and unconstitutional either as a matter of first principles or under any reasonable reading of judicial precedents.”  Senators have the power to raise a constitutional point of order to force the Senate to vote on this very challenge.

Debt Limit Increase

Congress has spent so much of your money this year that it now needs to increase the debt ceiling, the total amount the federal government is allowed to borrow, by a staggering $1.8 trillion.  Senators Kent Conrad (D.-N.D.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) are using the debt limit increase to point out the bleak long-term budget outlook and to discuss means of restraining federal spending. There seems to be bipartisan agreement that Congress is spending like drunken sailors, so many hope that Congress can address the debt threat without taking the easy way out by raising taxes.  Expect a bi-partisan fight against this massive increase in the debt limit.

The Omnibus

Congress is wrapping up work on the appropriations bills, and has put together a $446.6 billion so-called “Omnibus Spending Bill” loaded with earmarks and special-interest projects.  Rep. Jerry Lewis (R.-Calif.) told Congressional Quarterly that “the era of big government has returned.”

Taxpayers for Common Sense says the omnibus contains total spending of $3.8 billion on 5,224 earmarks. These include $500,000 for the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, $700,000 for an arts pavilion in Mississippi and $600,000 for streetscape beatification in California.  If you factor in mandates that could force all Americans to purchase healthcare, $1.8 trillion in new federal borrowing and these wasteful federal spending bills, it’s no wonder polling indicates that the President and Congress are wildly unpopular with the American people.

40 Congressmen Call on Special Ops Commander to Dismiss Case Brought Against Navy SEALs over Alleged Punching of Terrorist

Dec. 15, 2009

By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) – Forty members of Congress are calling on the military commander who ordered the court martial of three Navy SEALs over the alleged punching of a terrorist to dismiss the charges.

The letter, circulated by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), was sent Thursday to Army Major Gen. Charles T. Cleveland, commander of Special Operation Command Central. Gen. Cleveland ordered the prosecution of the three SEALs.

“In our opinion, prosecutorial discretion should have been exercised,” the 40 congressmen said. “Failing that, we respectfully and strongly urge you to exercise your leadership authority, stop the impending court martial and exonerate these men.”

Earlier, 33 House Members had signed a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates asking him to intervene in the case. That letter had been circulated by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.).  Military law experts told CNSNews.com, however, that the Defense secretary’s ability to intervene in a court martial could be limited.

U.S. congressmen representing two of the SEALs’ home districts signed the letters.   Only Republican members signed the letters.

Rep. Bob Latta, who represents the Ohio’s 5^th Congressional District that includes Perrysburg, Ohio, signed both of the letters.  Perryburg is the hometown of one of the three SEALs, 24-year-old Petty Officer Second Class Mathew McCabe.

McCabe was part of the SEAL team that captured Ahmed Hashim Abed, the alleged architect of the murder of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004. The bodies of the four Americans were mutilated, burned and hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

McCabe has been charged with assault for allegedly punching Abed in the midsection. He has also been charged with dereliction of duty for allegedly failing to protect Abed and with allegedly making a false statement by denying the incident. Two other SEALs, Petty Officer Julio Huertas, 28, and Petty Officer Jonathon Keefe, 25, have been charged with alleged dereliction of duty for not protecting Abed and for allegedly making a false statement.  Huertas has also been charged with allegedly impeding an investigation.

Rep. Latta will have more to say on the matter in the near future, his spokesman Bob Popp told CNSNews.com Friday.

Keefe is from Yorktown, Va., part of the state’s 1^st Congressional District represented by Rep. Rob Wittman, who signed Rep. Hunter’s letter to Gates.

“After hearing the case of these three Navy SEALs, one of which is a constituent of mine, I and many of my colleagues were concerned with the message this would send to our soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen who serve in harms way every day,” Wittman told CNSNews.com in a statement.

“These service members often risk their lives in dangerous and uncertain situations, and in this case, they captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq. I am eagerly awaiting the secretary of defense’s response to the letter I signed in defense of these SEALs,” Wittman continued. “While I do not believe that the prosecution of these men is warranted, I do have full faith and confidence that the military justice system will bring all the facts to light.”

Huertas is from Blue Island, Ill., part of that state’s 1^st Congressional District, which is represented by Rep. Bobby Rush, a Democrat. Rush did not sign either of the letters. Rush’s spokeswoman Sharon Jenkins told CNSNews.com that he will not be making a statement on the matter now, but “will continue to monitor the legal proceedings.”

The Burton letter said the SEALs should have been hailed as heroes instead of being vilified for allegedly assaulting Abed, who was in custody during the alleged Sept. 1 incident.

“Al Qaeda’s own handbook instructs their operatives to allege detainee abuse if detained by American forces,” Burton’s letter says. “We’ve seen repeated cases of this since the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan began.”

“General, surely you agree that we are in a war that we must win,” says the Burton letter. “Our military personnel are putting their lives on the line every day trying to track down terrorists who want to indiscriminately kill Americans. Our troops and our SEALs need to be bold and decisive in combat; not looking over their shoulder fearing legal jeopardy for every action or gesture.”

The letter from the congressmen to Gen. Cleveland may have more chance of succeeding than the letter from the congressmen to Defense Secretary Gates.

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it is the “convening authority” who has the power to take action in a court martial. In this case, that is Gen. Cleveland. While Gates technically may have the authority to get involved, the exercise of that authority is complicated by a military court rule called “unlawful command influence.” The rule says that no high ranking commander–such as Secretary Gates–may interfere with a court martial or military tribunal conducted by a lower level commander–such as Gen. Cleveland–regarding “functions of the court-martial or tribunal or such persons in the conduct of the proceedings.”

