Archive for October 2, 2016

California: Muslim slams car into veteran, says ‘did it on purpose, in the name of Allah’

October 2, 2016

California: Muslim slams car into veteran, says ‘did it on purpose, in the name of Allah’, Creeping Sharia, October 2, 2016

(But what could the motive have been? Inquiring minds want to know. — DM)

allahcar

The jihad is relentless. It’s going to get much worse. Your children and theirs will be the victims. Source: Fresno veteran says terrorists crashed into him at 100 mph | KMPH

The police report says driver Ameer Abbaf Fakhraldin told police the collision was caused by Donald Trump’s improper treatment of minorities, and by Allah and other people’s lack of faith in him. Fakhraldin estimated his speed was 200 miles per hour. He also told police he caused the crash by using psychic / telekinetic powers to control the steering. The officer at the scene said the driver showed apathy and neglected interest.

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FRESNO, Calif. (KMPH) —A Fresno man believes he was the victim of a terrorist attack, right here on the roadways in California.

Now, he wants the guy who he says attacked him off the streets so he doesn’t hurt anyone else.Scott Alcala was driving to San Jose to play golf with his father, when he says he was hit by another car.Witnesses say a car going extremely fast swerved into Alcala, causing him to fish tail and cross into oncoming traffic.Alcala said, “I saw the suburban coming right at me about to T-bone right into the driver door and I thought that was it. A second later I turned my head and just smashed into the barrier.”Alcala says he and the other driver were miraculously able to get out of their cars without hitting anyone else.

Alcala said, “The off-duty police officer went to talk to the other driver in his vehicle and he said, ‘Are you alright? That was way too fast,’ and (the driver) said ‘I did it on purpose. It was in the name of Allah.’”

The police report says driver Ameer Abbaf Fakhraldin told police the collision was caused by Donald Trump’s improper treatment of minorities, and by Allah and other people’s lack of faith in him. Fakhraldin estimated his speed was 200 miles per hour. He also told police he caused the crash by using psychic / telekinetic powers to control the steering. The officer at the scene said the driver showed apathy and neglected interest.

Alcala said, “There was no remorse. He just went back to his car nonchalant, pulled out a water bottle and just posted up.”

Police haven’t specified if this was an act of terrorism but Alcala thinks it was.

Alcala said, “He was just trying to target as many people as he could. He was just trying to cause a pile up. It wasn’t me personally. It was as if someone were to throw a bomb in the middle of downtown, its no different, it’s the same thinking.”

Alcala is a veteran who fought overseas in the war on terror. He says seeing stuff like this happening now right here in the U.S., makes him feel like he’s back in a war zone all over again.

Alcala said, “Coming back from Afghanistan, thinking I’m on home soil I’m safe now… just shouldn’t have to worry about something like that you know.”

London Chronicle: Brexit & Free Speech

October 2, 2016

London Chronicle: Brexit & Free Speech, PJ Media, Roger Kimball, October 2, 2016

The last time I was in London, in June, I was witness to the amazing populist recovery of sovereignty the world now knows as Brexit. I reported on it several times in this space (here, for example, and here, here, here, and here). It was amusing, back then, to observe the evolution of respectable sentiment about Brexit.  On the run-up to the vote on June 23 almost everyone who was anyone agreed on two things: 1) those supporting Brexit were ignorant, xenophobic yobs and 2) Brexit would never pass.

The smug certainty that, of course, Brexit could never happen yielded first to incredulity, then to rage when it was clear that not only had the referendum passed, but also that it had passed handily, 52% to 48%. It was partly amusing, partly alarming to watch the flailings of the politically correct mandarins attempting to explain to each other what happened. Some called for a new referendum, since the one that delivered Brexit was impossible, while others warned of imminent financial collapse and British isolation from the light-giving fish of EU dispensation.

In the event, nothing happened. Or, to be more precise, the British stock market stabilized and then shot up, the pound lost a small percentage of its value, making British exports more attractive, and life went on as usual.

The immediate question was, would Theresa May, the new prime minister, really pursue Brexit?  She was known to be a mild “Remainer” but otherwise was something of a cipher.

In the event, her declaration that “Brexit means Brexit” turns out to have been in earnest. At the Tory Leadership Conference in Birmingham, which is ongoing as I write, Mrs. May just announced that she would trigger Article 50, which would formally initiate Britain’s exit from the tentacles of the EU, “before March next year.” That alone should console supporters of Brexit, as should her otherwise straightforward, no-nonsense tone. Negotiations would be complex, she acknowledged, but her administration would work tirelessly to get “the best deal” for Britain.

A preliminary step, she explained, is replaying the 1972 European Communities Act, which “enshrined” Britain’s new relationship with Europe. “It’s an important step we are taking,” Mrs. May said, “because first of all it makes clear to those who voted to leave the EU, that is exactly what we will be doing.”

That’s the news, and it is good news, as of a few minutes ago.

[Freedom of speech]

I came to England a few days ago in order to participate in a conference in Winchester on the fate of free speech in the academy, U.S. as well as British editions. We’ll be publishing the papers for that conference in The New Criterion come January, but I can reveal now one thing that struck me about our deliberations.  Two years before, we had held a conference on a similar topic (which you can read about here): “Free Speech Under Threat.” To some extent, what transpired in Winchester a few days ago comes under the rubric of what the philosopher Yogi Berra called “déjà-vu all over again.”

But there are differences. In the couple of years since we last considered the issue of free speech, blatant assaults on free speech have grown much more common to the point where they are less scandalous than simply business as usual. People are harassed, shunned, sacked, fined, even jailed in some Western countries for expressing an unpopular opinion.

It is difficult to maintain a perpetual sense of emergency, however, and it’s my sense that many incursions upon free speech are now met more with a weary shrug than the outrage they would have occasioned even a few years back. Novelty is the handmaiden of outrage, and there is, alas, nothing novel about the assaults against free speech on campus today.

One of the most conspicuous strategies to limit free speech on campuses in the United States these last few years has been via the weaponization of victimhood. This is where the demand for “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” and the anxiety over “micro aggressions” makes common cause with political correctness to curtail free speech and establish the reign of politically correct orthodoxy.

It’s my impression that this latest gift of American academia has yet to be fully transplanted to England. The toxic rhetoric of “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings,” and “micro aggressions” is beginning to catch on here and there but has not, so far as I can see, really taken root here.

I’m sure that will change before long.  It’s just too potent a weapon to ignore.

What’s interesting about this efflorescence of infantilization is how sinuously it colludes with the imperatives of political correctness to stamp down on free speech and, beyond that, on the very processes of adult thought. Female students at Columbia University object to having to read Ovid’s Metamorphoses because the great Latin poet describes scenes of rape between the gods and human women. They find these classic tales “traumatizing.” Similarly, at Brown University, a public debate about whether there really is an endemic “rape culture” on American college campuses— by the way, there isn’t—traumatized some female students. In response, the university provided a “safe space” equipped with “cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.”

That may seem merely risible. But it is a sterling illustration of the oft-neglected fact that the preposterous can cohabit seamlessly with the malevolent.  Politics is full of examples. But the spread of political correctness offers its own sorts of examples. The ridiculous or preposterous nature of the demand for “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings,” and all the rest should not distract us from its sinister quality. It is profoundly anti-intellectual. Its fundamental demand might be expressed thus: “I am paying $65,000 per year to go to college. Please be sure I do not encounter any idea that challenges my settled prejudices or disturbs the delicate bloom of my ahistorical ignorance.”  College administrators are only too happy to cater to these unethical demands. Consider Morton Schapiro, the president of Northwestern University, who recently said that anyone who decries the idea of “safe spaces” on colleges or opposes “trigger warnings” or ridicules the pain of those “microaggressed” is an “idiot” and a “lunatic.”

