Two Fascists Have I?

CAIRO -- Two candidates claim spots in a June runoff as the country awaits official results of its first free, multi-party presidential election.

Mohammed Morsy, whose Muslim Brotherhood controls parliament, and Ahmed Shafiq, the ousted regime's last prime minister, appear to have won voting on Wednesday and Thursday here.

Liberal Egyptians and largely youthful revolutionaries who helped to bring down Hosni Mubarak last year howled with dismay and fear over the apparent outcome. . . .

Liberal activists say Shafiq and Morsy represent a choice of "military fascism and religious fascism." (“Egyptian military, Islamists claim slots in runoff”)

When liberals, even liberal Egyptians, use the word “fascism,” they invariably have no clearly defined meaning in mind, beyond that a government has made something illegal that liberals want to do. I don’t think Mubarak was actually a fascist in the correct usage of the term, and I don’t know that if the military prevails in Egypt whether they will be fascist, either.

For what tiny insight I have into Egyptian election politics, my money’s on the Brotherhood.  But if there’s any circumstance that can make military fascism the preferred choice for a society, it’s the prospect of Islamic fascism. I’m no expert on the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, but I do know that its women weren’t required to veil, it was capable of maintaining a peace treaty with Israel, and even though the survival odds for a Coptic Christian were lower than they should have been, they’ve all but vanished since the Brothers started taking over.

I also know that Islamic jihadism is the only contemporary ideology on Earth that inspires atrocities again and again that, when one makes a direct comparison with the Third Reich, forces the conclusion that, no, even the Nazis wouldn’t have done that.

Detroit On Its Knees

One day a man asked an old friend how things were going, and the friend replied that, as a matter of fact, he had recently taken up prayer.

Concerned, the first man responded, “Are things as bad as that?”

We’re all for prayer here at DU.  But when the top law enforcement leadership of a dysfunctional city announces that their latest anti-crime initiative is based upon the city’s preachers singing “Nearer My God to Thee,” it’s time to pray about moving. (“Detroit clergy launch prayer walks, youth rallies to counteract crime”).

Oh, hang on.  In the last five home invasion stories I’ve read about the victims had wanted to move, but were too broke -- and their houses too worthless – for them to get out.

Good thing Detroit is coming back!

It’s not that I don’t appreciate U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade’s message to gang members, on behalf of “we the collective,” that “we care about you,” but “you will be prosecuted and put in prison' " if you commit crimes. It’s just that I don’t know why we have to care about gang members first, as if they spray-paint the city’s walls and shoot up each other’s houses because there aren’t enough policemen smiling at them.

And it’s not that I’m so far gone in my faith that I don’t appreciate Reverend Warfield’s solution to Detroit’s crime wave to “pray for and pray with our various neighborhoods."

It’s just that “Operation Ceasefire,” which reportedly “focuses on meeting with young offenders to talk about and provide resources on alternatives to crime,” hasn’t got a thing to say about the complete breakdown of law enforcement protection in Detroit. 

And to make sure that even the level of protection armed Detroiters provide for themselves is even weaker, geniuses in Lansing are trying to repeal the Michigan law allowing victims of violent attacks to defend themselves with lethal force rather than run away -- the former standard -- especially from their own homes. Rep. Tim Bledsoe, Democrat (what else?) thinks “Michigan should return to the old standard because stand-your-ground is "the only law that I can think of that actually promotes violence." (“House Dems seek repeal of Michigan's stand-your-ground law”).

Well, I can think of another law Democrats loooove that promotes violence: Roe v Wade, or what I like to call the Stamp Out Your Offspring Law, but I’m sure Bledsoe is less concerned with protecting infants from parental violence than protecting armed criminals from confrontations with victims who can actually shoot back.

There’s a good reason the announcement of the Operation Outreach initiative never mentions that the Detroit Police Department will play a key role in the “anti-crime” effort, even though half the DPD brass showed up to have their picture taken. And that reason is that the program is how to handle crime now that we’ve all stopped denying that Detroit lacks adequate police protection. 

Item:

Detroit — The body of a Detroit man made it all the way to a funeral home without authorities noticing a gunshot wound on the chest, and now police want to know what happened. (“Gunshot wound goes unnoticed until body arrives at funeral home”).

Now police want to know what happened.

"The DPD's Internal Affairs will be investigating this matter to determine if all departmental procedures and protocols were followed," Sgt. Eren Stephens, a spokeswoman for the department, said Tuesday.

Never mind who shot “59-year-old Leslie Brooks”: there’s a more important meeting of the Keystone Kommission to analyze how a dead body found in Detroit fails to muster enough interest for the cops to hypothesize that foul play might be involved. (“Crimsetoppers Alert! Gunshot wounds to the torso may look innocent, but STAY WATCHFUL for telltale signs of criminal activity!”)

Meanwhile, the DPD has been so busy doing whatever it is they do that they haven’t had time, after 9 years, to fully comply with court-ordered reforms requiring officers to stop engaging in “ex­cessive force, false arrests, il­le­gal de­tentions and unconstitution­al con­ditions of confine­ment.” 

How many years does it take to get the word out to the few officers actually assigned to the street to stop making false arrests? How many years does it take to clean up conditions in jail cells so bad they earn judicial notice as “unconstitutional”?

Until 2003, when the feds stepped in to try to clean it up, the number-one investigative tool employed in Detroit homicide investigations was unlawful dragnets whereby all the neighbors and friends of a victim – including infant babies and old people – were summarily arrested without regard to due process and detained until one of them finally admitted they knew who killed Cookie Head Jenkins.

Sure Dearborn and Detroit needs more good auto jobs – but how about we first get a Bill of Rights?

Am I being too hard on Detroit’s finest? Just possibly. But don’t get me started on what I see as the failings of the DPD going back decades. I’ll only mention the most important failing – that no one in the city seriously believes that the Detroit police protect any one from crime.

# # #

Media–New Evidence on Zimmerman Earns a Yawn

The media aren’t quite ready to give up on the hysterical version of the fate of “Little Trayvon” (as Fox News’ Shepherd Smith calls him) they all ran wild with a few months ago.

The release Thursday of dramatic photos of George Zimmerman’s injuries, his medical reports, and other exculpatory information is being underreported with these kinds of ho-hum headlines: “Evidence in Martin slaying probe released to public” (The Detroit News) (tells you a lot), and “Evidence mixed for Zimmerman’s self-defense claim”) (AP).

Mixed? The known facts are now completely unavoidable that Zimmerman was having the hell beat out of him by the 6-foot, 160-pound Martin before Zimmerman fired a fatal shot.

