Richard Falk at SDSU

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


Richard Falk spoke earlier this month at San Diego State University as part of lecture series hosted by Professor Jonathan Graubart. The event was videotaped by JJ Surbeck of Training and Education About the Middle East (San Diego). This was one in a series of speaking appearances in Professor Graubart's class. The first hour was open only to the class and the second hour was open to the public. Surprisingly, and probably by design, Falk did not speak about the Israel-Palestinian conflict-at least in the second hour. Below is Mr Surbeck's report verbatim.
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Well, the big event so many people were waiting for finally arrived: the infamous Richard Falk in person showed up at SDSU on Monday afternoon April 7, 2014, at the invitation of Jonathan Graubart, a professor of political sciences. Falk's reputation as an obsessive anti-Israel voice preceded him and prompted a lot of people to complain to SDSU President Elliott Hirschman to step in and rescind Graubart’s invitation. These calls were (obviously) ignored. To appreciate why there was such a brouhaha over his appearance there, we need to remember why Falk is held in such disregard. The following is a limited list of his many offensive comments or actions:

- In 2013, he blamed American policy, including its alliance with Israel, for the Boston Marathon Bombings. For that he was widely condemned by U.S., UN, and European officials.

- In 2011:

- he publicly endorsed Gilad Atzmon’s “The Wandering Who?”, a book widely criticized as anti-Semitic.

- he was condemned by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay for posting an anti-Semitic cartoon on his blog.

- he wrote that there was “an apparent cover-up” by the U.S. government over 9/11 and praised David Ray Griffin, a leading proponent of the claim that 9/11 was an inside job. His remarks were condemned by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and many others.

- he accused Israel of ethnically cleansing Palestinians in East Jerusalem, when fact the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem has grown by 280% over the last four decades.

- In 2010:

- he endorsed the one-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, meaning the elimination of Israel and its replacement with a majority Palestinian state. This would end Jewish self-determination, in violation of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states “All peoples have the right of self-determination.”

- even the Palestinian Authority itself called Richard Falk “a partisan of Hamas” and called on him to resign as UN Special Rapporteur.

- In 2007, he falsely accused Israel of planning a holocaust, or genocide, of Palestinians.

You get the idea. Truth and fairness do not belong in Richard Falk’s vocabulary or even universe.

The room where he was to speak was packed, every seat taken, and people literally lined the walls. Clearly there was a sense of expectation, and Graubart himself looked a little nervous. He opened the lecture by complaining that StandWithUs was being unfair to him and was clearly against freedom of speech because it tried to have the event cancelled. To quote him exactly, he said the following:

“…. The first hour is just me and the students going over class material. We’re not plotting anything sinister those first 45 minutes as one outside group has suggested. You can ask the students. No cabal. …. So, before introducing our speaker Dr. Richard Falk, I feel compelled to make a few comments on a campaign launched by an advocacy group that bills itself as “pro-Israel” against my inviting Dr. Falk to speak. And I put “pro-Israel” in quotes because I consider myself pro-Israel as well as pro-US, and don’t find what the group is advocating as pro-Israel. Although in its press release the group claims to be “unequivocally committed to upholding free speech and academic freedom”, its demands express the exact opposite message. It called upon San Diego State to either cancel the lecture, move it off campus, or change the format to a debate, something that’s not asked of any of the other speakers for this lecture series. To justify this call for censorship, the group cited a litany of attacks from others, selective quotations and interpretations, and a blurb Dr. Falk wrote for one book. As you know, Dr. Falk has given blurbs during his long career for hundreds, maybe thousands of books. What I found most striking, though, in the alert from this group is that at no point did they mention any of Dr. Falk’s many scholarly writings, or even the title of today’s talk, which is “In pursuit of human rights and global justice: hopes and frustrations”. Presumably the group’s view is, because they don’t like Falk’s views on Palestine-Israel, he shouldn’t be allowed to speak about any topic. I thank however the SDSU leadership, my colleagues, the SDSU student body, and many members of the community for their kind messages of support. And the fact they stand with us in supporting academic freedom, opposing character assassination and rejecting efforts at intimidation and distortions from outsiders.” Interesting but not at all surprising that Graubart didn’t see the irony of his own statement, questioning as he did StandWithUs’ own free speech rights to question his abuse of free speech and academic freedom.

Before proceeding to introduce Falk, he then made a very surprising comment, however, to inform the audience that Falk would not be speaking about Israel, but would follow the theme of the lecture’s title, i.e. "Building a Global Framework for Human Rights and Justice: Looking Back, Moving Forward”. Specifically, he said the following: “With that said, moving to today’s topic. It’s not about Palestine-Israel, but it’s about the final section of our class, which is reviewing the global historical record of promoting human rights and trying to prevent mass atrocities, and discussing what role the United States has played in this enterprise. We’re thinking about the moral responsibility. I have invited four speakers on the topic…. So there are few people more qualified than Dr. Falk to reflect on this topic.” He went on to paint Falk as a staunch defender of human rights, which is of course to be understood as a defender of human rights only when said human right are violated by either the US or Israel, and not at all from the myriad of other violators around the world."

That’s a trick Graubart has pulled before: two years ago he had invited Judge Richard Goldstone, of the famous report fame, and everyone was of course expecting the discussion to swirl around said report, especially in view of the fact that Goldstone had just recanted the conclusions that had been written under his name, but Graubart stunned everyone by declaring right off the bat that Goldstone would not be discussing the Godlstone Report!!! Why invite Goldstone then if it was not to talk about his report? With a sense of déjà vu, it became clear that this is one of Graubart’s manipulative gimmicks: invite a controversial figure (the more controversial, the better, since that spurs debates among the students, or so Graubart assures us, even if some of these individuals are loathed by the whole world), but then eliminate any possibility of real debate about the topics these guests are known for when the public audience comes in! And he’s the one complaining about censorship? His abuse of the whole process is shameful.

With that clarified, just as Goldstone had done, giving an interesting lecture on his otherwise rich career in the field of Human Rights, so did Falk, who started right off by reminding us that today was the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the hideous Rwandan genocide during which some 800,000 people were killed, most hacked to death with machetes. Starting with this grim memory, he then went on to describe in a relatively balanced way the conflicting forces at play regarding the necessity of intervention when large-scale massacres and genocides are known to happen. His well-known anti-Americanism peaked up a few times but he remained contained and managed to come across as a reasonable judge of the situation of human rights in the world. Most shocking was the fact that he stayed carefully away from the Israeli-Arab conflict, as announced by Graubart. Instead, he peppered his presentations with references to nebulous notions of “liberal humanism”, “global humanism” and “humanitarianism”, whatever that may mean. At one point he explained that they refer to “a system of laws that treats all equally”. Really? Given the remarkably unequal way he’s spent his life applying this lofty notion to Israel, it would have to be redefined as “Falk humanism: good for all except Israel". This was grotesque.

Nevertheless, the plot hacked by Graubart overall succeeded: Falk spoke fort an hour, in a slow, at times halting but deliberate tone that made him sound off as a reasonable man genuinely dedicated to the cause of human rights, or at least that’s the impression anyone not aware of his career highlights was left with. He projected his best Mr. Jekyll side, while keeping his Dr. Hyde, amply and repeatedly revealed during his six-year career at the UN Human Rights Commission (and long before) in check.

Then came the questions. One of Graubart’s students started off by asking an excellent one, i.e. “How do you deal with a situation like North Korea?”. To which Falk responded vague generalities along the lines that we live in a world that is state-centered, and there are regimes that are oppressive and not amenable to transformation, and the best we can do is hope that there will be “internal political changes to challenge the status quo”. With that highly unsatisfactory answer, he veered off into reminiscing how he visited South Africa just before Mandela was released, to point out that no one expected the end of Apartheid to happen as it did as a result of “soft power”. Why deal with a difficult case like North Korea when you can have so much fun harping exclusively and without impunity on Israel alone?