As I say, the bottom line in the metabolism between infantilization and political correctness is that it weaponizes victimhood. The target of the resulting barrage is the entire tradition of intellectual independence and spirit of free inquiry: hard-won achievements that are everywhere under assault.  The ultimate aim, as in all totalitarian initiatives, is the subversion of truth by its subjection to political codes.

There are some signs of pushback. The University of Chicago, for example, recently advised students that its commitment to academic freedom means that “we do not support so called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

All well and good. But such examples of dissent are vanishingly rare. Much more common is what happened to Glenn Reynolds, the University of Tennessee law professor and doyen of the Instapundit weblog.

The other day, in a typical example of the racial healing that Barack Obama has brought to America, black protestors in Charlotte, Virginia, took to the streets to riot after police shot and killed a black man who was brandishing a loaded gun (which, as it turns out, he had stolen). When news reports came in that the protestors had swarmed on to a highway and were surrounding vehicles, Reynolds tweeted “Run them down.”

Twitter, which has displayed a growing appetite for censoring its users, suspended Reynolds’s account until he deleted the tweet. USA Today, for which Reynolds writes a regular and much-read column, suspended him for a month.  And his university, through the mouthpiece of a dean, announced that it was “investigating” the tweet.

Exactly what it means to “investigate a tweet” might seem to pose a sort of minimalist hermeneutical puzzle. But the minatory atmosphere of the entire episode is patent. The world of Twitter is full of Black Lives Matter partisans calling for the murder and rape of whites, killing police, and sundry other goads to violence.

Does “Run them down” in this context constitute something similar? I say No. For one thing, as Reynolds points out on his blog, the behavior of the protestors was inherently threatening. Your best bet if angry protestors surround your car on the highway is to drive on. Reynolds acknowledged that his tweet lacked nuance, but that comes with the territory of a genre that imposes a limit of 140 characters on one’s compositions.

There was a period in which Evelyn Waugh habitually ended his letters with the injunction “Death to Picasso.”  What if he had included this in a tweet? But of course, a character like Evelyn Waugh would be impossible in today’s Lilliputian regime of political correctness.

I should note that as I was winging my way to London Tuesday night, I got the news that Reynolds’s dean ended the investigation. Glenn Reynolds, she said, was exercising his First Amendment rights. No disciplinary action would be taken. But the dean did go on to bemoan the “hurt and frustration” felt by those who had been “offended” by the tweet. Brave soul that she is, however, the dean declared that she would “move forward to rebuild our law school community.”

What in heaven’s name can that possibly mean? What was there to “rebuild”? Reynolds had written an eleven-character tweet expressing a sentiment with which many observers would concur. What species of sensitive plant would be “offended” or overwhelmed by “hurt and frustration” at such a communication?

Really, the dean’s letter ought to have come with an air sickness bag. There was rejoicing in the blogosphere when it was announced that the University of Tennessee was ending its “investigation” into Reynolds’s tweet and that there would be no disciplinary action taken against him. But joy in that decision ought to be qualified by the fact that any “investigation” was initiated to begin with.  The process might easily have taken a different tack and Reynolds could have found himself meshed in surreal, quasi-legal proceedings for months or years. In a way, what matters is not the outcome of the process but the fact that such mechanisms of intimidation have become common recourse for institutions bent on stifling free speech and enforcing conformity.

In NBC Interview, Hassan Rouhani Can’t Stop Lying

October 2, 2016

In NBC Interview, Hassan Rouhani Can’t Stop Lying, The TowerDavid Gerstman, October 2, 2016

(Rouhani and Hillary would make a good team for Iran. DM)

rouhanilies

The portrait that emerges from Rouhani’s interview is of a man who lies and distorts to defend Iran’s illicit behavior— with its domestic nuclear program and in Syria. Simply put, Rouhani is not a “moderate,” as he is so often described, but an apologist for Iran’s revolutionary regime that operates in defiance of international law and norms.

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In an interview two weeks ago, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani consistently lied and evaded questions put to him by NBC News’s Chuck Todd.

Todd first asked why Iran was claiming that the United States was not living up to the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Rouhani responded that the deal states “that all nations involved in this agreement must free the path, pave the way for resumption of normal activities with the Islamic Republic of Iran, such as banking transactions, insurance transactions, and the likes.” Not only is that not correct, it fits a pattern described earlier this week by analysts from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in which Iran hopes to gain additional concessions by threatening to walk away from the deal unless the West provides every economic concession that it believes it is owed.

The United States was only required to suspend its nuclear-related sanctions, not sanctions placed on Iran due to its history of terror financing and money laundering. (The United States has seen to it that the global watchdog against money laundering, the Financial Action Task Force, relaxed some restriction on Iran despite Iran’s continued presence at the top of the list of money launderers.)

When asked by Todd whether that was a misinterpretation of the deal’s sanctions-related clauses, Rouhani evaded the question, instead accusing the United States of blocking access to large financial institutions. Then he added that “the other breach of the agreement on the side of the United States, it has been brought into the JCPOA that airplanes intended for civil aviation only must be freely sold to Iran.”

But the airplanes that Iran wants are likely not “intended for civil aviation only.” As Emanuele Ottolenghi of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies has shown, Iran Air, Iran’s national airline, which is seeking to purchase planes from Boeing and Airbus, is using planes to transport arms and troops to Syria to support the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Transporting soldiers and materiel is not “civil aviation.”

Todd later asked Rouhani if the world should be concerned about Iran’s intentions once most nuclear restrictions on Iran are lifted. Rouhani responded that Iran has adopted additional anti-weaponization safeguards as per the JCPOA, and even if these measures weren’t in place, “within the doctrine or within the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran to include the fatwa issued by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran…the building or pursuing or obtaining and using any type of weapons of mass destruction are strictly and unequivocally forbidden by Islamic law.”

The Middle East Media Research Institute has searched for a record of Khamenei’s nuclear fatwa and found no such fatwa. Mehdi Khalaji, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), wrote in a 2011 study (.pdf) “no written texts exist for the Supreme Leader’s fatwas.” But as WINEP research director Patrick Clawson observed in the preface to Khalaji’s analysis, even if Khamanei had issued such a fatwa, “past proclamations about the matter, like all fatwas issued by Shiite clerics, can be revised under new circumstances.”

Furthermore, Rouhani himself said in a 2005 speech (.pdf) that “having [nuclear] fuel cycle capability almost means that the country that possesses this capability is able to produce nuclear weapons, should that country have the political will to do so,” suggesting that he believes the decision to develop nuclear weapons to be a political, not religious, decision.

Todd followed up by asking Rouhani why Iran has deployed a missile defense system at the Fordow nuclear site if its purpose is strictly civilian. Rouhani cited the need for Iranians to “defend ourselves,” but didn’t fully address the question. When Todd persisted, Rouhani stated that “Iran has always maintained her commitment to any agreement it has become a signatory of. You will not find any instances during the past 38 years of the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran in which a bilateral agreement or an international agreement has been signed and Iran has broken its commitment.”

This is blatantly false. Iran, a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty refused to end its uranium enrichment program despite the threat of being sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. The JCPOA allowed Iran to maintain a portion of its enrichment capacity, which it had maintained despite being repeatedly sanctioned. Being forgiven for the breach of an agreement is not the same thing as having abided by it.

Then Rouhani added, “What we were accused of for years, called ‘possible military dimensions,’ the International Atomic Energy Agency eventually reached the conclusion that that file must be closed for good and announced that the activities of Iran were solely for peaceful purposes.”

