This story is by Rep.John Carter in Human Events.
So much for the DemocRats being transparent.
It sounds like the same old DemocRat playbook: Keep people in the dark and uninformed and do not let their bills be read as the bills will not stand up to scrutiny.
----------------------------------------
Monday night Democrats voted to shut down the U.S. House Representatives rather than allow a handful of Republican Congressmen to speak on the floor.
What could have been so offensive or frightening about our discourse that Speaker Pelosi felt she had to protect her party by gagging free speech in the House?
In fact, we had planned to speak on the lack of transparency of the House since Democrats took control. We had planned to criticize Speaker Pelosi for repeatedly denying Members, the media, and the public to right to read legislation before it was voted on.
We were set to discuss House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s statement last week that if his Members were required to read the Democrats’ healthcare reform package before it was voted on, it would fail.
So the Speaker obviously feels that if the public is truly aware of her party’s agenda, they will reject it. She is now making sure the public is kept in the dark by trampling the centuries-old democratic traditions of the House.
What are those traditions?
Every day that the House is in session, following the final vote of the day, representatives are allowed the privilege of free speech on the House floor in what is known as “Special Orders.”
They may speak for one minute, five minutes, or one hour segments, and must request their time in advance. Time is allocated equally to both parties on a first-come basis.
Since the advent of live C-SPAN coverage of the House, this has provided a national televised outlet for both Republicans and Democrats to speak to the nation on topics they feel were not adequately addressed during regular order in the House, during which the Democrat majority has the parliamentary ability to limit debate and speeches.
Special Orders therefore frequently serves as a political safety valve if the party in the majority becomes too dictatorial during debate, using their majority status to truly oppress the minority’s ability to debate and offer amendments.
That is now the case in the House, with the Democrat majority under Pelosi repeatedly rejecting House rules to ram a far-left agenda through before the public has time to learn what is actually in the bills. This is what we were committed to bring to public light.
House rules require a bill be publicly posted for three days before it can be voted on. That basic rule was written by none other than Thomas Jefferson as part of the original rules package of the House, as it is essential to the survival of representative democracy.
The House can waive that rule if it chooses on specific occasions.
The Republican-controlled House chose to waive it when considering the Patriot Act in 2001 following the terror attacks of 9-11. They thought there was enough of a national defense emergency to just bring the bill to the floor for a vote.
But Nancy Pelosi and her House Democrats have chosen to ignore the rule on every major issue taken up by the House this year, including:
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - The Obama Stimulus:
This one just had to pass that very day because time was a-wastin’ in getting those new jobs coming. We couldn’t wait for Members to read it. But then the President waited four days to sign it into law while he spent the weekend in Chicago, and months later none of the new jobs have come into existence.
The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization (SCHIP):
Speaker Pelosi couldn’t wait on this one either, although the deadline for reauthorization was still two months away.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act:
Lilly was peddled as covering decades-old wage discrimination cases, but after waiting 20 years, Congress couldn’t wait one more day to let Members actually read the thing. The bill is still stuck in the Senate Committee.
The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009:
No excuses at all on this one. They just didn’t want the details known.
The Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009:
This one has been languishing since last October, but we suddenly had to pass it that day.
The AIG Bonus Tax Act:
This had to get through right then, don’t mind the details, we just had to go after those bonuses. Only when we read what passed after the fact, the bill contained waivers for all of the same executives the bill was supposed to reign in, many with curiously close ties to Treasury Secretary and tax cheat Tim Geithner.
The Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009:
No rush whatever on this one time-wise, the Democrats just didn’t want people talking about the hundreds of billions given to foreign banks that should have gone to our troops.
The American Clean Energy and Security Act/National Cap-and-Trade Energy Tax:
No excuse was offered on this one, the Speaker just didn’t want anybody reading Henry Waxman’s 300 page amendment he sneaked in overnight before we were forced to vote. Three weeks later, the Senate shows no intention of taking up the bill before the opening day of dove season, if then.
There’s a reason all these bills are listed. The list constitutes every major policy bill undertaken by Congress this year. House Democrats are not just waiving the three-day rule -- they have destroyed it, and are intentionally pushing their agenda to the floor with blindfolds on the media and the public. This constitutes an astonishing and chilling acceleration of the assault on representative democracy that began in earnest this January.
Representative democracy works when a U.S. Representative listens to the input of their constituents, and votes the way the majority of their district would vote.
Only a Representative can’t listen if no one has ever seen the bill, or had time to provide input.
They have to vote blind, which for too many, is voting the way their leadership tells them. This is what Republican House Members were going to the floor to say Monday night. We were set to decry the loss of openness in the House. Instead, we were met with a slammed door by Democrats, who are now committed to burying truth along with democracy.
The Democrats are the majority -- for now. They chose to silence debate on the floor by gagging House Republican Members from using their historical right to speak after the close of the day.
But they cannot stop us from speaking outside the halls of Congress and letting the American public know the truth about their ongoing attack against the very foundations of a free Republic.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Lawmakers knew of surveillance, ex-CIA chief says
This is from ths LosAngeles Times.
It does not surprise me that DemocRats are lying about getting CIA breifings. They want to distract the sheeple while ramming their agenda down our throats.
The Democrats need to appease their looney toon base.
