Tag Archive for: Chicago

Here’s A List Of Cities Hit By Riots In The Last 3 Months

Since late May, numerous cities have faced violent rioting, which has included clashes with police, buildings destroyed by fire, and widespread vandalism.

Minneapolis was the first city to devolve into violence. Peaceful protests followed the May 25 death of George Floyd, who died after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. But soon after, peaceful demonstrations gave way to looting, destruction and arson.

The riots were not contained to any specific region in the U.S. and spread quickly to dozens of major American cities, which each experienced varying degrees of violence.

Atlanta: Atlanta was under a state of emergency in early July, with 1,000 National Guard troops activated to protect state buildings following violent riots prompted by the deaths of George Floyd and then of Rayshard Brooks, who was shot and killed by police in Atlanta.

Boston: Riots and looting broke out in Boston following the death of George Floyd in late May and early June, and included police vehicles being set ablaze, according to Boston 25.

Chicago: More than 100 people were arrested and more than a dozen officers injured amid the looting and rioting in Chicago in early August, which targeted high-end stores. Hundreds of people descended on parts of Chicago after officers reportedly shot Latrell Allen, 20, who was accused of having a gun.

Police shot the suspect following a shootout and the man was taken to a hospital. False information circulated on social media regarding the incident, including a claim that the suspect was 15 years old.

Days later, a group of Chicago City Council members requested that Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker immediately declare a state of emergency in Chicago and deploy the National Guard in light of ongoing rioting and looting in the city. 

Dallas: Numerous businesses were looted and vandalized after peaceful protests in Dallas following the death of George Floyd. Rioters jumped on police cars and began to destroy it, according to Biz Journals. Rioters also slashed tires and broke windows of squad cars.

Denver: Rioters threw fireworks at Denver police officers and started fires after the police shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday, although riots and protesting had been active for months after the death of George Floyd. At least a dozen people were arrested in Denver Saturday night after rioters vandalized businesses and clashed with police officers. Some rioters set fire to trees and an American flag, while others broke windows and threw fireworks at officers, 9 News reported.

More riots and protests could follow, as Aug. 24 marks the anniversary of Elijah McClain’s arrest, a 23-year-old who died after a deadly encounter with police in 2019.

Detroit: Days after the death of George Floyd, rioters clashed with police in Detroit, throwing small bricks, M-80 fireworks and rocks, while protesters held signs that they wanted police to die, according to Detroit News. Dozens of protesters and rioters, many of them from the suburbs, were arrested.

Houston: Police made 200 arrests in late May during riots and protests. Rioters hurled objects and injured police officers and damaged patrol cars, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Los Angeles: Of the more than 4,400 arrests made at protests and riots in late May, the majority of arrests occurred in Los Angeles, where a special task force was developed to investigate crimes committed during the George Floyd demonstrations. Crimes included attempted murders of officers, looting, burglary, robbery, vandalism, arson and assaults with deadly weapons, according to ABC 7.

Minneapolis: The epicenter of the rioting and the scene of where George Floyd was killed descended into chaos immediately after demonstrations following Floyd’s death May 25. Hundreds of buildings were damaged, many of which were looted, set ablaze and destroyed. The Minneapolis Police’s 3rd Precinct was also destroyed. In St. Paul, more than 50 businesses were vandalized and destroyed.

New York City: Hundreds of people were arrested in early June following riots in New York City, where a curfew was also set after widespread vandalism and attacks on police and businesses. A corporate attorney who graduated from an Ivy League school along with another attorney were accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at an NYPD vehicle as the violence in New York City escalated into clashes between police and protesters.

Phoenix: More than 300 adults and over 10 minors were arrested in Phoenix on charges of rioting, unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct and curfew violation in early June. Rioters reportedly threw rocks and bottles at police, and the National Guard was activated to aid police, according to KTAR.

Portland: While there were peaceful demonstrations in Portland, the city also became a hotbed for unrest, where the rioters set fire to a police union building in August. At least 13 riots were declared since late May, and the violence has included fires and vandalized property. Rioters then began throwing chunks of ceramic, rocks and glass bottles toward the officers, while others pointed green lasers — which are capable of causing permanent eye damage — at officers. At least one balloon filled with feces was thrown at officers on the roof of the building,

A riot, as defined by the Portland Police, is when six or more people engage in violent behavior and risk causing harm to others, per the same report.

Richmond: Riots gripped Richmond in early June, where a federal courthouse in Richmond, Virginia, was vandalized with a mark indicating it had been designated as a “target for potential vandalism/arson” by antifa, according to an FBI Situational Information Report obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Associates of a local anarchist/ANTIFA group were reportedly overheard discussing burning down the Richmond courthouse. Rioters also tried to block a fire truck from reaching a burning building with a child inside in Richmond.

Seattle: Rioting in Seattle began in May immediately after the death of George Floyd. Several cars were set on fire, and businesses were looted or damaged. Incendiary devices including Molotov cocktails were reportedly thrown during the protests, police said according to KING 5. A curfew was set and a civil emergency proclamation was issued. Months later, a half-dozen officers were injured and 18 people were arrested at a Seattle riot after demonstrators hurled explosives at police in August.

St. Louis: Rioters damaged at least one police van in early June and looted local businesses after peaceful protesters earlier the same day in June, and several fireworks were thrown at police officers during riots in St. Louis, according to KSDK. Police reported that 55 buildings had been broken into or looted throughout the day June 1.

Washington, D.C.: Violent rioting in the nation’s capitol included clashes with police, looting, and a fire set at the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, along with other fires set near the White House. Rioting continued in August, and 41 people were arrested amid Black Lives Matter protests in Washington, D.C. The arrests came as a result of fires set intentionally as well as destroyed property, the 3D watch commander said according to WJLA.

COLUMN BY

MARLO SAFI

Culture reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

WOW! Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot defends ban on protesters on her block: ‘I have a right to make sure that my home is secure

Right but YOU don’t have the same right to a safe and secure home. My God, the hubris!

Hunchback can’t see her own hunch.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot defends ban on protesters on her block: ‘I have a right to make sure that my home is secure

By: MSN, August 20, 2020:

Mayor Lori Lightfoot defended the Chicago Police Department’s ban on protesters being able to demonstrate on the block where she lives, telling reporters Thursday that she and her family at times require heightened security because of threats she receives daily.

A group of people wearing costumes: Some protesters hold umbrellas while facing off with police near Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s home in Logan Square on July 23, 2020. © Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune/TNS Some protesters hold umbrellas while facing off with police near Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s home in Logan Square on July 23, 2020.

Lightfoot refused to elaborate on the specific threats, but said she receives them daily against herself, her wife and her home. Comparisons to how the Police Department has protected previous mayors’ homes, such as Rahm Emanuel’s Ravenswood residence, are unfair because “this is a different time like no other,” Lightfoot told reporters.

“I think that residents of this city, understanding the nature of the threats that we are receiving on a daily basis, on a daily basis, understand I have a right to make sure that my home is secure,” Lightfoot said.

Lightfoot and Chicago police Superintendent David Brown were asked at an unrelated news conference about a Tribune report noting police have banned protesters from demonstrating on her block in the Logan Square neighborhood, ordering officers to arrest anyone who refuses to leave.

The directive surfaced in a July email from then-Shakespeare District Cmdr. Melvin Roman to officers under his command. It did not distinguish between the peaceful protesters Lightfoot regularly says she supports and those who might intend to be destructive, but ordered that after a warning is given to demonstrators, “It should be locked down.”

Activists and police sources could not cite instances when the city repeatedly locked down her predecessor Emanuel’s block against protesters. The Kenwood block where former President Barack Obama lived with his family when his primary residence was in Chicago was shut down for access only by residents after his election.

But Lightfoot said such comparisons “don’t make any sense,” after Brown referenced the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as well as civil unrest that have flared since the George Floyd killing at the hands of Minneapolis police.

“I’m not going to make any excuses for the fact that, given the threats I have personally received, given the threats to my home and my family, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure they’re protected,” Lightfoot said. “I make no apologies whatsoever for that.”

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Since the order, and even for a time just prior to its writing, Chicago cops have repeatedly blocked protesters’ access to the block with groups of officers and barricades. Police have often kept protesters contained at the nearby corner of Kimball and Wrightwood avenues, though one standoff between activists and officers last month saw police go as far as bringing in an armored vehicle in case things got out of hand.

Aside from the expanded police presence to block protesters from reaching her home, Lightfoot already receives 24/7 protection from cops including officers stationed at the residence. The aggressive policing has sometimes siphoned away resources from the area’s police district, some sources with knowledge of the situation said, leading to quiet grumbling.

Both Lightfoot and Brown noted there are laws on the books banning residential protests, but Brown acknowledged the Police Department does not always enforce them. Brown said the city tries to give “wiggle room” for protesters.

Brown also cited instances where peaceful protests have been “hijacked” by agitators as reason for keeping demonstrators off Lightfoot’s block.

“We have seen very peaceful First Amendment protests for the most part but embedded in each of those protests have been very violent people. And they’re embedded. They put up umbrellas. And they come for a fight,” Brown said. “So we have to prepare for what we’ve seen.”


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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Chicago Store Owner Spent $300,000 To Reopen Destroyed Business After Riots, Only For It To Be Struck Again By Vandals

A Chicago shop owner thought he had a second chance after his store was destroyed during the riots and violence following George Floyd’s death in May, the Associated Press reported.

But that second chance was fleeting. After Walid Mouhammad, the owner of African Food & Liquor, spent $300,000 to reopen his store in Chicago when it was vandalized in May, surveillance video showed Monday the inside of his shop being robbed and ransacked for the second time, according to the Associated Press.