This is also false. The IAEA report (.pdf) last December did not find that Iran’s nuclear activities “were solely for peaceful purposes.” Rather, it found that Iran had a military nuclear program until at least 2009, though it found “no credible indications” that its military nuclear program continued after this point. It’s true that the IAEA closed down its investigation of Iran’s past nuclear work, but as the Institute for Science and International Security assessed, “the IAEA’s report can be viewed, at best, as a document that closes the process set forth by terms of the Roadmap” to the nuclear deal, but not as a clean bill of health.

Rouhani’s protestations of abiding by the deal also must be viewed with a certain amount of skepticism based on his own record as Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator more than a decade ago. In 2006, after he left the position, Rouhani boasted in a meeting with Islamic clergy and scholars that he had duped the West. Rouhani claimed that Iran had continued installing equipment for converting yellowcake, one of the ingredients necessary for creating nuclear fuel, even as he told his European counterparts that there was no nuclear work being performed at that time.

“When we were negotiating with the Europeans in Tehran we were still installing some of the equipment at the Isfahan site,” Rouhani told his audience. “There was plenty of work to be done to complete the site and finish the work there. In reality, by creating a tame situation, we could finish Isfahan.”

Similarly, when he was running for president in 2013, Rouhani said in an interview that he used the earlier negotiations to advance Iran’s clandestine, illicit nuclear work, boasting, “We halted the nuclear program? We were the ones to complete it! We completed the technology.”

Todd then asked Rouhani about Iran’s involvement in the Syrian Civil War, starting with a question about the recent Russian bombing of a humanitarian convoy, which killed 20 aid workers and which one United Nations official called a war crime. Instead of condemning the attack, Rouhani pointed to a mistaken American airstrike on a Syrian army position—as if an accidental bombing somehow excuses a deliberate one. Rouhani also claimed that since the Syrian soldiers were fighting ISIS (also known as Daesh), the United States was involved in “a direct defense of the Daesh terrorist group.” The charge is outrageous. Even though Syrian troops have been targeting civilians, the United States said that it was an accident and apologized.

Rouhani went on to state that Israel had also attacked some Syrian positions, though he neglected to mention that it was in response to shells being fired into Israel. He allowed that a ceasefire would be beneficial because “food stuff and medicines can get to those who are in need and have been waiting for those supplies for months.” But he didn’t mention that the party engaging in the sieges is Assad, with Iran’s backing.

In response to Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent call for a halt to all flying above Syria, Rouhani stated that “any proposal can be coordinated in order to avoid the targeting of humanitarian convoys.” But a general from his own country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) boasted last month that Iran provides intelligence on the ground to guide Russia’s bombing campaigns. Given this, and the ensuing possibility that Iranian troops were complicit in the bombing in question, Rouhani’s assurances that convoys can be protected are glib and meaningless.

The portrait that emerges from Rouhani’s interview is of a man who lies and distorts to defend Iran’s illicit behavior— with its domestic nuclear program and in Syria. Simply put, Rouhani is not a “moderate,” as he is so often described, but an apologist for Iran’s revolutionary regime that operates in defiance of international law and norms.

“Christians Are Untouchables! They Are Meant for Cleaning Our Houses.”

October 2, 2016

“Christians Are Untouchables! They Are Meant for Cleaning Our Houses.” Gatestone Institute, Raymond Ibrahim, October 2, 2016

(But Obama tells us that Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance, so the persecution of Christians obviously has nothing to do with Islam. Right? — DM)

Three Muslim men slaughtered a 15-year-old Christian student, Wajaesh Shono. One of the murderers was the boy’s schoolteacher. — Pakistan.

A Muslim mob killed and beheaded a Christian pastor’s wife based on a false accusation of “blasphemy.” — Nigeria.

His father and stepmother became furious when they learned of the boy’s conversion. They began… starving him, in keeping with Islamic law recommendations for apostate women and children. — Uganda.

As usual, Egyptian TV reported the one-sided attacks from the Muslim majority on the Christian minority as “clashes.” After arriving, the police stood back and allowed the mob to continue rioting, plundering and setting more Christian homes and vehicles on fire. — Egypt.

A Christian woman who escaped ISIS said the militants “married and divorced” her as many as nine times every night to justify the act of raping her. — Iraq.

Christians reciting the rosary inside St. Anthony Church in Ventimiglia, Italy were told by refugee-volunteers to keep their prayers down as they were bothering newly arrived Muslim migrants. — Italy.

At the height of one of the worst months for Christians under Islam, June, 2016, both the U.S. government and “mainstream” media continued to ignore the plight of Christians.

Despite the U.S. government acknowledging that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians in Iraq and Syria, statistics showed the number of refugees the Obama administration has welcomed since the start of 2015:

  • From Syria: 5,435 Muslims; 28 Christians
  • From Iraq: 11,086 Muslims; 433 Christians

As for the mainstream media, the death of a gorilla was covered six times more than the Muslim slaughter of Christians for their faith, according to a report.

June’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Muslim Slaughter of Christians

Egypt: A Coptic Christian priest, Fr. Raphael Moussa, 46, was shot dead in “a hail of bullets” by an unidentified gunman outside the Church of the Martyr of St George, in Arish (Sinai). No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Islamic terrorists affiliated with ISIS have targeted Christians in Arish before. In 2013, another Coptic Christian priest, Mina Cheroubim, was alsoshot dead as he left his church in Arish.

Syria: Non-ISIS rebel fighters considered “moderate” by establishment counterterror analysts slit the throat of a Christian man in front of his wife. The murderer told her: “Your Jesus did not come to save him from us.” The murder took place in the ancient Christian town of Maalula, where Jesus’ language Aramaic was still spoken. The town had been invaded by militants few days earlier.

According to a resident: “They arrived in our town at dawn and shouted ‘We are from the Al-Nusra Front and have come to make lives miserable for the Crusaders.'”

Separately, a suicide bomber disguised as a priest attempted to enter an event commemorating the genocide of Christian Assyrians, but was stopped by Assyrian forces. The bomber detonated his bomb outside the hall, killing himself and three members of the Christian Assyrian Sutoro security forces, and wounding five. It is believed the bomber was targeting Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem of the Syriac Orthodox Church, who led the commemoration.

Pakistan: Three Muslim men slaughtered a 15-year-old Christian student, Wajaesh Shono, on June 14. One of the murderers was the boy’s schoolteacher. According to local sources,

“Because of Shono’s success in school, a local group of Muslims often pressured Shono to convert to Islam…. Shono’s Muslim classmates never allowed him to use their study table or chairs. They always avoided playing with him because of his Christianity, and hated when he drank water from the school tap.”

When the boy continued to insist on rejecting Islam, two men grabbed him while the third, possibly his teacher, stabbed him 15 times.

Bangladesh: On Sunday, June 5, Muslims associated with ISIS slaughtered Sunil Gomez, a 65-year-old Christian shopkeeper in his store. According to local priest Father Rebeiro, the victim “attended Sunday prayers at my church and then went to his grocery store. The next thing we know he was hacked to death. I can’t imagine how anyone can kill such an innocent man.” That same afternoon, local Christians held a protest rally demanding the immediate arrest of the murderers and accusing police of being indifferent to such attacks on Christian minorities. They cited the previous murder of Christian resident Gabriel Costa, whose killer is still at large, as evidence of police complicity.

