Most recently I had the chance to have a real conversation with him when he attended the first ever black conservative convention held by Move-On-Up.org at the Crown Plaza in St.Louis last August.

Where Bill Hennessey, co-founder of the St.Louis Tea Party, inspired me to grab my camera and start covering what our local media would not about the St.Louis Tea Parties, Andrew Breitbart gave me a whole new level of drive and respect for the army of citizen journalists who work everyday to cover what the "Media Complex" refuses to report. Over the past few years I had emailed articles to him, as well as other editors to the Big sites, and was incredibly honored to have become a Contributor on his sites. When we last talked it was during the time when I was working on a couple of articles on Sharia Law & Sharia Compliant-Finance which were later published on Big Peace. Andrew helped so many of us have a voice and inspired so many more to seek the truth wherever it may lie. For that I am incredibly grateful.

I was not what you would consider a close friend to Andrew, but that was the great thing I got from him. If you believed in the exceptionalism that makes America great, you had a friend and fellow solider for liberty for life. He showed us so many times the weakness of the liberal argument, and the fearlessness we should all have in defending our freedom and our voice. Andrew will forever be missed and forever continue to inspire us all.

Tuesday night dozens of parents showed up at a Hillsborough County school board meeting to voice their concerns. This is a video from that meeting:

The speaking engagement took place last fall at Steinbrenner High School in the History class of the Social Studies Department Head, Kelly Miliziano. The man who came to speak to the class on behalf of CAIR was Hassan Shibly.
From AtlasShruggled on Dec.4, 2011:

According to IPT: Hassan Shibly has a track record of defending terrorist groups and acting as an apologist for militant Islam. Following the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War, Shibly granted legitimacy to Hizballah by characterizing it as a “resistance movement” that provides valued social services to the Lebanese people. “They’re absolutely not a terrorist organization,” Shibly said, and “any war against them is illegitimate” moe on that here.

The complaint that many of the parents have, in addition to the history of the chosen speaker, is also described in FOX’s article from Wednesday:

They cited the group’s past connection to a terror financing case involving the terrorist group Hamas. The group, which purports to promote diversity and tolerance of the religion, has met a similar reception in Texas and Georgia in recent years.

CAIR is also sited as a co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) HAMAS terror funding trial. The story of the original CAIR speaking engagement at Steinbrenner High School was also reported back on December 4th on AtlasShruggled:

SO what is so wrong with CAIR’s involvement in our children’s education? Review this video clip about CAIR taken from the movie “The Third Jihad:”

CAIR has even gone so far as to protest the legitimacy of this documentary despite their documented links to terrorist and terrorist-complacent groups. This video describes the ongoing battle between radical terror-linked Muslim groups and the New York City Police Department:

From the Florida Family Association:

Several organizations including local Tea Party leaders challenged the Hillsborough County School Board on February 14, 2012 to stop local CAIR officials from addressing students.

School board member Dr. Stacy White offered a motion to have CAIR and a committee “discuss” this situation with no specified stated resolution. Susan Valdez seconded the motion. April Griffin tried to gut the inane motion by requiring that all groups be included in the discussions thereby extending the issue to a non-issue.

School Board Chairman Candy Oslon, Poster Child for Ultra Progressive Politics, gave another one of her extremely biased bashings of reasonable thinking people. She proclaimed that “Most Muslims are moderate” to justify CAIR officials speaking to students and scolded rational thinking concerned Americans who criticized Steinbrenner High School teacher Kelly Miliziano for inviting CAIR officials to speak to 500+ students. Chairman Olson also lost her cool during the January 24, 2012 meeting when she took a low shot at conservative Americans concern regarding CAIR talking to school children by saying “I don’t think we can protect our children from the fact that there are extremists in every religion.” Click here for the Tampa Bay Times report. Olson was quoted on tape saying that if you don’t like the actions of this school district then you can always move to another county.

AtlasShruggled also published back on Jan.5th one parent’s account of this school-mandated indoctrination into Sharia Law.

Kelly R. Miliziano, History teacher of the Social Studies Department, Steinbrenner High School, announced yesterday that they have scheduled additional religious speakers to counter the CAIR operative they had speak in November. I am not sure if it will be a Hindu Priest or a Christian Pastor.