I pointed out the contradictions between the two sides of his persona mentioned above (although I didn’t use the Jekyll/Hyde analogy), and asked him how he managed to reconcile the two. He took it in stride and gently reassured us that there was no conflict since he’s been merely “following his conscience”. To be exact, he said: “… Anyone with a 10% open mind would come to the same conclusions regarding the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza as I have reached. But these issues, from the perspectives of international humanitarian law, are so clear that… as special rapporteur, as well as I’ve done to be an honest witness to what I perceived of that reality. Others of course would perceive it differently. I can only report as I have understood the issues and bring the relevant thoughts to bear on the facts. So I don’t find an inconsistency between what I have tried to express in this lecture and the kind of views that I hold over the conflict. As I said in the beginning, my vision of the future is a just and sustainable peace between equals, but it has to be based on acknowledgement of Palestinian rights, denied and deprived now for too long” . In other words, no he doesn’t see any contradiction between stating lofty goals about human rights around the world (even if he can’t do anything about them, like North Korea and dozens of other murderous regimes), and hammering mercilessly one of the few countries in the world that is actually paying more attention to human rights than anyone else. What a joke.

Another questioner, who identified herself as the mother of a student, asked essentially what it would take for action to be taken whenever genocides start or are even allowed to be under way. To that Falk had nothing better to say than pointing out the fact (accurate as it is) that without political will to do something, no one will do anything. A rather meek and discouraging answer coming from a figure allegedly recognized as a champion of human rights.

And finally, an obviously knowledgeable speaker in the audience asked how Falk could support an institution like the United Nations Human Rights Commission, where he was special Rapporteur on the situation of the Palestinians for the last six years, where the worst violators of human rights in the world sit without ever being bothered by a resolution condemning their behavior because all the attention is deflected from them to focus on Israel’s alleged violations. To that Falk said - surprisingly enough - that there was no doubt there was a massive manipulation from countries violating human rights to deflect attention from themselves. He went on to explain that one needed to remember that it was because Israel was created by the international community, exclusive of any other (he was referring to the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine), therefore that same international community has a special responsibility to right the wrongs that resulted for the Palestinians. The same questioner replied (correctly) that it is false to present the creation of Israel as unique when in fact all the countries of the Middle East were created primarily by the colonial powers, to which Falk responded weakly by saying that it was a matter of interpretation. Right….

So the real question to ask after watching (some might want to say enduring) this theater is: what was Graubart hoping to achieve by inviting not only Falk, but even worse, namely Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, better known by its acronym ISM, whose declared goal is to go on campuses and try to lure young Americans to join them and become human shields between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian terrorists. What is exactly the pedagogical value in inviting this kind of people on campus? It seems clear that Graubart enjoys being a provocateur, stirring the pot at every opportunity, but doing it in such a way that even if he invites people with questionable morals and motives, they come off as relatively moderate, thus undercutting the accusation that he invites extremists.

But no one should be fooled. If Graubart is so convinced of the sacrosanct character of free speech and academic freedom, he would have no problem inviting opponents of the views held by the people he brings to SDSU in public debates that leave equal time for cogent comments to be shared among the different speakers (at the same time, not separately). Anything less leaves him open to the deserved accusation that he is manipulating the academic freedom he is enjoying to brainwash his students in the political directions that he favors, and everyone knows what they are (hint: they are not on the right, or even in the center).

The tactics used by Graubart and professors like him all around the country have been well deconstructed and documented in a remarkable book called “The Uncivil University - Intolerance on College Campuses”, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in this crucial issue (link to Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/lbgj9wm ).

The question we're left with is what is the community willing to do to rein Graubart’s excesses, as well as others like him. Nothing, as usual (you know, let’s not rock the boat)? Or shall we gather together a task force with the goal of not allowing ideologically-motivated professors like him to dominate the debate regarding the Middle East? He is entitled to his opinion like all of us, but he has no right to manipulate the system the way he does with impunity to instill his political views on class after class of unsuspecting (and trusting) students.

I videotaped the whole lecture. If anyone is interested in viewing it, let me know (it is amateur work, but you can hear the speakers).

J.J. Surbeck
Executive Director

Training and Education About the Middle East
www.sandiegoteam.org
E-mail: info@sandiegoteam.org
Tel. 760-613-9993

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Common Core, Barbies and All Core Disciplines Getting African Studies

"Afro-centric" is the word being used for a Common Core curriculum for K-10th that has been a closely guarded secret until now, and still secret is where will the Afro-centric studies be taught, other than Chicago Public schools? At least one of the resources for student study are startling, as you'll see below. Almost as startling is New York State's statement about testing materials that include iconic kid-friendly ads. Feminists and the Left hate Barbie but she is showing up on tests, along with a specific root beer, and Life Savers which everyone knows causes cavities and obesity, Nike, Apple products and perhaps others.

Disclaimer: The Daily Caller is reporting the "closely guarded copy. of the curriculum." I haven't seen proof of it but The Daily Caller News Foundation says they have a copy.

The Afro-Centric Curriculum:

Do you remember Barack Obama once plugged thousands of educational dollars into improving black Chicago student's understanding of African "Rites of Passage?" It was a "movement" back them.  The "movement" driven by a young Barack Obama and a younger Bill Ayers with "terrorist" already on his resumé, was so important that The Chicago Algebra Project for Hispanics was turned down for a grant to favor the "Chicago African Village." What Hispanic child needs algebra anyway, but every child of African lineage needs to know what inspired the puberty rights found in African societies.

Common Core-aligned materials in Chicago Public Schools link to TheAfrican.com. To get to the heart of publisher "Malachi's" message, he once wrote as a black nationalist under the name of 'Grisso,' but now has had a change of philosophy and says he does not "disclaim or repudiate the truths of black nationalism...." but today Malachi describes himself as:

...an African of the Diaspora, brought to the Western Hemisphere as the result of the horrors of the Middle Passage and slavery, I am an Israelite, of the literal seed of the patriarch, Jacob, the father of the Israelites spoken of in the Holy Bible. That book contains Our Story, and those who today call themselves Jews are not Israelites of the physical seed of Jacob, but rather are impostors; see Revelation 2:9, 3:9; Daniel 11:14.* 

As I read through TheAfrican.com, not knowing how much emphasis will be placed on Malachi's "teaching," I can see another way in which America and Christianity will begin yet another fundamental transformation under the Obama administration. Will James Cone and Black Liberation Theology be a part of the study, or maybe Malachi already is?

The study is known as Interdisciplinary African and African American Studies (IAAAS), and is "designed to integrate African and African American Studies ACROSS ALL CORE DISCIPLINES over the course of the academic year. [all emphasis mine]

HB 2859..."every public elementary school and high school in Illinois include in its curriculum a unit of instruction studying the events of Black History..."

In the IAAAS, it is accepted that "culture and identity influence" who children are. It isn't enough to be in America and be American.

Almost every page, if not every page, states that the IAAAS is Common Core aligned, so here's the question: Surely, students must be tested on these years-long 'standards,' because Common Core is nothing if not 'standards,' so how does a child in Tulsa, Oklahoma pass this part of the testing?

Barbie and Root Beer in Testing Materials:

There have been volumes of discussion about Pearson Educators and their for-profit publishing venture, giving them heavy-duty control of America's young minds. With the arrival of Barbie on the scene, we see them freely strutting their version of the "free market."