Lebanon: Eight suicide bombers launched two separate attacks on the Christian town of Al Qaa on June 27. At least five people were killed. One of the attacks was near a church, and witnesses heard the attacker shouting, “Allahu Akbar” before blowing himself up. According to the town’s priest: “People are stuck in their houses, not daring to go out and fearing more suicide bombers… We’re living in terror in this town.” No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, although both al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front and the Islamic State are active on the Syrian side of the border. Lebanon has also taken in approximately 1.5 million refugees from Syria, an act that has raised fears that militants are hiding among them.

Muslim Slaughter of Christians in Nigeria

On June 2, a Muslim mob murdered and beheaded a Christian pastor’s wife, based on a false accusation of “blasphemy.” Bridget Agbahime, a kitchen utensil vendor, had politely asked Alhaji Dauda, a Muslim engaged in Islamic ritual cleaning, to move away from her shopfront because customers were still coming and going. He left angrily. According to the report:

Agbahime and her husband, pastor Mike Agbahime of Deeper Life Bible Church in Kano, were later meeting with the market landlord about the persistent problem when Dauda and other Muslims returned and began chanting that she must die for blasphemy. The landlord pleaded for them to return later to talk about it, but they began stoning him, and he fled. Shouting the jihadist chant “Allahu Akbar,” Dauda and the mob accused Agbahime of blasphemy against Muhammad, the prophet of Islam… Pastor Agbahime tried in vain to protect her. The assailants overpowered the few policemen present, and Agbahime knelt and began to pray before she was beaten and clubbed to death….

On June 22, the partially decayed corpse of Rev. John Adeyi was found in some bushes. The Catholic priest was kidnapped at gunpoint while traveling for pastoral duties two months earlier. His abductors later contacted church officials and demanded 25 million naira (USD $121,224) as ransom. According to one unconfirmed press report, some two million naira (USD $9,700) had been paid.

It was reported on June 1 that, after hearing that a Christian had committed “blasphemy” against Muhammad, a Muslim mob in Niger State rampaged and killed the accused, Methodus Chimaije Emmanuel, age 24. According to a Baptist pastor:

“The incident began with Facebook chats between a Muslim and Christian youth in the town. The Muslim youth mobilized other Muslims in the town on claims that the Christian youth had blasphemed the prophet Muhammad. The Muslims went to Fellowship Baptist Church along Alllawa Road, Pandogari, and burned down the church.”

He said that two Christians were shot and injured on Sunday, May 29 in one area of town, and that there could be others wounded.

It was reported on June 2 that Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed three Christians on May 31, while they slept in their homes in the early hours and burned a pastor’s home. Days earlier in the same area, Muslim herdsmen attacked another Christian with machetes.

Muslim Slaughter of Christians in Uganda

On June 17, the Muslim in-laws of a 24-year-old Christian mother, Angel Nabirye, poisoned and killed her infant daughter, sources said. Nabirye’s in-laws did this because they were angry to see the young woman eating during the daytime fast of Ramadan. “My mother-in-law questioned me for eating food with my baby during Ramadan, and I told her that the baby was unwell and needs breast-feeding.” The following day, “She [mother-in-law] brought some herbs for my baby, Saidha Namwase, which I gave her. After three hours, the condition of the baby worsened, and I rushed her to Iganga Hospital, but she was pronounced dead on arrival at 4 p.m.” Hospital tests reveal the baby was poisoned. Her husband and Muslim family were eager to bury the body immediately, according to Islamic custom, and when the mother protested because she wanted her family to be present for a funeral, they started abusing her, and calling her an infidel and pagan. Her family came and were also clandestinely drugged by the Muslim in laws and beaten; when they regained consciousness the baby’s corpse had disappeared.

On June 23, Muslims murdered a Christian woman because she refused to donate part of her land to a mosque. A number of Muslims had been pressuring Efranse Kadondo, a 50-year-old Catholic. At one point she told a Muslim relative, among those pressuring her, that “if I have to surrender part of my land, then I will give it to the Catholic Church.” This angered the Muslim relative, who, with some imams who had accompanied him, forcibly chased her off her property. Kadondo took refuge at a relative’s home in a nearby village, and reported the Muslim seizure of her land to police. Six days later, after returning from an all-night prayer meeting, the Christian woman was found lying dead in a pool of blood; her hands were broken and there were bruises around her neck. The autopsy confirmed that she was murdered during a struggle. Neighbors saw local Muslims lingering around her house that night, some of whom were subsequently arrested. Her Muslim relative had fled earlier.

On June 4, a Christian widower and father of two daughters was murdered by Muslims, who were apparently angered by his evangelistic work. According to the report,

The body of Yokannah Zirinkuma … was found in a pool of blood in nearby Kadama village, near the home of the primary suspect… Well known in the area for evangelistic preaching in a marketplace by which several Muslims came to faith in Christ, Zirinkuma two weeks prior had engaged Muslims in Kasasira village in open debate that became heated. He later received a threatening letter from unknown Muslims. “You should stop misleading Muslims, and if you fail to adhere to this, then you will face the judgment sword from Allah,” a letter in Arabic warned him.

Soon thereafter, the pastor was led to a house through a ruse and murdered.

Muslim Attacks on Christian Apostates, Blasphemers, and Preachers

Uganda: A Muslim man burned his 9-year-old son for accepting Christ. On June 5, after attending church with a Christian friend, Nassif Malagara “requested that he wanted to receive Jesus as his personal savior,” said that church’s pastor: “I was a bit hesitant, but after his continuous press, I then prayed with him, and he left.” Afterwards, the boy refused to engage in Islamic activities. His father, Abubakar Malagara, and his stepmother became furious when they learned of the boy’s conversion. They began abusing him, including by starving him, in keeping with Islamic law recommendations for apostate women and children. Two days later, his father caught him eating food the boy had smuggled from a neighbor. According to the boy:

“He started beating me up with sticks, but I managed to escape to a nearby bush. My father then followed me and got hold of me back to the homestead, where he tied me up to a banana tree. He went into the house and came back with a hot piece of wood. The banana tree had dry leaves, which caught fire and caused serious burns on my body.”

Neighbors heard the child screaming for help. They rescued and took him to a nearby hospital. The neighbor who introduced the boy to church fears for his life, especially after receiving a text message: “We know that you are behind the conversion of Nassif to Christianity. You will soon reap what you have sown, which will be a lesson to others. Islam is against such conversion.”

Unknown Middle East nation: Three Christians (pastor Stephan, pastor Samuel and evangelist James) who worked for a missionary organization that delivers Bibles to several nations of the Middle East, suffered from “a brutal attack by Islamic extremists” on the evening of June 12, said Paul Ciniraj, the organization’s spokesman: Shouting “Allahu Akbar!” the Muslims “jumped out on the pastors from a dark corner and brutally [beat] them with iron pipes.” While hospitalized, the three men suspected they were being stalked inside the health-care facility and, despite their serious injuries, asked to be discharged early. Upon their release from the hospital, they disappeared. Their organization suspects “terrorists” abducted them.

Nigeria: An Islamic cleric beat his wife with a blunt instrument after their 6-year-old daughter told him how she was healed at a church service, where the woman and their seven children all became Christian. According to a neighbor: “There was loud screaming, and we rushed to Siraji’s house and found his wife bleeding. Her husband left for a nearby mosque.” The neighbor took the woman and her children to the church site before her irate husband returned, but the sheikh and five other angry Muslims arrived looking for them, the pastor said.

“I saw them outside the church gate and sensed danger for the new converts. I told the church guard not to open the gate, and after two hours they left. Early the next day, I sent her and her children to some church members.”

The mother and children are now hiding in another village, living in a tattered house with a thatched roof that leaks. The children are unable to return to school.

