Muslim Persecution of Christians: January 2012

'Good Muslims Cannot Convert to Christianity'

 by Raymond Ibrahim

- She was flogged -- given 40 lashes as hundreds of Muslim spectators jeered -- for embracing a "foreign religion."

- The happy cheers of Christian children singing carols "became terrified whimpers" when four Muslims, one of them with an axe, barged into the church, slapped the children, wrecked the furniture, and kicked the altar -- for "disturbing their prayers."

The beginning of the New Year saw only an increase in the oppression of Christians under Islam, from Nigeria, where an all-out jihad has been declared in an effort to eradicate the Muslim north of all Christians, to Europe, where Muslim converts to Christianity are still hounded and attacked as apostates. According to the Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, "The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it's increasing year by year"; in our life time alone, he predicts "Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt."

An international report found that Muslim nations make up nine out of the top ten countries where Christians face the "most severe" persecution. In response to these findings, a Vatican spokesman said that "Among the most serious concerns, the increase in Islamic extremism merits special attention. Persons and organizations dedicated to extremist Islamic ideology perpetrate terrible acts of violence in many places throughout the world: the Boko Haram sect in Nigeria is but one example. Then there is the climate of insecurity that unfortunately in some countries accompanies the so-called "Arab spring"—a climate that drives many Christians to flee and even to emigrate."

Categorized by theme, January's batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity of anecdote.

What Kind of Extradition is This?

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


PJ Media has a troubling story about a Saudi man arrested in Malaysia and put on a Saudi plane back to his home country, where he faces a death sentence for apostasy.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/sharia%E2%80%99s-global-reach-a-liberal-muslim-extradited-to-possible-beheading/

The article probably does not contain all the facts. It is possible, indeed probable, that this was done outside normal extradition process. Interpol involvement would be doubtful and very troubling since they are not supposed to be involved in helping enforce this kind of "crime".

Many countries will cooperate in such a way as to deport the person in question in a more informal manner. For example, the person, if charged with a minor offense, could be ordered by the court to be deported. That might allow the person to go to whichever country he or she chooses. However, if the person's own country cancels his or her passport, that limits the choices to owns own country. When I was with DEA in Thailand, I saw cases where an American wanted in the US on federal drug charges, was arrested by the Thai cops for some small infraction then ordered deported by the court. At the same time, the suspect's passport was stamped by the US Embassy as being valid only for travel back to the US. At that point, the person was taken to the airport by Thai police and put on a plane back to the US. By an amazing coincidence, he happened to be seated next to a couple of DEA agents-in one such case, yours truly.

However, there is a huge difference between an international drug trafficker and one who is guilty of apostasy or blasphemy. This case is one that no other country should have participated in.

Keep in mind that if the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation within the UN has its way, you might see more incidents like this. It is an example of what we call creeping Shariah.

Obama Gives 7 Oil-Rich Islands to Russia

Stolen from Maggie's Notebook

It appears Congress had nothing to do with this 7-island giveaway with tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich seabeds. The Department of the Interior says these islands are a source of BILLIONS of barrels of oil. Our president and the State Department can just give away American sovereign land – Alaskan land. A story like this leaves me speechless. I’ll let Joe Miller, a former US Senate candidate from Alaska, do the talking:

World Net Daily (read the entire story here including the American historical connection to these islands):

Part of Obama’s apparent war against U.S. energy independence includes a foreign-aid program that directly threatens my state’s sovereign territory. Obama’s State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. Yes, to the Putin regime in the Kremlin.

The seven endangered islands in the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea include one the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. The Russians are also to get the tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich seabeds surrounding the islands. The Department of Interior estimates billions of barrels of oil are at stake.

The State Department has undertaken the giveaway in the guise of a maritime boundary agreement between Alaska and Siberia. Astoundingly, our federal government itself drew the line to put these seven Alaskan islands on the Russian side. But as an executive agreement, it could be reversed with the stroke of a pen by President Obama or Secretary Clinton.

The agreement was negotiated in total secrecy. The state of Alaska was not allowed to participate in the negotiations, nor was the public given any opportunity for comment. This is despite the fact the Alaska Legislature has passed resolutions of opposition – but the State Department doesn’t seem to care.

The imperiled Arctic Ocean islands include Wrangell, Bennett, Jeannette and Henrietta. Wrangell became American in 1881 with the landing of the U.S. Revenue Marine ship Thomas Corwin. The landing party included the famed naturalist John Muir. It is 3,000 square miles in size.

Northwest of Wrangell are the DeLong Islands, named for George Washington DeLong, the captain of USS Jeannette. Also in 1881, he discovered and claimed these three islands for the United States. He named them for the voyage co-sponsor, New York City newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett. The ship’s crew received a hero’s welcome back in Washington, and Congress awarded them gold medals.

In the Bering Sea at the far west end of the Aleutian chain are Copper Island, Sea Lion Rock and Sea Otter Rock. They were ceded to the U.S. in Seward’s 1867 treaty with Russia.

The State Department’s maritime agreement is a loser – it gives us nothing in return for giving up Alaska’s sovereign territory and invaluable resources. We won the Cold War and should start acting like it.

