Muslim Soldier Refuses Deployment: Won’t be Part of Any War ‘U.S. Army would conceivably participate in’

-By Selwyn Duke

Twenty-year-old Naser Abdo joined the U.S. Army more than a year ago. Now that it’s time to be sent to Afghanistan, however, he’s having second thoughts. He is refusing deployment, claiming conscientious-objector status.

Has Pfc. Abdo suddenly developed an aversion to all war? Hardly. Here are his reasons, as reported by WSMV Nashville:

…he said he now believes Islamic standards would prohibit his service in the U.S. Army in any war.

According to documents provided to The Associated Press, Abdo cited Islamic scholars and verses from the Quran as reasons for his decision to ask for separation from the Army.

“I realized through further reflection that God did not give legitimacy to the war in Afghanistan, Iraq or any war the U.S. Army would conceivably participate in,” he wrote.

. . . “This is not about proving a point; it’s about maintaining true to my Islamic faith and maintaining true to the American values,” said Abdo.

Now, I would have a bit of a problem with any soldier who, after enlisting in the military, using resources during the course of his training and collecting a salary, suddenly has pangs of conscience when it’s time to do the job for which he voluntarily signed up. But, as Fort Campbell (where Abdo has been assigned) representatives have said, they “recognize that even in our all-volunteer force, a soldier’s moral, ethical and religious beliefs are subject to change over time.” Thus, if Abdo had become an across-the-board pacifist, I might be able to manage a smidgeon of sympathy. (I would, however, still expect him to be required to pay back every cent the army expended during the course of his training.) But a change to a mindset that “would prohibit his service in the U.S. Army in any war” is a different matter altogether. And, although it’s hardly necessary, let’s place this in further perspective.
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Muslim Soldier Refuses Deployment: Won’t be Part of Any War ‘U.S. Army would conceivably participate in’”


Another Obama White House Lie About Islam

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember that iftar dinner the president sponsored? The dinner that got him in trouble because he came out in strong support of the mega-mosque at Ground Zero, support from which he backed away the very next day? Well, it turns out he delivered another blatant lie at that dinner, one that slipped under the radar because his support of the Ground Zero Mosque was so controversial.

In his remarks at the iftar observance, Obama claimed that the “first” iftar dinner in the White House was hosted by Thomas Jefferson.

Tonight, we are reminded that Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity. And Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been part of America. The first Muslim ambassador to the United States, from Tunisia, was hosted by President Jefferson, who arranged a sunset dinner for his guest because it was Ramadan—making it the first known iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago.

In this way, Obama tried to make it seem as if the United States has respected Islam since the early Republic and has observed its celebrations for two hundred years. But this is a major stretching of the truth. Thomas Jefferson did not hold an “iftar” dinner, unless you might call the dinner Obama references “iftar by default.”
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Another Obama White House Lie About Islam”


Flight 93 on 9/11: Ride to Stop the Crescent Mosque

Anyone live within driving distance of Somerset Pennsylvania? It’s a beautiful place to visit and a group of motorcyclists from Indianapolis is already going.

Tom Burnett Senior and Alec Rawls are buying full page color ads in the Somerset Daily American for both Friday the 10th and Saturday the 11th, so anyone who makes the trip will have a ready made protest sign waiting for them. Just buy a newspaper, tape the ad to a piece of cardboard, and let the massed national media know what side you are on.

That’s right. With Barbara Bush and Michelle Obama both attending, it’s going to be a media circus, and a rare opportunity to force coverage of our issue. Just self-organize. Ad-holders will show a core of united opposition (and the media might even be forced to read our brief expose).
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Flight 93 on 9/11: Ride to Stop the Crescent Mosque”


The Truth about Obama’s Muslim ‘Faith’

-By Selwyn Duke

Now that Barack Obama has decided to be for the Ground Zero mosque before being implicitly against it (perhaps), discussion about his faith has once again reached a fever pitch. To many, his stance proves he’s a Muslim, with a recent poll showing that almost 20 percent of Americans hold that opinion; to others, it just reflects a desire to be faithful to the Constitution (now, that would be change). The truth, however, is a bit more nuanced. Obama is not religiously Muslim. Culturally, though . . . well, that’s a different matter altogether.