Dingy Harry and the Botox Queen pelosi are pathological liars. It does not matter the things they are doing is damaging the intellegence community, thereby causing our defences to be weakened leaving us more prone to a terrorist attack--someting I think Obama and company want to happen so he can send his ACORN brownshirts to kick in our doors to collect our guns.
----------------------------------------
An angry Michael V. Hayden insists that top members of Congress were kept informed and supported the post-9/11 program.
Washington -- Former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden angrily struck back Saturday at assertions that the Bush administration's post-9/11 surveillance program was more far-reaching than imagined and was largely concealed from congressional overseers.In an interview with the Associated Press, Hayden said that top members of Congress were kept well informed all along the way, notwithstanding protests from some that they were kept in the dark.
One of the points I had in every one of the briefings was to make sure they understood the scope of our activity," said Hayden, who also previously headed the National Security Agency.
"At the political level, this had support," said Hayden, jumping into an escalating controversy that has caused deep political divisions and lingering debate about the Bush administration's counter-terrorism policies.
Hayden was reacting to a report issued Friday by a team of U.S. inspectors general that called the surveillance program after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks "unprecedented." The report also questioned the program's legal rationale and the level of secrecy that enshrouded it.
Hayden, who in 2001 designed and carried out the secret program, told AP that he was distressed by suggestions that Congress was not fully informed. He said that he personally briefed top lawmakers on the entire surveillance operation and that he believed that they supported it.
The details of the wider surveillance program described by the federal investigative report remain classified.
The program included the wiretapping of Americans' phone and computer lines and was intended to detect communications from the Al Qaeda terrorist network
It does not surprise me that DemocRats are lying about getting CIA breifings. They want to distract the sheeple while ramming their agenda down our throats.
The Democrats need to appease their looney toon base.
Dingy Harry and the Botox Queen pelosi are pathological liars. It does not matter the things they are doing is damaging the intellegence community, thereby causing our defences to be weakened leaving us more prone to a terrorist attack--someting I think Obama and company want to happen so he can send his ACORN brownshirts to kick in our doors to collect our guns.
----------------------------------------
An angry Michael V. Hayden insists that top members of Congress were kept informed and supported the post-9/11 program.
Washington -- Former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden angrily struck back Saturday at assertions that the Bush administration's post-9/11 surveillance program was more far-reaching than imagined and was largely concealed from congressional overseers.In an interview with the Associated Press, Hayden said that top members of Congress were kept well informed all along the way, notwithstanding protests from some that they were kept in the dark.
One of the points I had in every one of the briefings was to make sure they understood the scope of our activity," said Hayden, who also previously headed the National Security Agency.
"At the political level, this had support," said Hayden, jumping into an escalating controversy that has caused deep political divisions and lingering debate about the Bush administration's counter-terrorism policies.
Hayden was reacting to a report issued Friday by a team of U.S. inspectors general that called the surveillance program after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks "unprecedented." The report also questioned the program's legal rationale and the level of secrecy that enshrouded it.
Hayden, who in 2001 designed and carried out the secret program, told AP that he was distressed by suggestions that Congress was not fully informed. He said that he personally briefed top lawmakers on the entire surveillance operation and that he believed that they supported it.
The details of the wider surveillance program described by the federal investigative report remain classified.
The program included the wiretapping of Americans' phone and computer lines and was intended to detect communications from the Al Qaeda terrorist network
Federal Government Was Culprit in Housing and Economic Crisis, Says Congressional Report
The story below is from CNSNews.com.
It did not take a Congressional report to tell me Congress was to blame. The problem started with Jimmy Carter when he signed the Community Reinvestment act in to law in 1977. Then Clinton's administration made more changes in the law. Clinton's Justice Department then started forcing banks to make loans to people even if they could not afford the loan.
----------------------------------------
Washington (CNSNews.com) – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the chief culprits in the housing crisis because they encouraged people who could not afford payments to borrow money, according to a congressional report released Tuesday.
The claims in the report have long been advanced by conservatives, who argue that the Community Reinvestment Act and other federal programs fed the housing bubble that burst in 2007 and led to the economic downfall in 2008. But the report explains in detail how Fannie and Freddie -- government sponsored enterprises (GSE) that were not subject to the same oversight as other publicly traded firms -- “privatized their profits but socialized their risks.”
“In the short run, this government intervention was successful in its stated goal – raising the national homeownership rate,” says the report, the result of an investigation launched last fall by Republican members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
“However, the ultimate effect was to create a mortgage tsunami that wrought devastation on the American people and economy,” says the report.
“While government intervention was not the sole cause of the financial crisis, its role was significant and has received too little attention.” The report talks about the Clinton administration’s National Homeownership Strategy, citing President Clinton’s directive to “lift America’s homeownership rate to an all-time high by the end of the century.”
The Clinton strategy further said that Freddie and Fannie should reduce down-payment requirements and, according to the report, “called for increased use of ‘flexible underwriting criteria,’ which it said could be achieved in concert with ‘liberalized affordable housing underwriting criteria.’”
“That is the perfect smoking gun that tells how Barney Frank [D-Mass.], the Clinton administration and others would do it in those days,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, said Tuesday in a speech at the Heritage Foundation.
