Honor, Duty, Country

Too much blood has been shed, too many lives been given to sacrifice our freedom of speech and freedom of religion and what we stand for here in the United States. Our forefathers sacrificed so much for us. We owe it to them, we owe it to our posterity to continue to stand for freedom, for liberty, for justice, for righteousness, for truth. And as we consider our way forward, we should remember the voices of history. Don’t forget Sun Tzu, who famously said if you know your enemy and you know yourself, you will not fear a hundred battles. But the fact is that this administration has virtually outlawed understanding who the enemy is. And at every turn, the enemy – the president seems insistent on apologizing for who we are as Americans.

Michele Bachmann Values Voter Summit speech transcript (full text) By: Politico Staff September 14, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUWFwY4OhaA&feature=player_embedded Transcript of Rep. Michele Bachmann's speech as prepared by Federal News Service and provided by Family Research Council with permission to re-publish: REPRESENTATIVE MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN): Hi, everyone. It’s good to see you! Thank you so much. God bless you. What a wonderful morning. (Applause.) Thank you so much. Good morning! AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Good morning! REP. BACHMANN: Thank you for that warm introduction. It’s always an honor and a thrill to be back at the Values Voters Summit. I want to thank Tony Perkins, the great people at FRC. And before I start, I just want to say a word about this concept that you’ve heard about called the war on women, the so-called war on women. And I just want to say I think it has about as much reliability and truthfulness as Bill Clinton’s arithmetic. (Applause.) But this week, as we have seen to our horror, there is a very real war that is going on across the world, and that’s what I want to take my few moments together that we have this morning. I sit on the Intelligence Committee. We deal with the nation’s classified secrets. And this is a very real issue. And as we survey the political landscape today, it feels like it’s déjà vu all over again because we’re seeing struggles all across the Middle East and we’re seeing a tax on our embassies in a way that we saw in the late 1970s. Staggering unemployment. High gas prices. A struggling economy. You’d almost think Jimmy Carter’s back in the White House again, wouldn’t you ? Only what we see is we are again desperate for another Ronald Reagan.   AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes! (Applause.) REP. BACHMANN: This time, I’m sorry to say, it’s even worse because the fires of radical Islamic traditionalism are not just limited to one country. They’re currently raging all across Africa and all across Asia. Each week our Christian brothers and sisters from Nigeria to Kenya are being persecuted. When they go to church, they don’t even know if they’ll make it home afterwards. And now the violence has come to us, the United States. And on the anniversary of 9/11, no less, our Libyan ambassador and his courageous embassy staff lost their lives in Benghazi and Libya in a cruel, cold-blooded, gruesome, intentional terror attack. And all the while, the response of this administration has communicated both weakness and lack of resolve to the world. (Applause.) And a top official seemed, incredulously, apparently convinced that the only way to curtail this crisis is to put a full, frontal attack on the free speech rights of American citizens. I want to be perfectly clear: this isn’t just about a movie. This was an intentional act that was done by radical Islamists who seek to impose their set of beliefs on the rest of the world, and we will not stand for it! (Cheers, applause.) No one here is suggesting that all Muslims are radical, but we should not be ignorant of the objective reality that there is a very radical wing of Islam that is dedicated to the destruction of America, of Israel and of Israel’s (allies ?). And what we’re watching develop before our eyes today are the direct consequences of this administration’s policy of apology and appeasement across the globe and the supposed success of the president’s foreign policy genius, hailed by (media ?) even last week, now exposed for what it really is. And so now you see this media doing absolutely everything they can to scramble to make sure that their guy doesn’t get the blame for what’s going down this week. It’s important to highlight the context of what got us to this point. It didn’t just happen out of nowhere. (Inaudible) – go back to the very beginning of the Obama administration. The very first television interview, don’t forget, that President Obama gave after he was sworn in was with the foreign Arabic KDTV network Al Arabiya, where he promised that he would provide Middle East peace in our time. Then President Obama went on his first foreign policy trip to Cairo, and he spurned our long-time ally, Egyptian President Mubarak, by inviting the very violent Muslim Brotherhood, who, at that time was outlawed in Egypt, to attend his speech, and gave them front-row tickets to his speech in Cairo when Mubarak’s policy was to keep the destructive Muslim Brotherhood at arm’s length. Now, when you hear the Muslim Brotherhood’s mission statement, I think you’ll understand why former President Mubarak or anyone would want to stop the violent Muslim Brotherhood. The brotherhood is a political entity, and this is their motto. It reads, as I quote: “Allah is our objective. The prophet is our leader. The Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” Recently the newly elected Muslim Brotherhood president, Morsi, even said, quote, “Jerusalem shall be our capital, Allah willing.” I want to be perfectly clear this morning. Even though the Democrat party had a little trouble with this last week in Charlotte, North Carolina, the undivided city of Jerusalem is not now, nor will it ever be, anything other than the eternal capital of Israel! (Cheers, applause.)   Another factor in understanding this administration’s policy of appeasement is its relationship with an organization you may not have heard of before, one of the largest, most powerful organizations in the world, and you should know its name. It’s called the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, Organization for Islamic Cooperation, OIC. And so far, it’s gone virtually unnoticed. Who are they? The OIC is the second-largest intergovernmental organization in the world after the United Nations. The OIC declaims they have authority to represent all Muslims, even those who live in non-Muslim countries, like the United States. In 2005, this very influential Islamic organization published a 10-year plan of action, in 2005, to implement Shariah-based speech code requirements worldwide. Listen very carefully to what I’m telling you right now. It explains this week. They had a 10-year plan of action to implement their Shariah-based, Islamic-based speech code requirements worldwide. But don’t take my word for it. They published this plan on their website in English so no one would miss their intent. They intend to internationally criminalize all communication or any communication or speech that’s deemed by them to be insulting to Islam, even in countries like the United States. That, my friends, explains the story of this week – Islamic-enforced speech codes. No one, not Muslims, not non-Muslims, not Americans, are allowed to speak anything Islamists see as insulting to their religion. They intend to force us to kiss our freedom of speech and religion goodbye, and that’s why we’re being forewarned today. (Applause.) Unbelievably, last December they succeeded, with both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s help, because they pushed through the United Nations the passage of U.N. Resolution 1618, which called upon all countries to enact laws preventing derogatory references to Islam – a clear violation of our First Amendment freedom of speech. And even before that, in October, last October, many prominent Islamic organizations wrote a letter to the White House, where they urged our White House to do a complete purge of any federal materials from references to the ideology of Islam, to ensure that all trainers in our U.S. military, our FBI and other U.S. security agencies be retrained so they would be brainwashed in political correctness toward Islam. That’s enforced Islamic speech codes here in the United States, and all done with the help of our president and secretary of state. It took only days for the Obama administration to reply to this demand letter from the Islamists, promising to set up a task force with these same organizations to immediately begin this unprecedented purge of our counterterrorism training in every federal agency across the board. It’s breathtaking – never been done before. But when members of Congress, myself included, started to ask questions about the identities of who these people were who were leading this purge in our government and what it was they were purging from our training materials, the Obama administration told us the information was closed; it was classified; we couldn’t know who was behind this. I’m here to say, my friends, that we’re now today very late in the game. We’re quickly losing our sense of who we are as a nation, and we’re losing our ability to identify our radical Islamist enemy. The time has come to stand unashamedly this week for our freedom and our values and draw an unmistakable red line for our enemies across the world. (Cheers, applause.) In light of the attacks this week on our embassy in Cairo, we need to tell the Muslim Brotherhood-controlled government in Egypt, if you continue to inflame sentiments against the United States, we will immediately put an end to the United States taxpayer gravy train that we’re sending your way – (cheers, applause) – starting with the $1.5 billion we send Egypt in aid and the $1 billion in loan forgiveness program and the $5 billion International Monetary Fund loan program that we’re backing. We also need to stop the upcoming state visit that President Obama agreed to to welcome Egyptian President Morsi into the White House, and we need to cancel the planned joint military exercises that we have just recently planned with the Egyptian military.Secretaries Clinton and Napolitano also need to immediately end the policy of violating U.S. federal law by granting visas – now, get this – to members of designated – U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations. (Applause.) We’re granting them visas so they can be escorted through the front door of the White House to meet with our president’s national security staff, whereupon they’re demanding the release of the – of the leaders of the radical Islamist organizations, including the blind sheikh, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. You would think this was a novel that you’re reading, not reality. And as President Obama needs to get his priorities straight, what he needs to do is cancels (sic) his interview with David Letterman – (cheers, applause) – cancel his meeting with Beyonce – (cheers, applause) – cancel his meeting with Jay-Z and instead agree to meet with the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu – (cheers, applause) – because, you see, America and Israel have a commonality of interests. Now, I’m no master war strategist, but I do know enough that when we refuse to acknowledge who the enemy is and what he believes and when we shame Americans for standing up for who we are, then President Obama is following a strategy of complete defeat. This is not a new battle for America. We learned in the very first international war we ever faced as a new country that appeasement doesn’t work. It was in the early days of the American republic, when our government was busy paying extortion bribes also to people in North Africa in the Barbary states, trying to stop them from attacking our ships and taking our people to become their slaves. And even as we were paying extortion bribes to the Barbary states, fully one-sixth of our U.S. budget at that time was going to pay these extortion bribes. Then along came Thomas Jefferson, the first Democrat president, in 1801. And he decided, we’re going to end this policy of appeasement. And he wrote, and I quote, I know that nothing will stop the internal (sic) increase of demands from these pirates but the presence of an armed force, and it will be more economical and more honorable to use the same means at once for suppressing their insolencies (sic). So he built a Navy, and he deployed that American Navy to the enemy. Our troops were victorious, and the message to the world was clear: We will not tolerate attacks on our citizens or our sovereignty, and you do so at your own peril. (Cheers, applause.) It was Thomas Jefferson’s policy of strength and determination, in complete contrast to the policy of the Obama administration of apology and appeasement, that’s been our American tradition of foreign policy and all political parties, Democrats and Republicans, ever since. Where has that American spirit gone? Where are the William Barret Travises at the Alamo, who told the enemy, here and no further? Where are our generals, like Washington, Jackson, Grant, Sherman, Pershing, Eisenhower, Patton, who understood that victory is the only goal of war because they understood the terrible consequences of defeat? (Scattered cheers.) I’m reminded of General MacArthur, who led troops across the Pacific in the face of severe military aggression. And in his speech to the cadets at West Point, he told those young warriors, the long gray line has never failed us; were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, brown khaki, in blue and gray would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: duty, honor, country. Friends, we live in desperate times where we need to come together as Americans, remembering this gift of freedom and liberty given to us from those who’ve gone before. And we need to live those three words that they are echoing through the pages of history down to us today, through history, through duty, through honor and through country. So let’s make sure that with everything within us, we lay it on the line in the next 50 days, because it is my belief and my opinion that Barack Obama has been the most dangerous president we have ever had on American foreign policy. (Cheers, applause.) And we cannot sustain another four years of Jimmy Carter-like policies, because you see, the future belongs where? All you need to do is look in front of you, look at your hands. I look at my own. This is it. It is our hands that will determine the future. It is our hands that will determine if it is honor, duty, country. Now is ours. I believe we are worthy of the task, and nothing but the memory of the fallen should guide us. God bless us now. God bless us in the future. God bless us in this important moment when we make our decision about the future of our nation. God bless us all, and in his mighty name we pray. We bless the United States of America. (Cheers, applause.) (END) U.S. Aid to Egypt and Libya: Tight Strings Needed By James Phillips September 14, 2012 The Obama Administration is finalizing an aid package to Egypt that includes forgiving approximately $1 billion of Egypt’s debt to the United States. This is in addition to about $1.5 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid. However, the lax reaction of Egypt’s new Islamist government to the violent demonstrations at the U.S. embassy in Cairo has raised questions about the motivations of Egypt’s new Islamist leaders. Congress should monitor the Administration’s ongoing aid negotiations with Cairo and ensure that conditions are attached to any forthcoming aid that will advance U.S. national interests. Washington provides much less aid to Libya’s new government—about $200 million since the start of the uprising in 2011. In contrast to Egypt, the Libyan government has reportedly been more forthcoming in offering security help in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, which killed four Americans. The U.S. should continue its small aid program as long as the Libyan government continues to cooperate in shoring up security for U.S. diplomats, tracking down the terrorists responsible for the Benghazi attack, and preventing al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremists from establishing a sanctuary inside Libya. Egypt’s Drift Toward Islamism Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a longtime member of the anti-Western Muslim Brotherhood, has set Egypt on a troubling new foreign policy course since coming to power in June. His government has distanced itself from Washington while cozying up to China, improving relations with Iran, and violating its peace treaty with Israel. Morsi’s first trip outside the Middle East was to China. He embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at an Islamic summit in Saudi Arabia and became the first Egyptian leader to visit Iran since the 1979 revolution. Morsi’s government has also undermined Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel. After an August 5 terrorist attack by Islamist militants killed 16 Egyptian border guards in the Sinai, Cairo deployed tanks close to the Israeli border, a violation of the U.S.-brokered treaty.[1] Under the guise of fighting terrorism, Morsi will use the Sinai campaign to boost his political position at home, thumb his nose at Israel, and escalate Egypt’s cooperation with Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood that controls Gaza and remains adamantly committed to Israel’s destruction. He has already invited Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to Cairo and has eased border restrictions between Gaza and Egypt. The recent attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo have deepened American concerns about Egypt’s new government. Despite advance warning about plans by ultra-radical Islamists to mount a protest demonstration on September 11, Egyptian security forces were suspiciously lax in restraining the crowd, which invaded the embassy grounds, tore down the American flag, and replaced it with a flag that resembled al-Qaeda’s black banner. President Morsi’s nonchalant public reaction to the embassy attack only compounded the problem. Instead of immediately denouncing the attack and taking action to upgrade security around the embassy—as Libyan and Yemeni leaders have done after similar events—Morsi waited a day before casually issuing a mild rebuke to the rioters via Facebook. Morsi’s ambivalent approach to fulfilling Egypt’s legal obligation to protect foreign diplomats did little to reassure Washington or deter future riots at the embassy. In fact, his Muslim Brotherhood supporters have made the situation worse by calling for more anti-American protests. President Morsi belatedly promised to protect U.S. diplomats in a phone call with President Obama and a statement issued in Brussels. Egyptian security around the Cairo embassy appears to have been increased for today’s demonstrations, but Morsi’s halfhearted approach to fulfilling his government’s legal obligations to protect diplomats requires the Obama Administration and Congress to send clear signals that continued foot-dragging on security cooperation will put at risk U.S. foreign aid and cooperation in reducing Egypt’s heavy debt burden. Libya’s Good-Faith Effort Libya’s new government has struggled to maintain internal security and law and order in the face of challenges from independent militias. It did move quickly to denounce the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and has offered its cooperation in finding the terrorists responsible for the September 11 attack. Libyan authorities are tracking down the perpetrators of the attack and reportedly have made four arrests. It would be a mistake to cut off aid to Libya’s newly established government as long as it is cooperating on this important matter. That would only advance the goals of the Islamist extremists who launched the attack and seek to reduce Western influence in their country, undermine the government’s authority, and hijack Libya’s revolution. Aid Is for Allies The U.S. currently provides Egypt with $1.3 billion in military aid and is supporting Cairo’s efforts to negotiate a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. Additionally, the Obama Administration has offered to reduce Egypt’s $3.2 billion debt to the U.S. by $1 billion. The details of the debt reduction are still being finalized, but it is expected to be a combination of debt swaps—using money for debt payments for other specified programs—and direct relief. The Administration has indicated that the cost of the deal would be covered almost entirely by funds reprogrammed from previous leftover foreign aid appropriations. Congress should exercise its oversight powers to evaluate the aid package and the Morsi government’s suitability for continued aid. It should approve the debt reduction package and continued foreign aid only if the Egyptian government makes ironclad commitments to: Fully protect U.S. citizens and property, particularly the U.S. embassy and other diplomatic posts; Maintain the peace treaty with Israel and stop deploying additional forces in the Sinai without prior Israeli approval; Cooperate in fighting al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations; and Implement policies that protect the rights of its citizens, including freedom of religion, expression, and association, as well as due process of law. Similarly, the U.S. has provided about $200 million to Libya since the uprising in 2011, including $89 million in humanitarian assistance, $40 million in weapons abatement, and $25 million in nonlethal assistance from Department of Defense stockpiles. About $13 million is projected for U.S. foreign aid in fiscal year 2012. Aid Is Not an Entitlement American foreign aid is a tool for advancing U.S. national interests, not an entitlement program for international social work. As President Obama suggested in his Telemundo interview on Wednesday, it is increasingly unclear whether Cairo remains an ally. Washington has strong reasons to help Egypt make the difficult transition to a stable democracy that can be an important partner in bringing stability to the turbulent Middle East, maintaining peace with Israel, and defeating Islamist terrorists, but President Morsi must act like an ally. If Morsi’s new government maintains Egypt’s past commitments to stabilizing the Middle East, adequately protects foreign diplomats and foreign visitors, and respects the rights of its own people, then it deserves continued American support. Likewise, Washington should continue aid to Libya as long as the Libyan government continues to cooperate in shoring up security for U.S. diplomats, tracking down the terrorists responsible for the Benghazi attack, and preventing al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremists from establishing a sanctuary inside Libya.