In reality, calling Obama a “Muslim” gives him too much credit. As G.K. Chesterton once said, “We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.” The truth, however, is that few people have thought thoroughly and to a definite end. And Obama is no exception. He hasn’t even thought matters through enough to understand the folly of statism. Even more to the point, he is a moral relativist, a position the antithesis of any absolutist faith. Inherent in Islam is that belief that Allah, not man, has authored right and wrong and that, consequently, it isn’t a matter of opinion. Thus, Obama cannot truly believe in Islam — or in Christianity or Judaism, for that matter (he could perhaps be a Buddhist, but Buddhism isn’t truly a faith but a way of life).

Oh, and since some will ask, how do I know Obama is a relativist? It’s simple: Virtually all leftists are, as the denial of moral reality that is relativism lies at the heart of liberalism.
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The Truth about Obama’s Muslim ‘Faith’”


CNN’s Zakaria Presents Hezbollah as a Model of Religious Tolerance

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remembering that CNN’s President Jon Klein has touted its down-the-middle coverage and claims it is situated in the “center” of American politics, on a recent episode of Fareed Zakaria GPS, host Zakaria tried to claim that Lebanon’s terror group Hezbollah was some sort of model for religious tolerance. Someone should inform CNN that claiming Hezbollah is “religiously tolerant” is hardly a centrist position.

If we can discern “religious tolerance” in a group that says that the state of Israel should be wiped from the earth, then there is a new definition of “tolerance” that no one is aware of. But unbelievably here is CNN’s Zakaria coloring this murderous terror group as a “tolerant” organization.

At the end of his August 22 show, Zakaria turned to discuss the re-construction of a Synagogue in Beirut, Lebanon, a project that Zakaria claims proves how open minded and tolerant Hezbollah is towards Jews.
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CNN’s Zakaria Presents Hezbollah as a Model of Religious Tolerance”


Miss. School: Only White Students can be Class Prez, Only Blacks Vice Prez

-By Warner Todd Huston

In Mississippi, Nettleton Middle School is finally doing away with its policy of portioning school class officer positions by race. As the policy stood before this month, the student officer positions were set up so that if you wanted to run for eighth grade class president you had to be white while if you wanted to be vice-president, why you had to be black.

Before you get the wrong idea, here, this is a 30-year holdover policy meant to assure that both blacks and whites were represented on the school student council in Nettleton. It isn’t a new policy by any means.

This year when the memo went home to parents about the racial requirements to run for class officer positions, though, the school district was questioned on the efficacy of the practice. So, after 30 years the board finally decided to get rid of the old policy. Superintendent Russell Taylor released a statement explaining the decision made at an “emergency session” of the school board.
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Miss. School: Only White Students can be Class Prez, Only Blacks Vice Prez”


One Loud Jew Sends Media Spinning

-By Warner Todd Huston

The newest faux outrage comes from the mouth of controversial Jewish Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. In a sermon from Israel, Rabi Yosef as much as called for God to commit genocide against the so-called Palestinians. I say “as much as” because he didn’t actually call for genocide, but he came awfully close for comfort. In fact, even as he didn’t say it explicitly it’s hard not to see it being implied.

“Abu Mazen and all these evil people should perish from this earth,” said Rabbi Yosef, head of the Israeli Shas party. “God should strike them and these Palestinians — evil haters of Israel — with a plague,” he added.

Naturally, the Palestinians are outraged and Reuters, the Associated Press, and other news outlets are playing the story for all its worth. By Monday it’ll likely be everywhere.
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One Loud Jew Sends Media Spinning”


Martin Luther King Would Have Been Proud of the Restoring Honor Rally

-By Michael Zak

I had the honor of attending the rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

What a great day for America! Hundreds of thousands of Americans, of all races, came together at the Lincoln Memorial to Restore Honor to our nation. Yes, Glenn Back and Sarah Palin were the main speakers, but the real stars of the event were the people in the crowd. They came from across the country in peace and friendship. The vast multitude of patriots brought to mind a similar gathering on this day, on this spot, forty-seven years ago.