I actually believe that President Barack Hussein Obama hates the United States.  Why else is he destroying our military, eliminating our nuclear weapons, taking parental choices from us.  Another 4 years of Obama and there will be no United States.

The Water Turns To Blood

Stolen From The Elder of Ziyon

For those people looking to signs from Heaven pointing to an upcoming Apocalypse, this might point the way.

Beirut River Mysteriously Runs Blood Red

BEIRUT: The Beirut River mysteriously turned blood red Wednesday after a stream of unidentified red liquid began pouring from the southern bank of the river in Furn al-Shubbak. The source of the liquid had yet to be determined Wednesday evening, as the river continued to empty the red-colored water into the Mediterranean Sea.

Government and local officials rushed to the scene at the Chevrolet crossing of Furn al-Shubbak Wednesday morning in an attempt to locate the sewage canal that was dumping the red-colored water but they were unable to locate the source. Accusations were traded among officials from the municipalities of Hadath, Hazmieh, Sin al-Fil, Furn al-Shubbak and Shiyah.

Eyewitnesses working in the area told The Daily Star this was not the first time the river had turned a different color. Several business owners around the Chevrolet crossing said that colored water pours into the river roughly every two months but no one pays attention to it.It was the quantity and brightness of the red liquid that grabbed the attention of many passersby and commuters on different bridges in the city Wednesday.

Environment Minister Nazem Khoury said the source of the water was likely from Hazmieh or Baabda.

“I call on the municipalities of Hazmieh and Baabda to cooperate swiftly to find the source of the pollution and its type,” Khoury said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, Khoury sent an environmental team to the area to examine the water. The team, headed by ministry official Bassam Sabbagh, took a sample of the water to determine its composition and whether it contained dangerous pollutants.

The samples will be examined Thursday because state laboratories were already closed by the time the sample was taken. “The sample we took will be examined tomorrow [Thursday] morning ... and we will know whether it is blood being mixed with water or if it is some sort of a color dumped in it,” said Sabbagh.

A similar incident took place in the Chinese Jian River last December after a factory illegally dumped red dye into the river, which is located in the northern Chinese province of Henan.

Some cities use non-toxic dyes to color rivers on special occasions. In Chicago, the river is dyed green every year in the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day.

According to Sabbagh, test results will help the ministry determine whether the substance is a chemical pollutant or blood from a nearby slaughterhouse.

“First we thought it was blood, but it seems like it is a kind of coloring dumped by a factory,” said Sabbagh, who also said that the test to determine the type of the chemical would take a week.

Sabbagh said the municipality and other ministries should help the Environment Ministry in its investigation. “We need the help of the local officials to have a clear idea of the sewage network in the region,” he said.

According to Sabbagh, who heads the ministry’s Environmental Pollution Control Office, maps of the sewage network would help officials locate the source of the red-colored water.

“After finding the source, it would be a matter of hours to get to the factory and the area where the [colored] water is originating,” said Sabbagh adding that swift action would be taken against those responsible for it.

Saad Elias, an adviser to the environment minister, did not rule out the possibility that a slaughterhouse could be behind the red color.

“After going through several phases of butchering at the slaughterhouses, they store huge amounts of blood and animal parts in containers ... they might have dumped them into a sewage canal,” said Elias.

“The ministry will definitely investigate this matter because our role is to prevent pollution,” he added.

Meanwhile, local officials in the area suggested that a paint factory could be responsible for the incident. “There are several paint factories in Hadath,” said an official from the Shiyah municipality.

As officials tried to determine the source and the nature of the substance in the river, the Beirut prosecutor assigned the Internal Security Forces to launch an investigation into the matter.

Source

The Lebanese should prepare for the next 2 plagues:  Frogs and Lice.  And they should discover fast what the Jews want from them.  And then give it to them.

We Said WHAT?

For days the liberals have cried that Catholic Charities support Obama's compromise on the Birth Control/Abortion issue.  Planned Parenthood keeps crying that the Catholic Charities support their cause.  I have even heard these idiot talking heads proclaiming that the Jesuits were supporting both Birth Control AND Abortion.

Today Catholic Charities spoke out:

A leading Catholic charity group wants the public to know it has not endorsed the Obama administration's latest policy requiring free contraceptive coverage for employees, despite "mischaracterizations in the media."

Catholic Charities USA has occasionally been cited as a supporter of the new policy, after the administration announced last week it would no longer require religious organizations to directly offer contraceptive coverage to workers. That's almost certainly because the White House listed the group on an official blog that cited "praise from a wide range of individuals and organizations" for the policy change.

Along with statements from Planned Parenthood and other supporters was a brief statement from Catholic Charities. The group said at the time that it "welcomes the administration's attempt to meet the concerns of the religious community" and looks forward to reviewing the final language.

"We are hopeful that this is a step in the right direction," the group said.

But the organization has since posted a clarification on its website, after that statement was interpreted by some as an endorsement.

"We have not endorsed the accommodation to the HHS mandate that was announced by the administration last Friday," the group said.

Rather, the group said it would "unequivocally share the goal" of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to "uphold religious liberty."

"Any representation to the contrary is false," Catholic Charities said.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has voiced serious concerns with the new policy.