“The seeds of the meltdown began with the well-intentioned goal that everyone have a home even if they can’t afford it,” he said. “It led to one of the biggest ponzi schemes ever.”
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made 54 percent of the “subprime” mortgage loans from 2002 to 2007, or about $1.9 trillion in mortgage loans to borrowers with credit scores lower than 660.
The report comes after Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) – who fought against regulation of the two quasi-public mortgage giants -- and Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) wrote a letter in June to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac calling on the GSEs to lower lending standards on condo buyers.
The report argues that lowered lending standards were the cause of the housing crisis and did not exempt the Republicans or the Bush administration from blame. It said placing certain lending quotas for under-served populations allowed “both Democratic and Republican administrations to consistently make campaign promises to boost homeownership through government intervention in the market.
Consequently, under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, HUD dramatically increased these quotas, which reached their zenith when the Bush administration raised them to 56 percent, 27 percent and 39 percent, respectively.”
“As home prices continued their dizzying rise, many people decided to cash in by buying a house with an adjustable rate mortgage featuring a low introductory teaser rate set to increase after a few years,” the report continues.
“These borrowers, confident in the oft-cited assertion that U.S. home values had never before fallen in the aggregate, planned to sell or refinance their investment before the mortgage rate adjusted upward, pocketing the difference between the initial purchase price and the subsequent appreciation in value,” says the report.
“However, buyers failed to grasp the effect of a government policy that had quietly eroded the prudential limits on mortgage leverage, creating a dangerous speculative bubble.”
The report also talks about how the two GSEs became a powerful lobby. Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson opened up “partnership offices” in congressional districts, hired relatives of members of Congress, and GSE employees contributed $15 million to federal campaigns from 1998 to 2008.
Throughout that time, all attempted reforms in Congress were blocked. Also, in 1995, “Johnson seeded the Fannie Mae Foundation with $350 million of Fannie stock. The company used this foundation to spread millions of dollars around to politically connected organizations like the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute,” states the report.
Fannie and Freddie were not subject to regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, while executives were paid well. Former Fannie CEO Franklin Raines earned more than $50 million in compensation during his six-years at the helm, the report says. Fannie and Freddie paid billions more to shareholders.
“Thus, the government subsidizations of GSE operations amounted to little more than corporate welfare,” the report says. The report cites Frank’s accusations that to blame Fannie and Freddie is to blame only the lender and not the borrower.
“This misses the mark entirely. In fact, responsibility for the erosion of mortgage lending standards, which began with government affordable housing policy, rests squarely on the policy makers who advocated these ill-conceived policies in the first place,” the report says.
“Borrowers quite naturally responded to the incentives they were given, irrespective of their socioeconomic status, and risky lending spread to the wider mortgage market.”
It did not take a Congressional report to tell me Congress was to blame. The problem started with Jimmy Carter when he signed the Community Reinvestment act in to law in 1977. Then Clinton's administration made more changes in the law. Clinton's Justice Department then started forcing banks to make loans to people even if they could not afford the loan.
----------------------------------------
Washington (CNSNews.com) – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the chief culprits in the housing crisis because they encouraged people who could not afford payments to borrow money, according to a congressional report released Tuesday.
The claims in the report have long been advanced by conservatives, who argue that the Community Reinvestment Act and other federal programs fed the housing bubble that burst in 2007 and led to the economic downfall in 2008. But the report explains in detail how Fannie and Freddie -- government sponsored enterprises (GSE) that were not subject to the same oversight as other publicly traded firms -- “privatized their profits but socialized their risks.”
“In the short run, this government intervention was successful in its stated goal – raising the national homeownership rate,” says the report, the result of an investigation launched last fall by Republican members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
“However, the ultimate effect was to create a mortgage tsunami that wrought devastation on the American people and economy,” says the report.
“While government intervention was not the sole cause of the financial crisis, its role was significant and has received too little attention.” The report talks about the Clinton administration’s National Homeownership Strategy, citing President Clinton’s directive to “lift America’s homeownership rate to an all-time high by the end of the century.”
The Clinton strategy further said that Freddie and Fannie should reduce down-payment requirements and, according to the report, “called for increased use of ‘flexible underwriting criteria,’ which it said could be achieved in concert with ‘liberalized affordable housing underwriting criteria.’”
“That is the perfect smoking gun that tells how Barney Frank [D-Mass.], the Clinton administration and others would do it in those days,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, said Tuesday in a speech at the Heritage Foundation.
“The seeds of the meltdown began with the well-intentioned goal that everyone have a home even if they can’t afford it,” he said. “It led to one of the biggest ponzi schemes ever.”
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made 54 percent of the “subprime” mortgage loans from 2002 to 2007, or about $1.9 trillion in mortgage loans to borrowers with credit scores lower than 660.
The report comes after Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) – who fought against regulation of the two quasi-public mortgage giants -- and Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) wrote a letter in June to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac calling on the GSEs to lower lending standards on condo buyers.
The report argues that lowered lending standards were the cause of the housing crisis and did not exempt the Republicans or the Bush administration from blame. It said placing certain lending quotas for under-served populations allowed “both Democratic and Republican administrations to consistently make campaign promises to boost homeownership through government intervention in the market.
Consequently, under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, HUD dramatically increased these quotas, which reached their zenith when the Bush administration raised them to 56 percent, 27 percent and 39 percent, respectively.”