The problem with that is that CAIR’s Hassan Shibly is a political speaker. A Hindu priest or Christian Pastor won’t counter the poisonous propaganda that Shibly spews to our impressionable young minds. Robert Spencer, myself, Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan must be given a chance to speak to counter the lies of Hamas-CAIR.

Hamas-CAIR should not be speaking at all, but if the public school shills insist on presenting jihadi views, they must provide freedom lovers with the same opportunity. Further, political speakers should be off limits on school grounds.

The email exchanges between CAIR and Steinbrenner High School are revealing. Kelly Miliziano, a World History teacher at Steinbrenner, wrote this in a November 14 email: “Every year I invite a representative from CAIR to speak to our AP World History Students.” After CAIR-Tampa responded favorably, Miliziano wrote again: “Over the years I have had many speakers from CAIR come to my classes, and it has been such a good learning experience for the students.”

According to Kelly Miliziano (history teacher at Steinbrenner High School), she “regularly asks” Hassan Shibly of CAIR to speak. Shibly has a track record of defending jihad terrorist groups and acting as an apologist for the worldwide jihad and Islamic supremacism. Ms. Miliziano’s refusal to respond to parents’ requests to vet the notorious Mr. Shibly, and instead attack the parents, should be grounds for her immediate dismissal. Ms. Miliziano further went on to call parents’ concerns about CAIR “baseless and Islamophobic.” I urge you to politely demand that the school principal, Brenda Grasso, move to remove Ms. Miliziano at once. Brenda Grasso, Principal: email, brenda.grasso@sdhc.k12.fl.us Phone 813-792-5131.

Candy Olson confesses her recognition of ‘religious extremists,’ yet supports exposing children to their beliefs. Olson further tried to cloud the issue and the argument of those against having terror-linked speakers at the school in the Feb.15th article of the Tampa Bay Times by expressing that:

..she (was) worried that teachers would be afraid to teach about the Holocaust, the Vietnam conflict or other topics that might appear controversial. “I’ve had some teachers say, ‘I don’t want to be the next target,’ ” she said.

The solution is simple; don’t support terror-linked or terror-complacent organizations PERIOD. If you’d like to voice your thoughts to those who support this complete disregard for exposing children to these indoctrinating terrorist elements, you can reach them here:

Kelly Miliziano, Social Studies Department Head – kelly.miliziano@sdhc.k12.fl.us
813-792-5131 Ext. 264

Candy Olson, School Board Chairperson – COlson@sdhc.us
813-272-4000

MaryEllen Elia, Superintendent – maryellen.elia@sdhc.k12.fl.us
813-272-4000

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that lunch was deemed inadequate, by a federal agent who was doing box lunch inspections that day. These new restrictions are courtesy of the Michelle Obama ‘food nazi’ program. Yes, apparently government under the Obama Administration now includes school lunch box inspections.

The article by Sara Burrows, associate editor at the Carolina Journal included:

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs — including in-home day care centers — to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones.

The mother of the preschooler, who chose to remain anonymous for fear of retribution had this to say:

“I don’t feel that I should pay for a cafeteria lunch when I provide lunch for her from home,” the mother wrote in a complaint to her state representative, Republican G.L. Pridgen of Robeson County.

The girl’s grandmother, who sometimes helps pack her lunch, told Carolina Journal that she is a petite, picky 4-year-old who eats white whole wheat bread and is not big on vegetables.

“What got me so mad is, number one, don’t tell my kid I’m not packing her lunch box properly,” the girl’s mother told CJ. “I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats. It always consists of a fruit. It never consists of a vegetable. She eats vegetables at home because I have to watch her because she doesn’t really care for vegetables.”

“She came home with her whole sandwich I had packed, because she chose to eat the nuggets on the lunch tray, because they put it in front of her,” her mother said. “You’re telling a 4-year-old. ‘oh. you’re lunch isn’t right,’ and she’s thinking there’s something wrong with her food.”

When are chicken nuggets a more nutritious choice than a turkey sandwich? When the U.S. government says so…or is it really? Let’s review on how chicken nuggets are made:

This video shows why it is important for ‘responsible’ adults to make proper food selections for children, because children can’t be trusted to make healthy food choices..and apparently neither can our government.

Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division, had this to say on the matter:

“With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, that’s the dairy. It sounds like the lunch itself would’ve met all of the standard.”