The policy change would let religious institutions decline to offer the coverage, but would require insurance companies to then offer that coverage directly to workers. Groups like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops want a broader exemption.

Conference head Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan said in an interview with The Association Press that U.S. bishops will work in support of legislation that would give any employer the ability to deny contraceptive coverage on religious or moral grounds.

Source

The left now is sitting with egg on their faces.  I wonder if voting for Obama will become a Mortal Sin punishable by excommunication.  Nice idea though.

The Point of No Return

Mr. Paine argues that November 6, 2012 will determine America's future or lack of one.

Why I Don't Support the Palestinians

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/



Amid all the propaganda against Israel going on within American and European academia, you might think that the Palestinians were the ultimate victims of brutality, occupation, and apartheid. I don't buy it. However, rather than defend Israel's security measures, which I have already done many times, I want to express here why I have so little sympathy for the Palestinians.

All during my adult life, I have been reading and hearing about Palestinian terror since the 1960s. First it was the airplane hijackings. Then it was the Munich massacre during the 1972 Olympics. There have been too many to count. When I was living in Italy in the 1980s, there was the Achille Lauro takeover in which Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly American Jew, was killed in front of his wife and thrown overboard in his wheelchair. There were the simultaneous attacks on Rome and Vienna airports, in which random victims were killed. Yes, the Palestinians have been not only content to kill Israelis, but Americans and Westerners in general.

When 9-11 happened, what did Palestinians do? They danced in the streets and passed out candy, just as they have done when terrorists blew up Israeli buses and pizza parlors killing civilians, women and children. They passed out candy when an entire Jewish family was slaughtered in their home in the West Bank including a 3- month-old infant sleeping in a crib.

The problem is that the Palestinians have hitched their wagon to blood-thirsty leaders like Yasser Arafat, Hamas and Hezbollah. They don't really want a two-state solution and peace with Israel. They want it all-"from the river to the sea". To this day, they continue to lob rockets into southern Israel, hitting schoolyards.

In Gaza, Hamas rejects peace talks. They want every last Jew driven from the Holy Land and the establishment of a Muslim state. Their very charter quotes the hadith that talks of the "last Jew hiding behind a tree and calling to the Muslim to come and kill him." To this day, they continue to lob rockets into southern. Israel hitting schoolyards where children play. Meanwhile, the so-called moderate Palestinian Authority features a news media that demonizes Jews as apes and monkeys. How is Israel supposed to sit down and negotiate with that?

In the face of all this, liberal Westerners, radical academics and gullible students have been brainwashed into thinking that Israel is the aggressor. As for the terrorism, they ignore it or call it "legitimate resistance". Our problem in the West is that we have lost our moral compass.

Yes, I want to see an eventual settlement that will lead to peace, but I am skeptical. The Palestinians have not demonstrated that they can even run a country-let alone one that would live in peace with Israel. It is easy to speak of a Palestinian nation, but once nationhood is granted, it has the sovereign power to make its own alliances with radical nations like Iran and receive shipments of God knows what. Who needs the establishment of another outlaw state?

Finally, I am convinced that this conflict is not about land, rather it is about religion. The Arab world will not accept a Jewish state in the region. That is why they tried to defeat Israel by war in 1948, 1967 and 1973. They failed, but the Palestinian "cause" is just an excuse to continue that war by other means.

Until the Palestinians decide to forget conquest and renounce terror, I cannot feel sympathy for them.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

There is nothing to see here.  Everything is hunky-dory.  Just move along.  That is what the Obama Regime is telling the American Jewish community.

The U.S. intelligence community says there is no increased threat to Jewish personnel inside the United States, even as car bombs in two countries overseas targeted Israeli officials and the Israeli government blamed Iran for another series of blasts overnight Tuesday.

An FBI spokesman and a Department of Homeland Security official said their "posture" and analysis remains unchanged since their agencies last week issued a joint intelligence bulletin to local law enforcement across the country.

Threats against Israeli or Jewish targets in Asia and Europe, attacks on nuclear scientists in Iran, global economic sanctions against Iran, and reports of Israel's "possible intent to attack Iran's nuclear facilities" have "contributed to the perception of an increased threat to the Jewish community worldwide from Iran or its surrogates," reads the Feb. 8 bulletin obtained by Fox News.

But, the U.S. government has "no specific information that Iran or its surrogates are targeting Jewish organizations, facilities, or personnel in the United States," according to the bulletin.

"These recent events" and "recent heightened tensions with Iran" have not "significantly increased the threat" to Jewish personnel in the United States, the bulletin concludes.

That stance hasn't changed since last week, sources tell Fox News.

An intelligence source says he is aware of no information suggesting any current, credible threat to Jewish or Israeli institutions in the U.S., adding that Iran is "smart" and "they know that it's very tough to do stuff in the United States."

In Israel, police raised the state of alert Monday after a man on a motorcycle stuck a magnet bomb on an Israeli diplomatic car in New Delhi, India, wounding four people. In Georgia the same day, a bomb plot targeting an Israeli diplomatic car was foiled. In Bangkok, Thailand, on Tuesday, an Iranian man carrying grenades blew off his own legs and wounded four others, after an earlier blast shook his rented house, according to The Associated Press.