“‘Why are they trying to sell me something during the test?’” Long Island mother Deborah Poppe quoted her son as saying, according to Fox News. “He’s bright enough to realize that it was almost like a commercial.”

Poppe said her eighth-grade son was talking about a question about a busboy who didn’t clean up a root beer spill. It wasn’t just any root beer, though. No sir! It was Mug Root Beer, a registered trademark of PepsiCo (current market cap: $129.7 billion).

Another question about the value of taking risks featured the now-hackneyed Nike slogan “Just Do It.”

“I’m sure they could have used a historical figure who took risks and invented things,” observed displeased dad Sam Pirozzolo, also of Staten Island, according to the Daily Mail. “I’m sure they could have found something other than Nike to express their point.”

Pirozzolo has a child in fifth grade.

Nike, one of America’s best known and most heavily advertised companies, boasts a current market cap of $65.01 billion.

A number of baffled and angry New York teachers have anonymously complained about the branding and much else on blogs and websites.

See if you can detect the absurdity of New York's statement regarding advertising in their testing materials: 

“There are no product placement deals between us, Pearson or anyone else,” Tom Dunn, an Education Department spokesman, told Fox News. “No deals. No money. We use authentic texts. If the author chose to use a brand name in the original, we don’t edit.” Source: Daily Caller

And you are the sucker who believed Common Core is state-led? No, I know you did not, because my readers always have their eyes open, ears hearing and brains working without a halo of weed vapor. 

Another Daily Caller article shows just how "AWFUL" standardized testing is in New York:

A third-grade teacher writing in Slate only as Anonymous ripped the grueling multi-day test for being a useless exercise in process of elimination that cannot be expected to make sense to a typical third-grade kid.

Instead of a question like: “What caused the character to (insert action here) in the middle of the story?” (which, mind you, is hard enough for an 8-year-old to identify as it is), there were questions like: “In Line 8 of Paragraph 4, the character says … and in Line 17 of Paragraph 5, the character does … Which of the following lines from Paragraph 7 best supports the character’s actions?” This, followed by four choices of lines from Paragraph 7 that could all, arguably, show motivation for the character’s actions…
As Anonymous notes, teachers are forbidden from exposing the low-quality test material—produced, teachers say, by educational publishing behemoth Pearson...
Students [4th grade] spent so much time trying to decipher strangely worded questions, only to discover that two answer choices sort of fit what the question was sort of asking,” she said.

While the multiple-choice questions were awful, a set of “vague and unreasonably difficult” questions requiring written responses caused even more misery.

The Oxford African Studies Center recommends their study materials for middle school and high school teachers -- studies with specific emphasis on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The Center suggests how teachers should think about the subject and how to structure lessons, and recommends this NPR video which, in my opinion, is not suitable for middle-schoolers, or even early high-schoolers. We think Chicago's murder rate is abhorrently high now. Wait until the IAAAS plays-out.

Under Common Core, we are told there will be no remedial courses as a student enters college or university, meaning all students will be capable of learning to read. Can't wait to see how that happens. Why hasn't that been happening for the last forty years? I believe the answer is that failing a student at the appropriate time -- when he/she moves to the next grade and should be able to read, but cannot, is no longer an option.

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie's Notebook

Eric Cantor Puts Head of Republican Party Virginia on His Payroll?

Congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA), majority whip for the U.S. House of Representatives, has quite a game going in his home state of Virginia, maybe a game ending in political life or death. Cantor, a left-leaning Republican, teetering on the right edge of a seat on the left side of the aisle (see it here in graph form) has reportedly hired K6 Consulting Group to manage his June primary and opponent, conservative anti-amnesty economics professor Dr. Dave Brat. Connected to K6 is Shaun Kenney a well-known, Cantor-supporting blogger on a site billed as "Virginia’s premiere conservative web site." Kenney was recently appointed Executive Director of the Republican Party of Virginia (RPV). Kenney's wife is listed as the "principal" of K6, Shaun's brother is involved and Shaun Kenney is registered as the owner of the K6 website. There is a palpable conflict here. Do you think the question "Eric Cantor Puts Head of Republican Party Virginia on His Payroll needs a question mark? Cantor's former political director has said Dave Brat “is probably the first time that Eric has had a credible opponent with a comparable education and background”. Convenient, huh. Put a blogger, Shaun Kenney, who has been quite favorable to Cantor in the past, and who formerly served as the RPV communications director, into the Executive Director seat of your state Republican Party, and then hire his wife's company to direct your campaign. Maybe Karl Rove worked this out on his white board.

Dave Brat - Eric Cantor

I could tell you stories coming from active Republicans in the Virginia Republican Party about Kenney's recent, worrying, political shift on his blog, but it's already been done here: Banana Republicans: New Head of Virginia GOP on Eric Cantor's Payroll.

Quoting Virginia Right:

Update 6:30 AM – Wednesday [April 16, 2014] – K6 Consulting dot com is registered in Shaun Kenney’s name. So what we find so far is that

Shaun Kenney

Shaun Kenney’s wife Melissa is the Principal Owner of K6 Consulting, Shaun Kenney is the owner of the Website Name yet we are told all payments to K6 consulting go to Shaun’s brother and JR Hoeft who do not appear on any of the documents I can find on the internet.
This is beginning to remind me of Eric Cantor’s sneaky amendment that made insider trading illegal for Congressmen yet exempted Cantor’s wife. And it begs the question that if Shaun Kenney is not benefiting from checks written to K6, why are he and his wife even involved?
Update 10:30 PM: I did a little research on K6 Consulting LLC and found some interesting information looking up the company information. This link names a Melissa Kenney as the Principal, which is Shaun’s wife. And I assume this is where the checks go.
K6 Consulting Group LLc
XXXX Venable Rd
Kents Store, VA 23084
Contact: Melissa Kenney
Title: Principal
Phone 434-589-XXXX

The Bull Elephant:

• The night before the FEC Campaign Finance reports were made public, Bearing Drift disclosed to the public that K6 Consulting does work for Cantor. It was an attempt to stay ahead of a story they knew would be toxic, since, contrary to the claims by Kenney on Breitbart today, Shaun Kenney had not been “very open” about the relationship between K6 and Cantor.

From Sara for America, now a Texan but was once a Tea Party founder in Virginia (much more on Cantor's background and "pathetic" voting record here):

Eric Cantor has drawn a tea party opponent that has some serious bona fides.  Meet  Dave Brat:

Brat has a few interesting factors working in his favor. First, he’s expecting support from some of the deep-pocketed outside groups that have long been frustrated with the current Republican leadership. Brat couldn’t speak on the record about which groups he has met with, but he tells NRO that the political figures and organizations that have indicated interest in his candidacy are “as big as they get.”
“I think it’s safe to say it will definitely rattle some cages when it comes out,” he says....
Why  would we want to challenge Eric Cantor when he’s next in line to succeed John Boehner, and is one of the most powerful  leaders in DC?...

The short answer from Sara is that Cantor is not interested in meeting with constituents or debating opponents. His wife is an editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, so constituents get an occasional viewpoint in the print media, and the free beer at his annual picnic -- that's about the extent of his contact with We the People, but he did have time to attend a fundraiser designed to destroy the Tea Party and conservatives - a tony event at an exclusive hotel on Florida's Amelia Island. More on that below.
I have it on good authority that Pat Mullins, chairman of the RPV has been asked to explain how Kenney was hired to a job that should be designed to further the choices of Republicans in the state of Virginia, to be fair and objective to all candidates, yet is on the payroll of the incumbent. A second question: is there an employment contract that should prevent this possible ambush of the people's choice?
If you are a conservative in Virginia, you are forced to fight your own party.