Our Government and the Muslim Brotherhood My Speech in Washington - By Andrew McCarthy August 9, 2012

http://www.steveemerson.com/12148/our-government-and-the-muslim-brotherhood
It is essential to understand that Islamic supremacism is not a fringe ideology. And with due respect to the trendy, bipartisan diagnosis of it that has become so popular here in Washington, Islamic supremacism — and the extreme forms of behavior it inspires — are not a psychiatric problem.
We like to portray the lethal threat against us as "violent extremism." But "violent extremism" does not combust spontaneously. It is caused by Islamic supremacist ideology. Violent extremism, as well as non-violent extremism, are effects — they are not causes. They are not irrational and wanton, there is a logic to them … I should say, an ideologic.
This ideology is based on a classical interpretation of Islam that has a rich history. We sound really ignorant to the people we're trying to persuade when we pretend that this is not the case.
Islamic supremacism has been developed over the centuries by many of Islam's most respected thinkers — thinkers who are better understood as "jurists" than "clerics." Their specialty is sharia, which is a societal system, not a mere set of religious principles.
Islamic supremacism is the dynamic ideology of the Middle East at this moment in history. There have been times when it has been dormant, and when its worst tendencies have been cabined or suppressed by force, by law, or by cultural pressures. But at this historic moment, it is once again in its ascendancy.
That is a big problem for us. Islamic supremacists mean us grave harm. We are understandably preoccupied with the fact that violent jihadists are taking aim at our lives. But we should not let the immediacy and horror of that threat obscure the fact that the Islamist movement is taking aim at our way of life.
The movement's intellectual leader is the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is not a "largely secular" umbrella organization. It is not "moderate." It is the vanguard of a ground-up, revolutionary, ideological mass movement. It is sophisticated, patient, and determined. It has spent almost 90 years building its reserves and biding its time.
Increasingly over the last half-century, its efforts have been opulently underwritten by oil wealth, especially from Saudi Arabia. The Saudis follow a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, called Wahhabism. That is a close cousin of the Brotherhood's interpretation, which is called Salafism. For our purposes, the two streams merge into the supremacist ideology that threatens us today.
The threat is very real, very aggressive, and much broader than terrorism. That is because the underlying threat is not terrorism but the rationale for terrorism: which is the gradual imposition of classical sharia — by both violence and non-violence.
We hear a lot of chatter trying to separate the two — violent and non-violent jihad. But they are never mutually exclusive. The non-violent jihad is called dawa, the aggressive proselytism of Islam. Dawa is leveraged by the threat of violence. The atmosphere of intimidation is what makes non-violent jihad so effective. It is what allows Islamist organizations to exercise such outsize influence on our policymakers even though Muslims barely register one percent of our population.
Not long ago, I wrote a book called The Grand Jihad. The title is not something I came up with. It was drawn out of an internal Muslim Brotherhood document seized by the FBI from a top Brotherhood operative in Virginia. It was dated 1991 and called the "explanatory memorandum." In it, leading Brothers stationed in the United States explained to their global leadership how the Brothers saw their mission. "Civilization jihad," they called it. Then they elaborated:

The Ikhwan [i.e., the Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within, and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers, so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.

See, when Islamists speak among themselves, especially when they don't expect that we'll ever hear or see what they say, they are very clear about what they are trying to do. They are also very clear about whom they are doing it with. The explanatory memo actually listed 29 different organizations — many of the most influential Islamist groups in America. The Brotherhood identified those groups as the accomplices in their grand jihad.
And now that the Brotherhood is in the midst of a gradual triumph in Egypt and much of the Middle East, leading Brothers have become bolder in their public pronouncements.
For example, in October 2010, on the cusp of the revolt, the Brotherhood's "supreme guide" in Egypt, a man named Mohammed Badi, gave a speech in which he expressly called for violent jihad against the United States.
Specifically, Badi urged his fellow Muslims to remember "Allah's commandment to wage jihad for his sake with [their] money and lives, so that Allah's word will reign supreme."
Applying this injunction, Badi proclaimed that jihad "is the only solution" against what he called "the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny." Not negotiation — jihad. Badi also took delight in noting that the United States had been badly wounded by jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan. From that, he predicted that America "is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise."
So, contrary to what increasingly seems to be popular belief here in Washington, Islamist influences are not benign. They are not something to yawn over. They are something we need to defend against.
We are talking about a very determined movement that pulls no punches in braying that it means to destroy our country. The most important sharia authority in the world, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi — the Muslim Brotherhood's chief jurist — proclaims that Islam will "conquer America" and "conquer Europe." And by the way, you'll want to remember Sheikh Qaradawi's name — we'll be coming back to him shortly.
Islamists not only tell us that they intend to destroy us. They tell us, straight out, how they intend to do it: Not only by the intimidating, constant potential of violence, but by "sabotage" — their word, not mine. The will, they say, "destroy" us "from within." They intend to insinuate themselves into our major institutions, including into the policy-making bodies of our government. They intend to compromise us from the inside, as well as from the outside.
Where I come from, when serious, competent, threatening people tell you what they are going to do to you and how they indend to do it, that is not something to be ignored. It is something to be taken very seriously.
The main way to take it very seriously when it comes to our government is to police our agencies so they are not penetrated by pernicious influences. That is what these five members of Congress have tried to do. What is shocking and demoralizing, what ought to outrage the American people, is that the five of them are standing alone.

To be clear, the five members have not made accusations of criminal wrongdoing. The critics who say they are relying on "guilt by association" are absurdly mixing apples and oranges.
Our bedrock principle against "guilt by association" has to do with criminal prosecutions — we won't tolerate someone's being convicted of a crime and having his freedom taken away just because of who his friends are, or what his associates have done.
But "guilt by association" has nothing to do with fitness for high public office. High public office is a privilege, not a right. Access to classified information is a privilege, not a right. You need not have done anything wrong to be deemed unfit for these privileges.
It is not a question of your patriotism or your trustworthiness. It is about whether you would be burdened by such obvious conflicts of interest that you would be tempted to act on those interests, rather than in the best interests of the United States. It is about whether the American people can have confidence that you are likely to act in the public interest rather than out of bias, favor, or intimidation. It is about whether there's a reasonable chance you could be compromised — not whether you have been compromised.
To be more concrete about it, when I was a prosecutor, the Justice Department would never in a million years have let me handle an investigation that involved members of my family or their friends. That's not because they didn't trust me. It is because it would have been inappropriate.
When government acts, it needs to avoid the appearance of impropriety. The legitimacy of government action depends on the public integrity of government action. My DOJ bosses wouldn't make me sit out the case because they thought I'd do something wrong. They'd make me sit it out because the public might believe I was acting on improper motives.
This anxiety about improper motives is a commonplace everywhere in government. Nothing sends the press and the public into a tizzy quite like the thought that government officials are letting lobbyists weigh in on the formulation of policy. We have rules against former government employees lobbying their old agencies. We have rules against representing both sides of a case. It is expected that government officials will recuse themselves from participating in decisions involving friends, relatives, or former clients.
Those rules flow from human nature. They are not an indictment about the trustworthiness or patriotism of the people involved. People who work in government, especially if they need security clearances, expect to have not only their own backgrounds but also the backgrounds of their family members and associates probed.
When FBI agents ask those routine questions, they are not just going through the motions. If disturbing facts are developed in the background check of a family member, that can be enough, by itself, to disqualify the candidate for the position. That is, it can be enough for us to draw the rational conclusion that the public would be better served having an unconflicted person in place.
If the FBI had asked me about my mother's background, and I'd responded by tearing what little hair I had left out and scolding the agent for daring to question my patriotism, that would not just have been a good enough reason to deny me access to top secret intelligence. It would have been a good enough reason to tell me to go find another line of work.
With that as background, let me speak to the specific circumstances of Huma Abedin, the deputy chief of staff to secretary of state Clinton. It is worth stressing that the five members of Congress sent five different letters asking inspectors general at five different agencies to conduct internal investigations and report back to Congress. Ms. Abedin was far from the only government official whose name was raised. But she has gotten the most attention.