Pakistan: A Christian man who converted to Islam two years ago taught his Christian relatives a “good lesson“:

Sonu tried to persuade his [Christian] cousins to convert to Islam as well, but when they refused, their discussion quickly turned into a dispute. Sonu threatened Salamat and the others, saying that he was going to “give them a good lesson.” On June 10, Sonu went to the nearest mosque and claimed that Salamat and his friends had made derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad. Without waiting to verify Sonu’s report, more than a dozen men from a nearby Islamic seminary came and attacked Masih’s house. The men beat the three teenagers and knocked over household items. As the men carried out the attack, they chanted abusive slogans at the Christians. After the attack, the men went to the police to register a complaint [blasphemy accusation] against the three boys. Since the attack, the teenagers have been forced into hiding.

Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches

Sweden: On June 27, around 3 a.m., a man broke into St. Paul’s Church in central Malmö and vandalized it, starting with breaking the window panes. When police arrived, the man attacked them. Officers, according to the report, used pepper spray to overpower the “aggressive” man, who is being charged with a hate crime: “Police suspect that the man went to the attack on the church because it is a symbol of the Christian faith.” Witnesses heard him shouting, “Allahu Akbar” during the attack.

Nigeria: It was reported on June 1 that, after a Christian was accused of making a blasphemous remark (see below) on his Facebook page, Muslims rose in violence. As a result, “One of our churches, Fellowship Baptist Church, has been burnt by the Muslims. Another church too was vandalized and destroyed, and the Christian accused of blasphemy was killed,” said a local pastor.

Egypt: Hundreds of angry, rioting Muslims burned down 80 Christian homes on June 17, on the rumor that Christians were trying to build a church. When the neighboring village’s priest heard what was happening, he rushed to the scene — only to be attacked in his car; Muslims climbed, stomped on, and damaged it. Among the hundreds of rioting Muslims were many women and children shouting chanting “Allahu Akbar!” and “We’ll burn the church, we’ll burn the church.” As usual, Egyptian TV reported the one-sided attacks from the Muslim majority on the Christian minority as “clashes.” After arriving, the police stood back and allowed the mob to continue rioting, plundering and setting more Christian homes and vehicles on fire. The Muslims then performed their afternoon prayers outside those Christians’ homes they had not destroyed — with loudspeakers pointed at their doors. “No one did anything and the police took no pre-emptive or security measures in anticipation of the attacks,” said Anba Makarios, a representative of the normally diplomatic Coptic Christian church.

1664-1On June 17, 2016, rioting Muslims in Egypt attacked Christians and their property, and burned down 80 Christian homes. (Image source: “Behind the Scenes” video screenshot)

Pakistan: On June 4, around 4:00 a.m., a group of unknown armed men opened fire on the St. Joseph Catholic Church near Lahore. Five bullets penetrated the church premises. The assailants escaped. Local Christians “expressed exasperation” concerning this latest in a long line of attacks on churches in Pakistan. They also complained that “none of the Muslims of the area has expressed solidarity with them, nor have voiced condemnation.” Separately, police stormed the United Church in Lahore’s Fazlia Colony. They hurled abusive language at the worshipers; when the pastor asked the officers to show respect for the house of worship, a policeman started cursing the church leader and slapping him around. The reason police had invaded the church is that someone complained that the church was using loudspeakers (which is banned under Islam), an allegation that was later dismissed.

Dhimmitude: Muslim Hate for, and Violence against, Christians

Nigeria: A Muslim gang stabbed a Christian carpenter, on June 7, for eating during the Ramadan fast. Francis Emmanuel, 41, sustained multiple wounds from the attack. From his hospital bed he explained:

“As I was eating, about six Muslims came to ask me if I am a Muslim or a Christian, but I did not answer them. They asked why I was not fasting, then I told them that I am not a Muslim. Before I know it, one of them slapped me. As I stood up, the rest came and surrounded me and started attacking me with knives.”

Iraq: A Christian woman who escaped ISIS said the militants “married and divorced” her as many as nine times every night to justify the act of raping her. In the words of the woman, whose name is withheld: “They had me whenever they would desire it. Especially this one, Farouk, who was obsessed with me and he would [sarcastically] say, ‘I like the people of Jesus.'” She was enslaved in 2014 when she went looking for her husband who had disappeared soon after ISIS’ takeover of Mosul. Militants saw the crucifix tattoo on her arm, identifying her as a Christian, abducted and enslaved her. According to the report,

“The woman, who sobbed and shook during the interview, said she is not the only one who experienced these things. She said she wants to tell the world to know what happened to her in the hopes that her story will prompt the world to do something to protect Christians, Yazidis, and others.”

Pakistan: According to a Christian man, “I was attacked, beaten, and abused for selling ice-cream to Muslim children and women.” Khaleel Masih, 42, supports his wife and six children by selling ice-cream from an ice chest on the back of his bicycle, which he rides everyday through several villages in order to find enough customers for his business. One day two Muslim brothers, both named Muhammad, came up to Masih and began insulting, beating, and torturing him for being an “unclean” Christian selling “unclean merchandise” to Muslim children. When they understood the context of the beating, approximately twenty other men joined in the attack, while Muslim women yelled slogans in the street, saying: “Christians are untouchables! They are not followers of our holy prophet. They are meant for cleaning our houses and therefore should not be allowed to sell anything edible to Muslims.” When Masih reported the attack at the local police station, the police refused to listen to his statement. Koran 9:28 refers to non-Muslims as “unclean.”

Separately, police seized and publicly beat and humiliated a young Christian woman in the middle of a park because her brother had eloped with a Muslim woman. Police then threatened the entire Christian community. They said if the Muslim woman was not returned to her husband, they would gun down the entire family in a fake encounter.

Germany: Accounts of Muslim migrants abusing Christians in refugee shelters continue to grow. A report found that 88% of the 231 Christian refugees interviewed in Germany have suffered religiously motivated persecution in the form of insults, death threats, and sexual assaults. Some were pressured to convert to Islam. “I really didn’t know that after coming to Germany I would be harassed because of my faith in the very same way as back in Iran,” one Christian refugee was quoted as saying.

Paulus Kurt, of the Central Council of Oriental Christians in Germany, said: “These are not isolated cases. I don’t know of any refugee shelter from Garmisch to Hamburg where we have not found such cases.”

Italy: Christians reciting the rosary inside St. Anthony Church in Ventimiglia were told by refugee-volunteers to keep their prayers down as they were bothering newly arrived Muslim migrants apparently living on the church premise. One of the female parishioners asked if the migrants couldn’t be taken to another church so she could continue to pray in peace in her own church. In response, Don Rito, the parish priest, appeared and proceeded to escort her and other parishioners to another church. “We have now entered an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ world where everything is upside down,” Fr. Ben Kiely said regarding this incident. “Europe is committing cultural suicide. It has lost its heart and its soul. As Pope Benedict so wisely reminded us, the foundation of Europe is Christianity. When you destroy a building’s foundation, it collapses. This is what we are watching.”

About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by Muslims is growing.

The report posits that such Muslim persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities, and locations.

Minneapolis taxpayers must pay public housing rent for Somalis that spend their income on travel back to Somalia

October 2, 2016

Minneapolis taxpayers must pay public housing rent for Somalis that spend their income on travel back to Somalia, American ThinkerThomas Lifson, October 2, 2016

What a deal! Come to the United States, and if you spend your income (even that from welfare and refugee programs) on travel to Somalia instead of paying your rent in public housing, whey [sic] the suckers taxpayers of Minneapolis will pick up the tab. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports (via Refugee Resettlement Watch):

Public housing residents in Minneapolis will no longer need to pay their normal monthly rent when travel abroad erases their income, a change particularly sought by East African immigrants.