“As home prices continued their dizzying rise, many people decided to cash in by buying a house with an adjustable rate mortgage featuring a low introductory teaser rate set to increase after a few years,” the report continues.
“These borrowers, confident in the oft-cited assertion that U.S. home values had never before fallen in the aggregate, planned to sell or refinance their investment before the mortgage rate adjusted upward, pocketing the difference between the initial purchase price and the subsequent appreciation in value,” says the report.
“However, buyers failed to grasp the effect of a government policy that had quietly eroded the prudential limits on mortgage leverage, creating a dangerous speculative bubble.”
The report also talks about how the two GSEs became a powerful lobby. Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson opened up “partnership offices” in congressional districts, hired relatives of members of Congress, and GSE employees contributed $15 million to federal campaigns from 1998 to 2008.
Throughout that time, all attempted reforms in Congress were blocked. Also, in 1995, “Johnson seeded the Fannie Mae Foundation with $350 million of Fannie stock. The company used this foundation to spread millions of dollars around to politically connected organizations like the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute,” states the report.
Fannie and Freddie were not subject to regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, while executives were paid well. Former Fannie CEO Franklin Raines earned more than $50 million in compensation during his six-years at the helm, the report says. Fannie and Freddie paid billions more to shareholders.
“Thus, the government subsidizations of GSE operations amounted to little more than corporate welfare,” the report says. The report cites Frank’s accusations that to blame Fannie and Freddie is to blame only the lender and not the borrower.
“This misses the mark entirely. In fact, responsibility for the erosion of mortgage lending standards, which began with government affordable housing policy, rests squarely on the policy makers who advocated these ill-conceived policies in the first place,” the report says.
“Borrowers quite naturally responded to the incentives they were given, irrespective of their socioeconomic status, and risky lending spread to the wider mortgage market.”
Democrats Call for Full Investigation of CIA Allegations
The story below is from USNews and WorldReport.
It sounds to me like a DemocRat witchhunt, and it is CYA for the Botox Queen Pelosi.
I do not agree with everything George W.Bush did, but the United States was safe from new attacks.
------------------------------------------
Some accuse the CIA of misleading Congress multiple times over the past 8 years.
Democrats on the House Intelligence panel are calling for a full-scale investigation into allegations that the Central Intelligence Agency misled Congress multiple times over the past eight years.
Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois said in a recent letter to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that the CIA's actions were inexcusable and called for lawmakers to launch an immediate investigation into the agency's alleged deception.
Democrats say that CIA Director Leon Panetta informed Congress in late June that his agency had been withholding important information about a secret program, begun after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Schakowsky announced today that the director has terminated the "very serious" covert program without the knowledge of Congress.
In response, Panetta is also launching an internal probe at his agency to determine why Congress was not told about the program.
Earlier this week, another recently publicized letter sent from seven Democrats on the Intelligence Committee to the director asked him to publicly admit that his agency had deceived Congress for several years. The release of the letter Wednesday reignited a continuing dispute between the spy agency and congressional Democrats.
Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all members of Congress, and misled members for a number of years from 2001 to this week," the letter said.
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, wrote in a separate letter that the committee "has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to."
But some Republicans are accusing Democrats of using the matter as a diversion tactic to quiet controversy surrounding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi was criticized for not being forthcoming about when she received information on the agency's enhanced interrogation techniques.
She accused the CIA in May of misleading Congress in a 2002 briefing about the use of waterboarding against a terrorism suspect.
"I do not believe that the CIA lied to Congress," Minority Leader John Boehner told reporters on Thursday. "I'm still waiting for Speaker Pelosi to put up the facts or retract her statement and apologize."
The letters did not include any details about what information the CIA officials allegedly concealed or how they misled members of Congress.
It sounds to me like a DemocRat witchhunt, and it is CYA for the Botox Queen Pelosi.
I do not agree with everything George W.Bush did, but the United States was safe from new attacks.
------------------------------------------
Some accuse the CIA of misleading Congress multiple times over the past 8 years.
Democrats on the House Intelligence panel are calling for a full-scale investigation into allegations that the Central Intelligence Agency misled Congress multiple times over the past eight years.
Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois said in a recent letter to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that the CIA's actions were inexcusable and called for lawmakers to launch an immediate investigation into the agency's alleged deception.
Democrats say that CIA Director Leon Panetta informed Congress in late June that his agency had been withholding important information about a secret program, begun after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Schakowsky announced today that the director has terminated the "very serious" covert program without the knowledge of Congress.
In response, Panetta is also launching an internal probe at his agency to determine why Congress was not told about the program.
Earlier this week, another recently publicized letter sent from seven Democrats on the Intelligence Committee to the director asked him to publicly admit that his agency had deceived Congress for several years. The release of the letter Wednesday reignited a continuing dispute between the spy agency and congressional Democrats.
Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all members of Congress, and misled members for a number of years from 2001 to this week," the letter said.
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, wrote in a separate letter that the committee "has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to."
But some Republicans are accusing Democrats of using the matter as a diversion tactic to quiet controversy surrounding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi was criticized for not being forthcoming about when she received information on the agency's enhanced interrogation techniques.
She accused the CIA in May of misleading Congress in a 2002 briefing about the use of waterboarding against a terrorism suspect.
