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Planned Parenthood Childhood Sexualization Lesson Grounded in Indiana History

June 14, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Beverly Newman

Governor Mike Pence

The families of the State of Indiana must call upon Governor Mike Pence, his wife Karen, and every Indiana elected official to denounce the recent actions of an Indianapolis Midtown Planned Parenthood counselor, who graphically and zealously instructed a 15-year-old child (decoy) in how to perform sado-masochistic acts with ropes, whips, and handcuffs, while dressed in leather. The “health education” counselor, caught on videotape in her office at 3750 North Meridian Street, was exuberant in promoting pornography and pain to the girl.

Although some have sought to dismiss the advice from Planned Parenthood as “an aberration” (Indianapolis Star, June 12, 2014, “Planned Parenthood: Sex counseling on undercover video an aberration”), there is fertile soil for such sexualization of children in Indiana, beginning even before the horrific experiments conducted on infants and minors who were used as subjects to collect sexual data published by the Kinsey Institute in the 1940s and reprinted in the 1990s, in celebration of its 50^th anniversary.

Like Alfred Kinsey, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was an avid advocate of the eugenics movement, which forcibly sterilized untold thousands of “undesirables” – poor, disabled, and minority victims. In 1907, Indiana became the world leader in eugenics by passing the very first law legalizing forced sterilizations of “dispensable’ human beings, who were permanently prevented from ever reproducing their kind.

In 1927, the esteemed Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the following words which precisely sum up the mentality of the progressive eugenics movement that lived in Indiana for 67 years until its eugenics law was finally repealed in 1974:

It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind …. Three generations of imbeciles are enough. – Buck v. Bell, U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion

Indiana’s soil is soaked with blood from innocent victims of legal and illegal sexual experiments. It is not “an aberration” that a counselor at an Indianapolis office just a few miles from the Statehouse feels perfectly at ease in “selling” sado-masochism to a child, by displaying a full array of gestures to accompany her vivid instructions on what to use and how to dress to “enjoy” the pain.

Having reported childhood sexual abuse to Indiana authorities, I am personally aware of their indifference to the excruciating and life-long pain children experience as captives of adult predation. Why is the photograph of an Indiana Jewish teenage boy in a leopard woman’s lounging outfit and fur hat with pigtails posted on the Internet? Is he a “dancing boy,” as the young male victims are called? Why were hundreds of boys between the ages of 13 and 15 being used as prey in Indianapolis and elsewhere for predators in the massive child trafficking operation uncovered in March 2014?

Who pays for indifference to the theft of children’s innocence? What difference does it make? It is only “an aberration” deep-seated in the heart of the Heartland.

RELATED VIDEO: Gay Pride Assembly for Kindergartners where “[T]he Glenview Elementary School in Oakland, California presented their students with a perversity-pushing “Family Pride Celebration” which taught kindergartners as young as five and six years old to embrace homosexual deviancy.” Read more.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/vbENfOKi5AM[/youtube]

ISIS’ Media Center Recruiting Western Jihadis

June 13, 2014/in Featured, National Security, News/by Jerry Gordon

When we posted our Iconoclast article on Iraq disintegrating under pressure of the ISIS blitzkrieg, we noted concern over what half billion dollars in cash and gold from the seizure of banks in Mosul would finance:

What is really worrisome is that the vast treasury that ISIS has seized that will enable them to pay on average $600 a month to attract thousands of foreign jihadis, especially those in the West.

Bill Gertz, noted intelligence columnist at the Washington Free Beacon (WFB) published an article today on how ISIS’ Al Hayat Media Center is engaged in recruiting Western Jihadis in both English and German through websites, videos and brochures, “New Al Qaeda Group Produces Recruitment Material for Americans, Westerners”. The tag line is: “English language appeals raise new concerns of future jihadist attacks in U.S.”, a point emphasized in comments from noted counterterrorism expert, Patrick Poole.

Gertz reports the following:

Al Qaeda’s ultra-extremist Syrian offshoot known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) is stepping up efforts to recruit Americans and other westerners for jihad in Syria and possibly for future domestic terror attacks, according to U.S. officials.

A new media outlet affiliated with ISIL recently began producing recruiting materials in both English and German that U.S. intelligence analysts say is a sign they are targeting western jihadists for recruitment.

It is the first time ISIL, one of the most prominent ultra-violent jihadists among Syrian rebels groups, has set up a western-oriented media arm.

[…]

According to U.S. officials, the new media outlet is called the Al Hayat Media Center that is under the authority of the ISIL’s official propaganda arm, the Al-Itisam Establishment for Media Production.

Analysts say the products appear to have been produced by competent English speakers and are devoid of spelling and grammatical errors, while including Arabic phrases and words.

Patrick Poole commented:

ISIL’s media arm has made a major push over the past month to produce material targeting potential western recruits.

The ISIL appears to be copying a similar propaganda and recruitment model used by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula..

With as many as 70 Americans fighting with Syrian jihadist groups, and thousands of westerners, counterterrorism authorities have been rightfully worried.” “Now that we have known cases of Americans fighting with ISIL, that is considered even too extreme for al Qaeda, and ongoing recruitment inside the U.S., we’re only going to see the potential domestic terror blowback from the Syrian jihad grow even more.

Gertz cites the range of recent Al-Hayat production and anti-Semitic rhetoric:

The center on May 31^st produced a seven-page pamphlet called Islamic State News with a series of photographs covered with phrases that condemn military attacks on ISIL and tout the terror group’s operations in Syria and Iraq. It also highlighted the group’s public outreach programs that include humanitarian and education programs, as well a,s showing how the group governs territory.

A second pamphlet of Islamic State News was published June 5th.

The first was an ISIL recruitment video containing photos of the group’s fighters and military operations overlaid with a sound track of an Islamic religious chant.

The June 2 video urges English-speaking Muslims to take up arms in jihad, or holy war.

The videos were produced by Al-Itisam Establishment for Media Production, the official propaganda arm of ISIL in Syria.

Titled, “Soldiers of Truth,” the video contains images of jihadists in the Syrian conflict. Superimposed over the photos are English phrases urging the creation of an “Islamic state,” along with anti-western and anti-Semitic propaganda phrases superimposed over them.

The sound track is an ISIL Islamist chant that includes the phrase “Jewish rabbis will be humiliated.”

Watch the WFB copy of the Al-Hayat video:

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.

Fired for ‘Diverging’ on Climate: Progressive Professor’s fellowship ‘terminated’ after WSJ OpEd calling global warming ‘unproved science’

June 13, 2014/in Environment, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Science/by Marc Morano

Dr. Caleb Rossiter was “terminated” via email as an “Associate Fellow” from the progressive group Institute for Policy Studies(IPS), following his May 4th, 2014 Wall Street Journal OpEd titled “Sacrificing Africa for Climate Change,” in which he called man-made global warming an “unproved science.” Rossiter also championed the expansion of carbon based energy in Africa. Dr. Rossiter is an adjunct professor at American University. Rossiter holds a PhD in policy analysis and a masters degree in mathematics.

In an exclusive interview with Climate Depot, Dr. Rossiter explained: “If people ever say that fears of censorship for ‘climate change’ views are overblown, have them take a look at this: Just two days after I published a piece in the Wall Street Journal calling for Africa to be allowed the ‘all of the above’ energy strategy we have in the U.S., the Institute for Policy Studies terminated my 23-year relationship with them…because my analysis and theirs ‘diverge.’”

“I have tried to get [IPS] to discuss and explain their rejection of my analysis,’ Rossiter told Climate Depot. “When I countered a claim of ‘rapidly accelerating’ temperature change with the [UN] IPCC’s own data’, showing the nearly 20-year temperature pause— the best response I ever got was ‘Caleb, I don’t have time for this.’”

[Climate Depot Note: Intimidation of skeptical scientists has been well documented. Climate scientist Dr. Lennart Bengtsson — who converted from warmist to skeptic – resigns from skeptical group after ‘enormous group pressure’ from warmists – Now ‘worried about my health and safety’ – ‘Colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship’]

Caleb Rossiter

Climate Depot has obtained a copy of a May 7, 2014 email that John Cavanagh, the director of IPS since 1998, sent to Rossiter with the subject “Ending IPS Associate Fellowship.”

“Dear Caleb, We would like to inform you that we are terminating your position as an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies,” Cavanagh wrote in the opening sentence of the email.

“Unfortunately, we now feel that your views on key issues, including climate science, climate justice, and many aspects of U.S. policy to Africa, diverge so significantly from ours that a productive working relationship is untenable. The other project directors of IPS feel the same,” Cavanagh explained.