But instead of backing off the shredded account that Zimmerman, Elmer-Fudd style, hunted Martin down with the premeditated plan of executing him for being black, the AP continues to insist that the released information still leaves “many of the pertinent questions . . . unclear,” including “why did Zimmerman feel that deadly force was warranted?”, and “Did the fact that Martin was black play a role in Zimmerman’s actions?”

Actually, the second question isn’t pertinent to the case at all, unless you’re a race hustler, so I won’t dignify it here.

As to the first question about deadly force, it’s pertinent, but it’s not unclear.

I believe I would feel that deadly force was warranted If someone had blacked my eyes, broken my nose, was sitting on top of me and banging my head onto the pavement – in other words, was applying something approaching deadly force against me. The Stand Your Ground threshold for deadly force is the belief that you are facing “imminent death or great bodily harm.” Look at the photos of Zimmerman’s swollen nose and the back of his head, and I’d say Martin pushed Zimmerman well past imminent great-bodily-harm before his victim had a chance to fire his weapon.

But the AP isn’t quite ready to let this go. The spin is that Zimmerman instigated a confrontation by approaching Martin in the first place. But Stand Your Ground provides immunity to a person who isn’t committing a crime himself and is in a place he has a legal right to be. For the time being in Florida it’s still not a crime to get out of one’s car or to approach a stranger to inquire what he’s up to. The fact that under the given circumstances -- only some of which were within Zimmerman’s control -- a fight erupted that ended in a fatal shooting, cannot be blamed on Zimmerman’s decision to get out of his car.

The Martin family attorney, Ben Crump, would love to make the mistaken conclusion of one police detective “the headline.” Said Crump, “The police concluded that none of this would have happened if George Zimmerman hadn’t gotten out of his car. . . If George Zimmerman hadn’t gotten out of his car, they say it was completely avoidable.”

But it’s not a conclusion at all, only speculation, that “none of this would have happened if George Zimmerman hadn’t gotten out of his car.” He may as well say that “none of this would have happened if Trayvon Martin hadn’t gone out to the store.” The AP also thinks it proves something that “the original lead detective in the case believed Zimmerman caused the fight by getting out of his vehicle to confront Martin, who wasn’t doing anything criminal, and then could have defused the situation by telling Martin he was just a concerned citizen and tried to talk to him.”

Except Zimmerman wasn’t doing anything criminal, either, in spite of the lead detective’s overly broad concept of what ought to be against the law. As for Martin, it’s true enough that, as far as we know, he wasn’t doing anything criminal, right up until he decided to clobber Zimmerman.

We don’t know on what facts, or on what imaginary reconstruction of what happened, the lead detective decided that Zimmerman “caused the fight by getting out of his vehicle to confront Martin.” Nor can I figure out why it was Zimmerman’s sole responsibility to defuse the situation. Indeed, just as much as Zimmerman (speculated the detective) could have defused the situation, so also could Martin have responded to Zimmerman’s concerns by explaining that he was living in the subdivision, was on his way home, and wasn’t doing anything wrong.

But notice how the AP has adopted the Florida prosecutor’s short-cut way of telling the story to avoid even the barest reference to Martin’s decision to assault Zimmerman. According to the Affidavit of Probable Cause filed by the Florida State Attorney, “Zimmerman confronted Martin and a struggle ensued.” But human beings confront one another all the time in our world where struggles do not ensue. Some key fact has been left out. Similarly, the lead detective’s account of what happened proceeds directly from “Zimmerman . . . getting out of his vehicle” to a “situation” that needed to be “defused” -- as if Zimmerman’s mere act of approaching Martin could have called forth no other reaction from Martin than to physically attack Zimmerman. There was a situation to defuse because somebody lit that fuse, obviously, but neither the detective’s truncated narrative nor that provided in Florida’s affidavit and these latest media accounts are willing to state that the guy holding the match was Trayvon Martin.

The lead detective was ready to charge Zimmerman with manslaughter for, in effect, the decision to get out of his car and see what Martin was up to. The original prosecutor wisely decided that Zimmerman’s self-defense explanation was plausible. Manslaughter only occurs when a death resulting from one’s actions is foreseeable. If you get into your car, run a red light, and kill someone, there’s a good chance you’ll be charged with manslaughter. It’s not manslaughter just to get into your car.

And if you happen to believe that Zimmerman should have known that approaching Martin would foreseeably lead to some kind of a violent confrontation, then there goes the original myth that Martin – to anyone who wasn’t a rabid, gun-toting racist like Zimmerman – would appear to be only a little child skipping home harmlessly from the candy store. 

Fortunately, the court doesn’t get to re-write the Stand Your Ground law to include an affirmative obligation to remain frozen with inaction to avoid consequences beyond all possibility of foreseeing. If the law is applied as written, the judge will dismiss the charges because Martin unquestionably assaulted Zimmerman, who then applied deadly force to save himself.

# # #

The ‘United Arab States’?

With its capital in Jerusalem, no less.

From Thursday’s Detroit News:

Cairo— At a campaign rally for the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate for president, a hardline cleric and TV preacher sang Mohammed Morsi's praises before thousands massed in the stadium of an industrial city in Egypt's Nile Delta.

"We are seeing the dream of the Islamic Caliphate coming true at the hands of Mohammed Morsi," the cleric, Safwat Hegazy, blared from his podium.

"The capital of the Caliphate and the United Arab States is Jerusalem, God willing," he added, as thousands cheered and waved the Brotherhood's green flag, chanting, "The people want to implement God's law."

On the campaign trail for the presidential election, now only seven days away, the Muslim Brotherhood has taken a sharp turn rightward, becoming bolder in saying it wants to bring a state where religion and Islamic law play a major role — and insisting that it has the right to rule.

As a result, it has moved away from the more moderate face that it promoted since even before the fall of Hosni Mubarak 15 months ago. During campaigning for parliament elections late last year, the Brotherhood insisted that implementing Islamic law was not its immediate priority, instead speaking vaguely of an "Islamic background" to government. It also sought to assuage fears that it seeks to take over the country by promising to work with other, liberal factions. (“Egypt's radicals growing bolder”).

Surprised? Neither am I.

The Associated Press reporter attempts to explain the Brotherhood’s current hard line Islamism as a “turn” resulting from recent political disappointments. But those of us who have made it our business to pay attention to the history and unchanging goals of the Ikhwan expected precisely this to happen from the very outset of Egypt’s misnamed “Arab Spring.” This isn’t the result of a turn. The Brothers wanted a caliphate all along, and were only waiting until they felt strong enough to drop the moderate act.

As the AP story tells it:

Whatever the reasons, the group no longer tap-dances around questions of implementing Islamic Shariah law.