Mouhammad has worked at the West Side Chicago convenience store for 33 years, with 20 years as its owner. His store was vandalized in late May, when riots and protests broke out across the country following the death May 25 of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.

Mouhammad is unsure if he’ll be able to reopen again after his store was destroyed and emptied the second time. Police were blocks away when his landlord and several workers called 911 to report that people were trying to break into his store.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot warned vandals that the city would hold them accountable for their actions, but Chicago has continued to spiral into violence and crime.

Over 100 people were arrested and 13 officers were injured amid looting and violence Sunday in Chicago. The violence was  reportedly prompted by an officer-related shooting. High-end shops were broken into and looted, and even a Ronald McDonald House was vandalized while sick children and their parents slept inside.

Chicago is also experiencing a surge in crime.

The Chicago Police Department counted 105 murders in July alone, a 139% increase over July 2019, which saw 44 murders. Police counted 406 shooting incidents, a 75% rise compared to July 2019’s total of 232.

The city’s murders are up 50% when comparing the January-July periods from 2020 and 2019, and shootings have jumped 47% for the same period.

COLUMN BY

MARLO SAFI

Culture reporter.

RELATED TWEET:

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Homicides Skyrocket In Dozens Of Nation’s Largest Cities, Analysis Finds

Homicides in 50 of America’s largest cities rose by 24%, a new analysis found.

In total, 36 of 50 of America’s largest cities examined saw a double-digit rise in homicide rates, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. Austin and Chicago’s homicide rates have increased more than 50% in comparison to last year’s rates, according to the Journal.

Fort Worth’s homicide rate increased more than 25% while Dallas and San Jose both saw a less than 25% decrease in homicide rates in comparison to last year, the paper found.

Other crimes, such as robbery, decreased by 11% among 41 of America’s largest cities that provided robbery data, the Journal’s analysis showed.

Police say robbery, burglary and rape rates have gone down perhaps because of the coronavirus lockdowns, the analysis noted, adding that authorities have also attributed the rising homicide rates to rising gang violence.

Homicide rates are also up because criminals have grown bolder as institutions, including police, have stepped back because of police reform protests and the coronavirus, analysts and law-enforcement officials said, according to the analysis.

Protests calling for racial justice and police reform have been ongoing since George Floyd died in police custody. George Floyd died after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, according to video footage.

Although many in the Democratic Party don’t directly call to defund the police, many of them sympathize with the movement and some endorse it, the Daily Caller reported.

The WSJ analysis used individual police department reports on city crime and public information data. The analysis also used the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab for analysis completion and review.

COLUMN BY

MARY ROSE CORKERY

Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Making Eli’s Chicago Cheesecake — A Job Americans won’t do?

The new UN High Commissioner for Refugees, after visiting Senator John McCain in Washington and signing an agreement to get more money from U.S. taxpayers, visited Eli’s Cheesecake Company in Chicago.

McCain and Grandi

Arizona Senator John McCain [photo right] warmly greets new UN High Commissioner for Refugees as Grandi comes to D.C. for his annual dip into the U.S. Treasury. Grandi is ‘head hunter’ for American big business.

We learn that a federal refugee contractor lines up jobs for refugees with Eli’s!

Contractor RefugeeOne took in $2.1 million from taxpayers in 2014 to act as an employment service for refugees.  It brags that it brought 16,000 refugees to Chicago since 1982!

What! no Americans willing to make cheesecake? Or, is there some special tax incentive for Eli’s to hire foreign labor?

The UN trumpets the news here:

CHICAGO, United States, March 18 (UNHCR) – During a week-long visit to the United States, the head of the United Nations refugee agency welcomed Washington’s longstanding commitment to resettling more refugees than any other country and emphasized that managing the refugee crisis is a global responsibility.

Speaking on a visit to Chicago, where he met with refugees, US lawmakers and resettlement agencies, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said: “Resettlement addresses the needs of the most vulnerable and is the safest way to move people from one country to another. Refugees flee terror, they don’t bring terror to countries. Their arrival is very carefully vetted, so there should be no fear.”

[….]

While in the Midwestern city, Grandi visited RefugeeOne, a Chicago area non-profit that works with refugeesfleeing war, persecution and terror, helping them to build new lives of safety, dignity and self-reliance.

Marc_Schulman

Eli’s CEO Marc Schulman

 

Finding employment is a major step for a refugee to become self-reliant and one of the businesses that RefugeeOne has long partnered with is Eli’s Cheesecake Company, which has been employing refugees for over 25 years.

[….]

“It takes UNHCR to protect us, RefugeeOne to place us in jobs and people like Marc to help us become productive,” he added, referring to the President of Eli’s Cheesecake Company.

Eli’s CEO Marc Schulman gets cheap immigrant labor and bakes cakes for Obama!

RefugeeOne is a subcontractor of three BIG contracting agencies of the US State Department:  Church World Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

So, no low income Americans want the jobs? Or, it just isn’t cool enough for these Christian charities to help Americans first?

See Leo Hohmann at WND about African Americans being hammered by competition with immigrant labor, here.

Obama’s former DOE Secretary Wanted More Mayoral Control of Public Schools Nationwide

Not long after President Obama brought former Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Arne Duncan to Washington, D.C., to become U.S. Secretary of Education, Duncan spouted out this March 31, 2009, declaration regarding his desire to establish mayoral control over more school systems. As NBC Chicago reports:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday that mayors should take control of big-city school districts where academic performance is suffering.

Duncan said mayoral control provides the strong leadership and stability needed to overhaul urban schools.

Mayors run the schools in fewer than a dozen big cities; only seven have full control over management and operations. That includes Chicago, where Duncan headed the school system until joining the Obama administration.

Speaking at a forum with mayors and superintendents, Duncan promised to help more mayors take over.

“At the end of my tenure, if only seven mayors are in control, I think I will have failed,” Duncan said.

He offered to do whatever he can to make the case. “I’ll come to your cities,” Duncan said. “I’ll meet with your editorial boards. I’ll talk with your business communities. I will be there.”

To my knowledge, no school system has been placed under mayoral control since Duncan was appointed as U.S. Secretary of Education in December 2008. Certainly there was no rush for U.S. cities to place their education systems under control of a mayor. And though there is a lot more about Duncan to which one might tie failure (not the least of which are his coercive No Child left Behind waivers), let us consider a marvelous irony about mayoral control in Duncan’s own backyard of Chicago, Illinois:

On March 03, 2016, the Illinois House passed a bill to convert CPS’s mayorally-appointed school board into an elected board. The legislation, HB 4268, sponsored by Rep. Richard Markwell (D-Chicago) passed by a vote of 110-4 and is currently in the Senate. From the article:

The bill would partition the city into 20 local districts and a 21st board member would be elected at large as president. Each would serve an initial five-year term if elected on March 20, 2018, then four years each to coincide with municipal elections.

The legislation also addresses a few regular criticisms of the appointed board by pushing at least half of the elected board’s meetings until after hours so working parents and community members can attend.

Some believe that the Senate might not get to act on HB 4268 because of addressing Illinois’ state budget crisis. Still, what is remarkable about HB 4268 are the numerous House sponsors the bill has garnered along the way– 44 co-sponsors in all– and all Democrats– the same party affiliation as Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Duncan praises mayoral-run districts for their top-down control– which logically appeals to a guy who held states ransom via Title I funds connected to his NCLB waivers. From Duncan’s 2009 NBC spiel:

Duncan told The Associated Press that urban schools need someone who is accountable to voters and driving all of a city’s resources behind children.

“Part of the reason urban education has struggled historically is you haven’t had that leadership from the top,” he said.

“Where you’ve seen real progress in the sense of innovation, guess what the common denominator is? Mayoral control,” Duncan said.

I do not know of anyone who would describe what Emanuel has done to CPS as “progress” and certainly not as “innovative.”

Furthermore, Emanuel made sure he was not “accountable to voters” by suppressing evidence of the Laquan McDonald shooting until after his runoff election against Chuy Garcia on April 07, 2015.

As of February 01, 2016, Emanuel’s approval rating hit a record low of 27 percent. As WGN-TV reports:

According to the poll, only 27% of Chicagoans approve of the job he is doing.  41% believe he should resign.  55% would support legislation to allow a Chicago mayor to be recalled.

59% of those surveyed say Emanuel is not honest and trustworthy. 70% believe his administration is not transparent. Only 25% believe Emanuel is in touch with people like them.

The mayor’s slide in the polls has accelerated as the result of his handling of the investigation into the police shooting death of teenager Laquan McDonald.  A police dashcam video that shows McDonald being shot 16 times was not released until last Spring, after Emanuel was re-elected.

58% of the poll respondents believe the mayor was not justified in withholding the release of the video; 74% don’t believe his statements about the shooting.

985 registered Chicago voters were polled between January 20 and January 28.  The poll has a margin of error of 3.2%.

Looks like Emanuel is losing his mayoral control on many fronts.

As for the condition of CPS under his (and his appointed board’s) control, Emanuel is also taking a hit. As HB 4268 co-sponsor Greg Harris (D- Chicago) notes on his web page circa November 2015:

There is only one school district in the State of Illinois that does NOT have an elected school board, and that is the Chicago Public Schools.  Currently all members of the Chicago Board of Education are appointed by Mayor and are not accountable to the parents, students or communities they serve. It is time for a change. That is why I am proud to cosponsor HB 4268 which would change Chicago’s school board from appointees to an elected school board.