Secret reports, Secret budgets, Secret operations, Secret courts … A Secret Government!

Dec. 15, 2009

Boiling Frogs

Tips to:  Count us Out

By Sibel Edmonds
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. — Patrick Henry

As stated by Patrick Henry with conviction and passion, a democratic government will not last if its operations and policies are not visible to its public. The foundation of our democratic republic is supposed to be based on an open and accountable government. Transparency is what enables accountability.

For several decades post 1945, under the guise of the Cold War, with the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency and an aggressive foreign policy based on overt and covert intervention abroad, the seeds of excessive secrecy were planted, aggressively nurtured, and taken to heights not imaginable in our founding fathers’ vision of transparent and accountable government. Although the Watergate Scandal brought a short-lived wave of awakening, and to a certain degree defiance, by getting Americans to question the extent of and the real need for governmental secrecy, the subsequent political movements were eventually halted with no real action ever taken, thanks to a Congress unwilling to truly exercise its oversight authority over the intelligence community.

With the September 11 Terrorist Attacks the establishment had all it needed to take government secrecy to new heights where neither the Constitution nor the separation of powers would matter or be applicable. These new heights could never be reached in a functioning and live democracy, nor could they be sustained and flourish without a home marked by all the characteristics of a police state. Those new heights were indeed reached, and they surely have been not only sustained, but actually increased; notch by notch. Waving the national security flag nonstop, reminding us on a daily basis of some vague boogiemen terrorists who may be hiding under our beds, drilling the words terror-terrorists-terrorism every hour, did the magic; thanks to the US Media.

Let’s examine some of these new heights of secrecy we’ve reached and appear to have accepted:

The Cost

For the fiscal year 2005, based on an official report released by the National Archives, the total security classification cost estimates for Government was $7.7 billion. This figure represents costs provided by 41 executive branch agencies, including the Department of Defense. But it does not include the cost estimates of the CIA, which is classified by the agency. Here is the breakdown:

Personnel Security = $1.15 Billion
Physical Security = $1 Billion
Information Security = $4 Billion

Information Technology = $3.6 Billion
Classification Management = $310 Million
Declassification = $57 Million

Professional Education and Training = $219 Million
Security Management and Planning = $1.2 Billion
Unique = $6.6 Million

Total= $7.7 Billion

Continued

New Ad – Obama is an Unconstitutional Illegal Putative President – 14 Dec 2009 Issue of the Washington Times National Weekly Edition – page 15

Dec. 15, 2009

The Betrayal

A Place to Ask Questions To Get the Right Answers published

New Ad – Obama is an Unconstitutional Illegal Putative President – 14 Dec 2009 Issue of the Washington Times National Weekly Edition – page 15

http://www.scribd.com/doc/24087943/Obama-an-Unconstitutional-Illegal-President-20091214-Issue-Wash-Times-Natl-Wkly-pg-15

Obama is a usurper. Obama is an unconstitutional illegal putative president. See this 14 Dec 2009 issue of the Washington Times National Weekly edition – pg 15. To be a “natural born Citizen” as is required in the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, the person must be born in the country to parents who both are Citizens of the country when the child was born. Obama’s father was a British Subject when Obama was born in 1961. Obama’s father was never a U.S. Citizen nor was he even an immigrant to the USA.

We are a nation of immigrants but Obama Sr. was not one. And under the British Nationality Act of 1948 and international law, Obama (Jr.) was also born a British Subject and thus is a dual-citizen Citizen to this day, if he was born in Hawaii as he claims. To date, he has not conclusively proved exactly where he was born to any investigative controlling legal authority. Photoshop’d digital images and pictures of computerized summary data put on the internet proffered by Obama proves nothing. Computerized records say his birth was “registered” in the Hawaii birth system. That computer data registration record could have been based on false birth location registration testimony by a family member using a simple mail-in form available in 1961. GIGO – false location of birth registration in yields false data out today on a computer print out. The original “ribbon copy” long-form birth records with the names and signatures of medical attendants and of witnesses, if any, to the alleged birth in Hawaii must be examined by experts as well as all his other hidden and sealed records of his early life. If he was born in Kenya as his relatives and news account there claim, then Obama could even be an illegal alien since his mother was not old enough under U.S. laws at that time to convey U.S. citizenship to her child born of a foreign father if the child is born in a foreign country. Obama had dual allegiance at birth if he was born in Hawaii – British via his father and U.S. via his mother. How can a person born a British Subject and a dual-citizen ever be considered a “natural born Citizen” of the USA with sole allegiance to the USA per the intent of our nation’s founders and framers, to Constitutional standards, for the office of the Presidency? He cannot. See the 3 enablers who have allowed this trampling of our Constitution and who will allow our Liberty to be destroyed if we do not put an end to this usurpation by Obama. Let others know about this. Pass this on to friends and family. Send it to your Congress person. Write letters to the editors of your newspapers. And if you personally know any federal Judge anywhere, use your 1st amendment freedom of speech while you still have it. Tell them what a disgrace the federal judicial system has become in this matter too. Show them the current new ad above and this quote by Chief Justice John Marshall ad too and other ads in our series. Synergy at work! If we all do a little, together we will accomplish a lot! The truth and our Constitution will win in the end if we all do our part. If not, the future of our nation is in great danger.