"We will not accept any alternative to Shariah. ... The Quran is our constitution and it will always be so," Morsi told a crowd of supporters at a Cairo University rally.

In an interview with the Associated Press, [Brotherhood deputy leader Khairat] el-Shater — who appears alongside Morsi on the campaign trail so often that critics say he would be shadow president — said laws must conform with Shariah. He said the Brotherhood would stipulate that officials tasked with reforming Egypt's economy, politics, media and other sectors also have religious expertise.

"Those who decide what system works best are specialists who are not only political scientists but who also studied Shariah," he said.

# # #

Enhance Your Sensitivity!

Any of you who may have wondered what goes on at BRIDGES meetings, you’re in luck!

Hamad and O’Reilly on the same stage!

Town hall meeting on immigration is May 17

A Detroit-area group formed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to link U.S. Arabs and Muslim Americans with local and federal authorities is hosting a town hall meeting next month to discuss immigration concerns.

The group is called BRIDGES, which stands for Building Respect in Diverse Groups to Enhance Sensitivity.

It says the May 17 meeting at Dearborn City Hall will feature Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. It also will include remarks by U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade and Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly.

6:00 p.m.

And the Winner Is . . .

Hat tip to Creeping Sharia.

The Eastern Echo, Eastern Michigan University’s “independent” student newspaper, is heralding the success of the Muslim Student Association in its fund-raising efforts. The Muslim Student Association was founded directly by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1963 as part of the Ikhwan’s civilization jihad. 

Says the Echo:

The Muslim Student Association won the 2012 Student Government Charity Challenge. Each year EMU’s Student Government holds a contest amongst the student organizations to see who can raise the most money for a Michigan-based nonprofit of their choice, with the promise of matching the winner’s amount up to $2,000.

Sounds commendable, no? to hear that the MSA is plowing its award-winning donations back into a Michigan beneficiary – perhaps to help out Michigan’s poor, unemployed, or disabled. But wait, the money isn’t going to end up in Michigan – it’s all going to the Ummah, the only charity the MSA ever has or ever will care about.

“We got the full $2,000,” said Zaineb Al-Kalby, vice president of the MSA. “We picked the organization Life for Relief and Development and all of the money we raised is going to help out the people of Syria,” she said, alluding to the country’s current and very violent uprising.

And don’t bet that the money actually is destined for deserving folks in Syria.  

Life for Relief and Development is a Hamas front whose original operator was Muthanna al-Hanooti, an agent for Saddam Hussein who was using LIFE to persuade the US to drop its sanctions against Iraq. He was convicted in 2011 of violating the sanctions against Iraq. He was also the one-time executive director of CAIR-MI before Dawud Walid got the job. According to a 2001 FBI report, “’Al-Hanooti collected over $6 million for support of Hamas,’ . . . and was present with CAIR and Holy Land officials at a secret Hamas fundraising summit held in 1993 at a Philadelphia hotel. Prosecutors added his name to the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land case.”

The EMU newspaper (named the “Echo” for reasons we can clearly understand) was also excited to report on MSA’s “Walk In My Shoes Day”:

a day in which non-Muslim women wear a hijab and dress modestly for a day, as would a Muslim woman, and then discuss their experience and observations. “We want people to ask why they’re wearing a hijab. We get asked that all the time. We want people to openly discuss these kinds of things,” said [MSA vice president Zaineb] Al-Kalby.”

Why EMU women couldn’t dress modestly for a day without putting on a hijab is a question that comes to mind. But, that aside, finagling students who have little grounding in their identity as Westerners to imitate Islamic practices is a clever way to plant an unconscious sympathy for Islam that can pay off for the Ummah later.    As any college student can tell you, your parents’ religion is stupid, but Islam is cool.

And by contrast with what’s not cool, DU has been unable to confirm that last year’s “Hang Out In My Habit Day” sponsored by campus Catholics is going to be repeated this year. That was the day in which non-Catholic women dressed up as discalced Carmelites observing the Grand Silence.  Last year’s event led to some confusion as most of the campus’s Catholic students had never actually clapped eyes on a nun who  wore a habit, and then were frustrated when their repeated questions about it were met with wordless frowns. Then there were the LGBT students who all assumed that the participants were transgendered Act Up! members irreverently mocking  a homophobic and patriarchal church, only to be disappointed that the faux-nuns they skipped after all over campus never actually led them to a Rainbow Pride event. When it was discovered that the participants were all women, the ACLU promptly filed a lawsuit.

The point is that $2,000 of EMU Student Government funds has been donated to Life for Relief and Development to be used somehow and somewhere to build the global caliphate.

Governor Christie Has an Islam Problem?

From NRO:

Chris Christie’s Islam Problem

By Daniel Pipes & Steve Emerson

A Quinnipiac poll in April showed Chris Christie as the most popular potential Republican vice-presidential candidate, thanks to his budget cuts and standing up to government employees’ unions. But the governor of New Jersey has a problem, specifically an Islam problem, that can and should get in the way of his possible ascent to higher office. Time and again he has sided with Islamist forces against those who worry about safeguarding American security and civilization.

Some examples:

2008: When serving as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Christie embraced and kissed Mohammed Qatanani, imam of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, and praised him as “a man of great goodwill.” He did this after Qatanani had publicly ranted against Jews and in support of funding Hamas, a U.S. government–designated terror organization, and on the eve of his deportation hearing for not hiding an Israeli conviction for membership in Hamas. In addition, Christie designated a top aide, Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles McKenna, to testify as a character witness for Qatanani.

2010: After Derek Fenton burned three pages of a Koran at a 9/11 memorial ceremony, his employer, New Jersey Transit, got Christie’s approval to fire him. Protecting Islam at the expense of the constitutional right to free speech, Christie endorsed Fenton’s termination: “That kind of intolerance is something I think is unacceptable. So I don’t have any problem with him being fired.” The American Civil Liberties Union successfully represented Fenton to get his job back.

2011: Christie appointed an Islamist, Sohail Mohammed, to the New Jersey state superior court. Mohammed’s record includes serving as general counsel to the American Muslim Union (which has stated that a “Zionist Commando Orchestrated The 9-11 Terrorist Attacks”), acting as spokesman for Muslim prisoners who went on a hunger strike after being jailed during Ramadan, defending Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian (his indictment, Mohammed said, was “nothing but a witch-hunt”), and helping Qatanani’s legal defense. Mohammed established himself not just as the Islamists’ lawyer but as one of them.