Around 5:45 p.m. Monday, March 24 swaths of conservatives marched into the Henrico Board of Supervisors Meeting Room in Henrico, Virginia—inside Cantor’s congressional district. They were there for the Henrico Republican Mass Meeting, something both Cantor and his conservative primary challenger Dave Brat, an economics professor at Randolph-Macon College, had been pushing their respective supporters to attend.

The meeting, Virginia activists say, had morphed into a surprise proxy battle because of a series of recent incidents in which GOP party officials departed from tradition and excluded dozens of conservative activists from attending local party conventions. The practice has been named “slating” and has come up in other states' GOP party chapters sought to exclude acolytes of Rep. Ron Paul.

At the end of the above meeting:

...conservatives nominated one of their activists, Russ Moulton, to serve as the meeting’s chairman. As the final votes were being tallied, loud cheers drowned out the count, but Moulton won by 5-10 votes, according to White.
Moulton opted to follow tradition and allow any Republican in good standing to attend the convention.
In an interview, Moulton ripped Cantor for working against conservative activists.
“I don’t understand why Eric Cantor is picking such a public fight with the conservatives in his own base,” Moulton said. “The Tea Party, the Liberty movement, pro-life conservatives, pro-gun activists. Source: Breitbart

Full recognition came into the bright light of a Spring day with that recent meeting, sponsored and funded by George Soros and the Republican Main Street PAC, a PAC working for nothing "main street" Republican:

Obviously, what’s reported was going to go on there on Amelia Island has been very disturbing to all of us who are very conservative in the House…we’re the people that apparently intended to be the target of what they’re doing on Amelia Island….
When the subject is, as it has been portrayed, that we’re going to have a fundraiser and help destroy the Tea Party, then that’s like saying, ‘gee, this goose is laying these golden eggs, so why don’t we kill the goose, cut it open and see what happens then, cause it’s just making too much noise. We’re tired of the goose honking.’ ~ Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX)

In today's political environment, when spending and corruption are rampant and Eric Cantor is attending meetings funded by George Soros, itching for amnesty, and with a conservative opponent making the path back to Washington no walk in the park, Cantor must have felt he had to do something. Integrity calls for Kenney to voluntarily step down from his new position at the RPV, for the RPV to simultaneously give him his walking papers, and for Cantor to publicly demand it.
Virginia Right says Dave Brat is the "Republican Eric Cantor Pretends to Be."
Ann Coulter endorsed Brat for very specific reasons:

Anyone opposing an incumbent Republican for any reason other than amnesty is a fraud or an idiot. Right now, immigration and Obamacare are the only things that matter. Since every Republican voted against Obamacare, that leaves only immigration.

Conservatives who ignore amnesty while carping about the debt ceiling, TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), the Internet tax bill or Benghazi are too stupid to help their country.

Freedom Works ranks Cantor at 43 percent conservative for 2014 and 59 percent for 2013, 37 percent for 2012.
I know people waiting for (shocked that it hasn't happened already) Shaun Kenney to be released from his position as Executive Director of the RPV. Just how powerful is Eric Cantor?
Make no mistake about it, all politics are NOT local. Every vote cast by Eric Cantor on Capitol Hill affects my family in Oklahoma and yours wherever you are. If you can help Dave Brat fight uphill against the establishment, visit him here, and visit him here even if you can't help. 

Posted by Maggie @ MaggiesNotebook

Hatem Bazian's Islamophobia Circus at UC Berkeley

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



"I'm a victim."


As advertised, Hatem Bazian, professor of something or other at UC Berkeley, has put on his annual Islamophobia conference at UCB. Here is the coverage from the Daily Californian.

http://www.dailycal.org/2014/04/17/conference-illuminates-problem-islamophobia-todays-society/

My comment to the online edition is attached.

"Islamophobia" is a tricky term to define. Is the phobia a hate or a fear? If it is a fear, is it irrational as Bazian describes it? What it should not be is a hatred of Muslims as people because most are decent people who are not violent. However, ask the Syrian Christians who are being hunted down as we speak if their fear is irrational. Ask the Coptic Christians in Egypt, whose churches are being burned and their children abducted and forced to convert. Ask the Baha'i in Iran who are being persecuted, arrested, raped, and murdered if their fear is irrational. Ask the Christians of Pakistan, who are being attacked and hit with bogus charges of blasphemy under penalty of death. In fact, ask religious minorities from one end of the Islamic world to the other if their fear is irrational. In addition, ask the Jews of Europe who are leaving in droves because they dare not walk the streets in Jewish grab lest they be attacked by young male Muslim immigrants.

To the credit of the American people, American Muslims are not subjected to this kind of treatment. This conference is nothing more than an exercise in grievance-mongering.

Gary Fouse
Adj teacher
UCI Ext

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Perhaps, Professor Bazian would like to complain to the University that I am an Islamophobe. If he can define it a bit more accurately.

MSU Hate Week Coming Back to UC Irvine (April 28-May 1)

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


With a little help from their friends

The Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine is bringing their annual silly show devoted to bashing Israel to UC Irvine April 28-May 1. I don't know the speakers yet, but once again, the MSU and their followers (and leaders) will totally neglect the horrors, hate and persecution going on from one end of the Islamic world to the other to focus on Israel-the one democracy in the Middle East. I am sure they will drag in at least one misfit Jewish figure who hates Israel to lend "credence" to the event. That's to refute any charges of anti-Semitism, a result of years of bringing in anti-Semitic speakers like Mohamed al Asi, Abdul Alim Musa and Amir Abdel Malik Ali and putting up images like this on their asinine apartheid wall.


(2008)

Is It True Department

1 Is it true that the Islamic Center of Orange County, headed by that famous man of peace, Imam Muzammil Siddiqi, is lending its space so the MSU can work on the mock apartheid wall?


2 Is it true that the UCI Irvine Cross Cultural Center is lending its space for the MSU to hold preparatory meetings and practice their famous check point acts? Does this mean that the CCC is putting its imprimatur on the MSU's week of events-and by extension the university itself?

Medea Benjamin, Code Pink and Caterpillar

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


Hat tip Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers


For those of you familiar with the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement against Israel, you know that one company that is a big target is Caterpillar. Not only do they do business with Israel, but they were sued by the parents of Rachel Corrie, an American activist who got caught up with the International Solidarity Movement and was killed in 2003 when she was run over by an Israeli caterpillar she was trying to block from demolishing a terrorist house in Gaza. The parents, represented by now-UC Irvine Law School dean Erwin Chemerinsky, sued Caterpillar in a US court. They should have sued the ISM.



Rachel  Corrie in Gaza 2003

The suit was so frivolous it was dismissed and that dismissal was even upheld by the uber-liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

But I digress.

This week, Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers ran a story that none other than wealthy Code Pink  president Medea Benjamin, who is also front and center in the BDS movement, was a share holder in Caterpillar

http://proisraelbaybloggers.blogspot.com/2014/04/multi-millionaire-bdser-medea-benjamin.html

"But we can explain everything," say Medea's supporters. (Not quite)

http://proisraelbaybloggers.blogspot.com/2014/04/code-pink-apologists-attempt-to-spin.html

Can you say "hypocrite"?