For our purposes today, that's fine because her situation dramatically shows how badly out of kilter things have become.
We've heard all the caterwauling about "Islamophobia" and — my personal favorite, of course – "McCarthyism." Two things about that.
First, Islamophobia is a term that was manufactured by the Muslim Brotherhood precisely for the purpose of browbeating people into silence about the activities and threat posed by Islamic supremacism.
Today, there is no worse public sin than to be called a bigot, even if the charge is utterly empty. It is intimidating. It is intended to paralyze people into silence when it is their duty to speak up. And it works: That's why 13 Americans, some of our best and bravest, were killed in a jihadist atrocity at Fort Hood. It is also why the government would rather dismiss Fort Hood as a case of "workplace violence" than deal with the ideology that caused it.
Duty is calling us now, and it has to be done, even if the grievance industry grieves in overdrive.
As for "McCarthyism," the truth is that all the demagoguery here has been on the other side. Contrary to claims that the five members of Congress have raised, as Sen. John McCain put it, "unspecified and unsubstantiated" concerns, they have actually posited very disturbing factual matters that are quite specific and quite substantial.
Rather than address those factual matters — matters that include connections not only to Muslim Brotherhood luminaries but to an al Qaeda financier — the response of the Obama administration, congressional Democrats, and their echo chamber in the Republican establishment has been to attack and smear the messengers.
Having now spent a good deal of time weighing the competing claims, I am compelled to say that, when it comes to Ms. Abedin's background, the five House members have actually understated the case.
Their letter to the State Department's inspector general stated that Ms. Abedin "has three family members — her late father, her mother and her brother — connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations." It turns out, however, that Huma Abedin herself is directly connected to Abdullah Omar Naseef, a major Muslim Brotherhood figure involved in the financing of al-Qaeda.
Ms. Abedin worked for a number of years at the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs as assistant editor of its journal. The Institute was founded by Naseef, who remained active in it for decades, overlapping for at least seven years with Ms. Abedin.
Naseef was also secretary general of the Muslim World League in Saudi Arabia, perhaps the most significant Muslim Brotherhood organization in the world. Under the auspices of the Muslim World League, he founded the Rabita Trust, which is formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization under American law due to its support of al-Qaeda.
That is to say: Before you even start probing the extensive, alarming Brotherhood ties of her family members, Huma Abedin could easily have been disqualified from any significant government position requiring a high security clearance based on her own personal and longstanding connection to Naseef.
A little more background: At the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, Ms. Abedin was assistant editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. The journal was the Institute's main product. It promotes the fundamentalist version of sharia championed by the Muslim Brotherhood, by Abdullah Omar Naseef, and by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi. Ms. Abedin was assistant editor from 1996 through 2008 — from the time she began working as an intern in the Clinton White House, until the time shortly before she took her current position as Secretary Clinton's deputy chief of staff.
The Institute was founded by Naseef in the late 1970s. He is a hugely influential Saudi who was then the vice president of the King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. Naseef recruited an academic colleague, Zyed Abedin — Ms. Abedin's late father — to be the journal's managing editor.

Zyed Abedin thus moved his family to Saudi Arabia from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Ms. Abedin was about two at the time. Her mother, Dr. Saleha Mahmood Abedin, is also an academic and worked for the journal from its inception. She would eventually take the journal over after her husband died in 1993. She remains its editor to this day. Huma Abedin's brother Hassan, another academic, is an associate editor at the journal.
Not long after the journal started, Naseef became the secretary general of the Muslim World League. As the Washington Post has noted, the MWL was launched by Muslim Brotherhood activists with the financial backing of the Saudi royal family. It is often referred to as a charity, but it is really a global propagation enterprise — exporting the Brotherhood's virulently anti-Western brand of Islamist ideology throughout the world, very much including in the United States.
There are few positions in Muslim Brotherhood circles more critical than secretary general of the Muslim World League. In fact, one of the MWL's founders was Sa'id Ramadan, the right-hand and son-in-law of Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood's legendary founder. The MWL is part of the foundation of the grand jihad — what the Brotherhood also calls its "civilization jihad" against the West.
Nevertheless, the MWL has a long history of deep involvement in violent jihad as well. It was under the auspices of the MWL that, in 1988, Naseef created a charity called the Rabita Trust. To direct the Rabita Trust, Naseef selected Wael Hamza Jalaidan. Jalaidan is not just a member of al-Qaeda. He was a close associate of Osama bin Laden's and actually helped establish the al Qaeda terror network.
According to Osama bin Laden himself, the Muslim World League was one of al-Qaeda's three top funding sources. Consequently, after 9/11, Naseef's Rabita Trust was formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization under U.S. law. So were branches of the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and the International Islamic Relief Organization, two other Saudi-backed "charities" spawned by the MWL.
Throughout the time that he ran the MWL and the Rabita Trust, Naseef kept his hand in at the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs, where the Abedin family continued to run his journal. In fact, Naseef continued to be listed on the masthead as a member of the "advisory editorial board" at the IMMA's journal until 2003.
We might hazard a guess as to why his name suddenly disappeared after that: Naseef's involvement in funding al Qaeda was so notorious that, in 2004, he was named as a defendant in the civil case brought by victims of the 9/11 atrocities. (In 2010, a federal court dropped him from the suit — not because he was found uninvolved, but because a judge reasoned the American court lacked personal jurisdiction over him.)
So to summarize, Ms. Abedin had a very lengthy affiliation with an institute founded by a top figure at the nexus between Saudi terror funding, Brotherhood ideology, and al Qaeda's jihad against the United States. Even if the only pertinent information we had was her personal tie to Naseef, that would be extraordinarily disturbing. But as the five House members pointed out, there is much more.
Ms. Abedin's parents were recruited by Naseef to head up the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs. They obviously had an extremely close relationship with Naseef over the last four decades.

Besides being the editor of the journal since her husband died in 1993, Ms. Abedin's mother, Dr. Saleha Mahmood, has served as a member of the Muslim World League. She also directs an organization called the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC or "committee"). This committee has been listed as a MWL organization.
A top advisor of Dr. Abedin's committee is Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi. He, along with several self described members of the Muslim Brotherhood, are authors of the committee's charter. As I mentioned earlier, Sheikh Qaradawi is the Muslim Brotherhood's chief jurist. He is a fierce supporter of Hamas and has issued fatwas supporting suicide bombing against Israel and against American military and support personnel serving in Iraq.
Dr. Abedin's committee describes itself as part of an organization called the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR or "council"). Both this council and Dr. Mahmood's committee are components of an umbrella group run by Sheikh Qaradawi, called the Union for Good. The Union for Good funds and supports violent jihad. It is a designated terrorist organization under American law. Moreover, the IICDR is banned in Israel for its support of Hamas.
There is much that could be said about Dr. Saleha Mahmood Abedin's work at the various Muslim Brotherhood affiliates. The overarching point, though, is this: She is an ardent champion of classical sharia law. Her committee's website, for example, has called for the repeal of Mubarak-era Egyptian laws that ban female genital mutilation, child marriage, and marital rape. All of these noxious practices find support in sharia, so she objects to any prohibition of them.
Furthermore, as the Center for Security Policy has detailed, Dr. Mahmood published and edited a book called Women in Islam: Rights and Obligations. The book appears to have been written by a sister of Abdullah Omar Naseef. It is a sharia guide to women's issues. It extensively cites Sayyid Qutb, who was the Brotherhood's leading theorist after the death of its founder, Hassan al-Banna. Qutb was executed by the Egyptian government in 1966, and his writings continue to influence jihadist terror organizations, including al-Qaeda.
Women in Islam asserts that manmade laws "enslave women" and that sharia is women's "only escape." The book provides sharia justifications for such practices as the following: female genital mutilation; stoning and lashing as punishments for adultery; the participation of women in violent jihad; prohibiting social interaction between the sexes; requiring women to be veiled; restricting free speech to what benefits Islam; forbidding women to abstain from sexual intercourse on demand by their husbands; requiring women to bar entry of any person into their homes unless their husbands have granted permission; and forbidding the death penalty for the murder of apostates (that is because sharia prescribes the death penalty for apostasy from Islam).
Interestingly, about a year ago — a year before he took to the floor of the United States Senate to attack his House colleagues for raising questions about Ms. Abedin and others — Senator John McCain gave an interview to Der Spiegel in which he pronounced himself "unalterably opposed" to any role for the Muslim Brotherhood in post-Mubarak Egypt. Senator McCain's main objection to the Brotherhood was its promotion of sharia which, he observed, "is anti-democratic — at least as far as women are concerned."
One last point on Ms. Abedin's family members. As I mentioned earlier, her brother, Hassan Abedin, is also affiliated with the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs as an associate editor. In addition, he was a fellow at an Islamist Academic Institute in Great Britain — the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies. During that time, the Oxford Center's board members included Abdullah Omar Naseef and Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi.

Let me finally make a few closing observations.
In the end, our system is about political accountability more than legal remedies. I am not accusing anyone of committing a crime. But our national security and foreign policy have taken a dangerous turn. That needs to be a campaign issue, regardless of whether the two candidates are anxious to make it one.
The principal policymakers in the Obama administration are the president and the top members of his administration, in particular, Secretary Clinton on foreign policy. No one I know, least of all me, is contending that President Obama or Secretary Clinton needed Huma Abedin in order to develop Islamist sympathies. I'd be surprised if Ms. Abedin does not favor the administration's decision to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood as a friend rather than as an enemy. But she is not the official responsible for that decision.
Some of the people highlighted in the letters by the five House members have very influential positions, and that is cause for concern because they have a lot to say about how policy gets shaped and executed. But no one is claiming that anyone other than the President is ultimately responsible for administration policy.
It is also true that presidents and cabinet officials get to consult and seek assistance from just about anyone they want. The old adage that elections have consequences is particularly apt here. Cabinet nominations and confirmations have consequences, too. If you don't want people with disturbing connections to a deeply anti-American organization like the Brotherhood to have influential government offices, then the point is to avoid electing and confirming politicians who will put such people in those jobs.
Still, it is Congress's responsibility to scrutinize executive branch policy, especially when the policy choices endanger the nation. Let's consider just some of those policy choices in the last three-and-a-half years. Since 2009, the Obama administration has abandoned the federal government's prior policy against dealing directly and formally with the Muslim Brotherhood. The State Department has not only been supportive of this dramatic shift; it has embraced a number of Muslim Brotherhood positions that undermine both American constitutional rights and our alliance with Israel. To name just a few manifestations of this policy sea change:

• The State Department has an emissary in Egypt who trains operatives of the Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations in democracy procedures. We're helping them get elected.
• The State Department announced that the Obama administration would be "satisfied" with the election of a Muslim Brotherhood–dominated government in Egypt.
• The State Department has collaborated with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a bloc of governments heavily influenced by the Brotherhood, in seeking to restrict American free-speech rights in deference to sharia prohibitions against examination and negative criticism of Islam.
• The State Department has excluded Israel, the world's leading target of terrorism, from its "Global Counterterrorism Forum," a group that brings the United States together with several Islamist governments, prominently including its co-chair, Turkey. By the way, the Erdogan regime in Turkey now finances the terrorist organization Hamas, which is the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian branch. At the forum's kickoff, Secretary Clinton decried various terrorist attacks and terrorist groups; but she did not mention Hamas or attacks against Israel. Transparently, this was in deference to the Islamist governments the administration has chosen to partner with — to the exclusion of Israel. Those government's adhere to the Muslim Brotherhood's position that Hamas is not a terrorist organization and that attacks against Israel are not terrorism.
• The State Department and the Obama administration waived congressional restrictions in order to transfer about $1.5 billion dollars in aid to Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood's victory in the parliamentary elections.
• The State Department and the Obama administration waived congressional restrictions in order to transfer millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian territories notwithstanding that Gaza is ruled by the Hamas, which is a designated terrorist organization under American law — meaning that to provide it with material support is a serious federal crime.
• The State Department and the administration recently hosted a contingent from Egypt's newly elected parliament that included not only Muslim Brotherhood members but a member of the Islamic Group (Gama'at al Islamia). The Islamic Group is the jihadist organization headed by the Blind Sheikh (Omar Abdel Rahman), who is serving a life sentence for his leading role in a terrorist campaign against the United States in the early Nineties. Like Hamas, the Islamic Group is a designated as a terrorist organization to which it is illegal to provide material support.
• On a just-completed trip to Egypt, Secretary Clinton pressured the ruling military junta to hand over power to the newly elected parliament, which is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and to the newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi, who is a top Brotherhood official. Secretary Clinton later met with Morsi, who has also been extended the honor of an invitation to visit the White House in September.