“We thank you for that work and wish you the best in your future endeavors,” Cavanagh and his IPS associate Emira Woods added. [Full Text of IPS email is reproduced further below.]

Rosstier’s May 4, 2014 Wall Street Journal OpEd pulled no punches. Rossiter, who holds a masters in mathematics, wrote: “I started to suspect that the climate-change data were dubious a decade ago while teaching statistics. Computer models used by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to determine the cause of the six-tenths of one degree Fahrenheit rise in global temperature from 1980 to 2000 could not statistically separate fossil-fueled and natural trends.”

His Wall Street Journal OpEd continued: “The left wants to stop industrialization—even if the hypothesis of catastrophic, man-made global warming is false.” He added: “Western policies seem more interested in carbon-dioxide levels than in life expectancy.”

“Each American accounts for 20 times the emissions of each African. We are not rationing our electricity. Why should Africa, which needs electricity for the sort of income-producing enterprises and infrastructure that help improve life expectancy? The average in Africa is 59 years—in America it’s 79,” he explained.

“How terrible to think that so many people in the West would rather block such success stories in the name of unproved science,” he concluded his WSJ OpEd.

Rossiter’s and IPS seemed a natural fit, given Rossiter’s long history as an anti-war activist. IPS describes itself as “a community of public scholars and organizers linking peace, justice, and the environment in the U.S. and globally. We work with social movements to promote true democracy and challenge concentrated wealth, corporate influence, and military power.

But Rosstier’s credentials as a long-time progressive could not trump his growing climate skepticism or his unabashed promotion of carbon based fuels for Africa.

Rossiter’s website describes himself as “a progressive activist who has spent four decades fighting against and writing about the U.S. foreign policy of supporting repressive governments in the formerly colonized countries.”

“I’ve spent my life on the foreign-policy left. I opposed the Vietnam War, U.S. intervention in Central America in the 1980s and our invasion of Iraq. I have headed a group trying to block U.S. arms and training for “friendly” dictators, and I have written books about how U.S. policy in the developing world is neocolonial,” Rossiter wrote in the Wall Street Journal on May 4.

Rossiter’s Wall Street Journal OpEd continued: “The left wants to stop industrialization—even if the hypothesis of catastrophic, man-made global warming is false. John Feffer, my colleague at the Institute for Policy Studies, wrote in the Dec. 8, 2009, Huffington Post that ‘even if the mercury weren’t rising’ we should bring ‘the developing world into the postindustrial age in a sustainable manner.’ He sees the ‘climate crisis [as] precisely the giant lever with which we can, following Archimedes, move the world in a greener, more equitable direction.”

“Then, as now, the computer models simply built in the assumption that fossil fuels are the culprit when temperatures rise, even though a similar warming took place from 1900 to 1940, before fossil fuels could have caused it. The IPCC also claims that the warming, whatever its cause, has slightly increased the length of droughts, the frequency of floods, the intensity of storms, and the rising of sea levels, projecting that these impacts will accelerate disastrously. Yet even the IPCC acknowledges that the average global temperature today remains unchanged since 2000, and did not rise one degree as the models predicted.

[ … ]

“But it is as an Africanist, rather than a statistician, that I object most strongly to ‘climate justice.’ Where is the justice for Africans when universities divest from energy companies and thus weaken their ability to explore for resources in Africa? Where is the justice when the U.S. discourages World Bank funding for electricity-generation projects in Africa that involve fossil fuels, and when the European Union places a ‘global warming’ tax on cargo flights importing perishable African goods?”

Full reprint of “termination” email from Institute for Policy Studies:

—–Forwarded Message—–
From: John Cavanagh
Sent: May 7, 2014 9:51 PM
To: Caleb Rossiter
Cc: Emira Woods, Joy Zarembka
Subject: Ending IPS Associate Fellowship

Dear Caleb,

We would like to inform you that we are terminating your position as an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. As you know, Associate Fellows at IPS are sponsored by an IPS project director or by the director. In your case, both of us sponsored your Fellowship. Unfortunately, we now feel that your views on key issues, including climate science, climate justice, and many aspects of U.S. policy to Africa, diverge so significantly from ours that a productive working relationship is untenable. The other project directors of IPS feel the same.

I (John) have worked with you on and off for two decades and I admire the project you did on Demilitarization and Democracy through IPS. I also admire the work you did on Capitol Hill with Rep. Delahunt. Both of us have worked with you in other capacities over the years with strong mutual respect. We thank you for that work and wish you the best in your future endeavors.

If you would like to meet with us in person, we are available. John will be in Berlin from Thursday afternoon through Monday evening, but could meet after that. Emira is here over the next week if you’d like to meet sooner.

Best regards,

John and Emira

End full reprint of IPS termination email.

Climate Depot’s Coverage of Rossiter’s WSJ article:

Caleb Rossiter: Sacrificing Africa for Climate Change: ‘Western policies seem more interested in carbon-dioxide levels than in life expectancy’ – The left wants to stop industrialization—even if the hypothesis of catastrophic, man-made global warming is false. John Feffer, my colleague at the Institute for Policy Studies, wrote in the Dec. 8, 2009, Huffington Post that “even if the mercury weren’t rising” we should bring “the developing world into the postindustrial age in a sustainable manner.” He sees the “climate crisis [as] precisely the giant lever with which we can, following Archimedes, move the world in a greener, more equitable direction.”

Dr. Rossiter’s full WSJ OpEd, reprinted with permission of Dr. Rossiter.

Sacrificing Africa for Climate Change

Western Policies Seem More Interested in Carbon-dioxide Levels than in Life Expectancy

Caleb S. Rossiter

May 5, 2014, Wall Street Journal Editorial Page

Every year environmental groups celebrate a night when institutions in developed countries (including my own university) turn off their lights as a protest against fossil fuels. They say their goal is to get America and Europe to look from space like Africa: dark, because of minimal energy use.

But that is the opposite of what’s desired by Africans I know. They want Africa at night to look like the developed world, with lights in every little village and with healthy people, living longer lives, sitting by those lights. Real years added to real lives should trump the minimal impact that African carbon emissions could have on a theoretical catastrophe.

I’ve spent my life on the foreign-policy left. I opposed the Vietnam War, U.S. intervention in Central America in the 1980s and our invasion of Iraq. I have headed a group trying to block U.S. arms and training for “friendly” dictators, and I have written books about how U.S. policy in the developing world is neocolonial.

But I oppose my allies’ well-meaning campaign for “climate justice.” More than 230 organizations, including Africa Action and Oxfam, want industrialized countries to pay “reparations” to African governments for droughts, rising sea levels and other alleged results of what Ugandan strongman Yoweri Museveni calls “climate aggression.” And I oppose the campaign even more for trying to deny to Africans the reliable electricity–and thus the economic development and extended years of life–that fossil fuels can bring.

The left wants to stop industrialization–even if the hypothesis of catastrophic, man-made global warming is false. John Feffer, my colleague at the Institute for Policy Studies, wrote in the Dec. 8, 2009, Huffington Post that “even if the mercury weren’t rising” we should bring “the developing world into the postindustrial age in a sustainable manner.” He sees the “climate crisis [as] precisely the giant lever with which we can, following Archimedes, move the world in a greener, more equitable direction.”

I started to suspect that the climate-change data were dubious a decade ago while teaching statistics. Computer models used by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to determine the cause of the six-tenths of one degree Fahrenheit rise in global temperature from 1980 to 2000 could not statistically separate fossil-fueled and natural trends.

Then, as now, the computer models simply built in the assumption that fossil fuels are the culprit when temperatures rise, even though a similar warming took place from 1900 to 1940, before fossil fuels could have caused it. The IPCC also claims that the warming, whatever its cause, has slightly increased the length of droughts, the frequency of floods, the intensity of storms, and the rising of sea levels, projecting that these impacts will accelerate disastrously. Yet even the IPCC acknowledges that the average global temperature today remains unchanged since 2000, and did not rise one degree as the models predicted.

But it is as an Africanist, rather than a statistician, that I object most strongly to “climate justice.” Where is the justice for Africans when universities divest from energy companies and thus weaken their ability to explore for resources in Africa? Where is the justice when the U.S. discourages World Bank funding for electricity-generation projects in Africa that involve fossil fuels, and when the European Union places a “global warming” tax on cargo flights importing perishable African goods? Even if the wildest claims about the current impact of fossil fuels on the environment and the models predicting the future impact all prove true and accurate, Africa should be exempted from global restraints as it seeks to modernize.