Israeli officials accused Iran of being behind the violence, and predicted the attacks were the start of a wave of assaults on Israeli targets worldwide by Iran and its proxy group in Lebanon, Hezbollah, The Associated Press said.

Despite the federal bulletin, on Tuesday, the director of intelligence analysis for the New York City Police Department warned that, "Iran's next target could well be on American soil."

"Indeed, as the West's conflict with Iran over its nuclear program continues to heat up, New York City -- especially with its large Jewish population -- becomes an increasingly attractive target," Mitchell Silber wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Silber noted that in 2004, the U.S. State Department kicked out two security guards with the Iranian mission to the United Nations after they were caught conducting surveillance of city subways and landmarks.

The joint FBI-DHS bulletin issued last week cited several recent media reports of threats against Israeli targets, mostly overseas, including an alleged Hezbollah plot to attack Israeli or Jewish targets in Asia.

That plot was reportedly disrupted in Thailand last month, and while media reports "suggested a similar threat existed in Europe ... we have no information to indicate that similar plots were directed at the homeland," the bulletin reads.

The bulletin acknowledged that Jewish personnel inside the United States "have been a focus of violent extremists in the past" and they "will likely remain a target" in the future.

"Economic sanctions and the threat of military action against the Iranian nuclear program suggest tensions with Iran are likely to continue, and we remain concerned Iran would consider attacks in the United States, given last year's foiled plot to allegedly assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States (on U.S. soil)," reads the bulletin, which suggested a series of "protective measures" for local law enforcement to take.

This comes two weeks after the nation's top intelligence official cited the foiled U.S. plot as evidence that some Iranian officials have "changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime."

"Iran's willingness to sponsor future attacks in the United States or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran's evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against the Ambassador as well as Iranian leaders' perceptions of U.S. threats against the regime,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in testimony to Congress.

Source

I am sure that if the same threats were made to the American Muslim community the response from the Obama Regime would be the same.  NOT!!!  Actually there would be hourly updates on the Main Stream Media.  Round the clock police protection and the National Guard would be on high alert.  Yet when it is Jews, it is nothing to be taken seriously.  Just lay back and relax.

Oops!

This Iranian idiot really didn't know what the hell he was doing.

A bungling Iranian bomber blew off his own legs when he hurled a grenade at Thai police outside a Bangkok school - which bounced off a tree and then exploded at his feet.

A bizarre sequence of explosions in the capital of Bangkok started this morning when a stash of explosives blew off the roof of a house occupied by three Iranians.

Two of the men quickly ran away while Saeid Moradi, who was seriously wounded, staggered out and tried to wave down a taxi.

Covered in blood, the driver refused to take him, and so he hurled a grenade at the vehicle. When police arrived on the scene he then tried to throw another at officers - but it bounced off a tree, landed at his feet, and blew off his legs.

Full Story

He really fell apart this time.

Wednesday's Hero: Sgt. John Batemon

Sgt. John Batemon
B-Company 304th Military Intelligence Battalion, 111th Military Intelligence Brigade



Sgt. John Batemon, B-Company 304th Military Intelligence Battalion, 111th Military Intelligence Brigade removes his shoes and shows off his injuries after the 12-mile march and range portions of the Best Warrior Competition.

Photo Courtesy U.S. Army Taken By Natalie Lakosil

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives just so others may get to enjoy freedom. For that I am proud to call them Hero.

Those Who Say That We're In A Time When There Are No Heroes, They Just Don't Know Where To Look.

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Univ. California Finds Solution to Hate Speech: Restorative Justice

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/






"Restorative justice. That's the ticket. Problem solved, right boys?"

Stop the presses! All those complaints about anti-Semitism on the University of California campuses are finally going to be straightened out. The UC president......



Mark Yudoff, has initiated a new program that will end anti-Semitic hate speech on all campuses forever.

Restorative Justice.



The UC Irvine campus paper, New University, has the scoop.

http://www.newuniversity.org/2012/02/news/conflicts-of-interest-restorative-justice-comes-to-uci/

Wow! We are even incorporating the Palestinian method of conflict resolution. How cool.

"They call it sulha."


I am certainly gratified that our UCI Diretor of Student Conduct, Edgar Dormitorio, has endorsed the program. He sure has witnessed enough conflict at UCI over the years-especially at those annual Israel Apartheid events every May.

I noted that the article said something about dealing with racial slurs and homophobia. I assume it means all forms of hate, no matter who the victims or perpetrators are. Anyway, it's nice to know we will have a civil campus this coming May. No more hate speakers will be coming, right?

Right?

The Evil Against Israel

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/



Hat tip to Vos iz Neias

So now Iran has unleashed its terrorists against Israel. Bombs have gone off targeted against Israeli missions in New Delhi and Tbilisi. In addition, four Iranians have been arrested in Bangkok after one of them blew his legs off trying to throw a grenade at cops. This is what the Islamic Republic of Iran does. We are dealing with terrorist nation run by religious fanatics.

http://www.vosizneias.com/101006/2012/02/14/bangkok-thailand-israeli-tv-thai-authorities-say-captured-iranians-confessed-to-targeting-israeli-interests/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+vin+%28Vos+Iz+Neias%29

And yet, the world seems to have this obsession with the tiny Jewish state that is simply trying to survive in a sea of sharks called the Middle East.