All this, despite the Muslim Brotherhood's extensive record of hostility toward the United States, and despite the fact that Morsi, in his first public statement after being elected president, announced that one of his top priorities is to pressure the United States for the release of the Blind Sheikh.
One last thing. Government agencies are responsible to police themselves — to ensure that improper influences and conflicts of interest do not skew policy away from the public interest. Inspectors general are one way the agencies do that internally. And it is entirely appropriate for Congress to ask that inspectors general perform this role in a manner that informs Congress without unduly interfering in the agency's performance of its mission.
Congress has an obligation to ask questions and conduct oversight over executive agencies. After all, the people's representatives have created these agencies. It is Congress that funds these agencies with taxpayer dollars. What we are paying for dramatically affects our security, so Congress must examine the policies and the expenditures to protect the public interest.
Under the circumstances, there would be something terribly wrong if members of Congress were not asking questions about Islamist influence on our government. And there is something terribly wrong in the fact that these five members of the House are the only ones who have had the courage to step up to the plate.

Andy McCarthy is probably the best Federal Prosecutor that I have ever known. When he took on the prosecution of the "Blind Sheik" and his co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing and the plots to bomb tunnels, bridges, the Federal Building and the UN Headquarters in New York City he immersed himself in not only the evidence, but also the motive behind these actual and planned attacks. After concluding successful prosecutions of all of the Jihadists defendants Andy undertook to become a world class expert on the causes and actions of Radical Islamists and to understand their agenda. He has written two excellent books on the Islamist threat to America, they are: Willful blindness and The grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America. I highly recommend both books, however, the article below explicitly describes how a "Soft Jihad" is being built to undermine our Country and its Rule of Law under the Constitution.

Obama alone: This president does not need intel briefers

By Marc A. Thiessen, Published: September 13, 2012

How long had it been since President Obama attended his daily intelligence meeting in the lead-up to the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Egypt and Libya? After all, our adversaries are known to use the anniversary of 9/11 to target the United States.

According to the public schedule of the president, the last time the Obama attended his daily intelligence meeting was Sept. 5 — a week before Islamist radicals stormed our embassy in Cairo and terrorists killed our ambassador to Tripoli. The president was scheduled to hold the intelligence meeting at 10:50 a.m. Wednesday, the day after the attacks, but it was canceled so that he could comfort grieving employees at the State Department — as well he should. But instead of rescheduling the intelligence briefing for later in the day, Obama apparently chose to skip it altogether and attend a Las Vegas fundraiser for his re-election campaign. One day after a terrorist attack.

When I asked National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor if the president had attended any meetings to discuss the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) since Sept. 5, he repeatedly refused to answer. He noted that Obama had attended a principals meeting of the National Security Council on Sept. 10 and reiterated that he reads the PDB. “As I’ve told you every time you ask, the President gets his PDB every day,” Vietor told me by e-mail, adding this swipe at Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush: “Unlike your former boss, he has it delivered to his residence in the morning and not briefed to him.” (This new line of defense was echoed this morning by my Post colleague, Dana Milbank, who writes that Bush was briefed every day by his intelligence advisers because he “decided he would prefer to read less.”)

Vietor’s reply is quite revealing. It is apparently a point of pride in the White House that Obama’s PDB is “not briefed to him.” In the eyes of this administration, it is a virtue that the president does not meet every day with senior intelligence officials. This president, you see, does not need briefers. He can forgo his daily intelligence meeting because he is, in Vietor’s words, “among the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet.”

Truly sophisticated consumers of intelligence don’t see it as a sign of weakness to “be briefed” by the experts. Most of us, if we subscribed to a daily report on, say, astrophysics, would probably need some help interpreting it. But when it comes to intelligence, Obama is apparently so brilliant he can absorb the most complicated topics by himself in his study. He does not need to sit down for up to an hour a day with top intelligence officials, or hold more than 100 “deep dives” in which he invites CIA analysts into the Oval Office and gives them direct access to the commander in chief to discuss their areas of expertise. Such meetings are crutches this president does not need. Written briefings, questions and comments are enough. Obama has more important things to do — such as attend Las Vegas fundraisers.

No doubt the intelligence community has adapted to its diminished access to the commander in chief and is finding a way to get the president the intelligence he needs. Members of the community have endured a lot these past 3 1/2 years — accusations of torture from the Oval Office; more than 100 criminal investigations from the Obama Justice Department that resulted in zero — zero — criminal charges being filed; a president who is quick to claim credit for killing Osama bin Laden while denying credit to the CIA interrogators who made the mission possible. They’ll survive not being invited more frequently into the Oval Office.

But the hubris of a president who believes he does not need to meet regularly with them is astounding. When President John F. Kennedy gathered every living American Nobel laureate for dinner at the White House in 1962, he declared it “the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” Apparently, in this administration’s view, Kennedy had it wrong — the most extraordinary collection of talent and knowledge ever gathered in the White House is when Barack Obama reads his daily intelligence brief alone.Strategic Goal for the Muslim Brotherhood.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-obama-alone-this-president-does-not-need-intel-briefers/2012/09/13/c11e1a52-fda5-11e1-b153-218509a954e1.html

IPT Exclusive: State Department Barred Inspection of Muslim Brotherhood Delegation

by Steven Emerson
IPT News
April 9, 2012

http://www.steveemerson.com/11549/ipt-exclusive-state-department-barred-inspection

The State Department broke with normal procedures last week when it ordered the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) not to conduct a secondary inspection on members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) on their way to visit government officials and think tanks in the United States.
This happened despite the fact that one member of the delegation had been implicated – though not charged – in a U.S. child pornography investigation, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has learned.
According to senior enforcement sources and documents reviewed by the IPT, investigators had information tying Abdul Mawgoud Dardery to the pornography investigation that was based in Pennsylvania. He was the senior member in the four-person FJP delegation which held court with academic groups and met with senior officials at the White House and State Department last week. (For more on what they said, click here.)
The FJP recently won a plurality of seats in recent elections to determine makeup of the next Egyptian Parliament.
Before returning to Egypt, Dardery lived in the United States long enough to attain legal permanent residency, known as a green card. That status lapsed after he left the country for more than six months. The child pornography investigation took place during Dardery's time here and was noted in his immigration file. It surfaced when CBP officials learned of his pending visit.
A U.S. official familiar with immigration procedures told the IPT that extra inspection is standard operating procedure when a foreign visitor has been tied to criminal or terrorist activities. "Secondary inspections" involve going through the visitor's baggage and viewing the contents of computers and other electronic devices to search for evidence of illicit activity. Agents would typically search other members of the party to ensure Dardery did not hand off his computer equipment to an associate to avoid detection.
In addition, the Brotherhood's relationship with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas would have triggered extra scrutiny for the incoming delegation. But that "secondary inspection" never happened, a law enforcement source said. The State Department ordered CBP not to do it.
The State Department issued a cable specifically barring Customs officials from carrying out any inspections of Dardery and the other members of the delegation on their arrival at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. The immigration official described this action by the State Department as "extraordinary."
Beyond the State Department's prohibition on conducting extra scrutiny of Dardery and members of his delegation, the State Department barred US Customs officials from carrying out even the standard inspection mandated for foreigners arriving from Egypt, where an enhanced security program is in place as a result of the 9-11 attacks.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 with the goal of establishing a worldwide Islamic state through jihad and martyrdom. The group is considered the parent of all Sunni terrorist groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Change in Tone or Tactic?

IPT News
September 12, 2012

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3744/change-in-tone-or-tactic

When Muslim mobs rioted in protest of the Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad in 2006, American Islamists were critical of the violence, but made a point of giving as much attention to their offense at the cartoons themselves.
Their reaction Wednesday to the murder of America's ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three aides, was a stronger, unequivocal condemnation. Mobs attacked the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and a consulate in Benghazi, Libya ostensibly in an angry reaction to a new film that ridicules Islam and its prophet.
Key details remain unknown. Egypt's violence may have more to do with the desire to win the release of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman from an American prison, a goal new President Mohamed Morsi has expressed publicly. Several reports indicate that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was a planned terrorist attack which used the uproar over the film as cover. The presence of rocket-propelled grenades and other weaponry is considered unusual.
"This was a coordinated attack, more of a commando-style event," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told CBS News. "It had both coordinated fire -- direct fire and indirect fire. There appeared to be military maneuvers approaching the facility.
The London-based Quilliam Foundation, which was founded by former radical Islamists who now work to counter the jihadist narrative, issued a statement saying the attack was planned well before the film controversy erupted. It may have been a revenge attack for the June U.S. drone strike which killed al-Qaida second-in command Abu Yahya al-Libi.
"These are acts committed by uncontrollable jihadist groups," said Quilliam President Noman Benotman.
With few exceptions, American Islamists focused on the heinous nature of the attacks, and not on the film that supposedly triggered rioters' ire.
"We call for the protection of all U.S. personnel throughout the world. We look to our Muslim leadership to reflect on how we have reached such an extreme point in our community," the Muslim Public Affairs Council said.
They won't receive answers from the Muslim Brotherhood, which now controls Egypt. The group's only statements have been to call for the film's producers to be prosecuted and ask the United States to apologize or risk worsening relations with the Muslim world. In reporting this, the New York Times calls the Brotherhood "mainstream."
In the United States, the reaction was more somber. The violence is "inexcusable and cannot be justified," Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Executive Director Nihad Awad told reporters. Those responsible may believe they were defending their prophet's honor, but "to engage in such violence and senseless killing is to truly defile his legacy," said Naeem Baig of the Islamic Circle of North America.
The change in tone could be a reflection of growth in sophistication, or a savvier ear for politics. But it also may reflect the fact that Stevens had worked with the Islamists as the United States supported the opposition to dictator Muammar Gadaffi.
Esam Omeish, a former president of the Muslim American Society, described working with Stevens and recently visiting with him. "We call upon the Libyan government and the political leadership to take firm and swift action to bring the savage perpetrators to justice and to affirm the will of the Libyan people to resolve the security threats and uncontrolled militias that are threatening the future of democracy and peace in Libya," he said.
Contrast that with Omeish's response to the Danish cartoons. "We vehemently stand by the freedom of the press and with the freedom of opinion," he said in 2006. "However we say that with this freedom is responsibility in which there must be respect for other religions and the rights of others and to stress that we are all part of one society. We want what's good for the whole society and we do not want to disrespect the rights of one another."
Mahdi Bray, then Omeish's colleague at the Muslim American Society called for a boycott of Danish goods in February 2006 after cartoons depicting Muhammad were issued. And he blasted the Philadelphia Inquirer for republishing images he said were "blasphemous."
"This has nothing to do with free speech," Bray said at the National Press Club. "It's pure sensationalism that reeks of religious disrespect."
Similarly, then-CAIR national Chairman Parvez Ahmed endorsed blasphemy laws in the wake of the Danish cartoon controversy. "I think the next steps would be to broaden the scope of anti-hate laws and even contemplate about passing blasphemy laws," he said at a separate National Press Club event in February 2006.
This week, no one is talking about criminalizing the new film.
But that didn't stop Hussam Ayloush, head of CAIR's Los Angeles office from blaming "extremist Jews [from producing] a hateful film," in a Twitter post. That apparently is based on an Associated Press story in which someone claiming to be the director identified himself as an Israeli who repeatedly called Islam "a cancer" and said the project was financed by more than 100 Jewish donors.

None of that appears to be true. It turns out there is no Israeli citizen by that name and a Christian activist involved in the project told The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg that the director is not Jewish. Other reports indicate the whole thing may be faked. Ayloush hasn't retracted his statement.
When Salam al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) tried to deflect attention to Florida Pastor Terry Jones, who has promoted the film, a former MPAC intern smacked him down. Marayati posted a comment on his Facebook page noting that Jones' past promises to burn a Quran led to other deadly rioting. "Rev. Terry Jones has now instigated rioting twice that resulted in American deaths," he wrote.
Credit Shammas Malik, a former MPAC intern, for challenging al-Marayati. "The blame cannot lie with [Jones]," Malik wrote. "The blame has to lie with the people whose response was to go and riot and burn things down and murder people."
That's not the way the Muslim Brotherhood sees it. A statement from its political arm, the Freedom & Justice Party called the film "a racist crime."
"The film is certainly a blatant violation of religious sanctities, international norms and conventions on human rights which emphasize that freedom of expression with respect to religion must be restricted by controls within the law that safeguard public interest, in order to protect lives, morals, rights and freedoms," it said.
The Brotherhood's secretary general called for additional protests on Friday "to denounce the insult to religious beliefs, and the insult to the Messenger of God."
Writer David Frum thinks Morsi "is taking a page from the 1979 Khomeini playbook, fabricating an international incident to mobilize religious passions as a weapon for his political grouping against more secular blocs in Egyptian society - the Egyptian military very much included."
The American Islamist groups speaking so clearly on Wednesday also have been strong supporters of Egypt's revolution and the Brotherhood's political ascent. For their words to be believed, they'll need to speak out in opposition to the Brotherhood's maneuvering.