When members of New Jersey’s Senate Judiciary Committee asked Mohammed appropriately tough questions about his enthusiasm for Islam’s archaic law code, the Shari’a, Christie ridiculed the lawmakers: “Shari’a law has nothing to do with this [appointment of Mohammed] at all. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. . . . So, this Shari’a law business is crap. It’s just crazy. And I’m tired of dealing with the crazies. I mean, you know, it’s just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background.” For this outburst, unsurprisingly, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) thanked and applauded Christie.

2012: The revelation that the New York Police Department had conducted surveillance of Islamists in the New Jersey towns of Newark and New Brunswick prompted not gratitude but outrage from Christie, who termed the action arrogant and paranoid while mocking NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly as “all knowing, all seeing.”

In short, Christie has hugged a terrorist-organization member, abridged free-speech rights, scorned concern over Islamization, and opposed law-enforcement counterterrorism efforts. Whenever an issue touching on Islam arises, Christie takes the Islamist side against those — the DHS, state senators, the NYPD, even the ACLU — who worry about lawful Islamism eroding the fabric of American life.

Two factors render this pattern especially curious: First, soft-on-Islamism policies are common among Democrats but rare among Republicans (Grover Norquist being the major exception). Second, Christie takes an ostentatiously pro-Israel stance, as reflected by his speeches and his recent “Jersey to Jerusalem” trip; this makes him unusual, for a pro-Israel stance typically goes hand-in-hand with concern about Shari’a. How does one reconcile the Christie contradiction?

It could be ego: The governor is more brilliant than we are. It could be that, other than fiscally, he is not a conservative. Or, as several analysts suggest, it could be cynical double pandering: Muslims get what they want most and Zionists get what they want most, with each side ignoring what Christie does for the other. Indeed, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut pursued this double-track policy (soft on Islamism, staunch on Israel) and he became the Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate in 2000, when practically no one noticed the contradiction.

Whatever his reasons, we conclude that Chris Christie lacks the moral compass and integrity needed to serve as vice president of the United States.

###

First Blossom of the Arab Spring – Sharia Stamping Out Free Speech

Tunisia’s revolution was the first of what came to be known as the “Arab Spring,” enjoying last fall their first democratic election since 1956. But thanks to Tunisia’s active Islamists, a satellite TV channel owner, Nabil Karoui, has just been convicted and fined for showing “Persepolis,” an animated movie about a young girl who lives through the Iranian revolution.

In the weeks after the broadcast, Karoui’s house was destroyed by a mob of vandals and [Nessma, the TV channel’s ] offices were repeatedly attacked — all because of a short scene in which the girl imagines herself talking to God, who appears as an old man with a long, white beard.

Now, Karoui’s on trial, and so is Tunisia’s year-old revolution and the young democracy it has wrought. For hundreds of years, Tunisia has boasted a complex blend of Islamic and Western values, and now, having ousted their autocratic leader, Tunisians are struggling to find the right balance. No part of that wrenching, sometimes violent debate has been more divisive than the issue of freedom of speech.

Last month, on this capital city’s main boulevard, Islamist activists attacked actors who were celebrating World Theater Day; Islamists smashed musical instruments and hurled eggs. A hard-line preacher stood in front of Tunis’s Grand Synagogue and called for the murder of Tunisian Jews. And a Tunisian philosopher who showed up at a TV station for a debate on Islam was shouted down by extremists, who said he was no scholar of the faith because he has no beard.

In each case, calls for a state crackdown on offensive speech banged up against cries for the government to defend even unpopular expression. Karoui’s day in court became a nonstop, seven-hour shoutfest that will determine whether he is fined, imprisoned, or worse. A verdict is expected Thursday.

In Tunisia, defendants hire a lawyer, but any lawyer in the land may join the prosecution or defense, and those lawyers have the same right to argue in court as hired attorneys. The result: a pulsating black mass of robed men (and a handful of women) surging to the front of Courtroom 10, each with his own view of what should be done to Karoui.

Shouldn’t the death penalty be considered, asks lawyer Nasser Saidi: “Anything related to God is absolute. This was a test of the Tunisian people’s ability to defend God, and they have passed the test.” (“Tunisian court case exposes rift over free speech in new democracy”).

On Thursday Karoui “was fined 2,400 Tunisian dinars (about $1,400) for violating public morals and disturbing public order.” (“Controversial Tunisian Court Ruling Reflects Dilemmas of the Arab Spring”). Not so bad an outcome considering that Karoui’s chief attorney was answering Islamist demands for his client’s execution by arguing that he deserved no more than “five years max.”

For me, this kind of a clash highlights the impracticability of democracy accommodating Islam.

As the reporter for the Washington Post, explained,

The two sides argue as if they live in different galaxies. They cite different laws — God’s and man’s. They base their arguments on different histories — Western traditions of transparency and individual rights vs. Islamic concepts of Koranic authority and the obligations of the community of believers.

Except those arguments aren’t based on different histories at all, but on the same history – the history of “Western [Christian] traditions” vs. “Koranic authority” – the 1400-year history of Islam vs. world.

Democracy is unimaginable without free speech. But Shariah can’t tolerate free speech, because followers of the Prophet see themselves as responsible for defending Allah from insult.

Kouri’s prosecution “was a test of the Tunisian people’s ability to defend God,” said Islamist lawyer, Nasser Saidi, and it “means they have passed the test.” It was also a test of their democracy. And that test they failed.

###

Honor Killing and the ‘American Way of Life’

We did not attend the “Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference” in Dearborn this past Sunday, but Pam Geller is providing updates at her Atlas Shrugs website. Jessica Mokdad was murdered in Warren in 2010, allegedly by her Islamic stepfather because of the shame of her becoming too “Westernized.” He is charged with first-degree murder in her death. As expected, the local media coverage of the event was slanted against the organizers of the conference.

Niraj Warikoo’s treatment of the event in the Detroit Free Press is more or less what we’ve come to expect. He described Sunday’s conference at the Hyatt as an “anti-Islam conference” put on by “[a]nti-Islam advocates” who, as he allows Osama Siblani to say for him, “stand against America and against the American way of life.” (“Muslims oppose anti-Islam gathering; dueling events held in Detroit, Dearborn”).

Warikoo couched the counter-conference held nearby in Detroit in starkly kinder terms: calling it an “Arab-American conference,” attended by those, again quoting Siblani, who “stand for America.”

As for honor killing, Warikoo quotes Imam Hassan Qazwini of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn saying that, “Honor killing has no religious roots in Islam,” and then drops it. 

Are we supposed to take Qazwini’s word for it?

Francis X. Donnelly at the Detroit News was only slightly more balanced, at least not sanitizing his article of the central issue of  honor killing. He did feel a need to describe Geller’s conference as a “conservative meeting,” and remarked that only “few” of the speakers at either conference were women. (“Women’s slaying puts Arab leaders, bloggers at odds with dueling conferences”).