The events in India, Georgia and Thailand should educate the world about the evil that is lined up against Israel. But they won't learn. They will still go on with this brain-dead Boycott, Sanctions and Divest movement against Israel. They should have learned when Mumbai was attacked by a group of Pakistani Muslims who killed so many people and tortured, killed and mutilated a Jewish rabbi and his wife at the local Chabad House. It didn't matter. The Israel apartheid protests continued on college campuses, oblivious to what had happened in Mumbai-or not caring. They should have learned after the Fogel massacre in which an entire Jewish family had their throats cut by Palestinian intruders who also killed a three-month old infant in its crib. In the Palestinian world, they were celebrated as heroes and soldiers. But the protests against Israel continued anyway.

Meanwhile in Syria, a nation that will not make peace with Israel, the massacres continue as the world wrings its hands and talks about sanctions.

Obama To Require ALL Kosher Meals On Wheels To Serve HAM!!!

Newsbusted Anchor Jodi Miller has learned that President Barack Obama is going to require that all Kosher Meals On Wheels programs add Ham to their menus. Citing the commerce clause of the constitution as well as the separation of Church (Synagogue) and state, Obama will claim that non-Jews in the Meals on Wheel's coverage footprint areas should not be forced to miss out on "the other white meat." In a related story the president will also announce that Halal Meals on Wheels will be exempted from the above rule.

CNN....Cable Nazi Network?

Cross posted from: Holger Awakens


This article from Family Security Matters deals with how CNN fired all Jewish journalists last week but retained all Arab journalists in its Jerusalem bureau - providing more fuel for the fire that CNN's all too well know Arab bias to their reporting in the Middle East would reach a new level of slant. We have to remember that it's been the likes of CNN who traditionally has covered any situation in Israel or Gaza or the West Bank with a propaganda like bias for the so-called Palestinians.....we've all seen the simulated scenes of Pali casualties with 100% healthy children being carried from ambulances into hospitals, for example.

So now, CNN has made the decision that there will only be Arab journalists covering any stories out of the Jerusalem bureau - oh boy....we outta seem some real reporting out of the region now, huh?

Cable Nazi Network


It was first reported on the Dreuz Info website last Thursday February 9. The article “CNN Israel fired all Jewish journalists” stated in the first paragraph,

It is likely to provoke a wave of shock and indignation within the North American media industry, and it certainly will not calm down the controversy over the pro-palestinian CNN treatment of the conflict.

The article went on to explain,

What goes beyond good management is that CNN has fired four Israeli Jewish journalists (out of a crew of 8), and has retained only Arab journalists. Where, until now, CNN always sent a Jewish and an Arab journalist to cover information, now there will be only an Arab journalist. The local chief editor of the News Chanel is now Arabic.

An update added to the article listed the names of those fired and their positions,

Update at 8:30 PST: we just received the names of the four journalists that were fired:
Moshe Cohen, editor, fired on january 30, 10 years with CNN.
Izi Landberg, Producer, about 25 years with CNN, fired on January 30.
Avi Kaner cameraman fired on january 30, 10 years with CNN.
Michal Zippori desk producer, situation still unclear.

The story went viral and was re-posted on every Pro-Israel and Anti-Jihad site with each publication simply placing the original article from Dreuz or quoting the original article. Some of those placed a paragraph or two above the story venting their frustration and anger, but no matter how much I searched I couldn’t find any other story confirming the original story.

Those that are regular readers of mine know that I treat every story with a grain of Middle Eastern sand and like to triple and quadruple check everything before I state it as fact. So, as usual, check with the source. Where better to check out a story about CNN, then on CNN?

CNN reported the story as false, but the wording of their statement was questionable to say the least,

CNN Statement on Jerusalem Bureau
Rumors that CNN is only employing Arabs in its Jerusalem Bureau are completely false.
There are Israeli Jews working in CNN’s Jerusalem bureau.
The bureau chief, Kevin Flower, is not Arab as some have speculated.
We strongly reject any suggestion that the reorganization in the Jerusalem bureau is in any way based on the small number of contract employees concerned being Israeli, particularly given CNN’s long history of working with locals in the region.

The original article stated that all “Jewish journalists” had been fired, is CNN playing word games?

Yes, there may very well be Israeli Jews working in the CNN Jerusalem bureau, but are any of them “journalists” or do they have an Israeli working the door as security?

Also, nowhere did I see any reports claiming that bureau chief, Kevin Flower was an Arab. Yet CNN felt it necessary to state “The bureau chief, Kevin Flower, is not Arab as some have speculated”.

Perhaps that was due to the wording of the original story on Dreuze and perhaps their wording was misleading. Allow me to explain, there are many Arabs that are Jewish, just as there are Arab Christians and Arab Muslims.

Did CNN fire all Jews and only retain those that were not? CNN does not deny that Kevin Flower is not Jewish; they only state that he is not an Arab. Just another play on words when you read the CNN statement.