With 15% of the world’s people, Africa produces less than 5% of carbon-dioxide emissions. With 4% of global population, America produces 25% of these emissions. In other words, each American accounts for 20 times the emissions of each African. We are not rationing our electricity. Why should Africa, which needs electricity for the sort of income-producing enterprises and infrastructure that help improve life expectancy? The average in Africa is 59 years–in America it’s 79. Increased access to electricity was crucial in China’s growth, which raised life expectancy to 75 today from 59 in 1968.

According to the World Bank, 24% of Africans have access to electricity and the typical business loses power for 56 days each year. Faced with unreliable power, businesses turn to diesel generators, which are three times as expensive as the electricity grid. Diesel also produces black soot, a respiratory health hazard. By comparison, bringing more-reliable electricity to more Africans would power the cleaning of water in villages, where much of the population still lives, and replace wood and dung fires as the source of heat and lighting in shacks and huts, removing major sources of disease and death. In the cities, reliable electricity would encourage businesses to invest and reinvest rather than send their profits abroad.

Mindful of the benefits, the Obama administration’s Power Africa proposal and the World Bank are trying to double African access to electricity. But they have been hamstrung by the opposition of their political base to fossil fuels–even though off-grid and renewable power from the sun, tides and wind is still too unreliable, too hard to transmit, and way too expensive for Africa to build and maintain as its primary source of power.

In 2010 the left tried to block a World Bank loan for a new coal-fired plant in South Africa. Fortunately, the loan was approved (with the U.S. abstaining). The drive to provide electricity for the poor has been perhaps the greatest achievement of South Africa’s post-apartheid governments.

Standing on the mountainside at night in Cape Town, overlooking the “Coloured” township of Mitchell’s Plain and the African township of Khayelitsha, you can now see a twinkling blanket of bulbs. How terrible to think that so many people in the West would rather block such success stories in the name of unproved science.

Rossiter directs the American Exceptionalism Media Project. He is an adjunct professor at American University and an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Climate Depot’s Related Links:

Coverage of Dr. Rossiter & IPS: ‘It’s climate apostasy again’: ‘Institute for Policy Studies terminates skeptic who cares about Africans more than climate modelers’

‘There are many issues swirling round here – the good intentions of the “progressives” and the evil that flows from it, their startling ability to turn a blind eye to the suffering of Africans, their inability to deal with dissent, their closed minds. What a depressing scene with which to start the day.’

Truth Revolt: The Left’s Hypocrisy About ‘Right-Wing Terrorism’

June 13, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, National Security, News, Politics/by Jihad Watch

Over at Truth Revolt I expose the latest attempt by Leftists and Islamic supremacists to deflect attention away from the grim reality of Islamic jihad.

In covering the killings in Las Vegas by Jerad and Amanda Miller this week, mainstream media commentators once again displayed their hypocrisy and double standard regarding Islamic terrorism and terror attacks that are supposedly “right-wing.”

CNN’s national security analyst Peter Bergen wrote Tuesday the Millers “appear to have been motivated by extreme far-right views. The couple left a flag at the scene of the crime with the words ‘Don’t Tread on Me,’ a Revolutionary War symbol used by some anti-government extremists.”

Bergen went on to emphasize that “countering violent extremism cannot simply be a demand placed on Muslim communities to prevent jihadist violence. In the decade since 9/11 right-wing extremists have demonstrated their ability to be just as deadly as their homegrown jihadist counterparts.”

Yet while Bergen is ready to equate “right-wing terrorists” with jihadists, he is much less ready to examine the motivating ideology of the latter. While he readily ascribed the Millers’ murders to “extreme far-right views,” when writing in 2006 about the root causes of the 9/11 jihad attack, Bergen stated:

In the many discussions of the “root causes” of Islamist terrorism, Islam itself is rarely mentioned. But if you were to ask Bin Laden, he would say that his war is about the defence of Islam. We need not believe him but we should nevertheless listen to what our enemies are saying. Bin Laden bases justification of his war on a corpus of Muslim beliefs and he finds ammunition in the Koran to give his war Islamic legitimacy. He often invokes the “sword” verses of the Koran, which urge unprovoked attacks on infidels. Of course, that is a selective reading of the Koran and does not mean Islam is an inherently violent faith, but to believers the book is the word of God.

He has demonstrated no similar anxiousness to exonerate “right-wing” beliefs from responsibility for the violence supposed committed because of them. And at the Daily Beast, “Muslim comedian” Dean Obeidallah went even farther in a piece entitled “Home-Grown, Right-Wing Terrorism: The Hate the GOP Refuses to See.” Obeidallah was certain that conservative views led to violence, and that that was why Republicans had ridiculed the idea of “right-wing terrorism” when the Obama Administration’s Department of Homeland Security issued a warning about it in 2009. “The actual reason Republicans won’t investigate right-wing extremists,” Obeidallah claimed, “is that it would not only anger their base, it would actually indict some parts of it. Let’s be honest: In a time when establishment Republicans are concerned about getting challenged in primaries by more conservative Tea Party types, calling for hearings to investigate right-wing organizations could be political suicide.”

This is the same Dean Obeidallah who recently wrote this about the jihadists of Boko Haram, the Congregation of the People of the Sunnah for Dawah and Jihad: “The Nigerian terrorist group that kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls has nothing to do with Islam, and it’s grotesquely irresponsible of the media to suggest it does.”

So an avowedly Islamic group that has repeatedly proclaimed that it is fighting in order to establish an Islamic state is not Islamic, and it’s “grotesquely irresponsible” to suggest otherwise. The leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, must have been “grotesquely irresponsible” when he declared: “The reason why I will kill you is you are infidels…The Koran must be supreme, we must establish Islam in this country.”

Obeidallah, who has produced and starred in a “comedy” film about “Islamophobia,” claims that the jihadists are twisting and hijacking his peaceful religion, and that only non-Muslim “Islamophobes” would dare think that anything they do has any justification in Islamic texts and teachings. But the possibility that murderers such as Jerad and Amanda Miller are twisting and hijacking peaceful conservative principles that do not in any essential or legitimate way incite to violence does not cross his mind.

Bergen, Obeidallah and others like them also believe that those who sound the alarm about Islamic terrorism are motivated by “hatred” and “bigotry.” Are they, then, also motivated by hatred and bigotry when they sound the alarm about “right-wing terrorism”? Obeidallah claims that when Republicans passed anti-Sharia laws designed to protect Americans from a political system that subjugates women and non-Muslims and destroys the freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, they “intended to demonize Muslims.” So if legislation designed to protect Americans from “right-wing terrorism” were passed, could its framers and advocates be characterized as “intending to demonize conservatives”?

Why, yes, of course. That is the goal of this hysteria about “right-wing extremism” and “right-wing terrorism”: to demonize and marginalize legitimate opposition to the Obama agenda, as well as to minimize the real threat of jihad terror. Likewise, the goal of the hysteria about “Islamophobia” is to demonize and marginalize legitimate opposition to jihad terror, so that terror can advance unopposed and unimpeded. To trumpet both these hysterias, however, entangles Leftists like Bergen and Islamic supremacists like Obeidallah in a contradiction: they say that the stated beliefs and goals of Islamic terrorists are of no importance whatsoever, and it is “hateful” to point them out. Yet at the same time, they maintain that the stated beliefs and goals of “right-wing terrorists,” or even beliefs and goals that are ascribed to them by analysts and have no connection to what they actually believed, matter a great deal, and it is the nation’s duty to address them and institute remedies.

The hypocrisy is as obvious and stunning as the mainstream media’s cheerful and unapologetic eagerness to traffic in it.

Florida: “Am I Free? Am I Free?” Pleads Holocaust Survivor Marie Winkleman

June 12, 2014/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Featured, News, Policy, Regulation/by Dr. Rich Swier

Why is Florida resident and Holocaust survivor Marie Winkelman still in guardianship?

This is the sixth in a series of articles about the landmark guardianship of Holocaust survivor, Marie Winkelman, in Sarasota, Florida, established by a mediated settlement agreement without any evidence presented or records made.

After dozens of tests administered to her, dozens of hours of examinations and multiple positive evaluations of her capacity, 89-year-old Holocaust Survivor Marie Winkelman is still steel-trapped in Florida’s black-hole guardianship system, with her life in limbo and her assets at stake. Every court hearing costs Marie’s assets thousands of dollars. Every mediation costs Marie’s assets thousands of dollars. And every day costs Marie heartache as she aches to be free.