Apparently, the “Arab-America conference” led by Qazwini represented liberalism. Donnelly’s bringing up the ratio of women speakers to men at the Hyatt conference is done in spite of the fact that the co-organizer of the conference was noted woman, Pam Geller, that Nonie Darwish was another of the speakers, and that the entire conference was named for a woman, Jessica Mokdad, and in the interest of ending the honor-killings of – women.

Both reports highlighted that the family of Jessica Mokdad objected to the use of her name for the conference on honor-killings. In light of the fact that honor killings are committed by family members against family members, are covered up by family members, and are motivated by an unholy fear of shame brought upon a family for harboring a (female) who is insufficiently traditional in the way she conducts herself, I’d take the objection in the spirit intended.

No one expects fair coverage these days. 

Which is a real shame in itself.

Detroit’s ‘SOS’ Stands for ‘Sink Our Ship’

The Detroit News article reporting on President Barack Obama’s campaign appearance at the Henry Ford Museum last week (“Obama makes Michigan campaign stops, says rivals out of touch”)  noted that he gave his speech “[j]ust steps way from the museum's "Driving America" exhibit and the presidential limousines used by Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy.”

It would have been more fitting to note that he was just steps away from the Titanic centennial exhibit, and just a few miles from where Detroit, his particularly dedicated constituency, is slipping beneath the waves.

Aside from sinking with few survivors, Detroit’s comparison with the Titanic ends there. The crew of the Titanic used everything they had available to alert nearby ships of their need for help, without success, most notably when the nearby steamer Californian failed to respond to the Titanic’s distress rockets. Unlike the Titanic’s crew, Detroit’s leaders, mover, shakers, clergy and other civic megaphones have been doing everything they can think of to keep help from arriving.

It’s not that they want the ship to sink, exactly. They just want all the city’s ingrained inefficiencies, corruptions, and sweetheart deals, the very things that give them their power, to remain off-limits. Put another way, they’re Pro-Iceberg. Not only don’t these guys have no alternative ideas for how to save the city, but they’re more than willing to see it all go down the drain rather than relax their grip on power in the slightest.

At this bleak moment in the city’s life help is coming in the form of the appointment of an emergency manager to save the city from bankruptcy. Appointed by the governor, an EM can break contracts, privatize long-neglected basic city services, and force the city to live within its means.

On Thursday a Board of State Canvassers split along party lines to reject a petition to put a repeal of the EM law on the ballot in November. The Board ruled that the petition failed to substantially comply with Michigan election law requiring a minimum font size for the headline.

Immediately after the vote, opponents swarmed [Jeffrey ]Timmer and [Norman] Shinkle, pointing fingers inches from the Republicans' faces and shouting their disapproval.

More than 140 repeal supporters chanted "shame, shame, shame" and shouted down board members who tried to explain their decision.

"I was pushed and shoved and spit at," Timmer said later. "I was expecting that there would be protests but I wasn't expecting the mayhem."

Detroit NAACP president Reverend Wendell Anthony declared that “The Constitution was not judged on the basis of font size," and vowed the repeal effort is “not over.”

Even Rashid Baydoun, now executive director of the Arab-American Civil Rights League, reportedly “struggled to contain his emotions after the vote.” Since the ACRL’s civil-rights mission, according to the group itself, is combating defamations of the Arab-American community “on the Internet and other forms of media,” we don’t see what investment Baydoun would have in the repeal of Public Act 4, as it is of little or no interest to Detroit’s tiny Arab-American community. We pegged Baydoun as a political climber from the get-go, and figure he was most choked up about getting his name in the paper.

Elephant in the Room

Reuters reporter Chris Francescani has provided some welcome journalistic rigor to a story, excerpt below, about George Zimmerman’s background. Now that the tribunal has been transferred from the  partisan media to a criminal justice system where at least part of the business has to do with facts, evidence,  and a rational process of determining truth, we’re expecting many of  those voices that were clamoring “I am Trayvon”™ a month ago to be replaced with some serious silence.

As reported Wednesday by Reuters:

a more nuanced portrait of Zimmerman has emerged from a Reuters investigation into Zimmerman's past and a series of incidents in the community in the months preceding the Martin shooting.

Based on extensive interviews with relatives, friends, neighbors, schoolmates and co-workers of Zimmerman in two states, law enforcement officials, and reviews of court documents and police reports, the story sheds new light on the man at the center of one of the most controversial homicide cases in America.

The 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather - the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him.

A criminal justice student who aspired to become a judge, Zimmerman also concerned himself with the safety of his neighbors after a series of break-ins committed by young African-American men.

Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.

"Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?" the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. "There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood," she said. "That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin." 

Read the rest of this very detailed story, “George Zimmerman: Prelude to a shooting”.

Jersey Voters Prefer ‘Crazies’ To Christie

I haven’t been able to share Ann Coulter’s enthusiasm for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie – not since he attacked as “crazies” critics in New Jersey disenchanted with his appointment of an Islamist Sohail Mohammed to the state bench.

“Sharia law has nothing to do with this at all, it’s crazy!” he snapped, adding that this “Sharia-law business is just crap . . . and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies.” (“Christie’s ‘Crazies’”).

As we in Dearborn know, we can hear that kind of language from Mayor Jack O’Reilly, who is equally adamant that Sharia doesn’t exist in Dearborn, nor hardly any place else on Earth.

So it wasn’t surprising when Christie was so critical last month of the job NYPD was doing rolling up terror cells – even if it meant crossing the river into target-rich New Jersey. (“Christie Lashes Out At NYPD, Ray Kelly Over Surveillance Of Muslims In New Jersey”).

Which makes it all the more interesting that a study released last week shows that most of New Jersey’s voters are glad the NYPD is so aggressive. Andrew G. Bostom reports this:

Quinnipiac University polling data released today (4/11/12) indicate that by a wide margin, 71% to 20%, New Jersey voters the affirm that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) is "doing what is necessary to combat terrorism" by gathering information on Muslim organizations and activities in the Garden State. And by another wide margin, 62% of New Jersey voters believe the NYPD treats Muslims appropriately, while only 18 percent indicate that Muslims are targeted unfairly by the NYPD. Moreover, New Jersey voters disagree, substantially, 56% 32%, with Governor Chris Christie's criticism of New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's tactics to combat jihadism.

The questions addressing and responses these issues are reproduced from the survey, below:

32. "Do you think the New York City Police Department has unfairly targeted Muslims to combat terrorism or has acted appropriately?"