The Alhimidi Verdict: Some Thoughts

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


With the guilty verdict in San Diego yesterday, hopefully we can now put a close on what was a disgraceful episode even beyond the brutal murder of Shaima Alawadi. In 2012 when Alawadi was found bludgeoned to death in her El Cajon home, the family and CAIR rushed to call this a hate crime by someone who hated having Muslims in the community. A faked note was found by the body telling the family to get out of the country. One of the daughters, Fatima, spoke to reporters behind huge sunglasses and lectured the public about Islamophobia calling it a hate crime. The media went along. Coupled with the Treyvon Martin case, activists came up with the phrase, "Hijabs and hoodies" and made it their theme. At one point young Muslims from Orange County were prepared to travel to El Cajon to hold a vigil until abruptly told by San Diego CAIR to hold off until further details came out. Hold off because it appeared it might not be a hate crime rather an honour killing?

Yes, because it began to come out that number one, Fatima was involved in a family problem because she was the object of a planned arranged marriage and she had a boyfriend, which her parents disapproved of. Secondly, because Shaima Alawadi wanted a divorce from Kassim Alhimidi.

In December 2012, I attended the MPAC 2012 annual conference at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, which was generally an exercise in bashing "Islamophobes". There was one exception. A courageous young Muslim social worker from New York, Raja Darakshan, spoke. She told of the horrible torture-murder of a young Muslim boy by his step-father. She also referred to the Alawadi murder case, and recalled how much the Muslim community in the US was involved in the case when the accusation was a hate crime then turned away and went silent when it became apparent that it was an honour killing. Domestic abuse, she told the audience, was the biggest problem in the US Muslim community.

When Alhimidi was charged with the murder, CAIR and the media had egg on their faces. Now we have a verdict based on the evidence. This was an honour killing staged by an enraged husband, and it was staged to look like a hate crime indicting American society in the process for an act that has yet to be carried out. Had this murder been a hate crime, it would have been the first recorded murder of this type against a Muslim woman. Americans, with few exceptions, are not attacking Muslims. Contrast that with what is happening to Christians in Muslim countries as we speak. However, this is not the first case of an honour killing in North America.

Of course, Alhimidi is not the first husband to murder his wife nor the first to kill her over a pending divorce. An Orange County court yesterday convicted a Coptic Christian man of having his wife killed because she was divorcing him, and he didn't want to lose half of his assets. The difference we must ask ourselves is whether Alhimidi thought he could justify his actions according to his own values and why members of the family might have gone along with him-or did they really believe that an intruder committed the crime? I have my doubts. More likely I suspect (cannot prove) that they themselves believed there might be some justification in Alhimidi's actions. I should add here that Shaima's mother and other blood relatives were happy at the verdict and believed that Shaima had achieved justice. Fatima said in a statement that she still loved her father but believed he was guilty (I am paraphrasing).

And what does CAIR San Diego have to say today? Here is their website. Nothing. (I don't know if they have made any statements to the media outside of their website.) Similarly, nothing is on the CAIR national website as of this writing.

As for this hijabs and hoodies refrain, I think it is time we put that to rest.

Kassim Alhimidi Convicted of Murder in San Diego

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




Shaima Alawadi-victim

Iraqi national Kassim Alhimidi was convicted by a jury this afternoon in San Diego for murdering his wife Shaima Alawadi. When the verdict was read, Alhimidi began waving his finger as if to say, No". members of his family rose and began shouting, first expletives in English, then in Arabic. At least one arrest was made. (Alhimidi's son). Alhimidi then began yelling in Arabic as he was handcuffed and taken from the courtroom.

The below CBS News link has a video of the verdict and reaction (viewer warning as to language).

http://www.cbs8.com/story/25276375/live-stream-130pm-verdict-in-hate-crime-murder-case

This case raised a furor when it broke because the family claimed an intruder was responsible and that the motive was a hate crime. During the subsequent investigation, it was revealed there was strife in the family, first over an attempted arranged marriage for a daughter, coupled with Alawadi's desire to divorce her husband. It initially became a cause celebe combined with the Treyvon Martin case, and the phrase Hijabs and Hoodies became widely used to refer to both cases.

Gang Rape in France

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


Hat tip Gallia Watch


It seems that from one European country to the next, rape has become an epidemic. We see it in Sweden, Norway, the UK,  and also in France among others. The pattern is identical. The victims are native women or girls, the perps are immigrant Muslims and the resultant sentences are lenient. It is almost as if this crime is our equivalent of a misdemeanor in Europe.

Courtesy of Gallia Watch, here is a horrendous recent case from the French town of Evres, where one French girl was savagely gang-raped for hours by three Turks and a Moroccan. The good news is that they have been captured. The bad news is you should not expect these animals to spend too many years in jail or even be deported.

http://galliawatch.blogspot.com/2014/04/barbarous-gang-rape-in-evry.html#links

Europe has a serious problem, and is not responding adequately. Actually, I am surprised that the news media even reported who these savages were. Usually the reports only indicate that they were "youths" or at most people from Asian backgrounds, as if they were Chinese or Japanese. Asian background in this case is code from Pakistan, India, or Bangladesh (South Asia).

Another constant refrain is that the arrestees tell police that the victims were "whores" because all French (or Swedish, Norwegian, or British girls) are "whores".

Does this mean that all or even most of Muslim immigrants in Europe are rapists? Of course not. It must also be added that we don't have this phenomenon in the US. However, the numbers in Europe don't lie. A recent study in Norway reported that over the course of the year, 86 "violent rapes" occurred in that country-all committed by "foreigners". I will bet you a steak dinner none of those were from Latin America, North America or the countries we consider Asian in the US. (Far East, SE Asia, Pacific Rim).

This is partly the fault of Europe's acceptance without question of their own perverted definition of "multi-culturalism", which must not be criticized at all costs. The truth is that the people themselves have had enough. Their leaders, however, the politicians, the academics, and the media-and especially the EU will not bend. They know the Muslim world is watching-and they must not be offended no matter how many outrages the Europeans must suffer-no matter how much their societies are torn asunder. Just think: In some European countries, I could be prosecuted just for writing this piece. Yet in the UK, Anjem Choudary and his gang of Muslim fanatics can stand on a street corner and call for critics of Islam to be beheaded without penalty and nobody dares do a thing about it. That's cowardice.

Just like what is happening in France.

A Response to Corey Saylor on Sharia

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




Corey Saylor is one of CAIR's top officials in Washington. Recently, he spoke before a group in Maine on the topic of sharia law. He has written an almost exact version of that speech on CAIR's website, which is linked in the below text.

Louis Palme has written a critical response to Saylor's assertions that Sharia law is compatible with US democracy. I am posting it below with his permission. The only edits I have made were to put appropriate quotation marks and spacing. I also made two spelling corrections (where in place of were and correct spelling of Mr Saylor's first name.)
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CAIR loves democracy – so long as it doesn’t contradict Sharia Law
By Louis Palme

On March 22, Corey Saylor, CAIR’s National Legislative Director, gave a forty-minute speech in Vacationland, Maine, on the topic: Is Sharia Compatible with Democracy?  His dancing between likening Sharia to political democracy and hiding behind “religion” to oppose anything that didn’t fit his premise was enough to make one’s head spin.  See the text at: http://www.cair.com/cair-blog/entry/is-sharia-compatible-with-democracy.html  But before we get into his devious arguments, let’s define the situation for those who haven’t been exposed to Sharia Law and CAIR.

Sharia -- The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, ‘Umdat al Salik, (better known in English as Reliance of the Traveler), which has been endorsed by the U.S. International Institute of Islamic Thought as well as the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo, defines Sharia Law as:

The basic premise of this school of thought is that the good of the acts of those morally responsible is what the Lawgiver (syn. Allah or His messenger) has indicated as good by permitting it or asking it be done. And the bad is what the Lawgiver has indicated is bad by asking it not to be done. The good is not what reason considers good, nor the bad what reason considers bad. The measure of good and bad, according to this school of thought, is the Sacred Law, not reason. (para a1.4) (Note: Shafi’I  jurisprudence is identical with 75% of all four schools of Islamic law.)