"I do not believe that the CIA lied to Congress," Minority Leader John Boehner told reporters on Thursday. "I'm still waiting for Speaker Pelosi to put up the facts or retract her statement and apologize."
The letters did not include any details about what information the CIA officials allegedly concealed or how they misled members of Congress.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Fundamentally Freund: A place where Israel is loved
The article below is from The Jerusalem Post.
It is a shame that a tiny country like Finland can see the wisdom of supporting Israel, yet the United States, a one time supporter of Israel, cannot see the benefit.
I guess it is because the Moose-Slime-in-Chief hates Israel.
------------------------------------------
Tucked away in a far corner of northern Europe, the tranquil and resourceful nation of Finland often gets unjustly overlooked. Flanked by a swaggering and increasingly quarrelsome Russia to the east and its larger and blonder Swedish neighbor to the west, the Finns seem to receive neither the attention nor the consideration that they rightly deserve.
Indeed, despite being beset by harsh winters and a dearth of arable land, as well as enjoying the dubious distinction of being the European Union's most sparsely populated country, Finland has nonetheless built one of the most pleasant and peaceful societies on the entire continent.
There is little crime and virtually no political corruption, and public places are spotlessly clean, bordering on the pristine. It is akin in many ways to Switzerland, except that the Finns are nice.
But there is something else that distinguishes Finland, setting it apart from much of the rest of contemporary Europe, and that is the deep-seated love and admiration for Israel that exists among large sectors of the public.
On a recent trip to the country, which included a lecture tour in six towns and cities, I found what can only be described as a remarkable level of support for the Jewish state, one that cuts across religious and regional boundaries. From the capital of Helsinki to PAN>TamPAN>PAN>PAN>pere, Finland's third largest city, to the small town of Ikaalinen in the western part of the country, hundreds of non-Jews in each locale came out to demonstrate their solidarity.
There are churches where the Israeli flag is proudly displayed side-by-side with the Finnish national colors, and where entire Christian congregations recite "Hatikva" first in Hebrew and then in Finnish.
Literally dozens of Finns approached me to recount how proud they were to have spent periods of time volunteering in Israel at schools and in hospitals or on kibbutzim. They voiced great concern over Iran and its nuclear ambitions, and many pray for Israel and its welfare daily.
In Helsinki, Pastor Seppo Seppala approached me and, much to my surprise, engaged me in conversation in fluent Hebrew. He has been to Israel dozens of times, and continues to bring groups of Finnish tourists. And he is not alone. Without exception, after every speech I gave, there were always several non-Jews who came up to me and addressed me in Hebrew. Many take part in weekly private Hebrew classes, taught by fellow non-Jews, simply out of a love for the language and the people of Israel.
PARTICULARLY NOTEWORTHY is the fact that Finnish Christian support for the Jewish state is not the province of any one particular denomination, but rather it includes such diverse groups as Baptists, Pentecostals and Lutherans. However much they might disagree over theological or doctrinal issues, when it comes to Israel they stand united.
This was most evident at a day-long meeting I attended on June 14 in Heinola, a town in the south-central part of the country. Organized by the dynamic Finnish branch of the International Christian Embassy-Jerusalem (ICEJ) under the leadership of Juha Ketola, it brought together dozens of pro-Israel community leaders from across the country to discuss efforts to promote and support aliya.
For the past two decades, the Finns have been actively involved in helping Jews from the former Soviet Union to move to Israel, and Helsinki served as a gateway to Zion after the fall of communism.
On March 10, 1990, the indefatigable Kaarlo and Ulla Jarvilehto, a former member of the Finnish parliament who headed the ICEJ Finland branch at the time, teamed up with the Jewish Agency to help the first Soviet Jewish family go through Helsinki on its way to Tel Aviv. Since then, the Finns have sponsored the aliya of well over 17,000 Russian Jews.
As I sat and listened to the proceedings with the aid of a translator, an extraordinary exchange unfolded. The representatives discussed contingency plans in case there was a crisis and large numbers of Jews had to leave for Israel via Finland at a moment's notice. They then began to argue with one another - politely, of course - over which Finnish towns or cities would welcome the Jews, with each one wanting to make sure that his or her community was not left out.
I couldn't help but marvel at the fact that after centuries in which Europeans often vied with one another to get rid of Jews, here were Finns competing for the right to host them.
What accounts for this phenomenon? To some extent, it is based on certain parallels between Finland and Israel, both of which are small countries which had to fight for independence and whose historically ravenous neighbors have occasionally coveted their land. But in many instances, it is because Finnish Christians feel a profound religious and spiritual obligation to champion Israel due to God's promise to Abraham that "I will bless those who bless you" (Genesis 12:3).
OF COURSE, not all is rosy in Finland. In January, for example, the Finnish Green League's paper Vihrea Lanka published a cartoon strip in which the Star of David was compared to a swastika. The paper's editor offered a peculiar justification for the caricature, asserting that "it is quite clearly the flag of Israel featured in the strip and not just any Star of David," as if that somehow makes it OK.
And the general Finnish media, like much of the mainstream press throughout Western Europe, is often biased and slanted in its coverage of the Middle East.