Best remembered about the famed March on Washington is Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech. What was his dream? Was it of a dispirited America, as brought about by the Obama administration? Was it of a county being torn apart by racial and class conflict, as caused the Democratic Party? Was it a downtrodden populace, prodded to submit to Big Government by the socialist media? No!
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Martin Luther King Would Have Been Proud of the Restoring Honor Rally”


Fatwa Issued Against Fake Fatwa Issuer’s Fatwas

-By Warner Todd Huston

Youssef Al-Ahmed, a Saudi cleric, issued a fatwa against the supermarket chain Panda for daring to hire women who mingle with male customers and employees alike.

But Grand Mufti Sheik Abdul-Aziz Al Sheik has issued a fatwa against the fatwa issued by Youssef Al-Ahmed because Al-Ahmed is not of sufficient status to issue fatwas.

In reply Al-Ahmed issued a fatwaette against any of his junior clerics from talking about the rescinded fatwa.

Grand Mufti Sheik Abdul-Aziz Al Sheik then issued a fatwa against fatwaettes saying you can’t have smaller fatwas. “A fatwa is a fatwa is a fatwa,” the Mufti said.

Al-Ahmed sent a holy text on his i-Phone to the Grand Mufti asking if he might issue lite-twas, instead?

The Grand Mufti texted back saying that Al-Ahmed could issue lite-twas but only once a month and only against fast food places and not supermarkets.

Al-Ahmed countered with asking permission to issue lite-twas against gas station lunch counters and fast food places.

The Grand Mufti agreed but told him that he couldn’t issue lite-twas against Taco Bell because the Mufti loved their goat meat tacos.

Al-Ahmed agreed and issued his first lite-twa against Burger King because they forgot to add extra pickles the last time he drove his limo through the drive thu.

And God approved.

As-Salamu ‘Alaykum, everybody.
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Fatwa Issued Against Fake Fatwa Issuer’s Fatwas”


Lessons In Apologetics #4: Pragmaticism & Combinationalism

-By Frederick Meekins

The next theory of truth and religious knowledge is pragmatism. Developed initially by Charles Sander Pierce and expanded by William James, pragmatism is the theory that truth is not determined by what one thinks, feels, or discovers but rather by what works.

Christians may instinctively recoil from this initially. However, the proper response to this epistemological methodology needs to be more nuanced than the believer might originally suspect.

Providing in part an alternative to the early 20th century viewpoint promoted in large part by Sigmund Freud that belief in God was psychologically harmful, in works such as The Varieties Of Religious Experience, James believed religion should be judged by its results in the life of the individual. Overall, James concluded that, “In a general way…on the whole…our testing of religion by practical common sense and the empirical method leaves it in possession of its towering place in history. For economically, the saintly group of qualities is indispensable to the world’s welfare (109).”
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Lessons In Apologetics #4: Pragmaticism & Combinationalism”


The Left’s Newfound Respect for Freedom of Religion

-By Warner Todd Huston

For 20 years or more the left has initiated a steady campaign to destroy the free expression of religion in America. From attacking on government property any Christmas Nativity scenes, crosses or portraits of Jesus, to summarily eliminating prayer in school, even to go so far as to prevent kids who speak at graduation exercises from mentioning God, groups like the ACLU, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State have mercilessly attacked religion. As these groups have made to eliminate religion in America the left generally has been more than supportive. But now with its assumption of a persecution of Islam in America, the left has come alive in a paradoxical support of Muslims expressing their religion in America.

No better example of the left’s hypocrisy over religion can be seen but this Ground Zero Mosque situation. The left has in one voice come alive with a sudden love with the freedom of religion clause of our First Amendment, quite despite its decades-long, wholesale effort to ignore, if not express outright hostility to, that very clause.