Since Muhammad was the only witness to Allah and since Muhammad and Allah are partnered no fewer than sixty-four times in the Quran, the measure of good and bad in Sharia Law is ultimately what Muhammad did or said (plus the Quran, of course).  That is why Muslims keep copious accounts of Muhammad’s life and his pronouncements in the Sira and the Hadith. Only 14 percent of Sharia Law comes from the Quran. Less than one-third of the practices specified in Reliance of the Traveler address religious practices like prayer, charity, and fasting. The bulk of the provisions deal with commerce, inheritance, justice, and of course, jihad which is defined as “war against non-Muslims . . to establish the religion.” (o9.0)  Reliance of the Traveler was compiled in the late 14th Century, and it remains the primary source for Sharia Law for English-speaking Muslims.

Democracy – By its very definition, democracy is a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”  Neither the U.S. Constitution nor the individual laws take force unless approved by the people or their elected representatives.  The U.S. Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times to reflect agreed-to changes in the relationship between our government and its citizens over the past 225 years.

Corey Saylor  --  Corey Saylor converted to Islam in 1992, apparently in his first year at George Mason  University.  He earned his stripes suing deep-pocket companies like Burger King and Bell Helicopter-Boeing “when their actions or advertisements negatively impacted the American Muslim community.”  He actively opposed the renewal of the Patriot Act. Currently he is the National Legislative Director for CAIR – the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  Readers can draw their own conclusions about Corey Saylor as they read this report.  Suffice it to say that when he called on non-Muslims in his speech to be partners to “work together to establish our shared ideals of justice,” he was blowing smoke.  Note that throughout his speech Mr. Saylor cited provisions of the U.S. Constitution numerous times, but he didn’t mention a single specific provision of Sharia Law.  CAIR is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood’s HAMAS and the Islamic Association of Palestine.  The U.S. has declared HAMAS and Hezbollah to be terrorist organizations.  When Fox News reporter David Lee Miller asked Mr. Saylor to condemn HAMAS and Hezbollah by name in 2011, he refused.  His response was, “Well I recognize that you don’t like my answer to the question, but that’s the answer to the question.”

Sharia is a lot of things – In his Vacationland speech, Mr. Saylor complained that sharia “had been hijacked and turned into something scary.”  From his perspective, sharia was like recipe that has different results depending on who is cooking.  He even went so far as to admit that the actions and decrees of Muhammad have actually been, and continue to be, interpreted by human beings.  The flaw in this reasoning is that the sacred source documents of Sharia Law have not changed (and cannot change) since they were first compiled.

Sayyid Qutb, the ideological father of the Muslim Brotherhood, warned Muslims against losing sight of the final commands of the Quran:

"Some defeatist elements are overwhelmed by the pressures resulting from the desperate situation of present-day Muslims, who have nothing of Islam other than its name, and from the wicked attack by the Orientalists on the concept of jihad. Hence they try to find excuses by relying on provisional rulings and ignoring the true basis of the Islamic approach that moves forward to liberate mankind from the servitude to other human beings, so that they can worship Allah alone. . . This smacks of disrespect for Islam and Allah Almighty, resulting from a feeling of utter defeat. . . If the Muslims today, in their present situation, cannot implement these final rulings [in Surah 9], then they are not, now and for the time being, required to do so.  For Allah does not charge anyone with more than he or she can do. . . Let them fear Allah and not attempt to weaken Allah’s faith under the pretext of showing it to be a religion of peace.  It is certainly the religion of peace, but this must be based on saving all mankind from submission to anyone other than Allah." (Under the Shade of the Quran, Vol. VIII, pg. 25-28)

Muslims respect the law of the land – Mr. Saylor’s next defense of Sharia in America was that Sharia Law mandates that Muslims practice their faith while respecting the law of the land.  This is where Mr. Saylor throws political Islam and religious Islam into the blender.  He observed that sixty-two percent of Americans agreed that it was more important for the government to investigate possible terrorist threats, even if it intrudes on personal privacy.  He also cited a Cornell University survey where nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans.  But then he reminded his audience that Article VI of the U.S. Constitution prohibits any religious test for public office.  What Mr. Saylor glossed over in this defense of Sharia is that most Americans have no issue with the religious practices of Muslims, but rather their concern is over the political excesses of denying basic human rights to Muslims and others and waging eternal warfare on non-Muslims.  The supremacist political ideology of Islam commands in its final major decrees of Quran: “Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you.  Deal firmly with them.” (Surah 9:123) and “Make war on them until idolatry shall cease and Allah’s religion shall reign supreme.” (Surah 8:40)

There is nothing “unconstitutional” about requiring loyalty oaths for American citizens.  They were required after the Civil War and after World War II when Communists threatened to infiltrate our government. While loyalty oaths have been challenged in the courts numerous times, the last major loyalty oath case heard by the Supreme Court, Cole v. Richardson - 405 U.S. 676, was decided in 1972, and it upheld a requirement that the State of Massachusetts employees swear to uphold and defend the Constitution and to "oppose the overthrow of the [government] by force, violence, or by any illegal or unconstitutional method". That is why so many Americans took offense when Denver Nuggets player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf refused to stand during the National Anthem in 1996.

Mr. Saylor might have trouble explaining what it says in Reliance of the Traveler about respecting the laws of the land:
. . . areas where Muslims reside and there is a remnant of Islam’s rules – even if this is limited to marriages and what pertains to them, for example – are considered Muslim lands.  . . . in the light of which, it is clear that there is virtually no country on the face of the earth where a Muslim has an excuse to behave differently than he would in an Islamic country, whether in his commercial or other dealings.  (R of T, w43.5)
Finally, Mr. Saylor might be a bit uneasy about what Reliance of the Traveler says about America’s Christians and Jews:

"Previously revealed religions were valid in their own eras, as is attested to by many verses of the Holy Koran, but were abrogated by the universal message of Islam. . . It is unbelief (kufr) to hold that the remnant cults now bearing the names of formerly valid religions, such as “Christianity” or “Judasim,” are acceptable to Allah Most High after He has sent the final Messenger to the entire world." (R of T, w4.0)

Sharia is for the good of all humanity -- Mr. Saylor stretched credibility when he asserted that the goal of Sharia Law is to bring good to all humanity. This sounds like equal rights for all, n’est-ce pas?  Unfortunately, the actual provisions of Sharia Law make Mr. Saylor a liar.

· An Arab woman may not marry a non-Arab because Arabs are superior (m4.2(1))
· A virgin can be married off by her guardian without her consent (m3:13(2))
· The value of a woman is one-half that of a man (o4.9)
· The value of a Christian or a Jew is one-third that of a Muslim (o4.9)
· The value of a Zoroastrian is one-fifteenth that of a Muslim (o4.9)
· A woman’s testimony is worth one-half that of a man (Quran Surah 2:282)
· A woman’s inheritance is one-half that of a man (Quran Surah 4:11)

(By the way, Mr. Saylor stated in his speech that men inherit more because they have to pay the funeral expenses.  This is not true.  The deceased’s funeral expenses and debts are settled before the inheritance is divided up. (L4.2))

· A slave is worth ten meals (Quran Surah 5:89)

Look – Muslim scholars wrote a declaration saying there is no conflict between Sharia and the Constitution – Mr. Saylor thinks if he can produce a piece of paper that says there is no conflict between Sharia Law and the Constitution, then the issue will go away.  So he reminded his audience that in 2011 the Fiqh Council of North America issued a resolution saying “We do not see any conflict with the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. . . so long as there is no conflict with Muslims’ obligation for obedience to God [i.e., Allah].”  This falsehood has been discussed in detail elsewhere: http://www.archive2012.faithfreedom.org/op-ed/sharia-law-and-the-us-constitution/ Suffice it to say here that the two systems have very little in common.
Blaming all the evils of Islam on Al Qaeda -- Al Qaeda has become the favorite whipping boy not only of the U.S. government but also of apologists for Islam.  Mr. Saylor tried to stake out common ground with Americans by virtue of our common enemy. He declared: “The world view of violent extremists is a complete distortion of Islam. Islamic teachings clearly state that the killing of one innocent is the moral equivalent to killing all humanity.”  One would think that by now CAIR, of all organizations, would abandon that meme about “killing one innocent” because what is clearly stated in the Quran is that the edict applied only to the Jews, not the Muslims.  See Surah 5:32.  The Muslim punishment for those who oppose Islam is clearly stated in the subsequent verse: “[they] shall be put to death or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides, or be banished from the country.”