Appropriate: 62%

Unfair: 18%

Don't know: 20%

33. "As you may know, in an effort to combat terrorism, the New York City Police Department has gathered information on Muslim organizations and individuals in New Jersey since 9/11. Do you think the New York City Police Department has crossed the line by gathering information on Muslims in New Jersey or are they doing what is necessary to combat terrorism?"

Necessary: 71%

Crossed line: 20%

Don't know: 9%

34. Recently Governor Christie has criticized New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly for the way that the New York City Police Department has conducted information gathering on Muslims in New Jersey. In general, do you agree or disagree with Chris Christie's criticism of Ray Kelly?

Disagree: 56%

Agree: 32%

Don't know: 12%

(“New Jersey Voters Support NYPD Tactics on Jihadism, Reject Christie's Criticism”).

No Squishy Middle

When it comes to protecting religious liberty from the encroachments of an increasingly anti-Christian government, author George Weigel makes it crystal clear that there’s no refuge available in some unreal non-partisan“middle”:

The HHS mandate did not come from nowhere. It came from an administration that (as the bishops also point out) had signaled a shrinkage in its understanding of “religious freedom” as applied to international human rights policy. It came from an administration that . . . has persistently and willfully ignored the expressed concerns of thoughtful citizens about the coercive path it was treading.

Would that we had two political parties that honored religious freedom in full. But we don’t. And this argument will not be resolved at some mythical 50-yard line where all of us learn to just get along. Someone is going to win this debate over the future of civil society, and someone is going to lose it. And while the HHS mandate will most likely be struck down by the federal judiciary on [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] grounds, the larger argument over Leviathan vs. civil society will be determined politically. To suggest otherwise is either disingenuous or naïve.

As for the Commonweal editors’ worries about the complexities of religious-freedom issues that require “the careful weighing of competing moral claims,” enough is enough: Sandra Fluke has no “competing moral claim” to have her readily available contraceptives subsidized and provided by fellow citizens, and it is a degradation of both moral argument and political theory to suggest that she does. (“Framing the Religious-Liberty Issue").

Read Weigel’s complete article here. 

New York, New York, Sister City of Dearborn, Michigan

And while on the subject of nuance, Reuters reported last week that investigation by the staff of Representative Peter King, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, has determined

that "hundreds" of people he described as "Iranian and Hezbollah terrorists" were in the United States. But interviews with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials, as well as private experts, about the Iranian-sponsored group paint a more nuanced picture. There is a threat, though whether it is imminent or extensive is far from clear, they say. (“U.S. officials debate virulence of Iran-backed Hezbollah's threat”).

As for the part of the picture that’s not so nuanced, Reuters explains it this way:

An alarming part of the officials' assessments focuses on the apparent surveillance missions that Iranian diplomats and possible Hezbollah operatives have been seen conducting at sensitive targets such as New York subways and bridges, and at nuclear power plants and tunnels elsewhere in the United States in the past 10 years.

The Reuters report then goes on to list only a sample of incidents that have been the cause of concern.

One factor heightening U.S. officials' concern about Hezbollah-related attacks is the accumulation of accounts of alleged attempts by Iranian operatives to "case" potential U.S. targets.

According to a New York law enforcement source, there have been several notable incidents of this nature involving individuals who turned out to be accredited to Iran's U.N. mission.

In a 2003 incident, New York police patrolmen observed a group of men videotaping the tracks out of the front window of a subway train traveling between Queens and Manhattan at 2 a.m. The Iranians were arrested, but later released after they produced diplomatic credentials. The law enforcement source said they were asked to leave the country.

In a 2006 incident, the captain of a sightseeing boat became suspicious after a group of Iranians taking his cruise along the East River broke into two smaller groups and started snapping pictures of the undersides of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. The six men all turned out to be covered by diplomatic immunity, the law enforcement source said.

In September 2008, three more Iranians with diplomatic status were observed taking pictures of rail tracks going into Grand Central Station that are not routinely accessible to members of the public.

And in a 2010 incident, security personnel at a heliport near Wall Street observed a group of men who claimed to be affiliated with an Iranian broadcasting network taking pictures of the framework supporting the heliport deck which was cantilevered over the river.

A federal official said that similar surveillance incidents had been reported in other cities such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Targets under observation included nuclear power plants, tunnels and casinos.

And then there is this:

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials, along with private experts, say there is little doubt Hezbollah has an extensive network of supporters, fund-raisers and potential operatives in the United States.

A law enforcement official said that the New York Police Department, whose monitoring of Muslim communities has prompted political controversy, believes that between 200 and 300 Hezbollah sympathizers live in New York City. Between 10 and 20 of those are relatives of Hezbollah leaders or fighters who were killed in action, said the official.

The NYPD's knowledge of Hezbollah's infrastructure is sufficiently detailed that it has identified three Lebanese towns - Bint Jbeil, Yanoun and Yatar - to which suspected sympathizers of the group have ties. At least a handful of people in New York connected with Hezbollah have also undergone military training in Lebanon, the official said.

But didn’t Reuters mention that too much of an alarm may not be the best thing, because some other very smart people put all this information together to form “a more nuanced picture”?:

U.S. officials caution that Hezbollah, a Shiite militia based in Lebanon, has largely avoided attacking U.S. targets since it carried out mass-casualty bombings in the 1980s against the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut. One reason may be that it does not want to endanger its lucrative North American fund-raising operations.

Read the article for yourself, and that’s pretty much all the nuance you’ll see. We’re cautioned against being too upset about Hezbollah because they’ve “avoided” attacking us since the Beirut bombing.   (But we did some avoiding ourselves by evacuating Lebanon shortly afterwards, never to return).

I don’t think they’ve avoided attacking us at all.  We know Hezbollah was active in killing our guys in Iraq, (read here, here, and here.) And in 1983 they were attacking us in their own backyard, in Lebanon, at a time when no jihadists were attacking us on our own soil. That changed on 9/11, and ever since jihadists have grown in sophistication and capability.  Now jihadis would rather martyr themselves killing us at home than anywhere else – if they can only figure out how to do it. And unlike 1983, according to Small Wars Journal, in the intervening years since 1983 “Hezbollah's operatives have infiltrated the Western Hemisphere from Canada to Argentina.”

And will Hezbollah fighters in America really abstain from attacking us just to spare their fund-raising? Again, according to Small Wars Journal, fund-raising is only a “second-tier priority” to Hezbollah cells, which are first and foremost committed to conducting terrorist operations.

Jihad is a duty of Hezbollah's operatives and according [to Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan] Nasrallah, no one is excused, including its parliamentary representatives. "Hezbollah cells are frequently involved in fundraising activities, even if they are primarily operational cells.” Hezbollah's cells are versatile, though people in those cells may have diversified roles. "[T]he idea that they are coming over here simply to make contacts with a mosque in order to get a few thousand dollars, I think, has been counterproductive to the FBI and intelligence." Improperly assessing the Hezbollah's intent clouds the knowledge of its severity. It is a mistake that is easily avoided if one just sees its history or tactics.