But it isn’t just the Ground Zero Mosque that is finding a quixotic support from the left. It is, in fact, all of Islam that is being embraced as a true expression of Americanness everywhere.
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The Left’s Newfound Respect for Freedom of Religion”


By All Means, Ms. Pelosi, Let’s Examine the Funding Sources

-By Frank Salvato

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Progressive-Leftist from San Francisco, said when asked for her opinion on the construction of an Islamic Center and mosque just 500 feet from the footprint of the World Trade Center – Ground Zero – that the controversy had been “ginned up” for political purposes and that she would support an examination of the funding behind the “opposition movement.”

Said the Speaker :

“There is no question that there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some…And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque (is) being funded.”

We, here in the United States, don’t persecute people for their religious beliefs, although the Progressives do seem to be on an ongoing crusade to expunge all religion from the public square sans Islam. This is due to the undeniable fact that the Framers and Founders knew full well that there would be a time when a tyrant like Ms. Pelosi would be ascended to power by an uninformed and disengaged electorate. It is for this reason that the rights to Free Speech and Freedom of Religion were enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
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By All Means, Ms. Pelosi, Let’s Examine the Funding Sources”


John Kerry: Obama Preparing to Negotiate With Afghan Terrorists?

-By Warner Todd Huston

If one can believe a word Senator John Kerry (D, Mass) says, the United States is launching efforts to negotiate with Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan.

“I can report without being specific that there are efforts under way. They are serious and I completely agree with that fundamental premise — and so does General [David] Petraeus and so does President Obama — there is no military solution,” Kerry told NPR. “And there are very active efforts now to seek an appropriate kind of political settlement.”

So that means that Obama is willing to negotiate with terrorists that kill little girls for wanting to go to school, kill people for listening to music, destroy world art treasures like the Bamyan Buddhas, stone women and gays just because they can, and murder innocent aid workers and doctors.

What a great idea, Obama!
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John Kerry: Obama Preparing to Negotiate With Afghan Terrorists?”


Religious Freedom, Property Rights vs. Government Control

-By Warner Todd Huston

As the left falls all over itself to claim that building the Ground Zero Mega-Mosque is the perfect chance to “showcase” our “Constitutional freedoms” and our religious tolerance, there is another state where religious tolerance is not as noticeably on display as it is for New York’s Muslims. Naturally, in Vermont, it is the religious freedom of Christians being denied. To be sure, the Old Media is not nearly as interested in this story.

Richard and Joan Downing own a hilltop property in Lyndonville, Vermont and on that property they’ve built a family chapel where they host weekly Catholic services for all. Next to the chapel they have also erected a 24-foot-tall cross called the Cross of Dozulé, a cross that the State of Vermont is insisting that they remove. (Visit The Chapel of the Holy Family website)

How does the State of Vermont justify its demands that the family pull down the cross? Vermont officials are citing environmental regulations that give it the power to determine what sort of construction violates the “aesthetics” of Vermont’s scenery.
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Religious Freedom, Property Rights vs. Government Control”


Why Is Ground Zero Mosque Connection to Sharia Law Push Being Ignored?

-By Warner Todd Huston

With the shocking report by Christine Brim revealing that the folks involved in planning the Ground Zero Mosque are heading a major push to get Shariah law forced upon the United States, one has to wonder why this startling fact has not become the talk of the town among the Old Media and the chattering classes? One would think that this news would be a final nail the coffin of legitimacy that this GZ Mosque plan ever had.

Brim asked an interesting question about the Ground Zero Mosque building’s actual blueprints. What are the six currently unassigned floors going to be dedicated to? Brim found that nine of the 15 floors seemed to have been assigned to some purpose or another but six have not been identified as going to any particular purpose. As Brim says, that’s an awful lot of empty office space.

To answer to her curiosity, Brim began to research the website of mosque planners Cordoba Initiative. What she found there should shock us all. There she found that the head of the project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, has been involved in a series of conferences to push Sharia law throughout the world.
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Why Is Ground Zero Mosque Connection to Sharia Law Push Being Ignored?”