It would be hard to heap on to Al Qaeda all of the blame for such world-wide Sharia Law outrages as Female Genital Mutilation, forced child marriage, wife beating, honor murders, eye-for-eye retaliation, stoning of adulterers, and chopping off hands of petty thieves.  Nice try, Mr. Saylor.

CAIR cranks up the grievance machine --  It wouldn’t be a CAIR speech without ending it with a laundry list of what CAIR perceives as Constitutional violations that have victimized Muslims.  Never mind that everything Mr. Saylor citied is now discredited and forgotten history:

· Oklahoma’s SQ 755 anti-Sharia law, declared unconstitutional in January, 2012.
· Defeated Presidential candidate Herman Cain’s 2011 call for a loyalty oath for Muslim staff.
· Defeated Presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s 2007 call for Americans to “educate, engage, evangelize, and eradicate” to win against the Islamist enemy.
· Defeated Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s 2011 speech in which he feared that future generations would see our country potentially dominated by radical Islamists.

Getting back to the issue of the compatibility of Sharia Law with democracy, Mr. Saylor couldn’t ignore the fact that American Laws for American Courts legislation has proceeded successfully all across the nation.  By his own tally, there have been 37 bills in 16 states and laws have been passed in seven states.  He calls them “Anti-Islam” bills, but the American Laws for American Courts legislation have carefully avoided mention of any religion, and consequently, they have not been successfully challenged as being unconstitutional.  The Constitution actually states, “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” (Article VI, Clause 2) There is nothing “Anti-Islam” about the Constitution or about American Laws for American Courts. Instead, Islam and Sharia Law are blatantly and defiantly “anti-Constitutional”-- against the provisions of the U.S. Constitution and our nation’s democratic principles.

Mr. Saylor called on Americans to “debate differences while partnering on ideals.”  He claims that the differences between the ideals of Sharia Law and democracy are relatively minor.  Then why, Mr. Saylor, are states rushing to pass American Laws for American Courts legislation, and why is this effort so “Anti-Islam”?

If anyone is tempted to follow Mr. Saylor’s advice to “work together to establish our shared ideals of justice,” I would recommend that they first take a look at the actual provisions of Sharia Law as contained in Reliance of the Traveler (http://www.shafiifiqh.com/maktabah/relianceoftraveller.pdf) and see how many of those provisions, particularly those in Section o on Justice, would help form a peaceful, equal, and humanitarian society.
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To that I would like to add a couple of points. There is a section of sharia law called hudud sharia, which deals with so-called crimes against God. Among the offenses are adultery, blasphemy, apostasy and homosexuality. For all of these, the penalty is death. This is affirmed by leading Islamic schools of thought such as Bukhari. If you ask the leading Islamic clerics and leaders in the US ( I have asked a few), you get a lot of confusing answers. However, setting aside the obvious discriminatory language vis-a-vis women and non-Muslims, those four provisions right there would seem to contradict any claim that sharia is compatible with US law.

In addition, as Palme points out, the 2011 statement by the Fiqh Council of North America as to the compatibility of Islam and the American Constitution and Bill of Rights leaves a bit of wiggle room.

"....so long as there is no conflict with Muslims’ obligation for obedience to God" [i.e., Allah].

It is correct that Muslims are enjoined to follow the law of the country they live in if they are a minority. I assume that includes the above phrase. But I wonder what Mr Saylor would say if asked hypothetically what would or should happen to US law if Muslims became a majority in said country or countries. What about those hudud sharia provisions I listed above?

As always, I invite my Muslim readers to weigh in.

My Exchange With Richard Silverstein (He's a Blogger in Seattle Who Hates Israel)

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



Rule violation. Fighter in the white trunks is disqualified.


As previously described, Seattle blogger Richard Silverstein is a virulent hater of Israel who stoops to very low levels in attacking people with whom he disagrees. Two notable examples are Chloe Valdary, a black female college student who has the audacity to be pro-Israel and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In the case of the former, Silverstein likens her to Uncle Tom and refers to her as a "Negro", a term he use derisively against other blacks he doesn't like. In this case of Ali, he calls her an Islamophobe ignoring the fact that she lived as a Muslim. He refers to most of her claims regarding her life story as "all fiction".

I caught up with this character on his blog, Tikun Olam, when he posted a series of pieces lately attacking Ali, whom he went after during the Brandeis controversy. Below is his piece and the reader thread where I weigh in. Note that he twice deleted my comments for some rule violation (which appears to be effectively refuting him). I have long noted that Israel bashers usually have very strict rules when it comes to debate. I's a form of stacking the deck.


http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/04/09/hirsi-ali-says-israel-palestine-impossible-due-to-muslim-fanaticism/

When Silverstein first deleted my comment (April 15), he said I was off-topic because the topic was the Ali's comment about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Well, that was the title, but the post contained much more than that. What he deleted was that I told him before he admonished me for being off-topic he should admonish the other reader (Dieter) and himself because the post had contained a lot more than just Ali's comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which the reader can plainly see in the post.

Here is what I wrote the last time he deleted my words. This time, I took the trouble to copy it before posting.


"Wow. You have an interesting way of debating. When someone makes a point you can't deal with you delete the comment for an imagined violation of your rules. I assume you will do the same here, so consider this for your eyes only if you wish.

I took the trouble to pull up Submission to judge for myself if I agreed with Dieter's view (I don't). As for my comment to him about visiting those camps, no I don't want a medal. I went as a tourist and for my own education. I was trying to make a civil connection with him because even if I disagree with him, I respect his family history.

As for the MPAC conference, here is what I posted on my blog about it. You can read it and judge for yourself.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2012/12/mpac-convention-at-all-saints-church-in.html

As for any organization, I am a lone ranger. I have like-minded friends, and I cross-post with other blogs, but I don't work for anyone. I have my blog and I make no money from it.

I would like to close this thread because I have said my piece and whether you care to post it, I don't care.

What I have learned about you is that your critics are correct. You have an unnatural hatred for Israel and have allied yourself with forces that would destroy Israel and kill every last Jew if that's what it took.

In addition, you are a bully. I offer as an example Chloe Valdary, a college student, whom you denigrate as some sort of female Uncle Tom. You refer to other blacks with whom you disagree as "Negroes" . You are old enough to know the history of the word and what it implies when you attach it to blacks. And you call me a racist?

In contrast, I am a part-time teacher at UC Irvine and as a (non-Jew) defender of Israel and foe of anti-Semitism, I regularly challenge the speakers brought to our campus by the Muslim Student Union or SJP, some of whom say anti-Semitic things. But I would never single out an MSU/SJP student by name and attack him or her as you do Ms Valdary. I consider that off-limits because, after all, they are college students.