Why were Marie’s positive evaluations withheld from the court? Why did Marie’s attorney, Audrey Bear, not file the first positive evaluation of Marie with the court until May 30, 2014, almost four months after its completion in early February?

Why was Marie’s second positive evaluation from another psychiatrist not filed with the court until May 28, 2014, when the report was already signed by the psychiatrist nearly one month earlier on April 30? Under Florida law, a positive evaluation from a physician can restore a Ward’s rights, but Marie’s rights are not restored despite positive evaluations from two psychiatrists.

To date, Marie Winkelman’s assets mean gainful employment for:

Attorney Rebecca Proctor and at least one other attorney from her firm, Kirk Pinkerton
Attorney Audrey Bear
Attorney Christopher Likens
Attorney Kim Bald
Attorney Barry Spivey
Attorney Erika Dine
Nurse Lori Gaetano
Psychiatrist Miguel Rivera

What Is Restoration of Capacity?

In Florida, any “interested person” can file a petition with the probate court to restore the rights of a person in guardianship. After the petition to restore capacity is filed, Fla. Stat. 744.464 requires the court to “immediately appoint a physician to examine the Ward,” and his report must be filed with the court within 20 days after his appointment. In sum, the process to restore a Ward’s civil rights should be short and simple, but Marie has never had an evidentiary hearing to remove her rights and never had an evidentiary hearing to restore them.

Although Marie’s restoration petition was filed on March 7, 2014, Marie has never had any hearing to restore her rights. The short and simple process mandated by Florida State law used to restore Marie’s rights is now in its fourth month, months behind the statutory schedule.

Rutgers Administrator Brings Marie to Court

Since early July 2013, Marie Winkelman’s step-son-in-law Robert Szychowski, long-time fiscal administrator for Rutgers University and the New Jersey University of Medicine and Dentistry, has caused an avalanche of legal bills to crush Marie’s lifetime of savings for her retirement. She is a woman alone, buried in a tsunami of bills she did not make; while Szychowski awaits millions of dollars that his wife and sister-in-law are guaranteed to receive from Marie’s Trust, which was court ordered to be irrevocable, making Corrine Szychowski and Diane Winkelman the Trust’s permanent primary beneficiaries.

In the meantime, Rutgers officials refuse to accept any ethical complaints filed against Robert Szychowski’s breach of fiduciary duties owed to an elderly Holocaust Survivor remotely “related” to him, upon whose life force he has stomped for nearly one year.

Two Holocaust Survivors Trapped in Fraudulent Guardianships

On July 10, 2013, nearly one year ago, vivacious Marie Winkelman was living independently in a life full of meaning, especially for an 88-year-old Holocaust Survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, author, and recognized painter. The next day, Marie was immersed in court proceedings about which she knew nothing and was assigned a court-appointed attorney, Erika Dine, who had previously represented an agency, Aging Safely, that placed another Holocaust Survivor, Al Katz, into an infamous Florida guardianship. Now, it was Marie’s turn to lose her civil rights, assets, independence, and sense of stability – the dearest facets of a Survivor’s life.

Marie’s case is a landmark one in guardianship history, as Marie never was given an opportunity to present evidence on her behalf. She lost her civil rights and became a Ward of the State of Florida through a mediation that she never attended, which produced a settlement agreement that she never signed or saw, and was adopted by the Sarasota Probate Court without notice to her. Marie’s step-son-in-law, Robert Szychowski, sought through fraudulent filings in the Sarasota County Probate Court to remove all of Marie’s civil rights – to vote, sign contracts, choose her residence, pick her physicians, and write a check, among many more – and was successful in obtaining a mediation agreement that put all of Marie’s Revocable Trust, worth millions, into an irrevocable Trust at Sabal Trust, which place Szychowski insisted upon, keeping Marie’s Trust totally out of Marie’s control.

In order to file his petition against Marie and place her into involuntary guardianship, Szychowski hired Dr. Miguel Rivera to accompany nurse Lori Gaetano to Marie’s apartment in a gated complex to conduct a psychiatric evaluation of Marie. On July 2, 2013, Rivera with Gaetano knocked on Marie’s door unannounced, sat at her dining room table, and asked Marie dozens of questions without revealing the purpose of their visit.

According to the Principles of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association, “Psychiatrists are often asked to examine individuals for security purposes, to determine suitability for various jobs, and to determine legal competence. The psychiatrist must fully describe the nature and purpose and lack of confidentiality of the examination to the examinee at the beginning of the examination.” Although Section 4, No. 6, of the Principles of Medical Ethics quoted above requires proper notification for such an evaluation to be conduced, Rivera’s refusal to notify Marie did not impede his caustic evaluation of her that he provided to Szychowski, even criticizing a small stain she had on her blouse, which she was wearing while cleaning house and preparing a meal just moments before Rivera and Gaetano arrived.

With Rivera’s evaluation in hand, Szychowski’s lawyer, Christopher Likens, previously involved in the Al Katz guardianship, filed a petition for Szychowski to become Marie’s guardian and for Marie to be declared totally incapacitated by the court. Days later, Likens filed another petition for the court to appoint an Emergency Temporary Guardian, Dawn Van Beck, who was appointed immediately by Judge Deno Economou.

In August 2013, Marie obtained a new attorney to replace Ericka Dine, Barry Spivey, who signed the mediated settlement agreement later adopted by the court, placing Marie into guardianship without an evidentiary hearing on her capacity or on the need for a guardianship.

Who Were the Signatories to the Mediated Settlement Agreement Controlling Marie’s Life and Millions in Trust?

On November 25, 2013, five lawyers (including the mediator charging Marie $450.00 per hour for his services) and three distant relatives of Marie signed an agreement which Barry Spivey never shared with Marie and Marie never signed. For Spivey’s work on the Mediated Settlement Agreement and other legal work, Judge Economou ordered Marie to pay Spivey $100.00 per hour more than the Sarasota rules permit guardianship attorneys to be paid. Spivey charged Marie $350.00 per hour for a total of approximately $40,000.00.

Although Marie has never had an evidentiary hearing to restore or to remove her rights, Spivey charged Marie for him to hold his own evidentiary hearing on his fees charged to Marie. On May 1, 2014, an expert witness, Russell Snyder, testified that Spivey’s extraordinary rate of $350 per hour (versus the Sarasota cap on guardianship attorney fees of $250 per hour) charged to Marie was “reasonable” and then charged Marie $1700 for his testimony.

Attorney Rebecca Proctor, a Director of the now-bankrupt agency that put Al Katz into guardianship, has been paid approximately $50,000.00 from Marie’s assets for representing Marie’s two court-appointed guardians, Raymond Millman and Alina Koren, Marie’s cousin, whom Marie rescued as a baby after the Holocaust.

A Private Meeting of Attorneys Seeking More Money from Wards

Both Rebecca Proctor and Audrey Bear, Marie’s current attorney, met in a private meeting on June 2, 2014, at 1:30 PM, with Judge Economou in his courtroom with approximately two dozen other Sarasota attorneys to obtain the Judge’s agreement to raising their hourly fee cap for guardianship cases. Also among the attorneys present was Edwin Boyer, who filed a bill in the Al Katz guardianship for $40,000.00 in legal fees “for [his] services rendered [from August 25, 2010, to December 14, 2010]… for the benefit of the Ward,” who passed away on July 11, 2010. The attorney arranging the private meeting with the Probate Judge was a good friend of Edwin Boyer, Gerald O’Brien, who is being sued by Al Katz’s Estate for exploitation of a vulnerable adult while Al Katz was in guardianship.

On the day following the private meeting with Judge Economou, attorneys Audrey Bear and Rebecca Proctor, who are close friends, held a hearing in front of Judge Economou to obtain Marie’s financial accountings from Szychowski. Both of these attorneys plus Christopher Likens and Szychowski’s other attorney, Kim Bald, all knew well before the hearing that Marie had been determined in multiple reports to be capacitated, but the result of the hearing was to schedule another expensive mediation without any evidence presented or records made.

Meanwhile, dear Marie asks “Am I free? Am I free? When will I be free?”

NOTE: On Friday, June 6, 2014, Beverly Newman filed a motion pro se to have Robert Szychowski removed as agent pursuant to Marie’s Durable Power of Attorney, due to his continuing abuse of POA powers and fiduciary duties.