Ground Zero Mosque Madness: NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s Bloomberg LLC expanding its financial center to a regional hub in Dubai

-By Ann “Babe” Huggett

New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is currently on record excoriating opponents to the construction of the Islamic Cordoba Center mosque scheduled to begin construction on September 11, 2011 in Lower Manhattan. The proposed mosque’s site is two blocks from the former World Trade Center’s Twin Towers destroyed ten years previously on September 11, 2001 by Islamic jihadists. Bloomberg’s demands of religious tolerance from his city’s citizens is inconsistent in a city with 100 mosques already in operation but with a school system that will not acknowledge Christianity or Christmas, or even allow the repairs necessary for the Greek Orthodox Church, St. Nicholas, to go forward nearly a decade after it was crushed by falling debris from the Twin Towers themselves.

Paralleling Mayor Bloomberg’s veiled insults towards those acutely aware of the historical Islamic conquest of non-Muslim lands by their building of mosques on top of or dominating a conquered people’s holy sites, is the concurrent Bloomberg LLC’s expansion of its Dubai financial center into a regional hub for the UAE. Founded in 1981 by Michael Bloomberg, who privately owns 85% of the limited liability corporation, Bloomberg LLC is a dominant player in global financial software, data gathering and news, commanding one third of its market niche estimated at $16 billion dollars.

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Ground Zero Mosque Madness: NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s Bloomberg LLC expanding its financial center to a regional hub in Dubai”


Time Blames Obama AND The Media for Ground Zero Mosque Flip Flop

-By Warner Todd Huston

Writing for Time Magazine, Michael Scherer has one of the most schizophrenic pieces of political analysis I’ve seen for quite a while. In his piece, Scherer can’t quite seem to figure out exactly whom he thinks is to blame for Obama’s failed message on the Ground Zero mosque. Is it Obama’s fault for poor messaging? Or is it the media’s fault for having the temerity to ask the president a question? Scherer whipsaws from one to the other, but a closer examination cannot help but put all blame squarely on the president.

Firstly, Scherer seems to congratulate the president on the timing “perfectly scripted from a communications perspective” of his original GZ mosque message. It was released on Friday evening, that “weekly news cycle’s black hole,” when many news organizations might either miss the thing, or not continue the story on Monday when the workweek begins anew.

This congratulations, though, is a hollow accolade. The fact is, as event Scherer points out, Obama tried his best to hide his position on the mosque by attempting to put the news out when he felt no one was looking. This attempt at misdirection is hardly something for which to congratulate the president.
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Time Blames Obama AND The Media for Ground Zero Mosque Flip Flop”


Democrats Protest Glenn Beck Rally Spot but Support Ground Zero Mosque?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The intellectual dishonesty of Democrats is simply breathtaking. To show exactly how out of whack Democrat’s ideology is, they are protesting the site and date of a Glenn Beck rally over his perceived “insensitivity” but on the other hand seem wholly unbothered by the mosque planned on being built at Ground Zero.

Purported civil rights leaders on the Democrat side of the aisle are all upset over the fact that Glenn Beck has planned a rally to be held in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. 47 years to the day after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Beck said that he has no plans on turning his rally into a partisan political rally but intends it to be a rally to, “honor the troops, unite the American people under the principles of integrity and truth, and make a pledge to restore honor within ourselves and our country.” Beck further says that the date was not a conscious choice but just fit his schedule.
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Democrats Protest Glenn Beck Rally Spot but Support Ground Zero Mosque?”


Ill. Dem. Senate Candidate Being Funded by Terror Connected Financier?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Daniel Halper asks a whopper of a question, one that could cause quite a lot of trouble for Democrat Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias of Illinois. Halper reveals that one of Giannoulias’ donors is a man connected with a foundation with link to terror organizations.