###

Can We All Just Subtle Down?, or, Everyone Knew Him as Nuancy

The New York Times again shows its willingness to run interference for President Obama whenever he needs it – which is often. Even liberal media sources are calling Obama “wrong” for his audacious statement last Monday that if the Supreme Court overturns his health care law it would “be an unprecedented, extraordinary step.”

Here’s how the NYT explains it:

Mr. Obama, himself a constitutional lawyer, never tried to defend the literal meaning of his own words; apparently he meant either to express a more subtle thought or merely to voice some commonplace campaign oratory about how judges sometimes overreach.

“Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," he said on Monday, answering a question at a Rose Garden news conference.

Naturally, the Times appreciates that when Obama tries to be “subtle,” the great mass of dumbbells over whom he reigns are bound to misunderstand his point. The same thing happens when Obama resorts to “nuance.”

‘The Messages of Toulouse’

Clifford D. May writes at NRO:

The Messages of Toulouse

To those who proclaim themselves jihadis, Mohamed Merah is a hero and a martyr. He became a hero last month when he attacked a Jewish school in Toulouse, murdering Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two young sons, Gabriel and Arieh, and a seven-year-old girl, Myriam Monsonego, whom he pulled by the hair and then shot in the head. He became a martyr when, after a 33-hour standoff, he was killed by French commandos.

This part of the story has received too little attention: Merah, the 23-year-old son of Algerian immigrants, began his killing spree by gunning down French paratrooper Sergeant Imad Ibn Ziaten and, four days later, two more uniformed paratroopers, Corporal Abel Chennouf and Private Mohamed Legouad. All three were Muslims.

The clear message Merah was sending his co-religionists in France and other Western nations: “If you are good citizens of the infidel lands in which you have settled, if you are not waging war against the unbelievers or supporting those who do, you are traitors. And one of these days, Allah willing, you too will get the justice you deserve.” In France, graffiti in support of Merah characterizes those he slaughtered as “Zionists” and “false Muslims.”

Merah’s connections to well-known terrorist organizations are sketchy — perhaps by design. A strategy paper produced by al-Qaeda’s senior leadership was recently uncovered by German authorities. As summarized by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Daniel Trombly, researchers at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, it “outlines the group’s war-of-attrition strategy: a combination of both complex, multi-member operations and also smaller attacks, perhaps executed by so-called ‘lone wolves.’”

Gartenstein-Ross and Trombly note also (in a study soon to be published) that less than a year ago, al Sahab, al-Qaeda’s media production arm, “released a one-hundred-minute video urging Muslims to undertake individual jihad” against infidels.

Extremist websites call upon Muslims to take up the sword against Jews, Christians, and those Muslims who do not toe the jihadi line. Such appeals are made as well in mosques — some, not all. Think, for example, of Anwar al-Awlaki: Born in the U.S.A., he ran the Dar al Hijrah mosque in Virginia, where he posed as a moderate. Eventually, he took off for Yemen, where he became an al-Qaeda leader with a global online presence. (His career was cut short by a U.S. drone strike in September 2011.)

A growing list of lone-wolf terrorists includes Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, who shot and killed two Israelis at the El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who shot two soldiers who were on a smoke break outside a military-recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas; Major Nidal Hasan, who carried out the most deadly shooting spree on a U.S. military base in history; wannabe-car-bomber Faisal Shazad, whose explosive device malfunctioned in New York City’s Times Square; and “underpants bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who, thanks to courage and quick thinking by passengers on his flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, succeeded only in damaging his own crotch.

Imagine you are a young American Muslim wondering what to make of all this. You might go to the websites of some of the well-funded and well-connected organizations that claim to speak on behalf of Muslims in America. And there you would find . . . next to nothing. For example, on the website of ASMA (the American Society for Muslim Advancement), led by Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam who has vowed to build an Islamic center at Ground Zero in New York City, I find no mention of Merah. What is highlighted instead is the dubious assertion that “Islamophobia is America’s real enemy.” I also find not a word about Toulouse on the CAIR(Council on American-Islamic Relations), ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), ICNA (the Islamic Circle of North America), and MSA (Muslim Students Association) websites.

The leaders of these organizations will indignantly object that they should not be held accountable for terrorists who happen to be Muslims. That’s right, but it misses the point: Surely, America’s Muslim leaders have an obligation to warn against the hateful, homicidal, and genocidal ideology that drives terrorists such as Merah — an ideology that, its proponents insist, is simply Islam in its purest form. And if three French Muslim paratroopers had been murdered by a Jew or a Christian, do you think they’d have nothing to say about it?

In France, Mohammed Moussaoui, the president of the French Council for the Muslim Faith, said: “These acts are in total contradiction with the foundations of this religion.” But he then used the occasion to object to the term “Islamism,” saying its use “feeds the confusion between Islam and terrorism and brings suffering to millions of Muslims who feel it important to defend the dignity of their faith and their religion.” In fact, the term is meant to distinguish Islamic supremacists from Muslims who have no interest in forcing non-Muslims to submit to Islamic law. Similarly, former French justice minister Rachida Dati told a radio audience that using the word “jihadist” to describe Merah risked “stigmatizing our [Muslim] French compatriots.” Isn’t it terrorists who claim to be “soldiers of Allah” who stigmatize Muslims?

Most of the Muslims of Toulouse surely do not regard Merah as a hero. But he was not the only extremist in town. There is a jihadi network known as the Toulouse Group. And Merah’s older brother, Abdelkader, has been linked to Salafis — ultra-fundamentalist Muslims — and he has now been indicted as an accomplice. And someone arranged for him to travel abroad — including to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he may have received terrorist training.

If one understands this context, one also must grasp that it is not Islamophobia that impels those charged with preventing terrorism to keep an eye on what is going on within Muslim communities. Yet Daisy Khan, the wife of Imam Feisal, recently condemned such intelligence gathering by New York City police officers, calling it an “aggressive policy of spying on American citizens.” In the same article, Khan asserted that American Muslims want to be “full and equal partners in the fight against extremism.”

Would that not require, at a minimum, some candid commentary from her and the imam when such extremism leads Muslims such as Merah to massacre patriotic French Muslims along with Jewish children? Should they not be drawing lessons for the Islamic communities whose interests they claim to champion and the more diverse communities they seek to influence? Are they afraid to do so? Or is there another explanation for their conspicuous silence?