But let’s look at the CNN Jerusalem office for a moment. According to a CNN press release, the Jerusalem Bureau first opened in 1983. Kevin Flower had been the Baghdad Bureau Chief and was appointed Bureau Chief of the Jerusalem bureau on January 3, 2009.

What happened to those who held the position before Flower? Mike Hanna comes to mind, he was the CNN Jerusalem Bureau Chief and went to… Wait for it… Al-Jazeera. According to Al-Jazeera,

Mike Hanna (Doha) is a journalist with more than 25 years' experience of reporting from the world's hot spots; formerly, Mike was CNN's Jerusalem bureau chief, supervising and leading the network's ongoing coverage of the dramatic events in the region.

Mike Hanna is just one example, a great example at that, of CNN bias towards Israel. But it goes much farther than a previous Jerusalem bureau chief moving to Al-Jazeera.

If you bother to watch CNN and their reporting from Israel, to say it is slanted would be an understatement. CNN doesn’t use subliminal messages, no, they just slant the stories. When reporting on Jewish settlements they refer to them as “illegal” Jewish settlements. Often they refer to parts of Israel as “Palestine”.

There is no doubt about bias in the media, we have all witnessed it and I have written about extensively, but for CNN to fire all “Jewish” journalists from an office located in the ‘Jewish State’ seems to go back to the Nazi era of “Juden verboten” (Jews forbidden).

Yeah, anti-Semitism isn’t on the rise, it’s all just our over active imagination, but I wonder, will CNN bother to release the names of those that are Jewish who are still employed in their Jerusalem office since that would be the easiest way to put the story of bias to rest?

I doubt it, I’ll be waiting, but I won’t be holding my breath, I look really bad in blue.

Halftime in America: Chrysler Ad Parody

Stolen from Patriot's Corner

The original was done by Chrysler, paid for by a taxpayer bailout.

Congress Shall Make No Law Respecting An Establishment Of Religion, Or Prohibiting The Free Exercise Thereof!

The very first sentence of the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution.  Words that clearly spell out that the United States has no established Church and that each person is free to follow his or hers conscience in matters of faith.

Yet according to Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, the Free Exercise of Religion is not a personal option, but what his government wants.

The Obama administration on Friday finalized a regulation that orders all Americans—unless they work directly at a church--to purchase government-approved health insurance plans that cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives including those that cause abortions.

The regulation further requires that health-insurance plans must provide sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients without any fees or co-pay.

The regulation, issued as part of the initial implementation of Obamacare, requires Catholics to act against their faith--which teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion violate the natural law and that Catholics cannot be involved in them.

In a statement, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops immediately condemned the administration's decision to move forward with the regulation as "literally unconscionable."

The regulation will go into effect on Aug. 1.

In December, the Republican leaders of the House of Representatives negotiated a continuing resolution with President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Senate that allows the administration to fund implementation of the regulation. That CR, which funds the government through the end of fiscal 2012 (which comes on Sept. 30), expressly denied the administration the funds to carry out some regulatory activities but did not deny it the funds to carry out the sterilization-contraception-abortifacient regulation.

In announcing the final version of the regulation on Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the administration would allow some non-profit groups, which object to the rule on religious grounds, an extra year to comply as long as these groups file a certification document with the administration and inform their employees about where they can find contraceptives.

“Nonprofit employers who, based on religious beliefs, do not currently provide contraceptive coverage in their insurance plan, will be provided an additional year, until August 1, 2013, to comply with the new law,” Sebelius said in a statement.

“Employers wishing to take advantage of the additional year must certify that they qualify for the delayed implementation,” Sebelius commanded.

“This additional year will allow these organizations more time and flexibility to adapt to this new rule," she said. "We intend to require employers that do not offer coverage of contraceptive services to provide notice to employees, which will also state that contraceptive services are available at sites such as community health centers, public clinics, and hospitals with income-based support. We will continue to work closely with religious groups during this transitional period to discuss their concerns.”

Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, the archbishop of New York and the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was caustic in responding to administration’s extension and made clear that the church objects to the regulation as it applies to both groups and individual citizens.

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” Dolan said in a statement.

“To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable,” said Dolan. “It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically, this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty."

According to the Associated Press, Obama personally called Dolan to inform the archbishop he had decided to move ahead with the federal sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate despite pleas from Dolan, the Catholic bishops, and prominent Catholic lay people that the mandate was an unambiguous and unprecedented attack on the free exercise of religion that is expressly guaranteed by the 1st Amendment.

To force faithful Catholics to provide and/or purchase insurance plans that cover sterilizations, artificial contraception and abortaficients--all of which Catholics believe violate the moral law--is to force them to act against the teachings of their church and their consciences and thus violates the constitutional right to free exercise of religion, Catholic leaders argued.

When HHS Secretary Sebelius first announced the regulation in August, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops submitted formal comments to HHS calling the regulation an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty” and urging the administration to rescind it.

"Indeed, such nationwide government coercion of religious people and groups to sell, broker, or purchase 'services' to which they have a moral or religious objection represents an unprecedented attack on religious liberty," the bishops told HHS.

The bishops also told HHS that a so-called religious exemption in the regulation was so narrowly drawn that it would not exempt Jesus Himself from being forced by the government to buy or provide coverage for sterilization, contraceptives and abortifacients.