We know about the recent pay-to-play scandals rocking CPS. But for our neighborhoods there are so many other reasons that we need to take back control of our schools. We have seen our neighborhood schools losing resources for enrichment programs such as music, art, sports, foreign languages, advanced placement and special education. This year, CPS is proposing over $8.7 million in cuts to schools in our area.

It is also worth noting that at the same time the Board is cutting our schools and asking for a property tax increase, we will be paying $238 million in termination fees to banks and investors to get us out of interest rate swaps and other financial deals that the CPS Board itself instigated.

Harris posted the above appeal right around the time of the CPS scandal related to a federal investigation and guilty plea of former CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and Emanuel’s withholding emails related to the incident.

Add to the above the following observations regarding an Emanuel-controlled board by Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Karen Lewis in the March 03, 2016, NBC article:

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis has complained for years that the appointed board rarely listens to teachers and families when imposing decisions — or it wouldn’t have closed 50 schools or rubber-stamped a no-bid contract deal that since ousted the CEO and might land her in prison.

“Nearly one year ago, 90 percent of Chicago voters expressed their support for an elected school board, and now, the city’s students and their families are closer to ending the devastation of mayoral control and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s handpicked Board of Education,” Lewis said. “The CTU now calls on the Senate to pass this bill and give the voters what is long overdue — democracy in our education.”

Mayoral control has not worked in Chicago. Whether or not Duncan admits as much in 2016 is irrelevant. He is currently in no position to advocate for mayoral control.

However.

Illinois should stay alert to Duncan’s December 2015 return to Illinois and the possibility of his doing so in order to qualify to run for governor in November 2018.

For now, as of February 2016, Duncan is not in the public eye, though he has signed Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to represent him, as Deadline reports, “in all areas including books and speaking engagements.”

I wonder what Duncan would get CAA or any other agency to market as his USDOE success in a future bid for any political position of note, Illinois governor included.

And I wonder if he plans to write or speak on the glories of mayoral control, especially in Chicago.

Three words:

Litter box liner.

#ChicagoThugs, #PatheticInChicago, #ChicagoFailure

Who can forget the clueless thugs protesting last May in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, holding up their brand new shiny placards––hmm, where did those pricey things come from?––and expressing rage at….what?

  • Not at the lack of esteem they believed white America owed to the black-lives-matter movement.
  • Not at the shooting a year earlier of Michael Brown (for which police officer Darren Wilson was exonerated by a Grand Jury) or the phony “hands-up/don’t shoot” mantra.
  • Not at the devastating fact that under Barack Obama the unemployment figures for African-Americans were––and remain––at record sky-high levels. According to Larry Elder at Townhall.com, “By every key economic measurement, blacks are worse off under Obama…in some cases, far worse off.”
  • Not at the tragic fact that black-on-black crime was––and remains––the single biggest killer in the black community (other than abortion).

Oh no. They were protesting because the anarchic, hate-America moneybags who bribed or rather enticed them to show up and act out didn’t pay them! Reportedly, some of the protesters “who looted, rioted, burned buildings and overturned police cars….were promised up to $5,000 per month to join the protests.”

That’s right, according to Newsmax.com, “Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), the successor group to the now-bankrupt St. Louis branch of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), stiffed the protesters.”

So much for the high-minded ideology that drove these unemployed know-nothings into the streets!

OLD BOTTLE, SAME WINE

This is exactly what we just witnessed in Chicago on Friday night, March 11th, as a bunch of protestors––both black and white––were convinced for a pittance or for a pile of dough to act like hyperactive children off their Ritalin in order to disrupt a massive rally, anticipated to be attended by over 25,000, for presidential-frontrunner Donald J. Trump. It was hilarious to see the protestors, when asked by reporters why they were there, robotically announce, “I’d rather not give my reasons.” Translation: I have no clue why I’m here, but I’m making a few bucks, so what the hey!

The venue was perfect, wasn’t it?––the home of the arch community organizer Barack Obama, who before his ignominious, race-baiting, hate-whitey, loathe-the-opposition tenure in the White House, specialized in fomenting the same kind of protests, almost all of them to bring down “the man.” The goal, of course, has always been to extort money from individuals or corporations perceived to be “racist,” to create or reinforce in the protestors the notion that they are perpetual victims, and to convince them to vote for Democrats who promise to address their grievances––but never do. The net result: The cities in America with the highest crime rates share one thing in common––each one has a Democrat mayor!

In Democrat-run Chicago, the rich, hate-America radicals behind the anti-Trump protest, including MoveOn.org ––as well as behind Occupy Wall St., Black Lives Matter, etc.––were trying to take down the ultimate man, the Big Kahuna, the billionaire the protestors all long to be like but instead can’t help envying.

Is this the very definition of stupid? Mr. Trump is offering America a way out of poverty, a return to a rich, vibrant, successful, flourishing America, but these mal-educated protesters––thank you Common Core and all the other dumb-America-down liberal education programs of the past 50 years––would rather stick to their self-defeating ways than to wake up and smell the coffee.

According to radio host and writer Douglas V. Gibbs, the “Chicago protests were not about Trump” but were rather “an attempt to silence opposition to liberal left politics.” If Cruz had been the frontrunner, Gibbs says, he would have been the target.

Gibbs explains that in the style of the career agitator, socialist Saul Alinsky, the protestors “want violence…they want riots…they think it is chic. These people remind us of the agitators [who] brought about the French Revolution, or the Bolsheviks who brought about the Russian Revolution…angry, violent, and trained to believe the same poppycock that has brought down a long list of republics in history––and failed every time.”

Gibbs compliments Trump’s refusal to “feed the beast” by cancelling the event, no doubt driving the unruly horde to gather in another venue to count the money they made for the night and to indulge in an event commensurate with their maturity level, such as group thumb-sucking.

To his everlasting shame, Senator Ted Cruz joined the hysterical ranks of the Republican- establishment has-beens in blaming Donald Trump for the mob’s sideshow. So much for Mr.-I-Stand-for-the- Constitution defending Mr. Trump’s freedom of speech!

THANK YOU, VINCENTE

Last June, at the outset of his campaign for President of the United States, Mr. Trump said that one of the first things he would do was build a wall to keep illegal aliens from violating our southern border and invading our homeland––and that Mexico would pay for it! On cue, his rival candidates expressed their outrage, although now they’ve all appropriated this strategy for themselves.

Just a few weeks ago, the former president of Mexico, Vincente Fox, weighed in on that pronouncement. No way, he said, would Mexico pay “for that effing wall!”

When asked his reaction to Fox’s statement, Mr. Trump said “the wall just got 10 feet higher!”

In the same vein, a lot of Mr. Trump’s campaign promises have been met with anger, scorn, derision, vilification, and patronization, in fact most of the marginalizing tactics suggested by Saul Alinsky in his book, Rules for Radicals. The theory is that when people are insulted, they feel diminished, they lose their strength, they fade into the woodwork, sort of what Mitt Romney has done, not after being insulted but after insulting the formidable Mr. Trump. What Alinsky followers today don’t realize is that truth both negates and conquers liberal lies.

When Mr. Trump cites the massacres by Muslims on 9/11 and in France and San Bernardino and all over the world and then says we have to temporarily keep Muslims from entering the country “until we understand what’s going on,” the average person understands and agrees.

Only the politically-correct media wusses appear not to get it. But they join in the Trump bashing because their bosses order them to do so. Why? Because those same bosses have massive business dealings in the Arab world and so forbid their underlings to say anything that could hurt a burgeoning bottom line. Follow the money!

When Mr. Trump says that “I think Islam hates us,” his interviewers are stunned that someone running for public office actually realizes that the mullahs in Iran and the terrorists from Hezbollah and Hamas and the president of the so-called “Palestinian” Authority have inscribed in their mission statements the vow to eliminate the Great Satan, America, and the Little Satan, Israel. But the average person ––left, right, Democrat, Republican, black, white, Hispanic, young, old, et al––gets it and agrees with it.

That is why with every protest to Mr. Trump’s candidacy, not only does the wall get 10 feet higher, but the votes increase by the millions!

#TriumphOhio, #TriumphFlorida, #Hope.

trump protest sheet

Trump protest Q&A sheet.

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EDITORS NOTE:  During the Obamacare protests, the Democratic controlled Congress amended Federal law H. R. 347 to make it illegal to protest at Federal campaign events. ALL of these anti-Trump rallies, be they violent or not, are FELONIES under this law that the U.S. Congress passed.

You may read the full text of H.R. 347 here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr347/text

Muslim Brotherhood Fomented Arab Spring like revolt at Trump Chicago Rally?

The visceral response Trump is getting as he continues his campaign for the Republican nomination for President of the United States is beyond what I have ever seen in my lifetime. The message is abundantly clear, he has struck fear into the heart of Islam, as well as the elite and establishment Republicans.

IMG_2987-2

Courtesy Cathy Hinners: National Security Analyst, Public Speaker.

As it becomes likely that Americans will place Trump or Cruz into the White House, the Muslim Brotherhood is responding out of a necessity. It appears they have strategically  joined forces with Black Lives Matter in order to bring about their Arab Spring here in America. The protestors who showed up to Trump’s rally in Chicago Friday night were definitely not there for a peaceful protest.

From the day Trump stated he would ban Muslims from entry into the country through resettlement until the process proved safe to Americans, he has worried Islamic leaders here and around the world. He also made a simple statement to Anderson Cooper in a recent interview that drew much attention. Trump stated,

“I think Islam hates us. There is something there that-there’s tremendous hatred there. There’s tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it.”