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3744/change-in-tone-or-tactic

 

INHOFE: OBAMA MADE HUGE BLUNDER WITH EGYPT COMMENTS

Contacts: Jared Young 202-224-5762
Donelle Harder 202-224-1282

September 14, 2012

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today blasted President Obama’s blunder in saying that he does not consider Egypt an ally.

“Here we are in the midst of an international crisis, and President blew it,” said Inhofe. “Unfortunately, this lack of leadership is what we have come to expect from President Obama. Saying that Egypt is not an ally is a huge blunder, and it calls into question how engaged he really is on this crisis. I certainly hope that he isn’t too distracted by campaign events or asleep at the wheel to give the ongoing crisis the proper attention. 

Ryan on Embassy Attacks: ‘The Least Equivocation or Mixed Signal Only Makes Extremists Bolder’

By Elizabeth Harrington

September 14, 2012

 

GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan. (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan said America is dealing with “extremists” attacking U.S. embassies in the Middle East, and the “least equivocation or mixed signal only makes them bolder.”
“We’ve been reminded by events in Egypt and Libya,” Ryan told attendees at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C. on Friday. “We’ve all seen the images of our flags being burned and our embassies under attack by vicious mobs -- the worst of it, the loss of four good men, including our ambassador to Libya.”
“They were there for the most peaceful purposes in service to our country,” he said in his speech. “And today our country honors their lives and grieves with their families.”
“All of us are watching very closely, but we know who America is dealing with in these attacks,” Ryan continued. “They are extremists who operate by violence and intimidation. And the least equivocation or mixed signal only makes them bolder.”
“Look across that region and what do we see?” Ryan said. “The slaughter of brave dissidents in Syria, mobs storming American embassies and consulates, Iran four years closer to getting a nuclear weapon.”
“Israel, our best ally in the region treated with indifference bordering on contempt by the Obama administration,” he said. “Amid all these threats and dangers what we do not see is steady, consistent American leadership.”
“In the days ahead, in the years ahead American foreign policy needs moral clarity and firmness of purpose,” the vice presidential nominee and House Budget Committee Chairman said.
“Only by a confident exercise of American influence are people and violence overcome,” Ryan concluded. “That is how we keep problems abroad from becoming crises. That is what keeps the peace. And that is what we will have in a Romney-Ryan administration.”

http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/20.pdf
Bate #ISE-SWI 1B1010000413

An Explanatory Memorandum
On the General Strategic Goal for the Muslim Brotherhood
In North America 5/22/1991
Contents:
1 - An introduction in explanation
2- The Concept of Settlement
3- The Process of Settlement
4- Comprehensive Settlement Organizations
Bate #ISE-SWI 1B1010000414

I send this letter of mine to you hoping that it would seize your attention and receive your good
care as you are the people of responsibility and those to whom trust is given. Between your hands
is an "Explanatory Memorandum'' which I put effort in writing down so that it is not locked in
the chest and the mind, and so that I can share with you a portion of the responsibility in leading
the Group in this country.
What might have encouraged me to submit the memorandum in this time in particular is my
feeling of a "glimpse of hope" and the beginning of good tidings which bring the good news that
we have embarked on a new stage of Islamic activism stages in this continent.
The papers which are between your hands are not abundant extravagance, imaginations or
hallucinations which passed in the mind of one of your brothers, but they are rather hopes,
ambitions and challenges that I hope that you share some or most of which with me. I do not
claim their infallibility or absolute correctness, but they are an attempt which requires study,
outlook, detailing and rooting from you.
My request to my brothers is to read the memorandum and to write what they wanted of
comments and corrections, keeping in mind that what is between your hands is not strange or a
new submission without a root, but rather an attempt to interpret and explain some of what came
in the long-term plan which we approved and adopted in our council and our conference in the
year (1987).
So, my honorable brother, do not rush to throw these papers away due to your many occupations
and worries, All what I'm asking of you is to read them and to comment on them hoping that we
might continue together the project of our plan and our Islamic work in this part of the world.
Should you do that, I would be tha&il and grateful to you.
I also ask my honorable brother, the Secretary of the Council, to add the subject of the
memorandum on the Council agenda in its coming meeting.
May God reward you good and keep you for His Daw'a
Your brotherMoharned Akrarn
Bate #ISE-SWI 1B1010000415
(1) Subject: A project for an explanatory memorandum for the General Strategic goal
for the Group in North America mentioned in the long-term plan

One: The Memorandum is derived from:
1 - The general strategic goal of the Group in America which was approved by the Shura Council
and the Organizational Conference for the year [I9871 is "Enablement of Islam in North
America, meaning: establishing an effective and a stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim
Brotherhood which adopts Muslims' causes domestically and globally, and which works to
expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims' efforts, presents
Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic State wherever it is".
2- The priority that is approved by the Shura Council for the work of the Group in its current and
former session which is "Settlement".
3- The positive development with the brothers in the Islamic Circle in an attempt to reach a unity
of merger.
4- The constant need for thinking and future planning, an attempt to read it and working to
"shape" the present to comply and suit the needs and challenges of the future.
5- The paper of his eminence, the General Masul, may God keep him, which he recently sent to
the members of the Council.

Two: An Introduction to the ExplanatorvM emorandum:
- In order to begin with the explanation, we must "summon" the following question and place it
in front of our eyes as its relationship is important and necessary with the strategic goal and the
explanation project we are embarking on. The question we are facing is: "How do you like to see
the Islam Movement in North America in ten years?", or "taking along" the following sentence
when planning and working, "Islamic Work in North America in the year (2000): A Strategic
Vision".
Also, we must summon and take along "elements" of the general strategic goal of the Group in
North America and I will intentionally repeat them in numbers. They are:
[l- Establishing an effective and stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood.
2- Adopting Muslims' causes domestically and globally.
3- Expanding the observant Muslim base.
4- Unifying and directing Muslims' efforts.
Bate #ISE-SW 1B10/0000416
5- Presenting Islam as a civilization alternative
6- Supporting the establishment of the global Islamic State wherever it is.
- It must be stressed that it has become clear and emphatically known that all is in agreement that
we must "settle" or "enable" Islam and its Movement in this part of the world. - Therefore, a joint understanding of the meaning of settlement or enablement must be adopted,
through which and on whose basis we explain the general strategic goal with its six elements for
the Group in North America.
Three: The Concept of Settlement:
This term was mentioned in the Group's "dictionary" and documents with various meanings in
spite of the fact that everyone meant one thing with it. We believe that the understanding of the
essence is the same and we will attempt here to give the word and its "meanings" a practical
explanation with a practical Movement tone, and not a philosophical linguistic explanation,
while stressing that this explanation of ours is not complete until our explanation of "the process"
of settlement itself is understood which is mentioned in the following paragraph. We briefly say
the following:
Settlement: "That Islam and its Movement become a part of the homeland it lives in".
Establishment: "That Islam turns into firmly-rooted organizations on whose bases civilization,
structure and testimony are built".
Stability: "That Islam is stable in the land on which its people move".
Enablement: "That Islam is enabled within the souls, minds and the lives of the people of the
country in which it moves".
Rooting: "That Islam is resident and not a passing thing, or rooted "entrenched" in the soil
of the spot where it moves and not a strange plant to it".
Four: The Process of Settlement:
- In order for Islam and its Movement to become "a part of the homeland" in which it lives,
"stable" in its land, "rooted" in the spirits and minds of its people, "enabled" in the live of its
society and has firmly-established "organizations" on which the Islamic structure is built and
with which the testimony of civilization is achieved, the Movement must plan and struggle to
obtain "the keys" and the tools of this process in carry out this grand mission as a "Civilization
Jihadist" responsibility which lies on the shoulders of Muslims and - on top of them - the Muslim
Brotherhood in this country. Among these keys and tools are the following:
1- Adopting the concept of settlement and understanding its practical meanings:
The Explanatory Memorandum focused on the Movement and the realistic dimension of the
process of settlement and its practical meanings without paying attention to the difference in
understanding between the resident and the non-resident, or who is the settled and the non-settled
Bate #ISE-SW 1B1010000417
(3) and we believe that what was mentioned in the long-term plan in that regards suffices.
2- Making a fundamental shift in our thinking and mentality in order to suit the challenges
of the settlement mission.
What is meant with the shift - which is a positive expression - is responding to the grand
challenges of the settlement issues. We believe that any transforming response begins with the
method of thinking and its center, the brain, first. In order to clarify what is meant with the shift
as a key to qualify us to enter the field of settlement, we say very briefly that the following must
be accomplished:
- A shift from the partial thinking mentality to the comprehensive thinking mentality,
- A shift fiom the "amputated" partial thinking mentality to the "continuous" comprehensive
mentality.
- A shift from the mentality of caution and reservation to the mentality of risk and controlled
liberation.
- A shift from the mentality of the elite Movement to the mentality of the popular Movement....
3- Understanding the historical stages in which the Islamic Ikhwani activism went through
in this country:
The writer of the memorandum believes that understanding and comprehending the historical
stages of the Islamic activism which was led and being led by the Muslim Brotherhood in this
continent is a very important key in working towards settlement, through which the Group
observes its march, the direction of its movement and the curves and turns of its road. We will
suffice here with mentioning the title for each of these stages [The title expresses the prevalent
characteristic of the stage] [Details maybe mentioned in another future study]. Most likely, the
stages are:
A- The stage of searching for self and determining the identity.
B- The stage of inner build-up and tightening the organization.
C- The stage of mosques and the Islamic centers.
D- The stage of building the Islamic organizations - the first phase.
E- The stage of building the Islamic schools - the first phase.
Bate #ISE-SW 1B10/0000418
F- The stage of thinking about the overt Islamic Movement - the first phase.
G- The stage of openness to the other Islamic movements and attempting to reach a formula for
dealing with them - the first phase.
H- The stage of reviving and establishing the Islamic organizations - the second phase.
We believe that the Group is embarking on this stage in its second phase as it has to open the
door and enter as it did the first time.
4- Understanding the role of the Muslim Brother in North America:
The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the word means. The
Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and
destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their
hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal.
5- Understanding that we cannot perform the settlement mission by ourselves or away from
people:
A mission as significant and as huge as the settlement mission needs magnificent and exhausting
efforts. With their capabilities, human, financial and scientific resources, the Ikhwan will not be
able to carry out this mission alone or away from people and he who believes that is wrong, and
God knows best. As for the role of the Ikhwan, it is the initiative, pioneering, leadership, raising
the banner and pushing people in that direction. They are then to work to employ, direct and
unify Muslims' efforts and powers for this process. In order to do that, we must possess a mastery
of the art of "coalitions", the art of "absorption" and the principles of "cooperation".
6- The necessity of achieving a union and balanced gradual merger between private work
and public work:
We believe that what was written about this subject is many and is enough. But, it needs a time
and a practical frame so that what is needed is achieved in a gradual and a balanced way that is
compatible with the process of settlement.
Bate #HE-SW 1B1010000418 (Cont'd)
7- The conviction that the success of the settlement of Islam and its Movement in this
country is a success to the global Islamic Movement and a true support for the sought-after
state, God willing:
There is a conviction - with which this memorandum disagrees - that our focus in attempting to
settle Islam in this country will lead to negligence in our duty towards the global Islamic
Movement in supporting its project to establish the state. We believe that the reply is in two
segments: One - The success of the Movement in America in establishing an observant Islamic
base with power and effectiveness will be the best support and aid to the global Movement
project.
Bate #ISE-SW 1B1010000419
(5) And the second - is the global Movement has not succeeded yet in "distributing roles" to its
branches, stating what is the needed from them as one of the participants or contributors to the
project to establish the global Islamic state. The day this happens, the children of the American
Lkhwani branch will have far-reaching impact and positions that make the ancestors proud.
8- Absorbing Muslims and winning them with all of their factions and colors in America
and Canada for the settlement project, and making it their cause, future and the basis of
their Islamic life in this part of the world:
This issues requires from us to learn "the art of dealing with the others", as people are different
and people in many colors. We need to adopt the principle which says, "Take from people ... the
best they have", their best specializations, experiences, arts, energies and abilities. By people here
we mean those within or without the ranks of individuals and organizations. The policy of
"taking" should be with what achieves the strategic goal and the settlement process. But the big
challenge in front of us is: how to connect them all in "the orbit" of our plan and "the circle" of
our Movement in order to achieve "the core" of our interest. To me, there is no choice for us
other than alliance and mutual understanding of those who desire from our religion and those
who agree from ow belief in work. And the U.S. Islamic arena is full of those waiting ...., the
pioneers.
What matters is bringing people to the level of comprehension of the challenge that is facing us
as Muslims in this country, conviction of our settlement project, and understanding the benefit of
agreement, cooperation and alliance. At that time, if we ask for money, a lot of it would come,
and if we ask for men, they would come in lines, What matters is that ow plan is "the criterion
and the balance" in our relationship with others.
Here, two points must be noted; the first one: we need to comprehend and understand the balance
of the Islamic powers in the U.S. arena [and this might be the subject of a future study]. The
second point: what we reached with the brothers in "ICNA" is considered a step in the right
direction, the beginning of good and the first drop that requires growing and guidance.
Bate #ISE-SW 1B10/0000419 (Cont'd)
9- Re-examining our organizational and administrative bodies, the type of leadership and
the method of selecting it with what suits the challenges of the settlement mission:
The memorandum will be silent about details regarding this item even though it is logical and
there is a lot to be said about it,
10- Growing and developing our resources and capabilities, our financial and human
resources with what suits the magnitude of the grand mission:
If we examined the human and the financial resources the Ikhwan alone own in this country, we
and others would feel proud and glorious. And if we add to them the resources of our friends and
allies, those who circle in our orbit and those waiting on our banner, we would realize that we are
able to open the door to settlement and walk through it seeking to make Almighty God's word the
highest.
Bate #HE-SW 1B10/0000420
11- Utilizing the scientific method in planning, thinking and preparation of studies needed
for the process of settlement:
Yes, we need this method, and we need many studies which aid in this civilization Jihadist
operation. We will mention some of them briefly:
- The history of the Islamic presence in America.
- The history of the Islamic Ikhwani presence in America.
- Islamic movements, organizations and organizations: analysis and criticism.
- The phenomenon of the Islamic centers and schools: challenges, needs and statistics.
- Islamic minorities.
- Muslim and Arab communities.
- The U.S. society: make-up and politics.
- The U.S. society's view of Islam and Muslims ... And many other studies which we can direct
our brothers and allies to prepare, either through their academic studies or through their
educational centers or organizational tasking. What is important is that we start.
12- Agreeing on a flexible, balanced and a clear "mechanism" to implement the process of
settlement within a specific, gradual and balanced "time frame" that is in-line with the demands
and challenges of the process of settlement.
13- Understanding the U.S. society from its different aspects an understanding that "qualifies" us
to perform the mission of settling our Dawa' in its country "and growing it" on its land.
14- Adopting a written "jurisprudence" that includes legal and movement bases, principles,
policies and interpretations which are suitable for the needs and challenges of the process of
settlement.
15- Agreeing on "criteria" and balances to be a sort of "antennas" or "the watch tower" in order to
make sure that all of our priorities, plans, programs, bodies, leadership, monies and activities
march towards the process of the settlement.
16- Adopting a practical, flexible formula through which our central work complements our
domestic work.
[Items 12 through 16 will be detailed later].
17- Understanding the role and the nature of work of "The Islamic Center" in every city
with what achieves the goal of the process of settlement:
The center we seek is the one which constitutes the "axis" of our Movement, the "perimeter" of
the circle of our work, our "balance center", the "base" for our rise and our "Dar al-Arqam" to
educate us, prepare us and supply our battalions in addition to being the "niche" of our prayers.
Page 10 of 18
Bate #ISE-SW lB10/0000421
(7) This is in order for the Islamic center to turn - in action not in words - into a seed "for a small
Islamic society" which is a reflection and a mirror to our central organizations. The center ought
to turn into a "beehive" which produces sweet honey. Thus, the Islamic center would turn into a
place for study, family, battalion, course, seminar, visit, sport, school, social club, women
gathering, kindergarten for male and female youngsters, the office of the domestic political
resolution, and the center for distributing our newspapers, magazines, books and our audio and
visual tapes.
In brief we say: we would like for the Islamic center to become "The House of Dawa"' and "the
general center" in deeds first before name. As much as we own and direct these centers at the
continent level, we can say we are marching successfully towards the settlement of Dawa' in this
country.
Meaning that the "center's" role should be the same as the "mosque's" role during the time of
God's prophet, God's prayers and peace be upon him, when he marched to "settle" the Dawa' in its first generation in Madina. from the mosque, he drew the Islamic life and provided to the
world the most magnificent and fabulous civilization humanity knew.
This mandates that, eventually, the region, the branch and the Usra turn into "operations rooms"
for planning, direction, monitoring and leadership for the Islamic center in order to be a role
model to be followed.
18- Adopting a system that is based on "selecting" workers, "role distribution" and "assigning"
positions and responsibilities is based on specialization, desire and need with what achieves the
process of settlement and contributes to its success.
19- Turning the principle of dedication for the Masuls of main positions within the Group into a
rule, a basis and a policy in work. Without it, the process of settlement might be stalled [Talking
about this point requires more details and discussion].
20- Understanding the importance of the "Organizational" shift in our Movement work,
and doing Jihad in order to achieve it in the real world with what serves the process of
settlement and expedites its results, God Almighty's willing:
The reason this paragraph was delayed is to stress its utmost importance as it constitutes the heart
and the core of this memorandum. It also constitutes the practical aspect and the true measure of
our success or failure in our march towards settlement. The talk about the organizations and the
"organizational" mentality or phenomenon does not require much details. It suffices to say that
the first pioneer of this phenomenon was our prophet Mohamed, God's peace, mercy and
blessings be upon him, as he placed the foundation for the first civilized organization which is
the mosque, which truly became "the comprehensive organization". And this was done by the
pioneer of the contemporary Islamic Dawa', Imam martyr Hasan al-Banna, may God have mercy
on him, when he and his brothers felt the need to "re-establish" Islam and its movement anew,
leading him to establish organizations with all their kinds: economic, social, media, scouting,
Page 11 of 18
Bate #ISE-SW 1B10/0000421 (Cont'd)
professional and even the military ones. We must say that we are in a country which understands
no language other than the language of the organizations, and one which does not respect or give
weight to any group without effective, functional and strong organizations.
Bate #ISE-SW lB10/0000422
It is good fortune that there are brothers among us who have this "trend", mentality or inclination
to build the organizations who have beat us by action and words which leads us to dare say
honestly what Sadat in Egypt once said, "We want to build a country of organizations" - a word
of right he meant wrong with. I say to my brothers, let us raise the banner of truth to establish
right "We want to establish the Group of organizations", as without it we will not able to put our
feet on the true path.
- And in order for the process of settlement to be completed, we must plan and work from now to
equip and prepare ourselves, our brothers, our apparatuses, our sections and our committees in
order to turn into comprehensive organizations in a gradual and balanced way that is suitable
with the need and the reality. What encourages us to do that - in addition to the aforementioned -
is that we possess "seeds" for each organization from the organization we call for [See
attachment number (I)].
- All we need is to tweak them, coordinate their work, collect their elements and merge their
efforts with others and then connect them with the comprehensive plan we seek.
For instance,
We have a seed for a "comprehensive media and art" organization: we own a print + advanced
typesetting machine -t audio and visual center + art production office + magazines in Arabic and
English [The Horizons, The Hope, The Politicians, Ila Falastine, Press Clips, al-Zaytouna,
Palestine Monitor, Social Sciences Magazines.,.] + art band + photographers + producers +
programs anchors +journalists + in addition to other media and art experiences".
- The big challenge that is ahead of us is how to turn these seeds or "scattered" elements into
comprehensive, stable, "settled" organizations that are connected with our Movement and which
fly in our orbit and take orders from ow guidance. This does not prevent - but calls for - each
central organization to have its local branches but its connection with the Islamic center in the
city is a must.