Nonetheless, it is refreshing to see that there is a place in Europe where Israel is truly loved. So much of our focus is on our foes and those who hate us, that we often don't pay enough attention to our friends.
This needs to change, and Israel and world Jewry must do more to cultivate relations with Helsinki, where the ground is fertile for deepening the bonds of friendship between the two countries. For at a time when anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment are on the rise, it is comforting to know that in at least one corner of Europe, there are countless thousands of good and decent people with a warm place in their hearts for the Jewish state.
It is a shame that a tiny country like Finland can see the wisdom of supporting Israel, yet the United States, a one time supporter of Israel, cannot see the benefit.
I guess it is because the Moose-Slime-in-Chief hates Israel.
------------------------------------------
Tucked away in a far corner of northern Europe, the tranquil and resourceful nation of Finland often gets unjustly overlooked. Flanked by a swaggering and increasingly quarrelsome Russia to the east and its larger and blonder Swedish neighbor to the west, the Finns seem to receive neither the attention nor the consideration that they rightly deserve.
Indeed, despite being beset by harsh winters and a dearth of arable land, as well as enjoying the dubious distinction of being the European Union's most sparsely populated country, Finland has nonetheless built one of the most pleasant and peaceful societies on the entire continent.
There is little crime and virtually no political corruption, and public places are spotlessly clean, bordering on the pristine. It is akin in many ways to Switzerland, except that the Finns are nice.
But there is something else that distinguishes Finland, setting it apart from much of the rest of contemporary Europe, and that is the deep-seated love and admiration for Israel that exists among large sectors of the public.
On a recent trip to the country, which included a lecture tour in six towns and cities, I found what can only be described as a remarkable level of support for the Jewish state, one that cuts across religious and regional boundaries. From the capital of Helsinki to PAN>TamPAN>PAN>PAN>pere, Finland's third largest city, to the small town of Ikaalinen in the western part of the country, hundreds of non-Jews in each locale came out to demonstrate their solidarity.
There are churches where the Israeli flag is proudly displayed side-by-side with the Finnish national colors, and where entire Christian congregations recite "Hatikva" first in Hebrew and then in Finnish.
Literally dozens of Finns approached me to recount how proud they were to have spent periods of time volunteering in Israel at schools and in hospitals or on kibbutzim. They voiced great concern over Iran and its nuclear ambitions, and many pray for Israel and its welfare daily.
In Helsinki, Pastor Seppo Seppala approached me and, much to my surprise, engaged me in conversation in fluent Hebrew. He has been to Israel dozens of times, and continues to bring groups of Finnish tourists. And he is not alone. Without exception, after every speech I gave, there were always several non-Jews who came up to me and addressed me in Hebrew. Many take part in weekly private Hebrew classes, taught by fellow non-Jews, simply out of a love for the language and the people of Israel.
PARTICULARLY NOTEWORTHY is the fact that Finnish Christian support for the Jewish state is not the province of any one particular denomination, but rather it includes such diverse groups as Baptists, Pentecostals and Lutherans. However much they might disagree over theological or doctrinal issues, when it comes to Israel they stand united.
This was most evident at a day-long meeting I attended on June 14 in Heinola, a town in the south-central part of the country. Organized by the dynamic Finnish branch of the International Christian Embassy-Jerusalem (ICEJ) under the leadership of Juha Ketola, it brought together dozens of pro-Israel community leaders from across the country to discuss efforts to promote and support aliya.
For the past two decades, the Finns have been actively involved in helping Jews from the former Soviet Union to move to Israel, and Helsinki served as a gateway to Zion after the fall of communism.
On March 10, 1990, the indefatigable Kaarlo and Ulla Jarvilehto, a former member of the Finnish parliament who headed the ICEJ Finland branch at the time, teamed up with the Jewish Agency to help the first Soviet Jewish family go through Helsinki on its way to Tel Aviv. Since then, the Finns have sponsored the aliya of well over 17,000 Russian Jews.
As I sat and listened to the proceedings with the aid of a translator, an extraordinary exchange unfolded. The representatives discussed contingency plans in case there was a crisis and large numbers of Jews had to leave for Israel via Finland at a moment's notice. They then began to argue with one another - politely, of course - over which Finnish towns or cities would welcome the Jews, with each one wanting to make sure that his or her community was not left out.
I couldn't help but marvel at the fact that after centuries in which Europeans often vied with one another to get rid of Jews, here were Finns competing for the right to host them.
What accounts for this phenomenon? To some extent, it is based on certain parallels between Finland and Israel, both of which are small countries which had to fight for independence and whose historically ravenous neighbors have occasionally coveted their land. But in many instances, it is because Finnish Christians feel a profound religious and spiritual obligation to champion Israel due to God's promise to Abraham that "I will bless those who bless you" (Genesis 12:3).
OF COURSE, not all is rosy in Finland. In January, for example, the Finnish Green League's paper Vihrea Lanka published a cartoon strip in which the Star of David was compared to a swastika. The paper's editor offered a peculiar justification for the caricature, asserting that "it is quite clearly the flag of Israel featured in the strip and not just any Star of David," as if that somehow makes it OK.
And the general Finnish media, like much of the mainstream press throughout Western Europe, is often biased and slanted in its coverage of the Middle East.