Irony Alert! Coal-Fired Train Featured on White House Christmas Ornament

June 11, 2014/in Energy, Environment, Featured, News, Policy/by Sean Hackbarth

The Obama White House may think coal isn’t good enough to power our economy, but it must think it’s good enough to add some Christmas cheer.

While the Obama administration gave coal producers and electricity generators an early lump of coal after EPA released proposed carbon regulations, a coal-fired train is the star of the 2014 White House Christmas ornament.

2014 White House Christmas Ornament Features a Coal-Fired Train

As the White House Historical Association explains, the ornament is the first to be composed of two pieces [emphasis mine]:

The locomotive is a detailed miniature replica of one of several steam-powered locomotives that pulled the Presidential Special; it is attached to the coal car that held its fuel. The other miniature car is the Superb, the president’s private heavyweight Pullman car. The last car on the Special, the Superb was outfitted with a public address system. President Harding made appearances and delivered speeches at stops across the country from a platform at the back of the car.

President Warren Harding’s transcontinental speaking and sightseeing tour inspired the design.

The ornament reminds us that just as it powered the trains that tied America together into an economic powerhouse, coal still plays a critical role in fueling America’s economy. According to the Energy Information Agency, more electricity is produced by coal (37%) than any other energy source. It’s the backbone of affordable, reliable electricity.

Source: Energy Information Administration

The United States possesses coal reserves that can last for nearly three centuries. The attacks on this abundant energy source by regulators will mean lost jobs, slower economic growth, higher electricity costs, and a less reliable electrical grid.

President Obama said in 2008 while campaigning, “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them.” However, trinkets depicting coal apparently are acceptable.

The ornament is a lovely decoration sure to add character to anyone’s Christmas tree, even of those whose jobs will be lost because of federal regulations pushing coal use out of the economy.

Follow Sean Hackbarth on Twitter at @seanhackbarth and the U.S. Chamber at @uschamber.

National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee Video Contest Winners Announced

June 11, 2014/in Elections, Featured, News, Politics/by Dr. Rich Swier

MERRIFIELD, Va., June 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — The National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee, a political action committee formed to draft Dr. Ben Carson into the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, today announced the three winners of its video contest to spread the word about why Dr. Carson should run for the 2016 Republican nomination. The winning videos were chosen based on the number of Facebook “likes” each received, and the video creators will receive their choice of a Silver iPad Air™ or a Microsoft Surface™.

“The American people want Dr. Carson to run for president, and the results of this video contest show definitively that they are clamoring for his leadership,” said Vernon Robinson, the Committee’s campaign director. “There is no other candidate who has what it takes to win the election and heal our nation. Ben Carsonis the best hope for America.”

Participants’ videos were uploaded to the Campaign’s Facebook page, where contestants gathered as many “likes” as they could by spreading the word to family, friends and other concerned citizens. All entries were submitted by midnight on Saturday, May 31.

Chris Adkins of Wayne, West Virginia came in first. Notified that his video won, Chris stated, “I don’t feel like I deserve an iPad, I was just speaking from the heart.”

Nicholas Zientarski of Grand Haven, Michigan placed second. Stephen Carson of San Diego, California, was a close third. He said, “It has been difficult to watch the decline of my country, and to see that someone is there who can stand for the values that make me proud to be an American is very meaningful to me. I have never stepped out for a campaign, but for this man I will do whatever I need to do.”

More than a quarter of a million people have signed petitions encouraging Dr. Carson to enter the race for the presidential nomination. The Committee delivers roughly 6,000 of these petitions to Dr. Carson each week.

Dr. Carson continues to prove he is a strong contender for the GOP nomination, consistently placing in the top three in poll after poll. Most recently, Ben Carson finished second in the Texas GOP State Convention’s straw poll, successfully defeating Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), considered a presidential frontrunner, and Gov. Rick Perry,Texas’ longest serving governor. Dr. Carson also took a close second to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at the National Republican Leadership Conference, missing the top spot by less than 1 percentage point.

Since its inception in August 2013, the committee has raised more than $6 million from more than 85,000 individual contributors. The average contribution amount was $45, with many donors contributing more than once.

About the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee

The National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee is a political action committee formed to draft Dr. Ben Carson into the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. It was founded in August 2013 by John Philip Sousa IV and Vernon Robinson, and works to raise awareness of Dr. Carson’s qualifications and to engage grassroots conservative activists in clamoring for Dr. Carson to run for president. To learn more visitwww.runbenrun.org or follow them on Facebook and Twitter at @DraftRunBenRun.

Islamic Persecution Of The ‘Others’: An exclusive Interview with Sister Hatune Dogan

June 11, 2014/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Featured, News, Policy/by Alan Kornman

In this compelling and often heart breaking interview you will hear first hand accounts of Christian persecution in Muslim lands.

Sister Hatune Dogan gives a sobering message to all Americans, Churches, and Synagogues telling them specifically what they need to know about Islamic doctrine and theology based on her own personal experiences.

One of the most often heard statements from Muslim leaders in America is, there is no compulsion in religion. When followers of Islam say there is no compulsion in religion they are saying that Islam does not force others to follow the Islamic doctrine. Imam Mohammad Musri of the Islamic Society of Central Florida and Hassan Shibly of CAIR Tampa tell all who will listen at interfaith meeting that this is true, when real world examples prove otherwise. In this interview you will hear why Sister Hatune Dogan believes this statement is a lie.

In this interview you will learn:

1. First hand accounts of horrific persecution of Christian children in Syria.

2. First hand account of Muslims selling vials of blood from slaughtered Christians for $100,000 per bottle.

3. When Imam Mohammad Musri and CAIR’s Hassan Shibly tell non-Muslims there is “No compulsion In religion in Islam” it is a LIE.

4. Islamic doctrine that teaches to behead the non-believer and apostates from Islam.

5. You will learn about the 23 Fatwa’s or death sentences put on Sister Hatune Dogan by Islamic clerics and most importantly – Why.

Sister Hatune Dogan traveled from overseas to attend the Prayer March For Persecuted Christians, Orlando, FL on May 17, 2014.

This Prayer March was inspired by a similar March Rev. Bruce Lieske attended in Austria. Without Rev. Lieske this Prayer March would not have been a reality.

While in Orlando, we were able to sit down with Sister Hatune Dogan for an in depth interview with this extraordinary woman. We learned about her work in some of the most dangerous places on earth helping those who have been kidnapped, raped, mutilated, and tortured for the crime of being Christian in Muslim lands.

I am Sister Hatune Dogan. I was born in Zaz a village in Turabdeen , North Mesapotamia in Turkey. Completed my Primary Education in Turkey. I am a member in the Universal Syrian Orthodox Church under the Holy See of Antioch.

I was born and brought up as a Farmer Girl in Turabdeen and it was the high time of persecution to the Christians. The Turkish and Kurdish both were persecuting the Christians in Turabdeen and my family also one of the victim.

In 1985 our family migrated to Germany along with our relatives. I continued my education in Germany until 12th standard . In 1988 I joined Mor Ephreim Monastery in Losser, Hollond. I joined to the Sisterhood and continued my studies.

The back born support of her Healing Ministry is provided by Action Meditore a Non- Government Organization from Germany. Carithas from Paderborn , Germany is also giving immense support for my mission in the medical field. Now I am conducting free medical camps in India for the poor. I also playing an active role in the area of medical care to the refugees of Tsunami Disaster in India. I also further looking for Free Medical Equipments from Europe and America to work more with the poor in India.

Recently I launched a housing project for the poor in association with Malankara Suriyani Knanaya Community and as a joint venture with the Government of Kerala.

Those who would like to participate to wipe off the tears of the poor may contact Sister Hatune Dogan to join with the ministries.

How to Join: Email Sister Hatune Dogan at: india_charity@hotmail.de

Your helps by way of money from your charity savings can be remitted to (Hatune Dogan, A/c No. 11121142, BLZ: 47250101, Sparkasse Paderborn, Germany) OR (SWIFT UBININ,Code BBKCH, A/c No. 615884, Union Bank of India, Ernakulam)

Are Most Mass Murderers Really White?