The board of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority approved this week reverting to its previous policy of collecting only minimal rent during extended absences. The change takes effect once approved by federal housing officials, which is expected by year’s end.

Abdi Warsame, a City Council member, told the board that the policy in place for the past five years works a particular hardship on elderly East Africans who must save for long periods if they want to visit their homelands. He said that many receive federal Supplemental Security Income, which is halted when the recipient is outside the United States.

Of course nothing bad, like training in terror activities, ever happens when Muslim refugees go back too their homelands. Oh, wait: Minnesota actually has contributed more fighters to ISIS than any other state.

 

Hugh Fitzgerald: Teaching About Islam In Tennessee

October 2, 2016

Hugh Fitzgerald: Teaching About Islam In Tennessee, Jihad Watch, October 2, 2016

A Bangladeshi Muslim student reads the holy Quran at an Islamic school during Ramadan in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, June 29, 2016. Muslims throughout the world are marking the holy month of Ramadan, during which they fast from dawn till dusk. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad)

A Bangladeshi Muslim student reads the holy Quran at an Islamic school during Ramadan in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, June 29, 2016. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad)

For nearly a year some Tennessee parents have been up arms about the teaching of Islam to seventh graders in their public schools. They are disturbed that more attention has been given to “studying” Islam than to Christianity or Judaism. And they especially were upset that the students were asked to recite and write out the Shehada, in a unit on the Five Pillars of Islam: “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.” Some called it “indoctrination.” And the Tennessee State Board of Education, in response, has decided to omit the section “Islamic World, 400 AD/CE-1500s” from the seventh-grade social studies curriculum. Instead, the schools will, in a “streamlined” form, still teach 7th graders about Islam, but now in a history section titled “Southwest Asia and North Africa: 400-1500s,” and omitting subjects previously taught, such as “the origins of Islam” and “the life of its founder Muhammad.”

It is easy to imagine how this played out in the mainstream press. Tennessee, the buckle on the Bible Belt, where less than a century ago a certain Mr. Scopes was put on trial for teaching evolution, is at it again. A bunch of narrow-minded parents in Maury County, rubes right out of central casting, pitchforks at the ready, have managed to show just what prejudice and Islamophobia can do, and have forced an end to seventh-graders in Tennessee from learning all about the “religion of 1.6 [sic] billion people.” One of the photographs accompanying an article about the parents’ protest shows the hand of a student pointing to a page in an open Qur’an; the caption underneath readsParents fear their kids will know too much about this book.

But was this really a victory for the Know-Nothings, the haters of diversity, the right-wing Christian fundamentalists who don’t want their children to learn anything about the faith of more than a billion people? Or did those parents have a point? And if they had a point, might there be another way of making it?

The teaching of Islam, if done rightly, would not eliminate but, rather, reinforce, any sensible Infidel’s deep doubts about the “religion of peace.” What the students were taught was comically superficial, but they no doubt came away thinking that they had learned something about Islam, and discovered there was nothing to worry about. After all, these are 7th graders.

They learned that Muslims are monotheists, just like Christians and Jews. A comforting thought. But they did not learn that Muslims are taught to regard those fellow monotheists as the “vilest of creatures,”and Muslims as the “best of peoples.” They did not learn that Islam divides the world uncompromisingly between Muslims and non-Muslims, and that a permanent state of war exists between them, and will continue to exist, until Islam everywhere dominates, and Muslims rule, everywhere. They learned that, as one of the fill-in-the-blank questions given to them asked, “the Muslim word for God is Allah.” But they did not learn that the Muslim God is different in almost every respect from the Christian one. They did not learn that the expression “Allahu akbar” does not mean that “God is great,” but that “Our Muslim God is greater than yours,” and that it is a war-cry.

They did learn to write down the Five Pillars of Islam: Shehada, Salat, Zakat, Sawm, Hajj, but what did they find out about what those words mean?

They not only wrote out but recited the Shehada, the declaration of the Oneness of God: “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” They learned that the Shehada is what non-Muslims recite in order to become Muslims, to join the faith, the community, the umma of Islam. But they were not told that once you become a Muslim, you can’t get out, that the punishment in Islam for apostasy is death. So these American kids recite and write out the Shehada in class, you can imagine with what naïve solemnity (or on the playground, as they talk about it later, hilarity), and begin to think that “Wow, I could be a Muslim now if I wanted” or at home, reciting it to annoy their parents, “See Ma, I said it and nothing happened. I didn’t turn into a terrorist, I didn’t start throwing bombs. Chillax.” The parents are annoyed, of course, but do not think to ask their children if they realize why anyone can become a Muslim merely by reciting the Shehada, when to become a Christian or a Jew requires extensive study. The reason, they could tell their children if they knew it themselves, is that Muslims want to make it easy for non-Muslims to convert, for these converts are seen not so much as individuals learning about, and wrestling with, theological matters of moment, but regarded more like recruits to an army – just recite here — the Army of Islam.

When the students were taught about the Second Pillar of Islam, Salat, they learned that it is the ritual prayer said five times a day by all Muslims. They may have been impressed with how devoted Muslims must be. But they did not learn the contents of those prayers. How many Americans know that every Muslim, in saying his daily prayers, is denouncing the Kuffar – Christians and Jews — seventeen times a day? Do you think the teachers in Tennessee knew this? Do you think, if they learned it, they would dare to mention it to their classes? Wouldn’t that get them in trouble with a cheerfully denying local member of CAIR (“who told you this nonsense”?), or with some self-righteous journalist who insists that this cannot possibly be true, it’s one more Islamophobic canard? Of course it would.

Of what conceivable value is memorizing the word “Salat” and learning “Muslims pray five times a day” unless students find out what those prayers contain, and especially what they say about Infidels? As with the Shehada, something very important has been left out.

Robert Spencer explains what is in the five canonical prayers:

In the course of praying the requisite five prayers a day, an observant Muslim will recite the Fatihah, the first surah of the Qur’an and the most common prayer in Islam, seventeen times. The final two verses of the Fatihah ask Allah: “Show us the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast favoured; not the (path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.” The traditional Islamic understanding of this is that the “straight path” is Islam — cf. Islamic apologist John Esposito’s bookIslam: The Straight Path. The path of those who have earned Allah’s anger are the Jews, and those who have gone astray are the Christians.

This is not my interpretation; it comes from the classic Islamic commentaries on the Qur’an. The renowned Qur’anic commentator Ibn Kathir explains that “the two paths He described here are both misguided,” and that those “two paths are the paths of the Christians and Jews, a fact that the believer should beware of so that he avoids them.The path of the believers is knowledge of the truth and abiding by it. In comparison, the Jews abandoned practicing the religion, while the Christians lost the true knowledge. This is why ‘anger’ descended upon the Jews, while being described as ‘led astray’ is more appropriate of the Christians.”

Students learn that Zakat is the charitable giving required of Muslims. Admirable, they think, good for Muslims. But what is not said is that in the giving of Zakat, the recipients of that charity are only other Muslims. It would make no sense for Muslims to support those who have not accepted Islam. As Quran 8:55 puts it: “Surely the vilest of animals in Allah’s sight are those who disbelieve” And the Quran (28:86) adds: “Never be a helper to the unbelievers.” The Quran (48:29) also says: “Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard (ruthless) against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves.”

How many of those students in Tennessee do you think were told that “Zakat” can only go to fellow Muslims? Or, even more unlikely, how many might have had that practice explained to them by reference to 8:55 and 28:86 and 48:29? Why none, of course. The students will learn, and their teachers too may well think, that Muslims are unusually generous because one of Islam’s Pillars is this required giving of alms. But the alms are only intended to support and promote Muslims, not to help humanity.