Obama Turning US into Chicago_Poor Black Tenants lost their homes while developers gave Obama their financial support

 Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy
By Binyamin Appelbaum
Globe Newspaper Company - Globe Staff June 27, 2008

CHICAGO - The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can't afford to live anywhere else.

But it's not safe to live here.

 

http://bcove.me/gf35s15u

 

About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.

Grove Parc has become a symbol for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage affordable housing - an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best replacement for public housing.

As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies. And as a presidential candidate, he has campaigned on a promise to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that could give developers an estimated $500 million a year.

But a Globe review found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies - including several hundred in Obama's former district - deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.

Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama's close friends and

political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama's constituents suffered.

Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted.

Some of the residents of Grove Parc say they are angry that Obama did not notice their plight. The development straddles the boundary of Obama's state Senate district. Many of the tenants have been his constituents for more than a decade.

"No one should have to live like this, and no one did anything about it," said Cynthia Ashley, who has lived at Grove Parc since 1994.

Obama's campaign, in a written response to Globe questions, affirmed the candidate's support of public-private partnerships as an alternative to public housing, saying that Obama has "consistently fought to make livable, affordable housing in mixed-income neighborhoods available to all."

The campaign did not respond to questions about whether Obama was aware of the problems with buildings in

is district during his time as a state senator, nor did it comment on the roles played by people connected to the

senator.

Among those tied to Obama politically, personally, or professionally are:

Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama's presidential campaign and a member of his finance committee.

Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems.

Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy - The Boston Globe Page 1 of 7

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Allison Davis, a major fund-raiser for Obama's US Senate campaign and a former lead partner at Obama's former law firm. Davis, a developer, was involved in the creation of Grove Parc and has used government subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,500 units in Chicago, including a North Side building cited by city inspectors last year after chronic plumbing failures resulted in raw sewage spilling into several apartments.

Antoin "Tony" Rezko, perhaps the most important fund-raiser for Obama's early political campaigns and a friend who helped the Obamas buy a home in 2005. Rezko's company used subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments, mostly in and around Obama's district, then refused to manage the units, leaving the buildings to decay to the point where many no longer were habitable.

Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko -

collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama's campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama's own accounting.

One of those contributors, Cecil Butler, controlled Lawndale Restoration, the largest subsidized complex in

Chicago, which was seized by the government in 2006 after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code

violations.

Butler and Davis did not respond to messages. Rezko is in prison; his lawyer did not respond to inquiries.

Jarrett, a powerful figure in the Chicago development community, agreed to be interviewed but declined to

answer questions about Grove Parc, citing what she called a continuing duty to Habitat's former business

partners. She did, however, defend Obama's position that public-private partnerships are superior to public

housing.

"Government is just not as good at owning and managing as the private sector because the incentives are not

there," said Jarrett, whose company manages more than 23,000 apartments. "I would argue that someone living in a poor neighborhood that isn't 100 percent public housing is by definition better off."

In the middle of the 20th century, Chicago built some of the nation's largest public housing developments,

culminating in Robert Taylor Homes: 4,415 apartments in 28 high-rise buildings stretching for 2 miles along an

interstate highway.

By the late 1980s, however, Robert Taylor Homes and the rest of the Chicago developments had become American bywords for urban misery. The roughly 30 developments operated for poor families by the Chicago Housing Authority were plagued by crime and mired in poverty.

In Stateway Gardens, a large complex just north of Robert Taylor, a study of 1990 census data found the percapita annual income was $1,650. And the projects were falling apart after decades of epic, sometimes criminal, mismanagement.

Similar problems plagued public housing in other cities, leading the federal government to greatly increase

funding to address the problems. Many cities, including Boston, mostly used that money to rehabilitate their

projects, maintaining public control.

Chicago chose a more dramatic approach. Under Mayor Richard M. Daley, who was elected in 1989, the city

launched a massive plan to let private companies tear down the projects and build mixed-income communities

on the same land.

The city also hired private companies to manage the remaining public housing. And it subsidized private

companies to create and manage new affordable housing, some of which was used to accommodate tenants

displaced from public housing.

Chicago's plans drew critics from the start. They asked why the government should pay developers to perform a basic public service - one successfully performed by governments in other cities. And they noted that privately managed projects had a history of deteriorating because guaranteed government rent subsidies left companies with little incentive to spend money on maintenance.

Most of all, they alleged that Chicago was interested primarily in redeveloping projects close to the Loop, the

downtown area that was seeing a surge of private development activity, shunting poor families to neighborhoods farther from the city center. Only about one in three residents was able to return to the redeveloped projects.

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"They are rapidly displacing poor people, and these companies are profiting from this displacement," said Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle of Southside Together Organizing for Power, a community group that seeks to help tenants stay in the same neighborhoods.

"The same exact people who ran these places into the ground," the private companies paid to build and manage the city's affordable housing, "now are profiting by redeveloping them."

Barack Obama was among the many Chicago residents who shared Daley's conviction that private companies would make better landlords than the Chicago Housing Authority.  He had seen the failure of the public projects in the mid-1980s as a community organizer at Altgeld Gardens, a large public housing complex on the far South Side.

He once told the Chicago Tribune that he had briefly considered becoming a developer of affordable housing.

But after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1991, he turned down a job with Tony Rezko's development

company, Rezmar, choosing instead to work at the civil rights law firm Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, then led by Allison Davis.