June 11, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, Gun Rights, News, Politics/by Selwyn Duke

Aside from attacks on the Second Amendment, there is a certain theme that’s now repeated after every massacre committed by an unhinged individual: that most all mass killers are white. After the recent Elliot Rodger murders, for instance, Michael Moore said that he no longer had “anything to say” before immediately saying, “Nearly all of our mass shootings are by angry or disturbed white males.” Not to be one-upped in the inanity department by a mass of male whiteness, one Brittney Cooper at Salon wrote, “How many times must troubled young white men engage in these terroristic acts that make public space unsafe for everyone before we admit that white male privilege kills?” Ironically, Cooper had mentioned, parenthetically, that “as many commenters have pointed out, [Rodger] had a white father and mother of Asian descent,” but, hey, you can’t let a minor detail get in the way of a good racial screed. And perhaps mass killing is such a Caucasian domain that perpetrating one bestows a person with honorary whiteness. Yet about this we should ask a question:

Before rushing to play pin the tale on the honkey, did anyone bother to check the history of mass killings?

Because I have — a comprehensive list dating from 1982 through 9/16/2013 is found at Mother Jones here — and guess what?

Of the last 20 mass killings of that period, 9 were perpetrated by non-whites.

That would be 45 percent, which exceeds non-whites’ 37 percent share of the population.

Of the last 30 mass killings, 11 were committed by non-whites — right at the 37 percent mark.

And what if we go all the way back to 1982? We then have 66 mass killings in which the races of the perpetrators were known, and 22 of them, or one-third, were at the hands of non-whites. Note here that America’s demographics have been changing, with non-whites comprising only about 20 percent of the population in 1982; thus, if we consider an approximate average non-white population of 28.5 percent during the 31-year period in question, it appears that, again, mass murderers are disproportionately non-white.

In other words, there is no evidence whatsoever that mass killings are a characteristically white phenomenon.

And there never was.

In fact, the group most disproportionately represented on the Mother Jones chart is Americans of Asian descent. While only 6 percent of the population, they have been 15 percent of the 31-year period’s last 20 mass killers, 13 percent of the last 30, and 9 percent of the last 66. This is quite interesting, too, since Americans of Asian descent have a very low crime rate in general.

So in light of this, why are whites implicated in mass killings? The answer is one word: Prejudice.

Note that prejudice is defined as:

“1. an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.”

Claiming that a group commits a disproportionate amount of crime when, if anything, the truth is the opposite, is the epitome of forming beliefs without knowledge, thought, or reason. It’s seizing upon a fashionable falsehood for the purposes of maligning an unfashionable group and advancing a fallacious agenda.

The truth is that if we don’t want to be “cowards” on race, as Eric “the Red” Holder said Americans were, we do need to speak frankly about criminality in the US. But does this involve talking about “troubled young white men” who “make public space unsafe for everyone,” as Brittney Cooper suggested? Perhaps she might want to consult with Jesse Jackson, who once said that when he walked down the street, heard footsteps and thought robbery, he’d “feel relieved” if he turned around and saw a white person behind him. So, really, if we were cynical, we could think that the Coopers of the world were trying to deflect attention from black criminality by trumpeting the white-mass-killer myth.

Then again, this all could just be the result of the new Common Core math. Take Elliot Rodger, for instance. He killed half his victims with a knife, but the whole focus was on guns. (And he’s widely referred to as a “shooter.” I think he was a slasher.) He was half Asian, but the whole focus was on whites. You could also call it situational attribution: a mixed race person is defined by his minority half when he achieves, as with our first “black” president. But when such an individual is recognized as having committed a crime, he’s suddenly white. This can only make us wonder how long it will be before Barack Obama becomes white.

Anyway, the left may be upset that another one of their themes, the white-mass-killer myth, has bitten the dust. But all is not lost. In the area of massacres as in so many other things, they can always celebrate diversity.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

RELATED GRAPHIC:

Texas: JTTF warned that Middle Eastern men are getting driver’s licenses with Hispanic names

June 10, 2014/in Courts & Law, Featured, Immigration, National Security, News/by Jihad Watch

This “presents a technique that possible terrorists or members of sleeper cells could use to escape notice.” For “foremost is the change in identity and ability to mingle in the predominantly Hispanic community without arousing suspicion, because of their darker skin tone, resembling local Hispanics.” And remember: to be concerned about this would be “racist” and “Islamophobic,” because after all, these men must be changing their names because of rampant “Islamophobia” in the U.S., right?

“Middle Eastern Men Are Getting Driver’s Licenses With Hispanic Names,” PoliceOne.com, May 25, 2014 (thanks to Todd):

PoliceOne warns officers that people of middle eastern ethnicity are changing their names or presenting themselves as hispanics in order to disguise their ethnicity and better blend into their communities. While this has been common practice among immigrants in the past, it presents a technique that possible terrorists or members of sleeper cells could use to escape notice.

The Texas Department of Public Safety informed the San Antonio Division Joint Terrorism Task Force that individuals of Middle Eastern descent are obtaining new Texas driver’s licenses with Hispanic surnames.

Approximately 20 individuals of Middle Eastern origin are utilizing the Travis County (Austin, Texas) District Court each week to change their names and driver’s licenses from Middle Eastern to Hispanic surnames.

The process involves submitting a form and fingerprints to the District Court. The Austin JTTF is investigating the applicants and application process with the Texas Department of Safety and investigators from the Travis County District Attorney’s office. At this time it is unknown as to how widespread these driver’s license changers are.

San Antonio has multiple concerns about these driver license changes. Foremost is the change in identity and ability to mingle in the predominantly Hispanic community without arousing suspicion, because of their darker skin tone, resembling local Hispanics.

Second is the lack of security afforded the fingerprint cards, allowing the possibility of substitution by individuals of concern by individuals who would not arouse suspicion. These driver license changes may not be limited to Hispanic surnames but might involve common names or other ethnicities.

Considering the current threat reporting and the frequent presence of President Bush within the State of Texas, San Antonio would like to determine how widespread this practice of driver’s license change is in border states and nationwide.

San Antonio Division will focus on determining the true identity, background and reason for those individuals of Middle Eastern descent who have changed their identity to Hispanic.

If you have any questions regarding the information in this report, please call El Paso I.C.A.T., 915-872-5775.

Source: Tucson Intelligence Unit; Texas Dept. of Public Safety; Austin, Tex. JTTF

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“Palestinian” prof resigns after death threats for taking students to Auschwitz

This man is guilty of the imprisonment and torture of 30,000 Christians!

June 10, 2014/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Featured, News/by Dr. Rich Swier

Daily we read about the persecution and killing of Christians and Jews. Those being oppressed are voices crying out for justice. This issue is falling on deaf ears both here in the United States, across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and now in North Korea.

Testimony before the United Nations Human Rights Council:

“A witness saw a young woman who folded her hands in a praying fashion when the SSD [State Security Department] interrogated her. The SSD suspected therefore that she was a Christian. They took her to another room and beat her until she confessed.”

LettersofConfession.com reports:

Every day in North Korea’s prison camps, 30,000 Christians rise in the predawn hours, eat a few mouthfuls of corn porridge and cabbage, and trudge to an assigned workplace. They then spend about 15 hours toiling in coal mines, cleaning and maintaining the camp, or doing farm work or construction work. In late evening, they return to housing units or apartments above their workplace to eat the same meager meal before falling to sleep on concrete floors.

Other Christians are not so fortunate. Instead of laboring for hours at backbreaking work under the eye of cruel guards, they’re locked in torture chambers and underground prisons. Survivors of North Korean prison camps have described being locked in cages like animals, forced to stand for hours in tortuous positions and beaten until they vomited blood.

About 200,000 North Koreans are thought to be detained in prison camps that aren’t even acknowledged by the communist government to exist. Authorities are very careful to conceal details about the camps from the outside world. The camps are disguised as military or farming facilities, and only officials with special security clearance are permitted to visit. During a United Nations investigation that culminated in an incriminatory report earlier this year, North Korean authorities repeatedly denied investigators entrance to the camps.

North Koreans found guilty of lesser infractions are sent to the kyohwaso, or ordinary labor camps, from which they might one day be released. But those found guilty of serious “crimes,” such as practicing Christianity, are sent to the kwanliso, controlled areas for political prisoners. The regime often arrests entire families, punishing three generations of a family for the crime of one member.

Most political prisoners sent to the kwanliso are incarcerated for life, if they aren’t executed immediately. Inmates are denied contact with the outside world, and not even their closest family members receive information on their whereabouts. Very few people have ever been released from a kwanliso.

There are four known kwanliso prison camps. Camp 14 holds about 15,000 prisoners, who work in mines, and only one person is known to have ever escaped. Camp 15, which holds about 30,000 prisoners, is unique in that it has separate areas for those imprisoned for life (Total Control Zones) and those considered redeemable through labor (Revolutionary Zones). Camp 16, which is located near a nuclear test site in the north, is thought to hold 20,000 prisoners. And Camp 25, which is more like a maximum security prison, holds only a few thousand prisoners but has doubled in size since 2006.