The exemption, the bishops noted, holds that a church organization is "not a religious employer if it (a) serves those who are not already members of the church, (b) fails to hire based on religion, or (c) does not restrict its charitable and missionary purposes to the inculcation of religious values."

"Under such inexplicably narrow criteria--criteria bearing no reasonable relation to any legitimate (let alone compelling) government purpose--even the ministry of Jesus and the early Christian Church would not qualify as 'religious,' because they did not confine their ministry to their co-religionists or engage only in a preaching ministry," the bishops said. "In effect, the exemption is directly at odds with the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which Jesus teaches concern and assistance for those in need, regardless of faith differences."

Specifically, Catholic universities, Catholic hospitals and Catholic charitable organizations would not be exempted.

The regulation never contemplated exempting individual Catholics, or other people who object to buying sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients on grounds that it violates their religion and their conscience.

The regulation, as originally drawn and confirmed Friday by the administration, applies to all Catholic lay people—unless they work directly for a parish—and all Catholic business owners.

Cardinal-designate Dolan personally met with Obama in November to explain the church’s objection to the regulation, but Obama has now rejected Dolan’s pleas and those of Dolan’s brother bishops.

After the final regulation was announced on Friday, Dolan taped a video in which he said the Obama administration was violating the right to free exercise religion guaranteed by the 1st Amendment and called on Americans to make their elected leaders reverse the regulation.

“But I am afraid the administration is on the wrong side of the Constitution again,” said Dolan. “Now it has ordered almost every employer and insurer in the country to provide sterilizations and contraceptives, including some abortion-inducing drugs, in their health plans. And it is requiring almost all Americans, even those with ethical and religious objections, to pay for this coverage.

“The administration offered a very narrow religious exemption to some employers such as churches, but the government will still require most Americans to pay for this coverage even if it violates their consciences,” said Dolan. “That is a foul ball by any standard. Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience. This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights. How about letting our elected leaders know that we want religious liberty and rights of conscience restored and the administration’s mandate rescinded? We can’t afford to strike out on this one.”

Feminist and pro-abortion groups were quick to applaud President Obama’s move to force Catholics to buy sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients.

“At last concern for women's health trumps pressure from the Catholic Bishops,” said Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “Millions of women who may have been denied access to birth control with no co-pays or deductibles will now have full access. I am especially pleased that college students at religiously affiliated institutions will now have coverage for birth control without co-pays or deductibles under their school health plans beginning in August 2012.”

“Women's rights and pro-choice groups, including the Feminist Majority Foundation, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the National Women's Law Center, the National Council of Jewish Women, the National Organization for Women (NOW), and NARAL Pro-Choice America, urged the Obama Administration not to consider the broader religious exemption,” said Smeal.

The National Organization for Women put out a statement thanking “the many activists and women's rights supporters around the country who flooded the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services with messages urging the administration” not to agree to the requests of Catholics to expand the exemption in the regulation.

NOW President Terry O’Neill described the religiously affiliated institutions denied an exemption from the regulation as groups incapable of having a “conscience” in need of protection.

“Last year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops intensified its lobbying campaign peddling a version of so-called ‘religious freedom’ that would allow organizations to withhold needed reproductive health care from women, as if those organizations were people with the ability to have a 'conscience,'" O'Neill said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic, defended Obama’s move.

“I strongly support this action by the Obama Administration to expand access to fundamental, basic health care and will continue to fight to protect the benefits of health care reform for the American people,” said Pelosi.

Source

I wonder what he will demand of religious group next?  Jews forced to eat bacon?  Hindus forced to kill cows?
Muslims forced to look at pictures of Muhammad?  Ignore the last one.  Obama would never allow that. 

We could see the EPA screaming about Full Immersion Baptism.  How that pollutes the water.  Why not?  If Obama says it is to be the tenets of faith, then it must be so.

The left loves to quote from Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Church. How the letter calls for a wall of separation between Church & State. But they don't quote the whole meaning of that sentence.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

A quite different idea.  The idea that government has NO PLACE TELLING A FAITH WHAT THEIR TENETS ARE!  That government MUST stay out of religion, not the opposite.

In this issue I side with the Catholic Church.  Not for the reasons of pro-life, in fact I am very pro-birth control.  No my reason is very simple.  The government has no place telling any faith what tenets of their faith they are to follow or be taxed out of existence.  No government has that right!  Will somebody please give President Obama a copy of the US Constitution and force him to read it!!

Reagan's Message for Israel

Ronald Reagan's words have never sounded more powerful than today while a monster is looming over the world.  The words are from Ronald Reagan's 1964 speech "A Time for Choosing."

Like America at the height of the Cold War, Israel wants peace and is waiting for a genuine partner.

Losing Our Jews!

It has been official policy of the Nation of Norway that their Jewish population is a minority NOT to be protected, NOT to be encouraged to grow.  In fact the 2011 Massacre were blamed by the Norwegian press on Israel and the Jews.

Norway's largest newspaper is afraid the country is losing its Jews.

"Norway is in danger of becoming a country without a Jewish population," the daily Aftenposten wrote in an editorial over the weekend, calling on the state to provide more protection for the Jews in the country who are affiliated with the two synagogues there – one in Oslo, and the other in Trondheim.