Sahloul is the former president of the Mosque Foundation, a Bridgeview mosque that has numerous links to terrorist organizations. The Mosque Foundation contributed roughly $400,000 to four Islamic charities that were later shut down by the federal government for links to terrorism. According to the Chicago Tribune, the organizations receiving funds were: the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the Benevolence International Foundation, the Islamic American Relief Agency, and Global Relief Foundation.

Apparently the Mosque Foundation’s Imam led an effort to raise $50,000 to help with the legal costs incurred by Sami Al-Arian, a University of South Florida professor who was convicted of raising money for terrorism in Palestine.

So what about this? Is Alexi Giannoulias taking money from a group with certain connections to terrorism?

Is the what Illinois wants as their representative in the Senate?
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Ill. Dem. Senate Candidate Being Funded by Terror Connected Financier?”


New Father Pfleger Reality TV Show: Blessing The Mayor’s Office

-By Warner Todd Huston

Those chickens have come home to roost… or at least they will during the upcoming mayoral election in the Windy City if the new reality TV show being shopped by Chicago’s incendiary Father Michael Pfleger is concerned.

Chicago’s gadfly Father Pfleger, close friend of Minister Louis Farrakhan, outspoken anti-gun crusader, sanctuary city supporter, and liberation theologist is the Southside religious leader who once openly wished for the death of a local businessman and also once said, “America is the greatest sin against God.” Pfleger has been the subject of many “reviews” by the Catholic Church and was once suspended after attacking Hillary Clinton as a “white person” who felt privileged because of her race.

New show producer, Bud Billikin of Chicago’s South Side Productions, Inc., has announced that the new show will follow the Father Pfleger as he embarks on the adventure of a lifetime, a run for Mayor of Chicago.

On Friday Pfleger is expected to announce his run against long-time Democrat strongman Richard Daley whose father, a Mayor before him, was famed for having “helped” JFK win the White House in 1960.
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New Father Pfleger Reality TV Show: Blessing The Mayor’s Office”


Did Turkey Bomb Kurds With Chemical Weapons in 2009?

-By Warner Todd Huston

News is just beginning to eek out that Turkey might have used chemical weapons to kill some Kurdish activists a year ago in the Kurdish area of southeastern Turkey. If this is true it could severely complicate relations between the EU and Turkey, an applicant for EU membership.

Germany’s largest magazine, Der Spiegel, is reporting that German officials have received photos of eight members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) all of whom were killed by Turkish military forces in 2009.

A German photo fraud expert pronounced the photos authentic after assessing them since March. A forensics report confirming that the photos are of people killed by chemical agents has also been reported.
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Did Turkey Bomb Kurds With Chemical Weapons in 2009?”


Breaking: Obama Defends Ground Zero Mosque as ‘The Writ of Our Founders’

-By Warner Todd Huston

We have finally heard the full and definitive take that President Obama has on the outrageous Ground Zero mosque project. He’s all for it.

During Obama’s Ramadan celebration dinner (called an Iftar dinner) Obama addressed the Ground Zero mosque.

Even as Obama claimed that he understood that Ground Zero was “hallowed ground” he went on to say that the Muslims may build their Mosque anywhere they want and we should let them because of it is in keeping with “the writ from our founders.”

Here are the relevant parts of the address (my bold for emphasis):
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Breaking: Obama Defends Ground Zero Mosque as ‘The Writ of Our Founders’”


Obama Has No Policy on ‘Housing’ For Detainees Convicted by Military Tribunals

-By Warner Todd Huston

After the heming and hawing by the Obama administration over whether we should bring terror suspects to trial before military commissions, Obama’s DOJ and DOD finally decided that they could. But once again we see the half-way actions of the Obama administration shining through by the fact that, even as Obama seems to agree with the Bush administration policy of military tribunals for terrorists, the president hasn’t made a single plan on what to do with any of those terrorists after they are convicted.

As the Washington Post euphemistically puts it, “the Defense Department has no written policy on how detainees convicted in military commissions should be housed.” I like that. “Housed.” What the Washington Post was too delicate to say was Obama has made no plans on where to imprison these convicted terrorists of the future.