It is apparent they do not want him to hold the high office of our land, nor would they want a Ted Cruz, and since Cruz is not the front runner Trump is getting the brunt of their hatred.

At a December Muslim American Society (MAS) Conference this past December in Chicago, several prominent Muslim Brotherhood affiliated individuals said some things that should jolt the authentic American awake from any political correct sleep they are under. Watch the Conference Video:

For example Nihad Awad, National Director for Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) stated this about the 2016 elections,

“You can change the reality of our time. This is the time for American Muslims to be at the front and not to retreat. In 2016 minorities will play a major role, African-Americans, Latinos. We have to help those people in their causes, because their causes are our causes. Black Lives Matter is our matter. Black Lives Matter is our campaign.”

The Muslim Brotherhood is essentially using the thugs of the BLM movement to do a lot of their dirty work, the nitty gritty work on the streets that they would rather leave to the grunts. Those in the BLM better wake up to the fact that they are being used as slave labor for the Muslim Brotherhood and other rich and powerful entities like Soros.

I would imagine the BLM likes to think other movements are coming along-side to help them in their cause for “justice”, but they are simply pawns in a chess game. It is known that Arab Muslims hate black people. Ask any black person in Morocco for confirmation of that, because it is the Arab Muslim who is full of racism, not your average American.

At the same conference, Khalilah Sabra, Executive Director and Project Developer for MAS said this of their motives and of using the BLM,

“We are prepared to unite for struggle, for blacks, for Hispanics, for Muslim. If we are not prepared to wage this struggle, we will fail, but first we need to make a conscious admission to ourselves that black lives matter.”

It sounds like she is admitting joining with blacks may go against what her audience feels, but that they have to decide that black lives matter, because in her heart she doesn’t believe it to be true. She is simply encouraging the union because it is a means to an end. The end is a revolution in America that would give Muslims a bigger foothold in our country with the end result being an Islamic America ruled by Sharia.

She continues,

“That we are a community that staged a revolution across the world. If we can do that, why can’t we have that in America?”

So, I guess it wasn’t caused by the video after all.

One prominent Imam from Chicago thought it would be a good idea to encourage mayhem at the Trump rally in Chicago. Abdul Malik Mujahid was born in Pakistan and apparently has been included in a list of the Most Influential Muslims. He is very involved in coaching Muslims on how to vote.

His tweet from March 4th at 5:57pm

“Trump is going to be in Chicago on March 11th at UIC. Any ideas what Muslims, Blacks and Latino should plan on doing. I am quite sure that Chicago media will cover the protest well.”

Consider if this kind of tweet came from a Christian Pastor or a Rabbi and was targeted at a Hillary or Bernie rally. It would ruin their reputation, not to mention the coveted 501c3 status of their church or Synagogue. More importantly this tweet reveals a strategy of using Black Lives Matter and Latinos to cause active revolt and a desire for violence.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Black Lives Matter pose a threat to our personal security. This is not some movement for “civil rights”.  They are infringing on the rights of Americans to peacefully gather and express their first amendment rights. Those same rights that gave the BLM protection as they marched down a street in Minnesota last year chanting, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.”

One group, the Muslim Brotherhood, is already being considered by our House of Representatives to be designated as a Foreign Terrroist Organization, the other, BLM, needs to be investigated as well as they are now linked to that organization, and pose threats to the American public.

For those reader interest in contacting their Congressman concerning these Issues ma do do.

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Bernie Sanders Supporter Who Attacked Trump Starred in Islamic State Video

EDITORS NOTE:  During the Obamacare protests, the Democratic controlled Congress amended Federal law H. R. 347 to make it illegal to protest at Federal campaign events. ALL of these anti-Trump rallies, be they violent or not, are FELONIES under this law that the U.S. Congress passed!

You may read the full text of H.R. 347 here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr347/text

The featured image is of Rose Hamid (Left) at a Donald Trump (Right) rally on Friday, January 8, 2016. According to Shoebat.com: Ms. Rose Hamid is president of the nonprofit Muslim Women of the Carolinas. Their Facebook page is here. She and is associated with several groups, including the Muslim American Society(MAS) of NC, CAIR, and the Islamic Society of Charlotte. We reported several years ago on Shoebat.com that the MAS is a front for the terrorist group Muslim Brotherhood. CAIR is an internationally recognized terrorist organization. The Islamic Society of Charlotte has ties to the infamous Holy Land Foundation Terrorist Financing case, as has been reported by the Carolina Journal Online

March 11, 2016 Trump Rally: Chicago Style Drive by Shooting of the 1st Amendment

Donald Trump was scheduled to do a rally in Chicago as part of his presidential campaign. After conferring with police authorities he decided to cancel his appearance. Mr. Trump’s primary concern was for the safety of those attending the rally. But that was not enough for the anti-Trump protestors like Portia Boulger, an activist from Ohio and supporter of Bernie Sanders. Boulger attended the Chicago rally in a Trump for president t-shirt and gave the Nazi salute.

Portia Boulger giving Nazi salute on left, and as a Woman for Bernie activist on the right.

This protest was well planned to do what it did, stop freedom of speech in Chicago. It can be characterized as a Chicago style drive by shooting, with the target being the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Immediately after this near riot Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich denounced Trump for his “inflammatory rhetoric.” None blamed the protestors who appear to be made up of illegal aliens, Muslims, Moveon.org, members of Black Lives Matter, Democrats and other people like Portia Boulger a supporter of Bernie Sanders (see the raw video of the protest below).

This is akin to blaming the victim rather than the rapist.

This is political correctness gone wild. This is why Donald Trump is so popular, he is not politically correct and the people love him for it.

Watch how the Trump rally in Chicago nearly turned into an all out riot with confrontations between the protestors and Trump supporters,  video by Fox News KTVU Channel 2:

Political correctness is what Trump is all about. Donald Trump made the following statement on Fox and Friends:

President Obama is a great divider. That’s what you’re seeing here. President Obama has greatly divided this nation.

There is division between black and white. There is division between economic groups.

He has done a terrible job in terms of unifying our country. President Obama should have been — and had the advantage of being African-American– of really bringing the country together. And I thought that was what was going to happen. I didn’t know if he was going to be a good president. You can never tell.But I could tell you one thing I thought he was going to be a unifier. He has turned out to be a terrible unifier. he has turned out to be a divider.

A lot of what you saw last night [in Chicago] was Obama.

Here are some interviews after the clash in Chicago:

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Trump: “A Lot Of What You Saw Last Night Was Obama” | Video | RealClearPolitics

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EDITORS NOTE:  During the Obamacare protests, the Democratic controlled Congress amended Federal law H. R. 347 to make it illegal to protest at Federal campaign events. ALL of these anti-Trump rallies, be they violent or not, are FELONIES under this law that the U.S. Congress passed.

You may read the full text of H.R. 347 here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr347/text

Leftists Use Black Lives Matter to Exploit Blacks, Again

animals versus human babyRecently, my black brother shared an unfortunate incident. Years ago, police in two unmarked cars blocked his car. They jumped out pointing guns, demanding that he exit his car. My brother immediately raised his hands, but did not exit his car because he was frozen with fear. An officer pulled him out of his car onto the ground. My brother said, “Calm down! I am not resisting!”

After checking him out, the officers realized he was not their suspect. Rather than sending my brother on his way with an apology, the police framed him. My brother had an unopened six pack of beer on the floor. An officer opened one of the beers and said, “You’re under arrest for drunk driving.” The bogus charge did not stick and my brother was released hours later, angry, with a bitter taste in his mouth.

Ironically, my brother’s reason for telling me about the incident was to defend the police in the recent shooting and arrests covered 24/7 on CNN. He said the cops who framed him were a few bad apples which are everywhere in every profession. Amen to that. Jesus had 12 disciples and one was a bad apple. My brother made the point that he was not harmed because he submitted to the police’s authority. He noted that the blacks in the videos shown on TV did not submit to the police.

My brother’s point is correct. In each incident caught on video in which people are second-guessing officer’s behavior, bad outcomes could have been avoided had the persons simply respected authority and complied.

A friend of mine is a veteran Baltimore black cop. He told me upon arriving at a scene, a cop must immediately take control of the situation. If not, the cop could end up dead – stabbed in the back by a weepy girlfriend or mom. The most hazardous part of a police officer’s job is the routine traffic stop; 62 officers killed 2002- 2011.

Democrats, CNN and other liberal bias media have an insidiously evil agenda to convince black America that Republicans, conservatives and police are out to get them. These Leftists would love to feature my brother’s bad boy cops story 24/7; claiming the cops were unequivocally motivated by white racism.

Meanwhile, the Left avoids experiences like mine with police like the plague. In the 80’s, an interracial couple robbed a bank, their description matching my wife, me and our car. Police surrounded our car with guns drawn and ordered us out of our car. We complied. They checked us out, apologized and went on their way. We were stopped on another occasion years later. Again, the officers were respectful and professional.

black lives matter bill boardAs a young adult, my cousins wife called me in a panic to their home in the hood. My black cousin had a nervous breakdown. He held their two toddler sons hostage in the basement, threatening to kill himself and their boys. First on the scene were two white cops – one young and fit, the other much older and morbidly obese. Masterfully, the old obese cop gained my cousin’s trust and talked him out of the basement. “C’mon son, I know life gets tough, but you don’t want to do this.” My cousin was arrested, given the mental health assistance he needed and was later released. My cousin is alive, well and a great dad.

Folks, cops kill whites at almost double the rate of blacks. As a matter of fact, blacks are killed by blacks 93% of the time. The Left does not want you to know the biggest threat to black lives is other blacks. Despite the Left’s Black Lives Matter (blame and hate white America) movement, incidents of blacks killing blacks are on the rise.