###

Ikhwan on Pennsylvania Avenue

From Townhall.com:

Muslim Brotherhood Meets in the White House

By Katie Pavlich

A year after the Egyptian uprising, Hosni Mubarak's fall and the Muslim Brotherhood's rise in the country, the White House held talks with the radical Islamist group this week. This is the same Muslim Brotherhood that has called for the "review" of the Egyptian peace treaty with Israel and the same Muslim Brotherhood pushing Shariah law in their position of new leadership in Egypt.

White House officials held talks with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood in Washington this week, as the Islamist group threw itself into the fray in Egypt's presidential election.

The meeting on Tuesday with low-level National Security Council staff was part of a series of US efforts to broaden engagement with new and emerging political parties following Egypt's revolution last year, a US official said.

"We believe that it is in the interest of the United States to engage with all parties that are committed to democratic principles, especially nonviolence," said National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor.

Nonviolence?

One might wonder how an organization can be thought to have renounced violence when it has inspired more jihadists than any other, and when its Palestinian branch, the Islamic Resistance Movement, is probably more familiar to you by the name Hamas — a terrorist organization committed by charter to the violent destruction of Israel. Indeed, in recent years, the Brotherhood (a.k.a., the Ikhwan) has enthusiastically praised jihad and even applauded — albeit in more muted tones — Osama bin Laden.

No surprise, the usual Republican suspects have also been in talks:

The White House pointed out that Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, and other US lawmakers and officials had also met with Brotherhood representatives in Egypt and elsewhere in recent months.

Somewhere, the people at CAIR are smiling.

###

Jones Leads O’Reilly, 3-Zip

Here it is. Either Terry Jones is incredibly smart, or Dearborn’s leaders are incredibly dumb.

From the Detroit Free Press:

Federal judge rules in favor of Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones

A federal judge ruled today in favor of Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones, saying he can protest this Saturday outside a Dearborn mosque without having to sign a legal agreement from the city of Dearborn.

U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood ruled in favor of Jones, who intends to hold a protest against Islamic extremism at the biggest mosque in metro Detroit. The city of Dearborn has said it wanted Jones to sign a “hold harmless” agreement that would require the Florida pastor to forfeit all legal rights stemming from any possible incident at the planned protest.

Earlier this week, the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative Christian group in Ann Arbor, filed a lawsuit against the city on behalf of Jones, saying his constitutional rights were being attacked by the city because of the requirement to sign the “hold harmless” agreement.

Judge Hood said the requirement “violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas Law Center said today in a statement about the judge’s ruling: “Dearborn has a history of discriminating against Christians who want to speak out against the internal threat of Sharia law and Islam. And every time the City attempts to curtail the Constitutional rights of Christians, we will confront them in a court of law. There is no doubt in my mind that the City knew the Hold Harmless agreement they were trying to get Jones’s organization to sign was unconstitutional.”

The city of Dearborn has said it respects the free speech rights of all. Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly has said that the claim that the city is under sharia is ridiculous.

City spokeswoman Mary Laundroche said earlier this week that “the city has asked Mr. Jones and his group to sign a hold harmless agreement because the grassy area he would like to demonstrate on is not developed for pedestrian use. The hold harmless would protect the city from potential injuries. The city offered the group a chance to write its own hold harmless agreement for the city’s review. It has not done so.”

Jones tried to rally last year outside the Islamic Center, but was blocked by a judge who ordered him to stay away from the mosque for three years. That decision was later overturned by a Detroit judge.

‘L’Etat C’est Moi’ Gives $1.5B to ‘L’Etat C’est Mohammed’

From AWR Hawkins at Breitbart:

Obama Bypasses Congress, Gives $1.5 Billion to Muslim Brotherhood

During a trip through Colorado in December of last year, President Obama spoke of his intention to implement his economic policies with or without the approval of Congress. Said Obama, “And where Congress is not willing to act, we’re going to go ahead and do it ourselves.” It now appears that such a mindset applies not only to economic matters but to the distribution of foreign aid as well--in particular, foreign military aid for the Muslim Brotherhood, who now hold the reigns in Egypt.

Congress has restricted and, in fact, halted military aid to Egypt until and “unless the State Department certifies that Egypt is making progress on basic freedoms and human rights.” After all, Christians and other practitioners of non-Islamic religions have had a tough go of it there. And of course, many Egyptian officials harbor such hatred toward the U.S. that one of the candidates for the Egyptian presidency has openly referred to America as the “infidel country” in media interviews.

Nevertheless, the news breaking now is that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will soon announce that President Obama will “resume funding for Egypt’s military, despite Congressional restrictions and objections from human rights and democracy advocates.”

Even Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT), a man with whom I’ve never agreed on anything, sees the foolishness of this endeavor: “I believe [sending the aid] would be a mistake. The new [restrictions were] intended to put the United States squarely on the side of the Egyptian people who seek a civilian government that respects fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, and to clearly define the terms of our future relations with the Egyptian military.”

Who knows; perhaps the Obama administration can also circumvent Congress and give the Iranians some nuclear materials or give Hamas some advanced weaponry? I know both ideas sound crazy, but they’re no crazier than giving $1.5 billion in military aid to the Muslim Brotherhood.

###

The Choke’s on Us, or, Hoodie You Think You’re Kidding?

Jennifer Granholm reportedly “choked up while discussing the murder of Trayvon Martin on her show on Wednesday night,” according to HuffPo.  Granholm, Michigan’s first Depression-era governor since Luren Dickinson, wanted to show solidarity with Martin, and maybe pick up some ratings for her talk show on Al Gore’s Current TV.

The picture of Granholm as a thug recalls the days not long ago when she and her fellow political gangbangers were paint-bombing the state with their distinctive economic graffiti.
After leaving Michigan’s economy in shambles, she’s moved on to teaching at Berkley and dispensing advice on comedy news shows on how to create jobs. (Get it?).  Then her “War Room” talk show premiered earlier this year. In her first episode she said,

“I'm obsessed with democracy. . . I've been there on the ground when people have lost their jobs, their homes, their loved ones overseas.”

No one in Michigan can remember anything she ever did about any of those things. But she was on the ground -- not as flat as many of her citizens, but definitely on the ground.

Going by the quality of her past judgments, her decision to side with the Sharpton-Jackson axis during this latest controversy might be a good sign that history and the facts will end up vindicating Zimmerman in the end.  (I take no sides. But for the moment the police are saying that Zimmerman’s story is “consistent”with the evidence).

Ah, well, she’s no longer governor and I’m glad of it. I give her nary a thought now.  But seeing her “I am Trayvon” pic in the Free Press brought back a memory or two. 
It even kind of choked me up.