Though this looks like a personal decision by that particular agent who disqualified the turkey sandwich lunch and not a policy of the program itself, it still begs the question of how much control do we give to, yet another government department, over the food provided to our children.

Let’s say for example a local area food processing company had an “arrangement” with the local school to process food for lunches. To push that further, let’s say the local government agent in charge of inspecting these lunches also had an “arrangement” with the local food processing company. As you can imagine, the foundation for corruption becomes that much easier when people’s personal choices are circumvented by government oversight. The worst part is the real losers in this equation are the children.

I am not saying that is the case here, but this story should be a lesson of just how little we need more enforcement by the government. Instead, we need more in the area of eduction for both parents and teachers (and government agents) on what is actually nutritious.

Rumor has it that the President will “compromise” on this issue after he has done everything but directly threaten jail time for those who will not comply with the birth control Obamacare mandate. As displayed from his track record, this is not a president who compromises, this is a president who finds other ways to get his agenda done. A perfect example of this is the late night holiday vote in which Obamacare was passed or numerous executive orders or his czars or his questionable appointments to name a few.

The question we should be asking ourselves, especially these Democrats who have been newly awaken to the total disregard this president has for the U.S. Constitution, is not ‘will he compromise?‘ Instead, we should be asking ‘does a president, who would attempt to pressure ANY RELIGION into submission toward funding acts they strongly & religiously believe are wrong, deserve to be president?‘

The problem with Obama is not whether he gets his way on this issue, but that he would go beyond the passing consideration, passed the advise of his Vice-President and Chief of Staff, and still push for a mandate that is one of the largest acts by the federal government directly against religious freedom in our nation’s history?

Update: Obama’s Compromise

As reported by The Blaze:

President Obama announced the “accommodation” his administration plans to offer church-affiliated groups. Speaking from the White House, he explained that, under the new plan, universities and institutions connected with faiths that oppose contraception and associated services will not have to directly offer them.

That being said, the insurers that these churches contract with will, indeed, be forced to cover contraceptives for those employees who wish to receive them. This latter rule will apply to all insurance companies serving religious-affiliated non-profits and institutions.

The Catholic League President Bill Donohue gave reaction to the compromise in a press release:

“President Obama’s latest ploy just adds insult to injury. If the insurance plan of a Catholic institution must cover services it deems immoral, then such a healthcare plan is offensive, plain and simple.

The Catholic League, for example, uses Christian Brothers as its insurance carrier. So if a future employee of ours were to demand free abortion-inducing drugs, and she is allowed to request free drugs from Christian Brothers, then the rest of us would, in effect, be subsidizing her abortion. This is outrageous and will not stand judicial scrutiny.

When it comes to the First Amendment, there is no such thing as a half loaf. We want now, and in the future, the same rights we have enjoyed since the beginning of the republic.”

Some compromise…

To answer the question of “What is Agenda 21?” can bring you in return a whole host of answers. The complicated regulations leave many scratching their heads wondering what it is and what they can do. To best answer this question, I refer you all to the American Policy Center’s excellent article that answers some specific questions and many more. Read it, learn it (and what this kind of regulation looks like), and share it. In late 2010 truly amazing things happened as the People took a stand against Democrats AND Republicans in townhall meetings. The only way to fend off this kind of increased UN-driven regulation is to again make your voices heard. In 2010 we also prayed for it to be 2012 where we could make the change in administrations and stop Obama from steamrolling our Constitutional liberties. 2012 is here and its time to act again, but not just for the elections.

Agenda 21 In One Easy Lesson

American Policy Center – March 31, 2011

Awareness of Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development is racing across the nation as citizens in community after community are learning what their city planners are actually up to. As awareness grows, I am receiving more and more calls for tools to help activists fight back. Many complain that elected officials just won’t read detailed reports or watch long videos. “Can you give us something that is quick, and easy to read that we can hand out,” I’m asked.

So here it is. A one page, quick description of Agenda 21 that fits on one page. I’ve also included for the back side of your hand out a list of quotes for the perpetrators of Agenda 21 that should back up my brief descriptions.

A word of caution, use this as a starter kit, but do not allow it to be your only knowledge of this very complex subject. To kill it you have to know the facts. Research, know your details; discover the NGO players in your community; identify who is victimized by the policies and recruit them to your fight; and then kill Agenda 21. That’s how it must be done. The information below is only your first step. Happy hunting.