The Left is ignoring the stunning numbers of blacks murdered in Chicago by blacks.

In July, Baltimore homicides reached its highest in 43 years, up 60%. 

The mainstream media deliberately creating the false impression that cops are the biggest threat to blacks is reprehensible. Proving they do not give a rat’s derriere about blacks, the Left refuses to address real issues plaguing black America; multi-generational government dependency; increasing numbers of fatherless households; unprecedented high unemployment under Obama; epidemic school dropouts; black on black homicides and Leftist encouraged moral and cultural decline

White guys in white hoods, the Aryan nation nor cops are infiltrating black neighborhoods, victimizing residents and murdering blacks. The Left has been fooling blacks with its blame-everything-on-whitey tactic for decades; keeping blacks voting for their supposed Democrat saviors.

As young as 9 or 10, I realized the blame-everything-on-whitey excuse was a lie. My family lived on the sixth floor of a Baltimore project high-rise building. The elevators were often not working due to vandalism. The stairwells were pitch black due to broken light bulbs and smelled of urine. The crunch sound under foot echoing off the concrete walls was due to broken liquor bottles. I knew whites were not sneaking in at night, peeing in our stairwells.

Not to indict everyone who lived in the projects, some neighbors kept their apartments immaculate. Even as a child, I concluded that poverty (and ghetto) was a mindset rather than simply an absence of money.

The Black Lives Matter movement, “white privilege” and so on are founded on lies. They are despicable tools to exploit blacks’ emotions. These Leftist scams have resulted in what can be described as black terror cells. Police are assassinated, outbreaks of black flash mob attacks and innocent whites assaulted, raped and murdered.

Outrageously, Black Lives Matter thugs threaten to “shut down” the Republican National Convention. Notice the stupid, hateful and racist assumption that white Republicans are a threat to black lives? Imagine if the Tea Party announced a plan to shut down the Democrat National Convention. After recovering from multiple convulsions of pleasure from being given such an opportunity to demonize the Tea Party, Leftist media would bombard the public with 24/7 news coverage; branding the Tea Party racist, sexist and homophobic.

Rest assured, you will not hear any meaningful criticism from the MSM, Democrats or Obama regarding Black Lives Matter thugs arrogantly assaulting free speech. Quite the opposite. Leftists are behind the scene cheering on the Black Lives Matter thugs.

Wake up black America. The Left is playin’ y’all, again.

The Betrayal Papers, Part VI: The Chicago Connection

This, the sixth and final installment of The Betrayal Papers, will explore various projects, schemes, and associations that tie Obama and his associates together.  A preponderance of these project are based out of Chicago, the crossroad of the global Left, Islamic “civilization jihad,” and the Communist mafia.  The themes to observe in each case are deception, greed, and power.

To have any chance to retain our freedoms and personal safety, we must recognize the depth of the treason from within; we must name the perpetrators and conquer them before they end America.

But first, three profiles of key Obama operatives, and one Maurice Strong.

Rahm Emanuel

As Obama’s initial Chief-of-Staff, Emanuel wielded considerable power during Obama’s early years in office, being the de facto gatekeeper to Obama.  A former Clinton man, Emanuel ultimately clashed with Valerie Jarrett, leading to his departure from Washington, D.C. and return home to Chicago.  Since being elected mayor (a bid supported by Obama & Co.), Emanuel has faithfully served to keep a lid on a number of Chicago-centric scandals that would damage, perhaps fatally, the credibility of the administration.

  • Rahm Emanuel is a seasoned political operative in Democrat circles.  He served as Bill Clinton’s Senior Advisor for six years, from 1993 through 1998, and three terms as a Congressman from Chicago in the House of Representatives, from 2003-2009.
  • During his service with the Clinton administration, Emanuel was part of the failure of Hillarycare, the forerunner to Obamacare.
  • Emanuel also served on the board of directors at Freddie Mac during the time of the major Democrat fundraising scandal involving Freddie Mac.
  • Emanuel has two brothers, equally influential in their own right.  Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is a Harvard-educated bioethicist and one of the main architects of the Obamacare legislation and effort to pass it.  He is the individual most associated with the term “death panels.”  In 2014, Dr. Emanuel authored an infamous essay about the virtues of dying by the age of 75.
  • Ari Emanuel is a Hollywood “superagent” who represents liberal actors (including Ben Affleck and Matt Damon).
  • Despite Rahm Emanuel’s bona fides as a connected Democrat who is willing, Emanuel could not withstand the force of Obama’s Senior Advisor, Valerie Jarret.  The two clashed, with Jarrett emerging victorious, and Emanuel heading back to Chicago to run for mayor.
  • Once safely back in Chicago, Emanuel ran for mayor and was supported by the Obama administration.  In 2011, he replaced the corrupt Richard Daley.  He was reelected in 2015 for a second term, again with administration support.
  • It is remarkable that the litany of scandals involving Obama and Chicago seem to have dried up since Rahm Emanuel became mayor.  Indeed, the administration has a friend and ally at the top of the Windy City pyramid.

Eric Holder

As Attorney General, Eric Holder has served the role of Obama’s pit bull.  Holder’s Department of Justice has elevated racial agitation to a high art, political correctness to an Orwellian contact sport, and gun control into a religion.  His fingerprints are all over the administration’s various scandals, from Fast and Furious to Ferguson.  Like other administration officials, Holder’s history and actions portray a man dedicated to overthrowing Constitutional government.

  • Eric Holder was born in the Bronx, New York in 1951.  He attended Stuyvesant High School, Columbia University, and received a JD from Columbia Law School in 1976.
  • In 1970, then-Freshman Holder participated in a five-day “armed takeover” of Columbia University’s Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) headquarters.
  • During the Clinton administration, Holder was the Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno.  He had a reputation as fiercely anti-Second Amendment, and in 1995 even advocated “brainwash[ing] people” (i.e., children) against guns.
  • In February 2009, shortly after being sworn in as Attorney General, Holder called America a “nation of cowards” for not discussing racial issues enough for his approval.
  • In November 2009, Holder proposed holding the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohamed (the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 attacks) in New York City.  This never occurred due to a backlash from the public.  Deaf to the concerns of citizens, in 2014 Holder reiterated that his position would have been the “right decision.”
  • While Holder clearly believes law-abiding American citizens should not own guns, he had no problem arming murderous drug cartels.  The Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives, and ultimately Eric Holder’s Justice Department, were behind the crazy idea of arming Mexican drug cartels with hundreds of automatic weapons without tracking devices.  The Fast and Furious program resulted in the deaths of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of innocent Mexicans and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
  • In 2012, Eric Holder became the first Attorney General in American history to be held in contempt by the House of Representatives, resulting from his refusal to turn over documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal.
  • Holder’s Justice Department has suspiciously scrubbed any mention of “Islam” or “Muslims” from counterterrorism training.
  • Whether it was in Florida or Missouri, when black teenagers were killed by gunfire in self-defense, Eric Holder, along with race-baiters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, were there to stir up emotion.  In both cases, the shooters (George Zimmerman and Officer Darren Wilson, respectively), were initially threatened with civil rights charges from Holder’s DOJ; this, despite Zimmerman being found not guilty by a jury, and Wilson being no-billed by a grand jury.
  • Holder is a proponent of lighter sentencing, shorter minimums, and generally freeing criminals from prison.
  • Holder approved illegal wiretapping/eavesdropping of the American press, including Fox News and the Associated Press.
  • Journalist Sharyl Attkisson was driven out of CBS News for her inquisitive reporting on Benghazi.  In January 2015, Attkisson accused Holder’s Department of Justice of illegally accessing her computer to exfiltrate files related to her investigations.
  • Holder’s DOJ has also been instrumental in forcing local communities to accept mosque construction.  According to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Explanatory Memorandum, mosque construction is the first step in Muslim colonization.
  • For several years until just recently, Holder held a “sword of Damocles” over General David Petraeus’s head, intending to silence his criticism of Obama’s disastrous Middle East policy.  Petraeus was under investigation and being threatened with felony charges in connection with an affair he had with a biographer, with whom he allegedly shared classified documents.

David Axelrod

David Axelrod was born in New York City in 1955, the son of two Communists (described by David as “leftist Democrats”).  His mother, Myril Bennett, worked for a Communist-infiltrated newspaper, New York-based “PM.”  His father, Josef Axelrod, was a psychologist and member of the Communist Party USA.  It is for these reasons that Axelrod has been described as a “red diaper baby.”

  • Every tyrant has his propagandist.  The propagandist spins lies from half-truths, and the bigger the lies, the better.  For candidate Obama to get elected to political office, indeed for Obama to rise to the Presidency so quickly and without any qualifying credentials, he needed the expert public relations advice of a seasoned spin-doctor and manipulator of public opinion.  This was Axelrod.
  • After attending high school at the prestigious Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan (his years there overlapped Eric Holder’s) Axelrod entered the University of Chicago in 1972.  Following his graduation, he worked as a journalist for the Chicago Tribune.
  • Axelrod first met Obama in 1992 through Project Vote, a community-organizing program directed by Obama which dramatically increased black voter turnout.
  • In 2002, Axelrod went to work for Barack Obama as a political consultant, just prior to his run for the U.S. Senate.  The early Obama team was in place.
  • Just prior to the 2008 Presidential campaign, Axelrod, along with Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett, were involved in a “patient dumping” scandal at University of Chicago Hospital.  In 2007, through something called the “Urban Health Initiative,” the “non-profit” hospital made more than $100 million.  The scheme worked by “redirecting” indigent patients to other hospitals, and thus reserving the beds at University of Chicago Hospital for fully-insured patients.