Conditions in the camps are so bad that nearly 40 percent of inmates die of starvation, while others commonly lose up to half their body weight. Prisoners tell of eating grass and rats to survive and of fighting over a single kernel of corn. One escapee, Shin Dong-hyuk, said his own mother began to compete with him for food. Survivors of these camps are often permanently disfigured from torture and from being chained to walls for days or weeks at a time.

Most of those who have disappeared into kwanliso in recent years have been found guilty of one of three crimes: they tried to flee North Korea, they had unauthorized contact with citizens of South Korea, or they were revealed as Christians. According to testimony before the United Nations, Christianity in North Korea “has been compared to a drug, narcotics, a sin and a tool of Western and capitalist invasion.” The work of Christian missionaries is “akin to vampirism.”

While Christianity is not explicitly illegal and a few show churches are even allowed in Pyongyang, in practice, authorities consider adherence to the Christian faith a political crime. State security makes concerted efforts to identify Christians. Agents are trained to suppress religious activities and to systematically interrogate repatriated citizens about their contact with churches and missionaries while outside North Korea. Those found to have engaged in such conduct face harsher punishment.

The 30,000 believers in these concentration camps are prisoners of a war being waged on Christians in North Korea. It’s a war that began in 1948, when North Korea was established as a state. North Koreans, who share the gospel, as Mrs. Park did, pay a high personal price. Secret Christians there have known and accepted this for years. They fully expect their faith to result in their imprisonment. However, a Christian who works closely with North Korean defectors said they do not regard imprisonment with surprise or outrage; on the contrary, they regard the prison camps as their mission field and view everything leading to their imprisonment as training.

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo of President Kim Jong Un of North Korea is courtesy of Reuters/KCNA.

Florida Governor Rick Scott Signs Bill to give Illegals Instate Tuition

June 9, 2014/in Education, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Dr. Rich Swier

There is growing outrage with the Republican controlled legislature and Governor Rick Scott for giving illegals instate tuition at Florida’s colleges and universities. Here is a comment about Governor Scott signing HB 851 on the Miami Herald blog:

The only bill that the citizens want regarding illegal aliens and university is that the universities must turn them in to the authorities for deportation when they become aware that they are involved in the universities. The voters have been won over by this scott after they initially doubted him as a political novice thanks to his exemplary fiscal stewardship but actions such as this threaten to damage the great amount of goodwill that this scott has generated. As this oddly named commentor has pointed out democrat primary voters are worried because their party leaders continue to ignore them and give party leader preferred status to the scumbag crist, a Trojan horse sent by republicans to ensure their easy victory as the much predicted crist campaign meltdown has in fact occurred. The most horrible crist has already offended many in this area who were born in or have ties to cuba with his support for communist dictators and many other offensive behaviors and activities.

Posted by: ed jenkins | June 09, 2014 at 09:39 AM

Some have rephrased the Karl Marx ideal of wealth redistribution and re-branded it for Governor Rick Scott:

“From each legal Florida citizen according to his ability, to each illegal in Florida according to his need”

Is this political posturing, crony capitalism, a violation of federal laws or all of the above? The Miami Herald reports:

Gov. Rick Scott on Monday signed legislation that allows students who are undocumented immigrants to qualify for less expensive in-state tuition at Florida colleges and universities. The bill (HB 851), sponsored by Rep. Jeannette Nunez, R-Miami, was one of the most intensely debated during the 2014 legislative session in Tallahassee. Scott signed the bill as he embarked on a week-long campaign swing focusing on his support for keeping higher education affordable in Florida, whille [sic] criticizing Democratic opponent Charlie Crist for having supported tuition hikes when he was a Republican governor. Scott plans stops in Fort Myers, Boca Raton, Miami, Orlando and Pensacola. The immigrant tuition bill passed the House 84-32 but was stalled in the Senate until Scott enlisted the public support of two former Republican governors, Jeb Bush and Bob Martinez, both of whom called on the Senate to take action. “Dreamer” students, dressed in orange mortar boards, were a freqent presence in the Capitol Rotunda this past spring as they rallied support for the measure. Read more.

According to Hans A. von Spakovsky and Charles D. Stimson giving in-state college tuition to illegal aliens violates federal law. The following from their November 2011 column titled “Providing In-State Tuition for Illegal Aliens: A Violation of Federal Law“:

Federal law prohibits state colleges and universities from providing in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens “on the basis of residence within the State”—unless the same in-state rates are offered to all citizens of the United States. Today, 12 states are circumventing this federal law, and the legal arguments offered to justify such actions are untenable, no matter what other policy arguments are offered in their defense. Because at least one federal court of appeals has held that there is no private right of action under the specific statute in question—§ 1623 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996—the U.S. Department of Justice must enforce this statutory provision against states that have violated federal law. Yet even as it sues states like Arizona and Alabama for trying to assist the enforcement of federal immigration law, the U.S. government refuses to sue states that are incontrovertibly and brazenly violating an unambiguous federal immigration law. Such inaction is unacceptable: The President and the Attorney General have an obligation to enforce every provision of the United State’s comprehensive federal immigration regulations—including the federal law prohibiting state colleges and universities from providing in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens “on the basis of residence within the State.”

Read the full Spakovsky and Stimson column by clicking here. Every Florida Legislative session has examples of bad public policy. Policy that turns into law, which clearly illustrate a disconnect between Florida elected officials and their citizen constituents. This is a prime example. RELATED POLICY: Florida’s Agenda 21 – Governor Rick Scott’s Executive Order 13-319, October 2013.

FBI investigating death threats to Bergdahl’s father

June 9, 2014/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Featured, News, Politics/by Jihad Watch

For a larger view click on the image.

Some death threats are newsworthy. Some aren’t. When Daisy Khan, the wife of Ground Zero Mosque Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, claimed to have been threatened a few years ago (not coincidentally at the height of the Ground Zero Mosque controversy), it was international news. So are these alleged threats to Robert Bergdahl. But the many death threats that counter-jihadists receive are never news.

This is because the purpose of the mainstream media’s publicizing of these death threats to Khan and Bergdahl is not, as one might think, to inform the public about the threats themselves. The point of publicizing them is to demonize the opposition to a cause the media loves but the public hates. 70% of the American people opposed the Ground Zero Mosque, but the media loved it; so Daily Khan’s supposed death threats were publicized. And now, amid the growing dismay over the Bergdahl trade, suddenly we hear that Robert Bergdahl has received death threats. This is a signal that media is going to run interference for Barack Obama yet again, and try to force the American people to swallow the Bergdahl trade.

A few of the death threats I have received over the years:

“Robert Spencer must be shot head…”

And via email:

“Robert Spencer has his right to speech. But someday he will slip up, he will visit a place that doesn’t honor such infidel ‘rights.’ And what a day they will have with him. You’ve heard of head cheese and blood pudding? See, modern hip Muslims like me like to be look different than everybody else in Western society. And we don’t like to believe Islam has any real enemies left. But Robert Spencer, well, he will see the sacred text come to life…’fuel the fires of hell…’ only when they are done with him. Peace and Love.”

“Robert Spencer the Second, born on February 27, 1962, is a hairy man who…currently lives on [specific street] in [specific city] with [specific relatives]…” (Pro-jihad hatchet man Nathan Lean, late of Reza Aslan’s Aslan Media and apparently also connected with John Esposito’s Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, has trafficked in this kind of veiled threat many times, publishing on Twitter what he thinks is my home address and the addresses of places he thinks I frequent — thereby knowingly endangering innocent people even if I am a thousand miles away from where he thinks I am. That Aslan and Esposito would work with this bottom-feeding thug and stalker reveals a great deal about their actual agenda.)

“Killing of this man is a model… SPENCER-Model..Spencer himself deserves the same? he should be sloughtered like that man. Silencing the EVIL.”

“THIS IS AN OPEN THREAT TO YOU AND YOUR ORGANIZATION TO STAY AWAY FROM MUSLIMS AND ISLAM IF YOU KNOW WHAT IS GOOD FOR YOU. YOU SON OF A BITCH . YOUR MOTHER WAS A C**K-SUCKING WHORE . IF YOU GOT THE GUTS AND BALLS PRINT THIS ON YOUR WEB SITE AND TELL PEOPLE THAT YOU ARE BEING THREATENED. U FILTHY C**K-SUCKER HAVE A NICE DAY”

“Yes. Yes..We finally reached out him. Ka’ab Binu Ashraf has been traced. He will be soon found. Will this be like VAN-Goooordhd. I am not sure. Allah Knows.. But Spencer you will pay the price…Just wait to pay the price.”