Nonetheless, it is refreshing to see that there is a place in Europe where Israel is truly loved. So much of our focus is on our foes and those who hate us, that we often don't pay enough attention to our friends.
This needs to change, and Israel and world Jewry must do more to cultivate relations with Helsinki, where the ground is fertile for deepening the bonds of friendship between the two countries. For at a time when anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment are on the rise, it is comforting to know that in at least one corner of Europe, there are countless thousands of good and decent people with a warm place in their hearts for the Jewish state.
Spokesman: Third American Killed In Somalia
The story below is from Fox News.
How many more Minnesota residents are involved?
I understand now how Al Franken got elected.
Where does the loyalty of these Somali's lay?
It is pretty clear it is not with America.
-------------------------------
Another Minnesota man recruited to join an Al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia has been killed in the war-torn African country, according to a spokesman for the man’s family.
Family members of 20-year-old Jamal Bana found photos of his bloody body online, according to Abdirizak Bihi, who has represented many of the families whose loved ones left the Minneapolis area last year to join al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.
The FBI has been looking into how more than 20 young, Somali-American men from the Twin Cities and elsewhere were recruited to train and possibly fight alongside al-Shabaab.
Like many families of men who left unannounced for Somalia, Bana's mother had been regularly searching the Internet for any information about her son in Somalia, according to Bihi.
She came upon a series of photos on a Somali Web site, purporting to show an Afghan or Pakistani fighter who was killed during a fight in Mogadishu on Saturday. But, Bihi said, Bana's mother knew instantly that the gruesome photos – depicting a person with a bloody gunshot wound to the head – were that of her son.
“He doesn’t look Somali. He has very light skin,” Bihi said. “So they thought he is a foreign jihadist from Afghanistan or Pakistan.”
Bihi said the Somali government took the photos to show the world that they had killed a foreign fighter. He said most of the photos were taken inside the Somali Presidential Palace, after Bana's body was removed from the streets of Mogadishu.
One photo shows the body being carried on a stretcher in the middle of a street, as soldiers and a man in a red collared shirt, with a rifle slung over his shoulder, look on.
Fox News has decided not to show the photos in full, due to their graphic nature.
An FBI spokesman in Minneapolis said the FBI is aware of the photos, but he would neither confirm nor deny that they show Bana's body.
Before leaving for Somalia, Bana had studied electrical engineering at a community college.
Bana would be the third known American to die alongside al-Shabaab.
Bihi’s nephew, 17-year-old Burhan Hassan, was killed in Somalia last month. He was a senior at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis when he left for Somalia with Bana in early November last year.
It's unclear exactly how Hassan died. Law enforcement officials said Hassan was likely killed by artillery fire or a stray bullet. But his family has accused al-Shabaab of murdering him.
Bihi suggested that Bana was also killed by al-Shabaab, after being “brainwashed” to join them.
In October 2008, 27-year-old college student Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis became "the first known American suicide bomber" when he blew himself up in Somalia, killing dozens, according to the FBI.
Bihi was planning to hold a press conference about Bana late this afternoon.
How many more Minnesota residents are involved?
I understand now how Al Franken got elected.
Where does the loyalty of these Somali's lay?
It is pretty clear it is not with America.
-------------------------------
Another Minnesota man recruited to join an Al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia has been killed in the war-torn African country, according to a spokesman for the man’s family.
Family members of 20-year-old Jamal Bana found photos of his bloody body online, according to Abdirizak Bihi, who has represented many of the families whose loved ones left the Minneapolis area last year to join al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.
The FBI has been looking into how more than 20 young, Somali-American men from the Twin Cities and elsewhere were recruited to train and possibly fight alongside al-Shabaab.
Like many families of men who left unannounced for Somalia, Bana's mother had been regularly searching the Internet for any information about her son in Somalia, according to Bihi.
She came upon a series of photos on a Somali Web site, purporting to show an Afghan or Pakistani fighter who was killed during a fight in Mogadishu on Saturday. But, Bihi said, Bana's mother knew instantly that the gruesome photos – depicting a person with a bloody gunshot wound to the head – were that of her son.
“He doesn’t look Somali. He has very light skin,” Bihi said. “So they thought he is a foreign jihadist from Afghanistan or Pakistan.”
Bihi said the Somali government took the photos to show the world that they had killed a foreign fighter. He said most of the photos were taken inside the Somali Presidential Palace, after Bana's body was removed from the streets of Mogadishu.
One photo shows the body being carried on a stretcher in the middle of a street, as soldiers and a man in a red collared shirt, with a rifle slung over his shoulder, look on.
Fox News has decided not to show the photos in full, due to their graphic nature.
An FBI spokesman in Minneapolis said the FBI is aware of the photos, but he would neither confirm nor deny that they show Bana's body.
Before leaving for Somalia, Bana had studied electrical engineering at a community college.
Bana would be the third known American to die alongside al-Shabaab.
Bihi’s nephew, 17-year-old Burhan Hassan, was killed in Somalia last month. He was a senior at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis when he left for Somalia with Bana in early November last year.
It's unclear exactly how Hassan died. Law enforcement officials said Hassan was likely killed by artillery fire or a stray bullet. But his family has accused al-Shabaab of murdering him.
Bihi suggested that Bana was also killed by al-Shabaab, after being “brainwashed” to join them.