Maurice Strong

Maurice Strong is the Canadian billionaire at the center of the United Nations’ plan for “sustainable development.”    One of the lead proponents of Agenda 21, this would-be environmental totalitarian made much of his fortune due to a special deal with the Canadian government.  In reality, Strong is an oil tycoon who is using his connections to governments, George Soros, and the United Nations to advance an international regulatory regime that would practically end human freedom as we know it.

  • In 1976, Canada’s socialist Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, asked Strong to head the newly- formed national oil company, PetroCanada.  He leveraged his success at PetroCanada and went on to assume the Chairmanship of the Canada Development Investment Corporation, “the holding company for some of Canada’s principal government-owned resources.”
  • Prior to striking it rich through Trudeau, Strong was the first Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Program, UNEP.
  • Conceived in 1992, Agenda 21 is an international program for so-called “sustainable development.”  As the principal figure in Agenda 21, Strong’s ambitions are bluntly totalitarian.  They seek to dictate the minutia of daily life ranging from automobile ownership, through how an individual can use his or her private property, to the inclusion of such restrictive ideas in school curricula for the purposes of indoctrinating children.
  • One of Strong’s primary partners in Agenda 21 is none other than George Soros, who has donated millions to implement the agenda on local and municipal levels.
  • For the record, Obama benefactor Nadhmi Auchi’s holdings in BNP Paribas put him in the orbit of Strong, a fellow energy magnate.

The Chicago Connection

Notwithstanding the intricacies and nuances of Middle Eastern politics and tribal blood feuds, Chicago, by comparison, is a microcosm of parallel intrigue.  For it is through this Midwestern city that Obama’s personal connections come together in a variety of tangled ways.

ACORN, Low Income Housing, and ShoreBank

Description: ACORN is a progressive community-organizing group which, through advocacy and politics, was instrumental in forcing banks to lower mortgage lending standards.  This not only contributed to the housing bubble; it also enabled ShoreBank, a small Chicago-based community bank, to profit from these loans.*

Players involved: Obamas, Clintons, Valerie Jarrett, Tony Rezko.

  • Obama was once an attorney for ACORN, and Tony Rezko and Valerie Jarrett are both intimately involved in low income housing in Chicago.
  • Various associates of the Clintons and the Obamas were connected to ShoreBank.  When the housing bubble burst, the Obama administration – in particular, Valerie Jarrett – helped to organize and steer not only government money but also Goldman Sachs capital into the crony coffers of ShoreBank.

* Note: ShoreBank failed in 2010, and following an acquisition, is now known as Urban Partnership Bank.

Chicago Red City

Chicago, the urban hub of the Midwest, was, through much of the 20th century, also Communist central.   The city was home to the tireless Communist Frank Marshall Davis, a primary mentor of Barack Obama.  In Chicago, an intricate latticework of labor movements, civil rights organizations, and newspapers all carried the Soviet line, recruiting fellow travelers and useful idiots who helped advance the cause of their Soviet utopia.

Players involved: Barack Obama, Frank Marshall Davis, Valerie Jarrett, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, David Axelrod.

  • In the middle of the Chicago web is Valerie Jarrett and her family’s association with the Communists.  Jarrett’s grandfather, Robert Taylor, and her former father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett, were willing tools of Soviet Russia’s operation in the United States.  As noted in Part V, the journalist Vernon Jarrett worked with Frank Marshall Davis.
  • There are in the Jarrett orbit two other individuals who figure prominently into Obama’s political career.  David Axelrod (whose ties with CPUSA are detailed above) took a job as a political consultant to Obama in 2002, prior to his run for U.S. Senate.  Jarrett and Axelrod met Obama at approximately the same time (approximately 1992).
  • Jarrett and Axelrod began their political union through their common devotion to Chicago Mayor Harold Washington.  Washington, Communist sympathizer, was backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, the same Communist-linked party that supported Barack Obama.
  • Jarrett’s connection to Bill Ayers, the terrorist who launched Obama’s political career, is more intimate.  In 1966, Jarrett’s mother, Barbara Bowman, founded the Erikson Institute, a graduate school in child development.  Thomas Ayers, Bill’s father, served on the Board of the Erikson Institute, as did Bill Ayer’s’ wife, Bernardine Dohrn.

The Chicago Climate Exchange

Description:  The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) is a carbon credit exchange that purports to help the environment by helping to cap carbon emissions and providing a platform on which they can be traded.  In reality, the CCX monetizes capped “carbon emissions” and gives financial value to the carbon credits.

If you’ve ever wondered why it is that the myth of global warming/climate change persists despite an avalanche of empirical evidence against it, it is for one reason alone: personal enrichment of a clique of no-growth frauds and liars.  Once carbon emission caps are passed into law in the United States or through a treaty via the United Nations, the value of carbon credits will increase exponentially.

The scale of this operation could potentially rival the total existing financial derivatives market and be valued in the trillions of dollars.

Players involved:  Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Al Gore, George Soros, John Podesta, John Ayers (brother of Bill), Maurice Strong, Nadhmi Auchi, Henry Paulson, ShoreBank (major shareholder), Franklin Raines (disgraced former Fannie Mae head).

  • In 2001, the Joyce Foundation funded Bill Ayers’ brother, John Ayers, to found the CCX.  (Recall that the Ayers family has a history in power generation.)
  • Obama was on the Board of Joyce at this time (1994-2002).  Valerie Jarret was also on the Board of the Joyce Foundation, a position she assumed in 2002.
  • Goldman Sachs, which was instrumental in the bailout of ShoreBank, isalso a partner in CCX.
  • Also connected to the CCX are George Soros, Valerie Jarrett, Bill Ayers, Al Gore, Maurice Strong, and Nadhmi Auchi.  This story is worthy on its own of a book-length treatment.  For the sake of brevity, a few highlights and key connections will be established to showan array of characters, from progressives to members of the Muslim Brotherhood, are part of the Obama nexus.
  • Another investment company involved with CCX was Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management (GIM).  In the case of Gore, his connections to Qatar, the Gulf State home of the Muslim Brotherhood, are apropos.  When climate crusader Gore liquidated his failed television station CurrentTV, he sold it to the Qataris so they could begin airing Al Jazeera America.  Qatar, an energy-rich nation (possessing the world’s third-largest natural gas reserves), has a vested interest in hobbling America’s domestic energy extraction and production.  It is no coincidence that Qatar hosts climate change conferences.
  • Approximately one year ago the White House, in particular the Soros-run Center for American Progress-connected John Podesta, launched an out-of-the-blue push for climate change legislation.  What went unreported at the time was that in the middle of this aggressive effort, Podesta met with a Qatari delegation in Washington.
  • Finally, the mysterious Auchi, who snapped up the Pentagon’s power contracts in post-war Iraq, figures into the picture with fellow billionaire Maurice Strong.  Strong’s former company, Canada’s Power Corporation, happens to be the center of its own web of power, connected to the United Nations, BNP Paribas (where Auchi was a major shareholder), in the highest echelons of Canadian government.  Strong was a Board member on the CCX.

The Cult of Subud

What could tie together the Muslim Brotherhood, the infiltration of American intelligence agencies, an undeclared war to establish the Caliphate, a genocide and annihilation of Christian history, enormous financial benefit to a corrupt political and financial elite, and a president whose own history is more shadowy than moonlit forest?

In the case of Barack Hussein Obama, the evidence points to a little-known Islamic cult: Subud.

Players involved:  Barack Obama, Stanley Ann Dunham, George Soros, Maurice Strong, Loretta Fuddy.

  • Subud was founded in Indonesia in the 1920s by Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo, who claimed to have “received a series of intense and electrifying spiritual experiences that gave him an inner contact with a Higher Power.”
  • Subuh took the title “Bapak,” Indonesian for “respected father.”  In developing Subud, Subuh was influenced early on by a British military intelligence officer named John G. Bennett, who had traveled extensively in the Middle East.
  • Though hardly a household name, Subud is not obscure.  It has entries in the Encyclopedia of Islam, The Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religions, and has had consultative status with the United Nations since 1989.  There are Subud chapters all around the world, including in New York City, in close proximity to Washington, D.C., as well as in Hawaii and Chicago.
  • The central teaching of Subud is a process called latihan, which they describe as the “reappearance of a primordial Power hidden within human beings and all creatures.”  Although latihan is non-denominational, and although Subud has members of all faiths, Subuh was a Muslim, and many Subud members celebrate Ramadan.  Like the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement actively engages in interfaith activities.  Moreover, conversion to Islam is not uncommon among Subud members.
  • Subud has been a persistent theme in Obama’s life.  His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was a member of Subud, a fact mentioned in her biography.  An official 2011 Subud Voice newsletter features an article about and a picture of Stanley Ann and Barack.  Moreover, an immigration document from 1968, an application filled out by Stanley Ann Dunham to extend her 1965 passport for an additional two years, has the name “Soebarkah” appended to Obama’s name.  It is speculated that “Soebarkah” was young Obama’s Subud name.  (Members of the movement routinely take a Subud name.)
  • Subud also has an incredible connection to the ongoing birth certificate controversy.  Following Donald Trump’s vociferous calls with an offer of $50 million for its public release in 2011, the State of Hawaii made available Obama’s certificate of live birth (not, as they termed it, his long form birth certificate).  The woman who verified and approved the release of the document was Hawaii’s State Health Director, Loretta Fuddy.
  • Fuddy was Chairwoman of USA, based in Seattle, from 2006-2008.  Consistent with Obama’s mysterious moniker Soebarkah, Fuddy’s Subud name was “Deliana.”  Fuddy, prior to her appointment to the Hawaii Department of Health, co-authored (with two others) a paper which was published out of the University of Illinois at Chicago – the university where faculty lounge politics are under the sway of Professor Bill Ayers.
  • In December, 2013 Fuddy was killed when her plane went down off the coast of Hawaii.  The entire crash was captured on video.  Fuddy was the only fatality of the eight people on the plane.
  • Finally, this treatment of Subud would not be complete without at least a mention of the Central Intelligence Agency.  Part I of The Betrayal Papers noted that the CIA actually courted the Muslim Brotherhood into its effort to defeat Soviet Communism.  Was Subud, which is explicitly (see page 13) anti-Communist, a Muslim Brotherhood ally of the CIA in Indonesia?  After graduating from Columbia University, Obama himself was employed by Business International Corp., cited by The New York Times as a CIA-related entity.