“Robert….It was really good I found you in a local supermarket. and I followed you.. so i know your address now..tell you fool followers you are going to be deceased very soon… any one taking your seat and getting killed? I am sure most of your followers are cheeky cowards.”

“Do me a favor Spencer and put this as a blog post like you do to all those threatening mails. Be careful, I am very near to you. I located you and I know you have little security around you. I am coming to slit your throat with a bland knife.. and it will pain a lot.. since you misled a lot of people and became a fitnah on earth.. it is a duty of a good muslim to kill you! go report this to FBI or CIA..And don’t worry, I won’t attack you unguarded.. but i will surely kill you in the most easy manner possible because I don’t like to slaughter human beings.. Die and go to hell.. for sure..and yea I have a new name for you…Robert ‘hawknoseinhell’ spencer.”

“Bowe Bergdahl’s Father Has Been Getting Death Threats,” by Laura Zuckerman, Reuters, June 8, 2014 (thanks to Kenneth):

SALMON Idaho (Reuters) – The father of Bowe Bergdahl, the Idaho soldier released from captivity in a controversial prisoner swap with the Taliban, has received emailed death threats that authorities are investigating, an Idaho police chief said on Saturday.

The first of the death threats sent to Bob Bergdahl at his home near Hailey, Idaho, was received on Wednesday, the same day the city canceled a planned rally celebrating the release of his son, Hailey Police Chief Jeff Gunter said.

“There were four specific emails with death threats given to the FBI and they are looking into it,” Gunter told Reuters in an interview.

Authorities are providing security to Bob Bergdahl and his wife, Jani, but Gunter declined to elaborate on those measures.

Bergdahl’s release after being held for nearly five years in Afghanistan provoked an angry backlash in Congress among lawmakers over the Obama administration’s failure to notify them in advance. Some of Bergdahl’s former comrades have charged that he was captured in 2009 after deserting his post.

U.S. military leaders have said the circumstances of Bergdahl’s capture are unclear, with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging critics to wait for all the facts to be known before rushing to judgment on Bergdahl.

The threats came as Hailey, a tourist community of some 8,000 people in the mountains of central Idaho, was buffeted by hundreds of vitriolic phone calls and emails.

The celebratory spirit that infused Hailey a week ago with news of Bergdahl’s release turned to apprehension as an onslaught of angry messages were directed at city officials, businesses and friends of the Bergdahls over a hometown rally to mark his freedom planned for June 28.

As many as 15,000 supporters and protesters were expected to descend on Hailey for an event that would have overwhelmed the resources and infrastructure of the remote mountain town and potentially risked public safety and property, city officials have said.

Residents of the close-knit community have been surprised and dismayed by an angry backlash that seemed to fault them for seeking to aid the Bergdahls in a time of need, Gunter said.

“We’ve always come together in tragedy or crisis, whether it be fire or one of our own being a prisoner of war. Whatever the problem is, the community will be there to help the people experiencing it,” he said.

RELATED VIDEO: Comments on news reports that Bowe Bergdahl joined the Taliban to wage jihad against American soldiers:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/s7Rx12vjTe0[/youtube]

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Bergdahl ‘healthier than expected’: No intelligence supported bad health, says senator

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is courtesy of the Associated Press.

For the first time in history, Islamic prayers and readings from the Qur’an will be heard at the Vatican

June 9, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, National Security, News/by Jihad Watch

When will there be Christian prayers and readings from the New Testament at the Grand Mosque in Mecca?

Will the Qur’an readings at the Vatican feature these verses?

Christians have forgotten part of the divine revelations they received: “From those, too, who call themselves Christians, We did take a covenant, but they forgot a good part of the message that was sent them: so we estranged them, with enmity and hatred between the one and the other, to the day of judgment. And soon will Allah show them what it is they have done.” — Qur’an 5:14

Jesus is not the Son of God: “O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not “Three” – Cease! (it is) better for you! – Allah is only One Allah. Far is it removed from His Transcendent Majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And Allah is sufficient as Defender.” — Qur’an 4:171

“It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! when He determines a matter, He only says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is.” — Qur’an 19:35

Those who believe that Jesus is God’s Son are accursed: “The Jews call ‘Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah’s curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth! ” — Qur’an 9:30

Jesus was not crucified: “And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah’s messenger – they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain.” — Qur’an 4:157

“Islamic prayers to be held at the Vatican,” Al Arabiya, June 6, 2014

For the first time in history, Islamic prayers and readings from the Quran will be heard at the Vatican on Sunday, in a move by Pope Francis to usher in peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Francis issued the invitation to Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit last week to Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas, Peres, and Francis will be joined by Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious leaders, a statement released by Peres’s spokesperson said, according to the Times of Israel.

Holy See officials on Friday said the evening prayers would be a “pause in politics” and had no political aim other than to rekindle the desire for Israeli-Palestinian peace at the political and popular level, according to the Associated Press.

Low expectations

The Vatican will broadcast a live feed of the event to viewers across the world.

However, expectations for the event should be kept low, according to Rev. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the custodian of Catholic Church property in the Holy Land.

[No-one should think] “peace will suddenly break out on Monday, or that peace is any closer,” AP reported him as saying.

On Friday, the Pope met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and discussed ways of promoting peace and stability in Asia the Vatican said in a statement.

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What could possibly go wrong? Federal agencies are building a massive database to collect personal financial data

June 8, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, News, Policy, Regulation, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Sean Hackbarth

The federal government is building a database that will contain extensive personal financial information for over 200 million Americans, the Washington Examiner reports:

The Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau posted an April 16 Federal Register notice of an expansion of their joint National Mortgage Database Program to include personally identifiable information that reveals actual users, a reversal of previously stated policy.

FHFA will manage the database and share it with CFPB. A CFPB internal planning document for 2013-17 describes the bureau as monitoring 95 percent of all mortgage transactions.

FHFA officials claim the database is essential to conducting a monthly mortgage survey required by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and to help it prepare an annual report for Congress.

…

[U]nder the April register notice, the database expansion means it will include a host of data points, including a mortgage owner’s name, address, Social Security number, all credit card and other loan information and account balances.

The database will also encompass a mortgage holder’s entire credit history, including delinquent payments, late payments, minimum payments, high account balances and credit scores, according to the notice.

The two agencies will also assemble “household demographic data,” including racial and ethnic data, gender, marital status, religion, education, employment history, military status, household composition, the number of wage earners and a family’s total wealth and assets.

The National Mortgage Database (NMD) website insists that “We Are Protecting Your Information”:

Information in the database will not identify any individual and we have put safeguards in place to ensure that information in the database is handled in accordance with federal privacy laws and the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Critics like the U.S. Chamber’s Center for Capital Market Competitiveness disagree with this assertion. A CCMC letter to the FHFA states that the database “will intrude unnecessarily upon Americans’ privacy, increase the risk of financial fraud and identity theft, and undermine consumer confidence in the security of their financial information.”

CCMC has a number of criticisms with the database:

“The FHFA has not clearly stated the need for the NMD” nor has it explained “why existing databases or a more limited version of the NMD might not meet the FHFA’s purposes.”
The FHFA “lacks clear authority to gather, store, and analyze the vast amounts of sensitive personal and financial information that will be tracked in the NMD.”
Federal privacy law “does not allow an agency [FHFA] (here likely acting beyond its authority) to share confidential information with another agency [CFPB] simply because they share similar policy goals.”
The FHFA hasn’t adequately explained how this tempting target for hackers will be protected.

Since the FHFA will be sharing the database with the CFPB, it’s important to look at some questionable behavior from this agency. Last month, it was discovered that the agency will spend nearly $400,000 on an all-staff meeting in Washington, D.C. in July. Also earlier this year we found out that a renovation of its Washington, D.C. headquarters has “soared to $145.1 million from a prior estimate of $95 million.”

The CFPB is housed inside the Federal Reserve and isn’t funded by Congress, it is, in the words of Rep. Jeb Henserling (R-TX), Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, “unaccountable to the American people.”

Both agencies can say, “Trust us,” but in the case of the CFPB, its fiscal track record and the lack of institutional accountability should make us question its ability to keep that promise.

Follow Sean Hackbarth on Twitter at @seanhackbarth and the U.S. Chamber at @uschamber.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Photographer: Justin Grimes/Flickr. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.