Obviously the Washington Post decided to use spin rhetoric to soften the ultimate fate of convicted terrorists. A convicted terrorist isn’t “housed,” he’s imprisoned. But the Post didn’t want to link the words “imprisoned” and “terrorists” to Barack Obama, hence the softer, less accurate word “housed.”
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Obama Has No Policy on ‘Housing’ For Detainees Convicted by Military Tribunals”


Treasury Dept’s New Charge: Muslim Outreach??

-By Warner Todd Huston

Is the U.S. Department of the Treasury undertaking a new role? Taking its newest press release as an example, one could be excused to imagine that our Treasury Department has decided that it is now our next Department of Muslim Outreach.

Today, Treasury released this statement:

Treasury Department Statement Marking the Beginning of Ramadan

WASHINGTON – As Muslims in the United States and around the world begin their observance of Ramadan, the U.S. Department of the Treasury recognizes the importance of this period of intense devotion, reflection and charitable giving. Charitable giving and philanthropy are core American values, reflected in many faiths and traditions, and are of particular significance within the Muslim faith during the holy month of Ramadan.

The Treasury Department fully supports the ability of American Muslims – and Muslims worldwide – to fulfill their religious obligations through charitable giving and seeks to advance charitable giving at home and abroad, while protecting the charitable sector from the threat posed by those who seek to abuse this sacred obligation. In recent years, Treasury has strengthened its partnership with the charitable sector and donor community to promote transparency and to safeguard against such abuse.

The Treasury Department will continue to work closely with the charitable sector and Muslim American communities to promote our common goals of safe and effective charitable activity and to protect the sector from exploitation by terrorist organizations. We look forward to the continued development of this partnership.

For information about steps that donors and charities can take to guard against terrorist abuse, visit link.

OK, we all remember the incident from July where NASA administrator Charles Bolden announced that the Space Administration’s new role was to be “Muslim outreach.” We might also remember that the White House tried to pooh-pooh that claim even as it was later confirmed that our rocket scientists were more interested in the political gladhanding of Muslims than it was in, well… rocket science.

So what about Treasury?
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Treasury Dept’s New Charge: Muslim Outreach??”


Lessons In Apologetics #3: Experientialism & Evidentialism

-By Frederick Meekins

The next methodology is experientialism. Though fideism strives to make faith alone the justification for religious knowledge or belief, Geisler observes that this faith is ultimately justified in terms of an experience had by the individual (65).

To the experientialist, God or the Ultimate is not so much something to be understood or comprehended but rather felt. Stretching all the way back to the Neoplatonist Plotinus, experientialism views what the believer refers to as God as “the one beyond all knowing and being (66).”

In fact, God is so far beyond what the finite mind is capable of comprehending that to really say anything about God is highly inaccurate as to do so would be limiting God. As such, the best the individual can aspire to is an intuitive mystical union with the universal by turning inward through an ascetic detachment from the physical world around us in pursuit of a metaphysical unity.
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Lessons In Apologetics #3: Experientialism & Evidentialism”


As Fellows Lose Jobs Union Fights For Stiffer Drug Benefits: Free Viagra

-By Warner Todd Huston

Unions have for years been figuring out new ways to screw employers and in Madison, Wisconsin a teacher’s union is looking for yet another way to slam it to the taxpayers by insisting that they get a free Viagra drug benefit.

In this bad economy, with states going bankrupt right and left, with teachers being laid off all across the country are Wisconsin’s teachers getting serious about negotiations and thankful they have a job at all? Apparently not, because in this dismal employment environment these teachers are trying to get free sex enhancement drugs.