The Ties that Bind

What is the glue that ties this motley crew of Obama-connected miscreants together?  Here are some additional cross-over points between Obama and his associates.

  • Why would George Soros have such an affinity for an Islamic supremacy and terrorist organization?  Soros and the Muslim Brotherhood collaborated with Nazi Germany during their formative years.  When it comes to destructive politics in the United States today, from the disregard of the rule of law to the intimidation of political opponents and private citizens, it is obvious that the Muslim Brotherhood has a partner in crime in George Soros.
  • The leftist Joyce Foundation also funds the (Soros) Tides Foundation.  There is a myriad of foundations (Joyce, Tides, the Woods Fund, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, etc.) that ultimately fund the same leftist causes.  They are an intentional shell game designed by progressives to keep the public in the dark about their motives.
  • Of all the eccentric philanthropic causes, Subud has inexplicably (or not) captured the attention of both George Soros and Maurice Strong.  In 2005, Soros funded Yayasan Usaha Mulia, a Subud humanitarian effort in Indonesia.  Strong, meanwhile, donated land in Colorado to the cult.
  • Is the residual CIA-Muslim Brotherhood alliance against Communism the key to understanding the enigmatic and traitorous Obama?

Conclusion

An ancient proverb states, “The fish rots from the head.”  So it is with the corrupt and infiltrated government of the United States.  The people, organizations, and schemes mentioned above and throughout this series of articles are not important.  They have been named here only to establish their culpability in the attempted and (thus far) successful destruction of the country.

Obama is the head of this rotten fish.  He is, as Winston Churchill put it, “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”  With each investigation into his personal history, only more questions are unearthed.  He appears to be a cutout character rather than a man with a true life history.  The only consistency in his story is offered by his associates, all of whom are subversives, many whom are evil.

On one side of him is the Muslim Brotherhood.  Every step of the way, the Obama administration has enabled these terrorists to overthrow friendly governments and form jihadi armies.  Today the Middle East is more volatile than it has been in a century.  There is an ongoing genocide of Christians and other minorities, and a rape of humanity’s common cultural heritage in Mesopotamia.

There now exists a crisis in diplomacy.  The Islamic State has effectively dissolved borders, and Washington’s new ally, Iran, is quickly filling the void.  America’s traditional allies in the region, including Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, do not trust Obama or his destructive minion, John Kerry.  America’s allies in Europe have truly never been so skeptical of Washington.  Relations with Russia have so deteriorated that war threatens.

On the other side of Obama stands a powerful financial cartel led by George Soros.  The cartel’s operations are thoroughly intertwined with the Muslim Brotherhood to such an extent that they support and fund global Islamic jihad.  Soros and his associates, to coin a phrase, are “stratoscrats;” they answer to no nation’s laws, they operate across borders, and they are the primary actors behind global regulation by the United Nations.  These self-appointed masters of the universe purchase and then use sovereign countries for their own gain; the United States is their latest and crowning acquisition.

These two sides have prevented any meaningful economic recovery.  A nation’s government is supposed to strengthen the country, but Obama has intentionally done the opposite.  We are historically weak right now, while our enemies grow stronger.

A fifth column is operating the government through regulation of the (formerly) private sector, and deep penetration of the intelligence and security services.  Even the venerable, powerful, and highly-respected U.S. military has been hobbled by these criminals.

Rome’s greatest statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero, witnessed the end of the Roman Republic.  Before paying with his life, he spoke to the Roman Senate:

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.

When a country is captured by traitors who write its laws and punish dissenters, it can rightly be regarded as a colony.  The people can likewise be regarded not as citizens, but as subjects, or slaves.

In 1776, the Colonists fatefully decided to “dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.”

The situation we face today is imminently dangerous.  We are threatened with the loss of our God-given freedoms.  Though the cost may be high, the American people can still secure the blessings of liberty.  We must.  We owe it to posterity.

Americans among 12,000 Muslims from 50 countries waging jihad in Syria

Where did these Americans learn their understanding of Islam? We all know, on pain of charges of “Islamophobia,” that no Muslims in the U.S., none, agree with the Islamic State, or want to bring Sharia Westward, or have any desire to restore the caliphate. None, you greasy Islamophobe. So how did these Americans come to misunderstand Islam? Were they reading “Islamophobic” writings that they mistook for the genuine article?

“Americans among 12,000 foreign fighters in Syria: US,” AFP, August 21, 2014:

Washington (AFP) – Some 12,000 foreign jihadists from 50 countries, including Americans, have gone to fight in Syria since the conflict began, the US State Department said Thursday.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, estimated that more than 100 US citizens have traveled or tried to travel to Syria to join the conflict.

They have traveled to join radical groups including the Islamic State (IS), militants fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria who have expanded into neighboring Iraq.

“We think that there are approximately 12,000 fighters from at least 50 countries in Syria — foreign fighters, including a small number of Americans — that may have traveled to Syria since the beginning of the conflict” more than three years ago, said deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf.

“They may all not still be there,” she said, without revealing an estimated number of Americans.

US officials have been unable to identify an organized recruitment effort aimed at US citizens, as is the case in Europe.

Washington has publicly stated that Western fighters pose an especially dangerous risk, especially when they return to their countries of origin.

In late September, President Barack Obama is scheduled to host a Security Council summit with other heads of state focusing on the acute threat posed by foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq.

During his August 12 visit to Sydney, Secretary of State John Kerry said that Washington and Australia agreed to take concerns about the threat posed by jihadist foreign fighters in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere to the United Nations.

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Kentucky Catholic church paints ن on door in solidarity with Christians persecuted by Islamic State

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of demonstrators chant pro-al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as they wave al-Qaida flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, June 16, 2014. (AP).

Dearborn residents on terrorist watch list second only to New York

“At 96,000 residents, Dearborn is much smaller than the other cities in the top five, suggesting that its significant Muslim population—40 percent of its population is of Arab descent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau—has been disproportionately targeted for watchlisting.” Hamas-linked CAIR is already manning the barricades over this, but after all, there is no effect without a cause. The idea that the Muslim residents of Dearborn were “disproportionately targeted for watchlisting” because of some official “racism” and “Islamophobia” is howlingly absurd. There is jihad activity among Muslims, including in the U.S., and so for authorities to be alert to that fact is entirely reasonable.

“Dearborn residents on terrorist watch list second only to New York, report says,” by Aysha Jamali, Press & Guide, August 5, 2014:

Dearborn School Board President Hussein Berry carries an American flag during an anti-terrorism protest at U.S. District Court in Detroit in 2010 during a hearing for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the attempted bomber of Delta Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009. File photo

Among the U.S. cities that have the most residents on the government’s terrorist watch list is one that stands out because of its comparatively small population: Dearborn.

Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, was described by The Intercept, an online news site that reports on issues of national security, as having the second-highest concentration of people designated by the government as “known or suspected terrorists.”

The report said that Dearborn’s ranking, just behind New York City and ahead of Houston despite their significantly larger populations, has to do with its concentration of Arab and Muslim Americans.

Dearborn has the largest percentage of Arab Americans in the country, according to the report.

“At 96,000 residents, Dearborn is much smaller than the other cities in the top five, suggesting that its significant Muslim population—40 percent of its population is of Arab descent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau—has been disproportionately targeted for watchlisting,” the report said.

The top five U.S. cities on the watchlist for “known or suspected terrorists” are:

1. New York
2. Dearborn
3. Houston
4. San Diego
5. Chicago

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Black outrage over Obama’s actions spreads to Chicago [VIDEO]

Last week we shared the video of the black woman in Houston who was infuriated by the potential resettlement of illegal immigrant children in her neighborhood. The outrage is spreading to Obama’s hometown of Chicago, where gang violence is effectively turning the black community into a genocidal combat zone — but cries and concerns have fallen upon deaf ears, at least where the first black president is concerned.

Hat tip to our conservative warrior in the ‘Hood, Rebel Pundit, who writes, “On Friday evening residents from Chicago’s Southside held a protest in front of the Chicago Police Department against the intolerable violence plaguing their communities and sounded off on President Obama for paying favor to illegal aliens crossing the southern border.”

“Residents also called for the resignation of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy for their failure to effectively handle the city’s violence epidemic. The president’s handling of the illegal invasion in Texas prompted residents to call him out for ignoring the current state of Chicago, where 120 people have been shot and at least 26 killed so far this July.”

As we just reported today, 748 illegal immigrants have been secretly dropped off in Chicago. Hundreds have already been dispersed to families — illegals or not — and sponsors.