The last two pillars – Sawn and Hajj — are in themselves inoffensive. But piquant details connected to their observance could have been added.

Sawm is the dawn-to-dusk fasting, during the month of Ramadan. Some liken it to Lent, though it requires refraining, during the day, from food altogether, and not, as for Christians at Lent, giving up this or that pleasurable practice (e.g., drinking wine, smoking, eating a particular food). Do you think the students knew that Ramadan is associated with an upsurge in violence by Muslims? Or learned that Muslims have been known to attack, and even kill, Infidels for eating during Ramadan?

Hajj is the fifth pillar of Islam. Muslims are required to make, at least once in their lives, the pilgrimage to Mecca, to circumambulate the Ka’aba seven times widdershins, and perform certain other rituals, such as the flinging of pebbles at the Devil, represented by three pillars in Mina. Muslims of every race and sect, make the hajj. But beneath the outward display of unity, sectarian strife continues, even in regard to the hajj. The Iranian government, for example, this year did not permit its own citizens to make the hajj, as a way of expressing displeasure with the Saudis. And the Saudis have always forbidden Ahmadis, whom they regard as not real Muslims, from making the hajj. Was any of this mentioned?

The objection to the teaching about Islam should not have been that students learn too much about Islam, but that they learn too little. The recital of the Shehada, as we noted above, is a quick and easy way to swell Muslim ranks. But having these American students recite the Shehada, and merely pretend to “be Muslims,” is not without consequences. They may have imprinted on their young brains an impression of a harmless Islam that later will be hard to dislodge. Some people think, for example, that Obama’s memories of being a child in Indonesia, where he was taken with the muezzin’s call to prayer (“the call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset”) may partly explain his consistently sympathetic – and wildly inaccurate – descriptions of Islam.

But what else has been left out? Why, in what is effectively an “Introduction to Islam” unit, was the duty of Jihad apparently not mentioned? Shouldn’t Islam be described properly as a “fighting faith”? How did Islam spread, so rapidly, across North Africa, and through the Middle East? What happened to the many non-Muslim peoples subjugated by conquering Muslims? And if Jihad was mentioned after all, was the word glossed as “an internal struggle to be a better Muslim” or as what it is, a real war for territory, to enlarge Dar al-Islam, and to subdue the Infidel? Of course not.

We are told that the “life of Muhammad” was taught to students in Tennessee. But what about his life was taught? That he raided camel caravans, and received messages from Allah through the angel Gabriel? Do you think the students were also told that he took part in dozens of military campaigns? That he observed with pleasure the decapitation of several hundred bound prisoners? That he led a raid, for women and loot, on the inoffensive Jewish farmers of the Khaybar Oasis? That he consummated his marriage to little Aisha when she was nine years old? That he was delighted when his followers killed Asma bint Marwan and Abu ‘Afak for mocking him? That – despite or because of this record — Muhammad is considered the Model of Conduct (“uswa hasana”) and Perfect Man (“al-insan al-kamil”) for all Muslims, and for all time? Parents should demand not that the life of Muhammad be omitted from the curriculum, but that it be taught in greater detail.

If you are not Muslim, what would you most want to know about Islam? Surely you would want to find out what is said about non-Muslims in the Qur’an and Hadith. Students should not be shielded from the many passages in the Qur’an that denounce the Unbelievers; they have a right to know, and teachers a duty to teach, this aspect of Islam, rather than have it remain unremarked, or deliberately hidden. It is not too late for the parents to draw up their own syllabus, one that they should make public, in order to force discussion of all of these unpleasant but indispensable matters. Instead of allowing themselves to be caricatured as the “parents who fear their kids will know too much about this book”— the Qur’an — the parents in Tennessee might consider demanding a fuller study of Islam in the schools, “because we want our children to be able to answer such questions as these”: Why is it so easy to convert to Islam by reciting the Shehada? And why is it so hard – and so dangerous — to leave Islam? Why is Zakat limited only to other Muslims? Why, in the five required daily prayers, is an imprecation against Jews and Christians repeated seventeen times? Why does Islam still permit slavery? Who are the “vilest of creatures”? Who are the “best of peoples”? Who was Aisha? Who was Asma bint Marwan? What is “Jihad”? What is a “dhimmi”? What is “jizyah”?

That’s a start.

What can CAIR and its willing collaborators respond?

Cartoons of the Day

October 2, 2016

H/t Vermont Loon Watch

obamalegacy

 

H/t Vermont Loon Watch

moving-vote

 

a-chat

 

H/t Vermont Loon Watch

lynch-1

 

jarts

 

liars1

 

 

Democrats’ organized-crime ring will do anything to maintain power and stay out of prison

October 2, 2016

Democrats’ organized-crime ring will do anything to maintain power and stay out of prison, Washington Times, L. Todd Wood, October 1, 2016

(Reason number 2,587 not to elect Hillary. — DM)

hillandkerrySecretary of State John Kerry speaks with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during the groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Diplomacy Center, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2014, at the State Department in Washington.

When the end came for Russian President Boris Yeltsen, as the Russian economy was crumbling and there was no support left for his leadership in the Duma, one of his main concerns was protecting himself and his family from prosecution for corruption. That is why he appointed Vladimir Putin, an extremely loyal subordinate whom he could trust with his secrets, someone who would not immediately contact prosecutors and hound his family even after he died.  Someone who would not go after the money secreted away in the Caymans.  Someone who would let sleeping dogs lie. 

This is exactly the situation we have with the current political environment in the United States as the 2016 election season nears its conclusion. 

The party in power has shown itself to be nothing more than a massive organized-crime syndicate that has used the levers of power to persecute the political opposition and line its pocketbooks and bank accounts with the taxpayers’ money.  From John Kerry sending millions to his daughter’s non-profit, to Hillary Clinton shaking down the State Department’s clients for money, to public employee unions spiking their pensions, the corruption is complete across all levels of the Democratic Party and their hold on the executive branch.

But I think this rabbit hole goes much deeper.  We are now into corruption that damages the national security of the United States in an existential way.

Every day there is a new “secret” deal revealed where the Obama administration betrayed America with its desire to give the world’s real Islamic State, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the nuclear bomb, along with hundreds of billions in dollars, secretly flown to Tehran in the dead of night.

Hillary Clinton sold 20 percent of America’s uranium to the Russians for money.

The appeasement and downright enabling of the Islamic jihadist agenda by this administration will be written about in the history books.  I suspect, when the cover is taken off the rabbit hole, we will be astounded with what has actually been given away, leaked, stolen and ripped off by Obama and his minions.

This is why they are so scared of Trump.  This is why they are fighting tooth and nail.  This is why they don’t want to give up power and let the American people find out what has really gone on.  This is why the federal Department of Homeland Security is pushing the states to let it “advise and assist” in the electoral process.

I hope President Trump will prosecute the illegality he finds when he takes office.  To not do so would be a travesty of justice and set the precedent for the end of the Republic.

Of course, Obama may pardon all the main offenders but the crime syndicate is huge.  He can’t pardon everyone.  We at least have to find out what happened even if the key players don’t go to jail.

Hillary cannot be allowed into the White House.  This time she will take much more than the furniture.

Is America Ready For Hillary Clinton’s ‘Shariah Advisor’ In The White House?