According to the paper, half of the membership fees from the Oslo synagogue go to security. That synagogue was the target of a shooting attack in 2006.

"Twice the congregation has applied to the Ministry of Justice for support to safeguard the Congregation’s buildings. Twice they have been met with a refusal," Aftenposten wrote. "Minister of Justice Grethe Faremo now confirms the Ministry has an intention to reassess the synagogue's security. This should be natural after the Prime Minister's Holocaust speech, about nobody being forced to feel unsafe about their religion in Norway."

You can be assured that if any mosque in Norway applied to the Ministry of Justice for support, they would have millions of Euros in funds, round the clock police protection and the Media in Norway would be showing expose` after expose` on the problem.

Two weeks ago Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stolenberg said during a speech on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that "without relieving the Nazis of their responsibility, it is time for us to acknowledge that Norwegian policemen and other Norwegians took part in the arrest and deportation of Jews. Today I feel it is fitting for me to express our deepest apologies that this could happen on Norwegian soil."

Stolenberg said 772 Jews were arrested and deported during the Holocaust, and only 34 survived. He also said that Norwegian Jews today say they are living in fear, "afraid to be visible as Jews."

"We cannot accept this in Norway," he said. "No one should have to hide their faith, cultural identity or sexual orientation." Stolenberg said Norway needed to be a safe place for Jews, and that "no one – no individual, no minority – should have to live in fear in this country."

According to Aftenposten, less than half of the country's Jews are affiliated with either of the country's two synagogues, and these congregations have lost 20 percent of their members over the last decade.

The paper put the number of Jews affiliated with the two synagogues at 819, and said "the numbers are dropping due to migration and marriage out of the community."

But, the paper wrote, some people are not affiliating because of the fear of being "visible as a Jews." If that is true it is a sign of Norway's "bankruptcy," Aftenposten wrote, adding that the country had a responsibility to protect people subject to violence because of their religious affiliation.

Source

To the Jews in Norway, the writing is on the wall. For over a century Norway has been screaming "Juden Raus!"  They are finally seeing the results of that policy.  Soon Norway will be the first nation in Europe since 1945 to be Free of Jews.  Won't their Muslim population be so proud!

Air Force Removes ‘G-d’ From Logo

And Replaces It With 'Miracle'!

The Air Force was pressured by Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers to remove any reference to G-d from the Logo of the Rapid Capabilities Office.

A Virginia lawmaker is calling on the Air Force to reverse a decision to remove a Latin reference to “G-d” from a logo after an atheist group complained.

Rep. Randy Forbes, (R-VA), said the Air Force removed the logo several weeks ago from the Rapid Capabilities Office. The patch included a line written in Latin that read, “Doing G-d’s Work with Other People’s Money.”

But after the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers complained, Forbes said the line was rewritten in Latin to read, “Doing Miracles with Other People’s Money.”

Forbes, along with a bi-partisan group of 35 lawmakers, sent a letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz expressing concern over the decision to remove a non-religious reference to G-d.

“It is most egregious,” Forbes told Fox News. “The Air Force is taking the tone that you can’t even use the word ‘G-d.’”

Forbes said his office contacted the Air Force and officials there confirmed that the logo had been changed after the atheist group complained.

A spokesman for the Air Force told Fox News they had received the letter and would investigate the claims.

Forbes said the removal of “G-d” is a “bridge too far in terms of the rights of men and women who serve in our services and their ability to express their faith.”

“But the significance of this is what the Air Force is saying with this move – that the word ‘G-d’ – whether it has any reference to faith or not, can’t be used in the Air Force,” Forbes said.

He said the incident is one of several in recent months that have caused him to wonder if the military is cleansing itself of religious references.

“It’s a very dangerous course to take,” he said.

“I am concerned that the RCO capitulated to pressure from an outside group that consistently seeks to remove references to G-d and faith in our military,” he said. ‘The RCO’s action to modify the logo sets a dangerous precedent that all references to G-d, regardless of context, must be removed from the military.”

Source

Get rid of 'G-d' and replace it with 'Miracle'.  The word 'Miracle' has the following meaning:

1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.

2. such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of G-d.

The Air Force did one better to the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, they just replaced the word G-d with an act of G-d.  The meaning is the same.  And they have the last laugh on those who would impose Political Correctness on them.

Wednesday's Hero: Sgt. Jimmie Begay

This Weeks Post Was Suggested By Cindy





Sgt. Jimmie Begay
86 years old from Sawmill, Arizona
1st Marine Division, 2nd Battalion
February 1, 2012



The Navajo Nation has lost another code talker. Sgt. Jimmie Begay passed away Wednesday night at Tsehootsoi Medical Center in Fort Defiance at the age of 88 from a head injury he sustained after a fall. Sgt. Begay enlisted in the Marines in 1942 when he was 17 years old.

Sadly there isn't much information on Sgt. Begay, but you can read more about him here.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives just so others may get to enjoy freedom. For that I am proud to call them Hero.

Those Who Say That We're In A Time When There Are No Heroes, They Just Don't Know Where To Look.

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.