So feel free to read this and delete it as you wish.

BTW: I have actually linked your blog on mine. You can find it in the Fiction Section."

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Silverstein is free to set his own rules on his blog. I basically have two criteria for deleting comments. Racist attacks are out though everyone has their own definition of what constitutes racist. I may occasionally post such comments (which invariably come from anonymous sources) if I feel they prove my points especially as to anti-Semitism).Then I will take the time and trouble to refute them. I will also ban a reader if he or she personally attacks my character. (Hi, Lance.) Other than that, I post the comments even if I don't respond to all of them. I don't delete them just because the reader has effectively rebutted what I say.

As I told Silverstein, his critics are right. Not only does he have an unnatural hatred for Israel, he is also a bully. But he is free to come on here and respond. I will even waive my rules for him.

Blogging Will Be Light

Due to illness I will not be posting for a while.  My contributors hopefully take up the slack.

I pray that I will be back blogging soon.

Would Jew Believe This?

A young boy returned home from Hebrew school, washed his hands and sat down to dinner.

His father asked him what he learned that day in school.

The boy replied that the Rabbi told his class the most amazing story of how the Jews were rescued from the Land of Egypt and brought to the Land of Israel.

His father smiled and asked his son to relate the story the Rabbi told them.

"Sure Dad," the boy said.  "Now this story happened a long time ago, before the time of CNN.  Before the time of computers, and cell phones.  Before even TV.  I think it was in the 1920s or so it happened.

"Egypt was ruled by this guy named Pharaoh.  I think it means "Nasty Egyptian". And we Jews were his slaves. We didn't like being slaves and prayed to G-d to set us free. G-d heard our prayers and sent us a miracle.

"G-d  sent the IDF back in time to rescue the Children of Israel (I think they rescued the parents too.).  The Commandos diverted the Egyptian Army while the Children and their parents fled to the Red Sea (It was red because G-d turned the water to blood like in Zombie Killers 3.).  There the IDF built Pontoon bridges across the Red Sea for the people to go across.  When the Egypt Army tried to follow, the IDF blew up the bridges.

"Then this guy named Moshe Dayan (He is the head of the IDF, I think. Rabbi said he was G-d's greatest profits.) lead the Children of Israel (and their parents) to Mount Sinai where Moshe lays down the law, destroys the Golden Calf and leads them to Israel.

"But it took them 40 years because nobody had a GPS and Moshe would not ask for directions."

His father had a look upon his face that was a cross between total astonishment and WTF.  "Is this what the Rabbi taught you?"

"No Dad,"  the boy said.  "But you wouldn't believe the crazy story he did tell."

***********************************************************************

Actually I'm not sure that is not the correct story.  It could be giving that a certain Time Lord, his TARDIS and a few units of the IDF could have pulled it off.

Passover Rhapsody - A Jewish Rock Opera


Click here if the video fails to load.

But perhaps G-d did it this way:

From Chabad

After many decades of slavery to the Egyptian pharaohs, during which time the Israelites were subjected to backbreaking labor and unbearable horrors, G‑d saw the people's distress and sent Moses to Pharaoh with a message: "Send forth My people, so that they may serve Me." But despite numerous warnings, Pharaoh refused to heed G‑d's command. G‑d then sent upon Egypt ten devastating plagues, afflicting them and destroying everything from their livestock to their crops.

At the stroke of midnight of 15 Nissan in the year 2448 from creation (1313 BCE), G‑d visited the last of the ten plagues on the Egyptians, killing all their firstborn. While doing so, G‑d spared the Children of Israel, "passing over" their homes-hence the name of the holiday. Pharaoh's resistance was broken, and he virtually chased his former slaves out of the land. The Israelites left in such a hurry, in fact, that the bread they baked as provisions for the way did not have time to rise. Six hundred thousand adult males, plus many more women and children, left Egypt on that day, and began the trek to Mount Sinai and their birth as G‑d's chosen people.

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Or maybe not.  Any way that G-d performed the miracle of the Passover was the correct story. 

The KC Murders and the Campaign Against Israel: Seems There is a Connection

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


Hat tip PJ Media

"Jew journalist Max Blumenthal exposes and explains this attempt by a foreign government Israel, to buy the presidential election for the neo-con, war-mongering republican establishment.

Like I’ve been saying, the kikes simply do not trust a lame-duck black president with the name Hussein. Jews fear his re-election, thus this jewish Super PAC to defeat him.

Questions:

1) Will Ron Paul and his close supporters fight back against this alien super-PAC by telling the truth about jew power in the U.S. ?? It’s insightful and somewhat assuring that the above video news report was posted on www.runronpaul.com.

2) How will Hussein and his 45 million black supporters and the tens of millions of other liberals and anti-war Americans react to this jewish attack on their president and commander in chief ??

3) How will the democrat establishment react, and the so-called liberal media ??

4) Does this signal a huge split among jews, and if so how big is the split ??

Like Dr Pierce once said, “the jews have a tiger by the tail, and they dare not turn loose.”

It sure looks to me like their grip is slipping.

Sieg Heil !!!"

More details are coming about about the shooter in yesterday's attack against two Jewish facilities in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Kansas. It appears that Frazier Glenn Miller was not only motivated by KKK-Nazi sympathies but an animus toward Israel as well. According to the below report by Ron Radosh in PJ Media, Miller posted a reference to writings by anti-Israel activist and writer Max Blumenthal.

http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2014/04/14/who-inspired-the-nazi-klan-leaders-actions-in-kansas-the-answer-here/

Max Blumenthal. Last December, I stood out in the rain in Irvine and protested an event he was speaking at on behalf of some despicable organizations called American Muslims for Palestine, CAIR, Jewish Voice for Peace, the Muslim American Society, and the Muslim Student Association.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2013/12/zionist-thugs-another-big-palestine.html



If I wanted to play guilt by association, I could say that Blumenthal has blood on his hands as well as all the others who are stirring up hatred against Israel. I recall how the Norwegian mass murderer, Anders Breivik, was found to have read the writings of Robert Spencer, Fjordman, and other critics of extremist Islam. That was used against Spencer et. al. though there was no contact between them and Breivik, and they were all horrified by the killings in Norway. I am sure Blumenthal is similarly horrified by what happened in Kansas and has no connection to Mr Miller.

Having said that, is it not now a time for reflection on the part of those who are carrying out this campaign to destroy Israel? Do they not realize how much this is contributing to the resurgence of Jew hatred worldwide? It matters  little that Blumenthal and many others are Jewish themselves. They are contributing nonetheless to something ugly that goes beyond Israel.

Chances are Miller's anti-Jewish demons are not solely because of what he has been led to think about Israel. Nevertheless, this revelation would indicate that it was a factor, how much I don't know. Chances are Miller could care less about the Palestinians. But this should serve as a cautionary lesson to those who are so determined to destroy Israel.  It should also serve as a cautionary lesson to those of us who  write about extremist Islam. Nobody wants what they write to inspire someone else to violence or to think that all members of a group are bad.

Being a part-time teacher at UC Irvine, I can only hope and pray that we never see a tragedy like this on a college campus. If it happens, however, I will not be shocked.

Blood Moon Rising

TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE: On Tuesday morning, April 15th, the full Moon will pass through the shadow of Earth, producing a colorful lunar eclipse.  Although the mainstream media is calling this a "blood moon," the color is more likely to be bright orange.  At the moment, Earth's stratosphere is not dusty enough produce a shadow with the deep red hues of blood.  Whatever color it turns out to be, the eclipse will be visible from North and South America, Australia and New Zealand.

Creedence Clearwater Revival: Bad Moon Rising



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