October 2, 2016

Is America Ready For Hillary Clinton’s ‘Shariah Advisor’ In The White House? Investors Business Daily, September 30, 2016

(Please see also, Huma Abedin: Will She Repudiate Family’s Islamist Views? — DM)

guest-abedin-093016-apHuma Abedin, above, is a key aide to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. But her close ties to Islamic fundamentalists has some questioning her role as Clinton’s “shadow.” (AP)

Some have expressed concern that Bill Clinton might be back in the White House, this time as the first gentleman.

But as worried as they might be, at least Bill isn’t a supporter of Shariah law. We wonder if we can say the same thing about the person who will be one of Hillary’s chief, if not top, advisor.

Huma Abedin has been called Hillary’s “shadow” by Politico. Hillary has said if she had a second daughter, it would be Abedin. She has been with the Democratic presidential candidate since 1996, when Hillary was first lady.

Abedin has followed Clinton through her years as a U.S. senator from New York and was by her side when Hillary was wrecking America’s foreign relations and making a mess in the Middle East as secretary of state. While deputy chief of staff to Clinton at State, Abedin also worked for the Clinton Foundation and Teneo, a consulting firm that does business with international business titans.

Today, Abedin is ranked third in the Clinton presidential campaign hierarchy. If Hillary is elected, Abedin will surely have an office in the West Wing where she will use her formidable influence on Clinton to shape administration policy.

Just as Abedin has trailed Clinton for two decades, a serious question has trailed Abedin: Is she sympathetic to radical Islamists and a proponent of Shariah law in the U.S.? This question isn’t asked because she’s a practicing Muslim and speaks fluent Arabic. It’s due to her family ties.

Four years ago, five congressman sent a letter to the State Department inspector general, charging that Abedin’s father, mother and brother were associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is considered a terrorist organization by several nations, though not the U.S. The letter cited “a personal intervention by Secretary Clinton that allowed a prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader, Tariq Ramadan, to enter the United States — overturning a policy of the previous administration that precluded him from doing so.”

A former federal prosecutor also noticed that U.S. policy “radically shifted in the Brotherhood’s favor” while Abedin was in the State Department.

For their efforts, the five U.S. lawmakers were treated as cranks by the Democrats and media. But were they on to something? That’s unknown. The story essentially died. The legacy media couldn’t be expected to dig into it because it might cast one of their own — a Democrat — in a poor light.

We do know some things, though, and one of them is that Abedin’s late father, Syed Abedin, was a firm defender of Shariah law. A video from a 1971 interview that has recently surfaced shows Syed, a Muslim scholar, discussing Islam’s “hostile” response to the West’s involvement in the Middle East. He seems to also argue that Shariah law must be enforced by national governments in Muslim countries.

Huma’s mother, Saleha Abedin, also has an interesting history. She was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, a Shariah law periodical, from 1995 to 2008. Paul Sperry, a former IBD bureau chief, reported last month in the New York Post that Huma worked “for her mother’s journal through 2008. She is listed as ‘assistant editor’ on the masthead of the 2002 issue in which her mother suggested the U.S. was doomed to be attacked on 9/11 because of ‘sanctions’ it leveled against Iraq and other ‘injustices’ allegedly heaped on the Muslim world.”

Huma’s brother, Hassan, is also an editor at the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs.

Huma’s mother’s sketchy ties don’t end on those pages. Kenneth R. Timmerman, a former Republican congressional candidate and current Donald Trump supporter, wrote last month inThe Hill that Saleha “sits on the Presidency Staff Council of the International Islamic Council for Da’wa and Relief, a group that is chaired by the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi.”

Huma’s father had his own Muslim Brotherhood connection, says former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy. And it wasn’t tenuous.

“There is persuasive evidence,” he wrote in 2012 in PJ Media, “that her father was a member of the Brotherhood.”

One can imagine the shape of the conversations around the Abedin dinner table. Huma must be steeped in the twisted ideas that drive Islam’s hostility toward the West. Could it plausibly be any other way?

Of course the mainstream media don’t care much. They see it as their job to get Clinton elected, no matter who she has hitched herself to.

Imagine, though, the media response if it turned out that the mother of one of Trump’s high-ranking advisors had been a member of a group of harmless old ladies who met now and then to honor the Confederate dead and tend to their graves. There would be an inquisition. That person would be drummed out of her position and have to go into hiding. The issue would become a truncheon used to club Trump whenever the campaign-media complex needed it.

But anyone associated with Hillary Clinton is an angel who should never be held up to scrutiny, no matter what their family ties are.

New York Times violates law to publish partial Trump tax return from 90s and speculate about his taxes

October 2, 2016

New York Times violates law to publish partial Trump tax return from 90s and speculate about his taxes, American ThinkerThomas Lifson, October 2, 2016

Trump Derangement Syndrome has led the New York Times to willfully violate federal law in order to speculate about what taxes Donald Trump may or may not have been paying.  In a front-page article, built on crime and conjecture, the Times ends up with very weak beer on Trump, but a convincing case for its own irresponsibility and criminality.

The lede paragraph reveals the astonishing lack of factual reporting and descent into mere speculation, speculation that supports the latest Hillary Clinton attack line on Trump, that he pays “no taxes” (a recapitulation of the Harry Reid lies on the Senate floor about Mitt Romney’s taxes. When confronted with his lies, Reid said, “It worked, didn’t it?”). Presumably, in the eyes of NYT executive editor Dean Baquet, if this speculation succeeds in defeating Trump, his own criminality and descent into speculation is also justified by the results.

Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show.

“Could have” is the operant admission that the Times does not know what it reports.  As Sundance notes:

The anti-Trump political angle is easily identifiable within the extensive article use of: “could have”, “might be”, “may have”, phrases used throughout the woven narrative.  Journalistic “narratives” are rarely based on facts.

Nowhere in its breathless report of non-facts does the Times stop to note that in 1995 Bill Clinton was president and Hillary Clinton was, in her own previous words, “co-president.” They were responsible for the tax laws, along with the Democrat congressional majority 1992-94, and could have changed the tax law.

Callum Borchers of the Washington Post explains the legal jeopardy that could await the Times:

Dean Baquet wasn’t bluffing.

The New York Times executive editor said during a visit to Harvard in September that he would risk jail to publish Donald Trump’s tax returns. He made good on his word Saturday night when the Times published Trump tax documents from 1995, which show the Republican presidential nominee claimed losses of $916 million that year — enough to avoid paying federal income taxes for as many as 18 years afterward.

Federal law makes it illegal to publish an unauthorized tax return:

It shall be unlawful for any person to whom any return or return information (as defined in section 6103(b)) is disclosed in a manner unauthorized by this title thereafter willfully to print or publish in any manner not provided by law any such return or return information. Any violation of this paragraph shall be a felony punishable by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.

Baquet said during a panel discussion at Harvard that if the Times’ lawyers advised him not to publish Trump tax returns, he would argue that such information is vital to the public interest because the real estate mogul’s “whole campaign is built on his success as a businessman and his wealth.”

This makes it appear that Baquet’s violation of the law was intentional and done for partisan reasons.

Donald Trump is a man known to be capable of resorting to the courts, and his campaign’s statement on the violation of his privacy indicates there may be action coming:

“Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,” the statement, which was not attributed to Trump or any staffer by name, continued. “That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes. Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that knows how to fix it.”

In a tweet at 7:22 a.m. ET on Sunday, Trump took the same line, and likewise did not deny the report. “I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them. #failing@nytimes,” he wrote.

The media’s Hillary claque is already jumping on board, proclaiming, “Bombshell report on Trump taxes sends GOP nominee reeling,” for example.

In this deeply corrupt age of a weaponized IRS and FBI, there may be no legal recourse for Trump. But I imagine a lawsuit may be in the offing.

Does anyone think that the Times would have risked legal consequences if it was not worried about a possible Trump victory?