The amorous union has demanded that a judge order the administration to reinstate the Viagra drug benefit that was sliced from the budget in 2005 to save money. And this demand comes at the same time that 482 teachers in Milwaukee have received layoff notices.
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As Fellows Lose Jobs Union Fights For Stiffer Drug Benefits: Free Viagra”


Prop 8: Three Options for Social Conservatives

-By Timothy Dalrymple

While the conclusion Judge Vaughn Walker drew in Perry v. Schwarzenegger is completely unsurprising, the scope of the ruling and its many declarations on matters ethical, psychological, and theological is nothing short of astonishing. To call it a case of judicial overreach is to indulge in severe understatement. Judge Walker not only ruled that Prop 8 violated the equal protection and due process clauses, he held forth on everything from the motives of California voters to the essential nature of marriage to the appropriateness of voting according to moral and religious convictions. What was supposed to be a trial of the constitutionality of Proposition 8 became a trial of the rationality of those who oppose same-sex marriage — and Perez Hilton could hardly have supplied a more one-sided conclusion. Prop 8

Judge Walker was conscious, of course, that his ruling would be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. Appellate courts do not generally rehearse the discovery of “facts.” They investigate whether the right laws and precedents were rightly applied to the facts of the case. Yet Judge Walker strategically located his most explosive claims — which are not “facts” at all but his own moral intuitions — in the lengthy “findings of fact” portion of his ruling. He determines, for instance, that “Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage.” Yet this, it must be admitted even by those who agree with the statement, is not a simple finding of fact. How was the judge able to determine this? What does it mean to be an essential part of marriage, and if it is no longer essential, then when exactly did it cease to be so? The attempt to discover demonstrable “facts” when it comes to matters of value, psychology, and theology was a misbegotten enterprise from the beginning.
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Prop 8: Three Options for Social Conservatives”


Mega Mosques and the Territorial Mark

-By Paul A. Ibbetson

Right now at ground zero in New York a battle over the construction of buildings following 9/11 is raging. It is hard to believe that almost nine years following the Islamic attacks that took thousands of American lives, post-9/11 construction has moved at the speed of a dying snail. Even more perplexing than the failure of New York officials to take on aggressive construction projects to breathe life back into areas destroyed by 9/11 is the proposed mega mosque building project only blocks away from ground zero.

It’s times like these that a person has to shake his head and wonder, “Are you just trying to provoke me?” From Voice of America News, Carolyn Weaver reports on the plans of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, president of what has been called the Cordoba Initiative to create a mega mosque and community center near ground zero. In Weaver’s report, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf attempts to frame the mega mosque as though it will be a cultural meeting point for as many non-Muslims as followers of Islam. With the long history of Islamic intolerance of what they consider non-believers, Rauf’s sales pitch demands a high level of scrutiny. To get further compliance, Rauf claims that those who oppose a mega mosque being built on the ashes of 9/11are Islamophobes. This is an insult to America’s dead and deserves a healthy rebuke, which I am ready to give.
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Mega Mosques and the Territorial Mark”


Saying No! to a Ground Zero Mosque

-By Alan Caruba

In the August 3rd edition of The Wall Street Journal, in the Greater New York section, the lead article was “9/11 Memorial Pledged as Part of Mosque Plan.”

There already is a 9/11 memorial. It is called Ground Zero and will be incorporated into whatever structure that eventually gets built on the site.

If one continued to read the story, however, you had to jump to page A21 where side-by-side with the mosque story was one titled, “Verdict in JFK Bomb Plot”, subtitled “Jury Finds Two Guilty in Conspiracy Charges for Plan to Ignite Fuel Tanks.”

The two men found guilty were Abdul Kadir and Russell Defreitas. A third defendant, Kareem Ibrahim, was ill and didn’t go to trial with them and a fourth, Abdel Nur, took a plea deal and faces up to 15 years in prison. At no time in the body of the article is there any mention that these men are Muslims though that fact was critical to their plot.
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Saying No! to a Ground Zero Mosque”


Nothing is normal in our country anymore

-By Marie Jon


“The American people cannot be distracted by racial exploitation; the future of this great nation truly does hang in the balance.” — Steve McCann

Americans need to realize the damage that racial manipulation has done to our country. The blame can be put squarely on the Democratic Party. They have used racism for political gain since the days of the Ku Klux Klan. Let’s have a brief refresher course about just who the Klan were.
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Nothing is normal in our country anymore”