The firm represented a number of nonprofit companies that were partnering with private developers to build

affordable housing with government subsidies.  Obama sometimes worked on their cases. In at least one instance, he represented the nonprofit company that owned Grove Parc, Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., when it was sued by the city for failing to adequately heat one of its apartment complexes.

Shortly after becoming a state senator in 1997, Obama told the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin that his experience working with the development industry had reinforced his belief in subsidizing private developers of affordable housing.

"That's an example of a smart policy," the paper quoted Obama as saying. "The developers were thinking in

market terms and operating under the rules of the marketplace; but at the same time, we had government

supporting and subsidizing those efforts."

Obama translated that belief into legislative action as a state senator. In 2001, Obama and a Republican

colleague, William Peterson, sponsored a successful bill that increased state subsidies for private developers.

The law let developers designated by the state raise up to $26 million a year by selling tax credits to Illinois

residents. For each $1 in credits purchased, the buyer was allowed to decrease his taxable income by 50 cents.

Obama also cosponsored the original version of a bill creating an annual fund to subsidize rents for extremely

low-income tenants, although it did not pass until 2005, after he had left the state Senate.  "He was very passionate about the issues," said Julie Dworkin of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, who worked with Obama on affordable housing issues. "He was someone we could go to and count on him to be there."

The developers gave Obama their financial support. Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko all served on Obama's campaign finance committee when he won a seat in the US Senate in 2004.  Obama has continued to support increased subsidies as a presidential candidate, calling for the creation of an Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which could distribute an estimated $500 million a year to developers. The money would be siphoned from the profits of two mortgage companies created and supervised by the federal government, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"I will restore the federal government's commitment to low-income housing," Obama wrote last September in a

letter to the Granite State Organizing Project, an umbrella group for several dozen New Hampshire religious,

community, and political organizations. He added, "Our nation's low-income families are facing an affordable

housing crisis, and it is our responsibility to ensure this crisis does not get worse by ineffective replacement of

existing public-housing units."

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One of the earliest public-private partnerships of the type supported by Daley and Obama took place in the Woodlawn neighborhood, a checkerboard of battered apartment buildings and vacant lots just south of the University of Chicago.

Grove Parc Plaza opened there in 1990 as a redevelopment of an older housing complex. The buildings had a new owner and a major renovation funded by the federal government. Even the name Grove Parc Plaza was new.

The owner, a local nonprofit company called Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., was led by two of the neighborhood's most powerful ministers, Arthur Brazier and Leon Finney. Obama had relationships with both men. In 1999, he donated $500 of his campaign funds to another of their community groups, The Woodlawn Organization.

Woodlawn Preservation hired a private management firm, William Moorehead and Associates, to oversee the

complex. In 2001, the company lost that contract and a contract to manage several public housing projects for

allegedly failing to do its job. The company's head, William Moorehead, was subsequently convicted of

embezzling almost $1 million in management fees.

Woodlawn Preservation hired a new property manager, Habitat Co. At the time, the company was headed by its founder, Daniel Levin, also a major contributor to Obama's campaigns. Valerie Jarrett was executive vice

president.

Residents say the complex deteriorated under Moorehead's management and continued to decline after Habitat took over. A maintenance worker at the complex says money often wasn't even available for steel wool to plug rat holes. But as late as 2003, a routine federal inspection still gave conditions at Grove Parc a score of 82 on a 100-point scale.

When inspectors returned in 2005, they found conditions were significantly worse. Inspectors gave the complex a score of 56 and warned that improvements were necessary. They returned the following year and found things had reached a new low. Grove Parc got a score of 11 and a final warning. Three months later, inspectors found there had been insufficient improvements and moved to seize the complex from Woodlawn Preservation.

After negotiations with tenants, the government agreed to allow a new company, Preservation of Affordable

Housing, a Boston-based firm, to replace Habitat as the manager of Grove Parc. The company is negotiating to buy the development, which would then be demolished and replaced with new housing.

Officials at Woodlawn Preservation say the government didn't give them enough money to properly maintain

Grove Parc. Habitat's Jarrett declined to comment on Grove Parc in particular but said it is hard to manage

something you don't own. 

But other Chicago developers and housing activists say federal subsidies can be adequate if managed properly.  They say Grove Parc stands apart for how badly it fell into disrepair.  Preservation of Affordable Housing has assumed responsibility for numerous subsidized complexes across the country.

"Grove Parc is quite an exception to what we've normally done because it's in such bad shape," said the

nonprofit's chief executive, Amy Anthony. "These complexes are often tired, they're always denser than today's philosophy, but they're not usually anywhere near as deteriorated."

Similar problems also plagued the next generation of affordable housing de velopment in Obama's district,

created as part of the Daley administration's efforts to subsidize smaller apartment buildings scattered

throughout neighborhoods.

One of the largest recipients of the subsidies was Rezmar Corp., founded in 1989 by Tony Rezko, who ran a company that sold snacks at city beaches, and Daniel Mahru, who ran a company that sold ice to Rezko.

Neither man had development experience.

Over the next nine years, Rezmar used more than $87 million in government grants, loans, and tax credits to

renovate about 1,000 apartments in 30 Chicago buildings. Companies run by the partners also managed many

of the buildings, collecting government rent subsidies.

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Rezmar collected millions in development fees but fell behind on mortgage payments almost immediately. On its first project, the city government agreed to reduce the company's monthly payments from almost $3,000 to less than $500.

By the time Obama entered the state Senate in 1997, the buildings were beginning to deteriorate. In January 1997, the city sued Rezmar for failing to provide adequate heat in a South Side building in the middle of an unusually cold winter. It was one of more than two dozen housing-complaint suits filed by the city against Rezmar for violations at its properties.

People who lived in some of the Rezmar buildings say trash was not picked up and maintenance problems were ignored. Roofs leaked, windows whistled, insects moved in.  "In the winter I can feel the cold air coming through the walls and the sockets," said Anthony Frizzell, 57, who has lived for almost two decades in a Rezmar building on South Greenwood Avenue. "They didn't insulate it or nothing."

Sharee Jones, who lives in another former Rezko building one block away, said her apartment was rat-infested

for years.  "You could hear them under the floor and in the walls, and they didn't do nothing about it," Jones said.

By the time Rezmar asked Chicago's city government for a loan on its final subsidized development, in 1998,

the city's housing commissioner was describing the company in a memo as being in "bad shape." The Daley

administration still made the $3.1 million loan.  Shortly thereafter, Rezmar switched from subsidized housing to high-end development, fueled by the money it had made in subsidized work. Rezko's companies also stopped managing the subsidized complexes.

"Affordable housing run by private companies just doesn't work," Mahru, who no longer works with Rezko, said

in an interview with the Globe. "It's difficult, if not impossible, for a private company to maintain affordable

housing for low-income tenants."  Responsibility for several buildings fell to the Chicago Equity Fund, which had purchased government tax credits from Rezmar to help finance the projects. After Rezko walked away, the fund was obliged to maintain the buildings as affordable housing. If it did not, it would have to repay the government for the tax credits.

The fund found the buildings in terrible condition. In a 2001 plea to the state to temporarily suspend payments

on its mortgages, a fund executive wrote that heating problems, lapsed maintenance, and uncollected rent

made the buildings almost impossible to manage.  Most of the buildings have since been foreclosed upon, forcing the tenants to find new housing.

All the while, Tony Rezko was forging a close friendship with Barack Obama. When Obama opened his

campaign for state Senate in 1995, Rezko's companies gave Obama $2,000 on the first day of fund-raising.  Save for a $500 contribution from another lawyer, Obama didn't raise another penny for six weeks. Rezko had essentially seeded the start of Obama's political career.

As Obama ascended, Rezko became one of his largest fund-raisers. And in 2005, Rezko and his wife helped

the Obamas purchase the house where they now live.

Eleven of Rezmar's buildings were located in the district represented by Obama, containing 258 apartments.

The building without heat in January 1997, the month Obama entered the state Senate, was in his district. So

was Jones's building with rats in the walls and Frizzell's building that lacked insulation. And a redistricting after

the 2000 Census added another 350 Rezmar apartments to the area represented by Obama.

But Obama has contended that he knew nothing about any problems in Rezmar's buildings.

After Rezko's assistance in Obama's home purchase became a campaign issue, at a time when the developer

was awaiting trial in an unrelated bribery case, Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times that the deterioration of

Rezmar's buildings never came to his attention. He said he would have distanced himself from Rezko if he had known.

Other local politicians say they knew of the problems.

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"I started getting complaints from police officers about particular properties that turned out to be Rezko

properties," said Toni Preckwinkle, a Chicago alderman.  She had previously received campaign contributions from Rezmar and said she had regarded the company as a model, one of the city's best affordable housing developers.

But in the early 2000s, she called Rezko to ask for an explanation for the declining conditions. He told her

Rezmar was "getting out of the business," she said - walking away from its responsibility for managing the

developments.  "I didn't see him nor have anything to do with him after that," she said.

Preckwinkle, who will be an Obama delegate at the Democratic National Convention, said she would not answer any questions about Obama's role in her district, nor his relationship with Rezko.

Allison Davis, Obama's former law firm boss, dabbled in development for years while he worked primarily as a

lawyer. He participated in the development of Grove Parc Plaza. And in 1996, Davis left his law firm to pursue a full-time career as an affordable housing developer, fueled by the subsidies from the Daley administration and aided, on occasion, by Obama himself.

Over roughly the past decade, Davis's companies have received more than $100 million in subsidies to

renovate and build more than 1,500 apartments in Chicago, according to a Chicago Sun-Times tally. In several

cases, Davis partnered with Tony Rezko. In 1998 the two men created a limited partnership to build an

apartment building for seniors on Chicago's South Side. Obama wrote letters on state Senate stationery

supporting city and state loans for the project.

In 2000 Davis asked the nonprofit Woods Fund of Chicago for a $1 million investment in a new development

partnership, Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners. Obama, a member of the board, voted in favor, helping Davis secure the investment.

The following year, Davis assembled another partnership to create New Evergreen/Sedgwick, a $10.7 million

renovation of five walk-up buildings in a gentrifying neighborhood. The project, a model of small-scale, mixedincome development, was subsidized by almost $6 million in state loans and federal tax credits.

Conditions deteriorated quickly. Chronic plumbing failures consumed the project's financial reserves while

leaving undrained sewage in some of the apartments. In October, after repeated complaints from building

residents, the city government sued the owners, and a judge imposed a $5,500 fine.

New Evergreen/Sedgwick is managed by a company run by Cullen Davis, Allison Davis's son and also a

contributor to Obama's campaigns. Cullen Davis said the problems were rooted in the way New

Evergreen/Sedgwick was financed. Like most new projects, it is owned by a company created to own one

building. That company determined how much to spend on renovations, how much to set aside for maintenance - and how much to keep as profit. When the maintenance funds ran out, there was no other source of money. "All these deals are set up as islands," Cullen Davis acknowledged. In this case, "The margin of error at Sedgwick was a little too close to begin with."

Chicago's struggles with the deterioration of its subsidized private developments seemed to reach a new height in 2006, when the federal government foreclosed on Lawndale Restoration, the city's largest subsidized-housing complex. City inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations, including roof leaks, exposed wiring, and pools of sewage.

Lawndale Restoration was a collection of more than 1,200 apartments in 97 buildings spread across 300 blocks of west Chicago. It was owned by a company controlled by Cecil Butler, a former civil rights activist who came to be reviled as a slumlord by a younger generation of activists.

Lawndale Restoration was created in the early 1980s, when the federal government helped Butler take control

of a group of old buildings, including lending $22 million to his company to redevelop the buildings and agreeing to subsidize tenant rents. In 1995, Butler's company got a $51 million loan from the state to fund additional renovations at Lawndale Restoration. In 2000 Butler's company brought in Habitat Co. to help manage the complex.

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Nonetheless, the buildings deteriorated badly. The problems came to public attention in a dramatic way in 2004, after a sport utility vehicle driven by a suburban woman trying to buy drugs struck one of the buildings, causing it to collapse. City inspectors arrived in the ensuing glare, finding a long list of code violations, leading city officials to urge the federal government to seize the complex.

In the midst of the uproar, a small group of Lawndale residents gathered to rally against the Democratic

candidate for the US Senate, Barack Obama.

Obama's Republican opponent, Alan Keyes, trailed badly in the polls and was not seen as a serious challenger. But the organizers had a simple message: Cecil Butler had donated $3,000 to Obama's campaign. Habitat had close ties to Obama. And Obama had remained silent about Lawndale's plight.

Paul Johnson, who helped to organize the protest, said Obama must have known about the problems.

"How didn't he know?" said Johnson. "Of course he knew. He just didn't care."

Butler did not return messages but in the past has said the government did not give him enough money to

maintain the project. Habitat emphasized in a statement that its role at Lawndale was restricted to tasks that

included financial oversight and management.