In October 2008, 27-year-old college student Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis became "the first known American suicide bomber" when he blew himself up in Somalia, killing dozens, according to the FBI.
Bihi was planning to hold a press conference about Bana late this afternoon.
The Fog Is Not Lifting: New DVD Whitewashes Islamism
This is by Sid Shahid in Pajams Media.
It is amazing hw hard the Left tries to prove Islam is peaceful, but we can look at the record for Islam.
Do not look to the state-run media for such stories.
---------------------------------------
A video being distributed to counter Obsession is nothing but Islamist propaganda.
Last year, Islamist anger over the mass distribution of the DVD Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West was quite predictable. As is their modus operandi, the Islamist cry focused on victimology and attacking the messenger, while avoiding any real debate over the message of the DVD itself.
North Carolina proved to be particularly fertile ground for the validation of Islamist woes. One newspaper, the Greensboro News and Record, flatly refused to distribute the DVD, while another, the News and Observer, “allowed” the paid distribution of free speech but enclosed an editorial board op-ed, which served as an insert warning to readers.
But that wasn’t enough for Islamists. Some are now fighting back with their own DVD, entitled The Fog Is Lifting (Part 1): Islam in Brief, produced by an Egyptian nonprofit group, the Bridges Foundation. Some 20,000 copies of the DVD were distributed to three zip codes within Wake County, North Carolina. Bundled in an issue of the News and Observer, the DVD aims to “repair the image of Islam” and is allegedly designed to counteract the Obsession DVD distributed in the same paper in September of last year. While marketed to “explain” Islamic precepts and theology, it does so from only a single point of view. Islamist apologist Omid Safi, a professor of religion at UNC-Chapel Hill, described the DVD as follows:
It’s a full-throated defense of the tradition in which Islam is presented as the
perfect egalitarian, scientific, pluralistic, modern religion that doesn’t have
the flaws of all the other religions. … It remains to be seen if it will be seen
as preaching to the choir, or if it will succeed in persuading people outside
the Muslim community.
Apparently, Professor Safi believes that a video proselytizing to the general public, which proclaims Islam not to “have the flaws of all the other religions” and declares scientific doctrines like evolutionism wrong, is somehow preaching to the choir and constitutes an appropriate American message. He ignores the fact that there is a diversity of theological interpretations in Islam, including the varying schools of thought within Sunnism and varying sects within Islam, including Alevism, Sufism, and Shiism. Safi would have been more accurate if he had stated that the DVD portrays Islam as interpreted by the political Salafi movement. He then would have also had to concede that some Muslims would find such evangelism wrongheaded and a misrepresentation of the diversity of thought amongst Muslims here in the U.S. It is precisely this type of Islamist supremacism that prevents real reform today against radical Islam and marginalizes any Muslim thought that does not toe the line of political Islam or the Salafist movement.
Moreover, it is counterproductive for Muslim groups like the Bridges Foundation and so-called thought leaders like Professor Safi to support a proselytizing video of Salafist ideology in today’s post-9/11 climate, where moderate Muslims and non-Muslims battle against the root of Islamist terror, the ideology of political Islam. Even Khalilah Sabra with the Islamists at the Muslim American Society thought it obvious that the DVD “doesn’t address the real concerns people have about Islam.” It leaves out any discussion whatsoever of political Islam (Islamism), terrorism, and the root cause of both: militant Islamism (radicalized political Islam).
What seems to be missing in the debate is a candid effort to separate spiritual Islam from political Islam, which was at the heart of the DVD Obsession. The spirituality within Islam demands that Muslims assume the responsibility of tackling the root cause of terror which is perpetrated in Islam’s name. Any effort that fails to recognize and address the slippery slope that political Islam presents misses the mark and calls into question its intentions.
Consider the Bridges Foundation itself. Founded in Egypt, the birthplace of the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islam as envisioned by its founders, Sayyid Qutb and Hassan al-Banna, should the Bridges Foundation not be speaking out against the grand design of the Brotherhood?
This isn’t likely when one considers its director, Fadel Soliman, who is also the main narrator in the DVD. Soliman is a former national chaplain of a Saudi-based charity named the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) in Northern Virginia. According to the Washington Post, in May 2004, WAMY was shut down in a raid by the FBI, the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force in connection with a terrorism investigation. In addition, the U.S. branch of WAMY was founded in 1992 by Osama bin Laden’s nephew, Abdullah bin Laden, whose connections with WAMY were suspect.
The Post notes, “An affidavit signed by Customs Senior Special Agent David Kane contends that a WAMY publication lists people who have attacked Israelis, including a man who killed 14 people by driving a bus off a cliff, as ‘heroes from Palestine.’” Moreover, the same affidavit states that the document also claims that “Jews are humanity’s enemies: they foment immorality in the world.”
Given this background, the distribution of the DVD now takes on a whole different meaning. Despite its somewhat innocuous message to “educate and inform,” the sources of the DVD, and more importantly producers’ intentions, cannot be wholly discounted.
All of a sudden, one realizes that the fog has not lifted. In fact, it has gotten much thicker. The media did not do a thorough investigation into the ideology behind the DVD and its distributors with even a portion of the fervor it demonstrated with the fall release of the Obsession DVD. I guess the media is in the fog as well.
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