Rebel Pundit writes, “The recent shooting of Jasmine Curry, a pregnant mother of five on Chicago’s Dan Ryan Expressway, prompted the residents to organize the demonstration. Curry’s father, Pierre Curry, attended the event and addressed and spoke of the pain he has endured after losing his first-born daughter after losing a son as well, less than one year ago. Curry said, “I’d like to tell the young peoples [sic] out here, especially young African-Americans, I’d like to tell the world, Mr. President, congress, senate, aldermen, governor, the mayor–losing a child is something else, losing something that God gave to you, and some fool in the street took it, he didn’t have a right to take my son or my daughter from her five kids. And if anybody knows something, anything, man up,” he then asked for prayers before breaking into tears.”

“Barack will go down as the worst president ever elected, Bill Clinton was the African-American President,” one resident said, in response to the president’s performance on the job, “President Barack needs to pay attention to Chicago, if he can not pay attention to Chicago and the African-American community, he needs to resign.”

Another compared the current state of Black-American life to that during slavery, saying, “Today, if you look at the time that we were brought here as slaves 400 years ago, we got the same results today.”

And so again I ask those faux leaders in the black community, especially Rep. Marcia Fudge Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus — the “conscience of the Congress” — just whose side is your self-declared messiah Obama on?

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on AllenBWest.com.

Stopping the Academic Boycott of Israel

Yesterday, at the Modern Language Association (MLA) annual meetings in Chicago there was Panel 48, one of more than 800 on this year’s program. The MLA has a membership of more than 30,000 university and college academic specialists in English, literature and history. This panel in particular has drawn media attention and controversy because of the theme, “Academic Boycotts: A Conversation about Israel and Palestine”. It is reflective of the furor raised over recent resolutions favoring Academic Boycotts passed by both the 5,000 member American Studies Association (ASA) and even smaller 1,700 member Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) in mid-December 2013. These academic groups are a distinct minority in the groves of American Academia.

Moreover the Academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions is a two edged sword, as it would bar contact with a number of similarly minded Israeli academics.  The uproar has led to formal rejection of the academic boycott  of Israeli  institutions by more than 150 American Universities, including some of the universities where MLA Panel 48 members are affiliated.  Six of the objecting Universities have withdrawn department affiliations with the ASA. Further the 47,000 member  American Association of University Professors (AAUP), with 500 local campus and 39 state chapters, has opposed the ASA and NAISA Israel academic boycotts on the grounds of denial of academic freedom as contained its 1940 protocol and 2005 restatement.

Across town in Chicago another panel was convened under the auspices of the Chicago Jewish Federation to express opposing views from pro-Israel advocates including Hillel International (HI), the Israel Campus Initiative (ICI), and StandWithUs.  Pro-Israel and anti-boycott advocates had protested the denial of opportunities to present opposing views  at the MLA panel.  Moreover as noted in a January 2, 2014 JNS.org release on the contretemps the MLA had advised them that counter panels would have had to file by the deadline, April 1, 2013.  The JNS.org release noted the exchange between MLA executive director Rosemary G. Feal who wrote ICC director Jacob Baime, “We do not rent space at our convention for nonmembers to hold discussions.”  To which ICC‘s Baime and HI’s Neusner replied:

“We believe the members of the MLA deserve to hear a far more diverse set of perspectives on the issue of academic freedom in Israel and nearby countries. The MLA members, as academics, certainly can appreciate the value of multiple perspectives on what is a very controversial issue,” ICC’s Baime said.

“MLA has its policies, as any organization is privileged to do. We are disappointed that they wouldn’t make room for us at the convention,” Noam Neusner, a spokesman for Hillel International said.

Panel 48 presenters included Samer M. Ali, Univ. of Texas, Austin; Omar Barghouti, Independent Scholar; Barbara Jane Harlow, Univ. of Texas, Austin; David C. Lloyd, Univ. of California, Riverside; and Richard M. Ohmann, Wesleyan Univ.  Samer Ali of Texas University presided at MLA Panel 48. He indicated that the genesis was the unsuccessful intervention by New York City politicians and Mayoral candidates to prevent pro-BDS advocates from appearing at Brooklyn College in February 2013.

Weekly Standard article by American Enterprise Institute Fellow Max Eden, “Why this Boycott is Not like the Others” provided background on the panelists. Eden wrote:

The panel on Thursday will feature four belligerent anti-Israel activist advocates and a moderator who makes the panelists look like Likudniks. Barbara Harlow has already publicly endorsed an academic boycott. Richard Ohmann has declared that our “taxes have for years supported Israel’s project of ethnic cleansing.” David Lloyd wrote in the Electronic Intifada, a website devoted to Israel’s destruction, “It is not only that … all Israeli institutions are complicit in the occupation. It is that the occupation and its practices are the truth of Israel itself.” Omar Barghouti, the fourth panelist, is a co-founder of the BDS movement who says “the white race is the most violent in the history of mankind.” In a hypocrisy nearly too great to be believed, Barghouti earned a Master’s degree from Tel Aviv University and is currently pursuing his second Master’s there.  The university was overwhelmed by a petition with more than 175,000 signatures calling for Barghouti’s expulsion, but it stood on principle and refused.

The panel moderator is UT-Austin’s Samer Ali, whose public Facebook page gives away the game. One of his posts reads: “Our enemy is not radical Islam. It is global capitalism.” This page features multiple posts depicting Iranians as morally superior to Republicans and a link to a video highlighting Ayatollah Khomeini’s alleged personal generosity.

Three separate reports provide coverage  of what transpired at the dueling sessions in Chicago yesterday:  Inside Higher Ed blog article, “The Two Session Solution”;   Ha’aretz, report  “Israel boycott debate sows dissent at annual MLA convention“; and, JNS.org coverage, “Dueling panels debate BDS inside and outside of MLA convention.  They provide a  comprehensive picture of the proceedings  and  the proposed resolution of MLA Panel 48 to be introduced at Saturday’s plenary session.. That resolution condemns Israel for barring American scholars from pursuing academic engagements with Palestinian universities in Gaza and the West Bank.  The Forward noted in its article on the MLA contretemps, “Israel Battle Roils the Modern Language Association”, the language for the proposed resolution of MLA Panel 48:

MLA urges the U.S. Department of State to contest Israel’s arbitrary denials of entry to Gaza and the West Bank by U.S. academics who have been invited to teach, confer, or do research at Palestinian universities.

The Panel 48 resolution is to be introduced at the plenary session Saturday by Ohmann of Wesleyan University and Columbia University English Professor Bruce Robbins.  We know Robbins because of the debate that roiled the Morningside Campus with the release of the Columbia Unbecoming documentary about intimidation of Jewish students by members of Middle East Arts Language and Culture faculty. That was crystallized by the controversial tenure appointment of pro-Palestinian Professor Joseph Massad.  Robbins, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia was quoted during the episode saying, “The Israeli government has no right to the sufferings of the Holocaust” and has “betrayed the memory of the Holocaust.”

Cary_Nelson

Professor Cary Nelson, University of Illinois. Former AAUP head and anti-Boycott advocate.

Former AAUP President and University of Illinois professor, Cary Nelson, who appeared at yesterday’s second panel, published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Another AntiIsrael Vote Comes to Academia in which he laid out the issues confronting academia.  His conclusion was:

A truer indication of the real goal is the boycott movement’s success at increasing intolerance on American campuses. Junior faculty members sympathetic to Israel fear for their jobs if they make their views known. Established faculty who grasp the complexity of Middle East politics hold their tongues for fear of harassment by those who are more interested in offering lessons in contemporary demonology than in sound history. The politically correct stance in many academic departments is that Palestinians are victims and Israelis are oppressors. Period.

The fundamental goal of the boycott movement is not the peaceful coexistence of two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian, but rather the elimination of Israel. One nation called Palestine would rule from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Those Jews not exiled or killed in the transition to an Arab-dominated nation would live as second-class citizens without fundamental rights.

There is no political route toward a one-state solution. But some American professors are too blinded by hatred of Israel—or too naive—to see that they are inadvertently advocating for armed conflict.

At the MLA panel 48 discussions, Barghouti took Nelson to task, by suggesting that AAUP’s long standing Academic Freedom standards did not comply with the  lesser ones of the United Nations.  Nelson at the second opposing panel countered suggesting that the arguments of Barghouti and others on the panel  were “delusional and irrational”:

…praising Barghouti for at least admitting that he was calling for academics to give up some freedom.

Nelson said that was the least of the problems with the boycott as envisioned by Barghouti and the ASA. Nelson noted that the groups have left open the possibility of working with Israeli scholars deemed to be supportive of the Palestinian cause. However one feels about that cause, Nelson said, the idea of creating lists of acceptable and unacceptable scholars can’t be taken seriously as consistent with academic freedom.

This system creates “the right to suppress people he doesn’t like,” Nelson said. “This is selective academic tyranny.”

Russell Berman, director of German studies and professor of comparative literature at Stanford University and former MLA President drew attention to the selective anti-Semitic stands of the Israeli academic boycott supporters, saying:

That when boycott defenders talk about facing false charges of anti-Semitism, they are engaged in “an attempt to silence the Jewish community.” When pro-boycott people criticize the “Zionist lobby,” they are trying to question the right of anyone affiliated with certain groups to participate in the debate.

[…]

What does it mean, Berman said, if boycott supporters have “come around to Jew counting?”

According to the JNS.org account of yesterday’s session less than 125 of the 4,000 conference attendees were at the Israeli Academic Boycott MLA Panel 48.  Perhaps, that may be a forecast of a possible defeat for the misguided resolution at Saturday’s plenary session of the MLA.

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