In 2006, following the foreclosure, the federal government sold the buildings to the city for $10. The city has

since parceled out the buildings among two dozen developers, who are rebuilding Lawndale for the fourth time

with yet another round of government loans and subsidies.

Even as Lawndale Restoration and Rezmar's buildings were foreclosed upon, and Grove Parc and other

subsidized developments fell deeper into disrepair, Obama has remained a steadfast supporter of subsidizing

private development.

And although he has distanced himself from Rezko, Obama has remained close to others in the development

community. Jarrett participates in the campaign's senior staff meetings. And Obama chose another close friend, Martin Nesbitt, as his campaign treasurer. Nesbitt is chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority, one of the key overseers of the shift toward private management and development.

"Throughout his career in public service, Barack Obama has advocated for the development of mixed-income

housing and public-private partnerships to create affordable housing as an alternative to publicly subsidized,

concentrated, low-income housing," the Obama campaign said in a statement provided to the Globe.

As a result, some people in Chicago's poorest neighborhoods are torn between a natural inclination to support

Obama and a concern about his relationships with the developers they hold responsible for Chicago's affordable housing failures. Some housing advocates worry that Obama has not learned from those failures.

"I'm not against Barack Obama," said Willie J.R. Fleming, an organizer with the Coalition to Protect Public

Housing and a former public housing resident. "What I am against is some of the people around him."

Jamie Kalven, a longtime Chicago housing activist, put it this way: "I hope there is not much predictive value in

his history and in his involvement with that community."

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For President Obama what mattered to him was — that he not have to face this issue going into the 2012 election

Woodward’s devastating account of Obama’s failed leadership

September 6, 2012

Conn Carroll -- Senior Editorial Writer - The Washington Examiner

Arrogant, aloof, and unprepared is how Bob Woodward portrays President Obama in his new book The Price of Politics, set to be released next week.

The book recounts Obama’s troubled relationship with Congress, from his inauguration through last summer’s failed debt-limit negotiations, with Woodward concluding, “It is a fact that President Obama was handed a miserable, faltering economy and faced a recalcitrant Republican opposition. But presidents work their will — or should work their will — on important matters of national business. . . . Obama has not.”
Snippets of the book, as reported by The Washington Post, include:

The book portrays Obama as a man of paradoxical impulses, able to charm an audience with his folksy manner but less adept and less interested in cultivating his relationships with Reid and Pelosi. While the president worries that he can’t rely on the two leaders, they are portrayed as impatient with him. As the final details of the 2009 stimulus package were being worked out on Capitol Hill, Obama phoned the speaker’s office to exhort the troops. Pelosi put the president on speakerphone so everyone could hear.
“Warming to his subject, he continued with an uplifting speech,” Woodward writes. “Pelosi reached over and pressed the mute button. They could hear Obama, but now he couldn’t hear them. The president continued speaking, his disembodied voice filling the room, and the two leaders got back to the hard numbers.”
…
In the same vein, Woodward portrays Obama’s attempts to woo business leaders as ham-handed and governed by stereotype. At a White House dinner with a select group of business executives in early 2010, Obama gets off on the wrong foot by saying, “I know you guys are Republicans.” Ivan Seidenberg, the chief executive of Verizon, who “considers himself a progressive independent,” retorted, “How do you know that?”
Nonetheless, Seidenberg was later pleased to receive an invitation to the president’s 2010 Super Bowl party. But he changed his mind after Obama did little more than say hello, spending about 15 seconds with him. “Seidenberg felt he had been used as window dressing,” Woodward writes. “He complained to Valerie Jarrett, a close Obama aide. . . . Her response: Hey, you’re in the room with him. You should be happy.”

ABC News also reports:

As debt negotiations progressed, Democrats complained of being out of the loop, not knowing where the White House stood on major points. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, is described as having a “growing feeling of incredulity” as negotiations meandered.
“The administration didn’t seem to have a strategy. It was unbelievable. There didn’t seem to be any core principles,” Woodward writes in describing Van Hollen’s thinking.
…
Larry Summers, a top economic adviser to Obama who also served as Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, identified a key distinction that he said impacted budget and spending talks.
“Obama doesn’t really have the joy of the game. Clinton basically loved negotiating with a bunch of pols, about anything,” Summers said. “Whereas, Obama, he really didn’t like these guys.”
…
Woodward portrays a president who remained a supreme believer in his own powers of persuasion, even as he faltered in efforts to coax congressional leaders in both parties toward compromise. Boehner told Woodward that at one point, when Boehner voiced concern about passing the deal they were working out, the president reached out and touched his forearm.
“John, I’ve got great confidence in my ability to sway the American people,” Boehner quotes the president as having told him.
…
With the nation facing the very real possibility of defaulting on its debt for the first time in its history, David Krone, the chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, told the president directly that he couldn’t simply reject the only option left to Congress.
“It is really disheartening that you, that this White House did not have a Plan B,” Krone said, according to Woodward.

If Washington Post’s Bob Woodward has this right, President Obama was more interested in getting re-elected than in handling the debt ceiling debate with Congress

by Greta Van Susteren -- Sep 8 2012

Bob Woodward has a new book out next week about the debate over the debt ceiling. In anticipation of the book’s release, there is an excerpt in the Washington Post (see below.) If true, you will read that what mattered to President Obama is the timing — that he not have to face this issue going into the 2012 election. 
Inside story of Obama’s struggle to keep Congress from controlling outcome of debt ceiling crisis
By Bob Woodward
“….When Obama learned that the deal negotiated among the congressional leaders would require a two-step increase in the debt limit, he told Rob Nabors, the White House director of legislative affairs, “The one thing I said I actually needed, they didn’t get,” referring to Reid and Pelosi. “I needed this to go past the election, and they didn’t get it for me. This can’t work.”

Obama and his crew voted three times and three times they said no to God

Obama and his crew voted three times and three times they said no to God

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) released a new scathing campaign ad Thursday, slamming Democrats for striking all mentions of “God” from their official platform during the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte this week. The ad features footage of DNC delegates enthusiastically voting not to include “God” in the 2012 Democratic platform.
“Three times they said no to God,” the ad states.
The ad begins with former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland saying, “I am here to attest and affirm that our faith and belief in God is central to the American story and informs the values we‘ve expressed in our party’s platform.”
The shot then cuts to Los Angeles Mayor and 2012 DNC chair Antonio Villaraigosa, who tells “all the delegates opposed” to the measure to say “no”.

A large portion of the delegates can be heard screaming, “No!”
“Let me do that again,” Villaraigosa says. “All those delegates opposed, say no.”
“No!” the crowd screams, even louder than the first time, waving their arms in protest.
Then, looking a little surprised, the Los Angeles mayor asks for one final vote. The delegation again hollered “No!” just as noisy as before, some rising out of their seats to add extra emphasis. Despite the divided vote, Democrats reinstated language from the 2008 platform that said: “we need a government that stands up for the hopes, values and interests of working people and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.” The party also reinstated wording that mentions Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
“It’s embarrassing, it’s stupid,” Democratic strategist Paul Begala says in the video, followed by various shots of political pundits condemning the vote.
“Are those your values?” the ad asks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mNQuT2worqc

 

From Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.).
“Last night’s speech by Barack Obama was a weak plea for another four years to decimate our economy, retard our energy security future, and reduce the greatest fighting force known to the world,” West said in a statement on his Facebook page Friday. “It was a complete and utter failure.”
The post continues:
In Barack Obama’s own words he stated that if he could not turn this economy around in four years he would be a one-term proposition. He also stated that he would cut the deficit in half, yet we have had four years of trillion-dollar-plus deficits. This morning we found out, again, that we are still at 8% or higher unemployment for 43 straight months. This comes knowing that we were promised by Barack Obama unemployment never higher than 8% with the almost trillion dollar stimulus. We have the lowest workforce participation rate in 31 years…Obama will tout a decrease in unemployment from 8.3% to 8.1%, but that is a scam. We have 368,000 people who have been dropped from the labor accountability rolls. We only added 96,000 jobs to our economy in August. If America reelects Barack Obama to a second term, we deserve all the pain and misery that will ensue.
http://www.examiner.com/article/dnc-god-vote-allen-west-ad-three-times-messages-democrats-as-ungodly

Donate to Allen West for Congress

http://www.allenwestforcongress.com/

The failure to mention God show’s that Democrats are out of step with the American people, and the omission of Jerusalem raise’s questions about the administration’s commitment to Israel.

Ask yourself.  Are you better off now, than you were four years ago??????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=m62bsXCUjic

Are You Better Off?

September 5, 2012

Are you better of than you were 4 years ago? Read this article about Obama’s failed leadership.
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/090412-624523-were-not-better-off-under-obama.htm
----------------

(Democratic Party denied God three times)

Clint Eastwood's perfomance was brilliant

The Brilliance of Clint’s Empty Chair

by Justin Katz on August 31, 2012

 

Politicos and policy wonks have been parsing every major speech offered at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, each with his or her own lens. (The exception is MSNBC, which apparently declined to parse several speeches by ethnic minorities.) Some have commented on the gender-war content of Ann Romney’s statements; some have focused on the deep policy weeds of Vice-Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan.
But the most transformative moment — in its way, the most redolent of the Tea Party revolution — was Clint Eastwood’s conversation with an empty chair in which President Obama was not sitting.
One of the clearest tidbits recalled from my playwright studies was a device that effectively made a murder victim present on the stage. On a set of his house, during an interview scene with family members, the script called for the actor playing a detective to lean his hand on the dead character’s favorite rocking chair and “inadvertently” set it in motion.
What Clint Eastwood emphasized, with his seemingly improvised chat with the invisible Obama was the absurd notion of having a man-to-man talk with the Vogue-interviewee president. Eastwood was a real celebrity expressing common-man ideas to a celebrity commander in chief.
Even more, Eastwood’s fame is founded in his being a character actor whose chief characteristic is to cut through nonsense. Tough and real; doing what needs to be done.
Viewers who found the speech peculiar (mainly those in academia, entertainment, and media, I’d wager) may have done so because Eastwood used a theatrical device in the service of the wrong script… from their point of view and according to their expectations. As a thought experiment, they should imagine some other actor’s using the exact same gimmick at the Democrat National Convention, with a non-present Mitt Romney.
To be sure, an invisible, unapproachable businessman would be much more to type than a “populist,” progressive community organizer, just as the Occupy movement is much more in keeping with the established images of grassroots activism than the Tea Party.
Beyond the screen writer’s flair, though, the feel of Clint Eastwood’s convention speech was not of soaring political rhetoric, but of a movie awards ceremony, as if he were speaking to an audience of peers. And there again is the unique character that he has been in the public imagination, as if we the people are his peers, not the glitzy stars. He introduced himself to the GOP audience as a “movie tradesman.”
What Eastwood did, with his extemporaneous air and unfilled chair, was to call bull**** on the increasingly untenable narrative that the Left has been weaving through all of the public institutions that it has spent decades infiltrating. He elevated to TV Land the shocking breach of story line and etiquette that hit YouTube years ago when angry citizens shouted down their Senators at town hall meetings.
The speech may not be a pivot point to a new reality in Hollywood, and the political side it serves may not win the day in November, but to the guardians of the elite, it was definitely a statement new, even though to the rest of us it was a very familiar sensation.
http://oceanstatecurrent.com/opinion/the-brilliance-of-clints-empty-chair/

  ... Eastwood's performance was full of that art which conceals an art, and it was lethal.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/magnum-force-for-romney/story-e6frg76f-1226462737088
 

“When somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go!”
       - - said Clint Eastwood while speaking at the Republican National Convention, Aug. 30, 2012. (Washington Post) 










Clint Eastwood in
Heartbreak Ridge

Clint reaches out to Obama and says it is time for him to go!

Clint Eastwood, angry about 23 million Americans unemployed, speaks out about it at the Republican National Convention.

“I remember three and a half years ago, when Mr. Obama won the election. And though I was not a big supporter, I was watching that night when he was having that thing and they were talking about hope and change and they were talking about, yes we can, and it was dark outdoors, and it was nice, and people were lighting candles.

They were saying, I just thought, this was great. Everybody is crying, Oprah was crying.

I was even crying. And then finally -- and I haven’t cried that hard since I found out that there is 23 million unemployed people in this country.

Now that is something to cry for because that is a disgrace, a national disgrace, and we haven’t done enough, obviously -- this administration hasn’t done enough to cure that. Whenever interest they have is not strong enough, and I think possibly now it may be time for somebody else to come along and solve the problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoqKdWY692k

(http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rnc-2012-clint-eastwoods-speech-to-the-republican-convention-in-tampa-full-text/2012/08/30/4247043c-f314-11e1-a612-3cfc842a6d89_story.html)