What is Sustainable Development?

According to its authors, the objective of sustainable development is to integrate economic, social and environmental policies in order to achieve reduced consumption, social equity, and the preservation and restoration of biodiversity. Sustainablists insist that every societal decision be based on environmental impact, focusing on three components; global land use, global education, and global population control and reduction.

Social Equity (Social injustice)

Social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people “to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment.” Redistribution of wealth. Private property is a social injustice since not everyone can build wealth from it. National sovereignty is a social injustice. Universal health care is a social injustice. All part of Agenda 21 policy.

Economic Prosperity

Public Private Partnerships (PPP). Special dealings between government and certain, chosen corporations which get tax breaks, grants and the government’s power of

Eminent Domain to implement sustainable policy. Government-sanctioned monopolies.

Local Sustainable Development policies

Smart Growth, Wildlands Project, Resilient Cities, Regional Visioning Projects, STAR Sustainable Communities, Green jobs, Green Building Codes, “Going Green,” Alternative Energy, Local Visioning, facilitators, regional planning, historic preservation, conservation easements, development rights, sustainable farming, comprehensive planning, growth management, consensus.

Who is behind it?

ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability (formally, International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives). Communities pay ICLEI dues to provide “local” community plans, software, training, etc. Addition groups include American Planning Council, The Renaissance Planning Group, International City/ County Management Group, aided by US Mayors Conference, National Governors Association, National League of Cities, National Association of County Administrators and many more private organizations and official government agencies. Foundation and government grants drive the process.

Where did it originate?

The term Sustainable Development was first introduced to the world in the pages a 1987 report (Our Common Future) produced by the United Nations World Commission on Environmental and Development, authored by Gro Harlem Brundtland, VP of the World Socialist Party. The term was first offered as official UN policy in 1992, in a document called UN Sustainable Development Agenda 21, issued at the UN’s Earth Summit, today referred to simply as Agenda 21.

What gives Agenda 21 Ruling Authority?

More than 178 nations adopted Agenda 21 as official policy during a signing ceremony at the Earth Summit. US president George H.W. Bush signed the document for the US. In signing, each nation pledge to adopt the goals of Agenda 21. In 1995, President Bill Clinton, in compliance with Agenda 21, signed Executive Order #12858 to create the President’s Council on Sustainable Development in order to “harmonize” US environmental policy with UN directives as outlined in Agenda 21. The EO directed all agencies of the Federal Government to work with state and local community governments in a joint effort “reinvent” government using the guidelines outlined in Agenda 21. As a result, with the assistance of groups like ICLEI, Sustainable Development is now emerging as government policy in every town, county and state in the nation.

Revealing Quotes From the Planners

“Agenda 21 proposes an array of actions which are intended to be implemented by EVERY person on Earth…it calls for specific changes in the activities of ALL people… Effective execution of Agenda 21 will REQUIRE a profound reorientation of ALL humans, unlike anything the world has ever experienced… ” Agenda 21: The Earth Summit Strategy to Save Our Planet (Earthpress, 1993). Emphases – DR

Urgent to implement – but we don’t know what it is!

“The realities of life on our planet dictate that continued economic development as we know it cannot be sustained…Sustainable development, therefore is a program of action for local and global economic reform – a program that has yet to be fully defined.” The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide, published by ICLEI, 1996.

“No one fully understands how or even, if, sustainable development can be achieved; however, there is growing consensus that it must be accomplished at the local level if it is ever to be achieved on a global basis.” The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide, published by ICLEI, 1996.

Agenda 21 and Private Property

“Land…cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth, therefore contributes to social injustice.” From the report from the 1976 UN’s Habitat I Conference.

“Private land use decisions are often driven by strong economic incentives that result in several ecological and aesthetic consequences…The key to overcoming it is through public policy…” Report from the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, page 112.

“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable.” Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN’s Earth Summit, 1992.

Reinvention of Government

“We need a new collaborative decision process that leads to better decisions, more rapid change, and more sensible use of human, natural and financial resources in achieving our goals.” Report from the President’s Council on Sustainable Development

“Individual rights will have to take a back seat to the collective.” Harvey Ruvin, Vice Chairman, ICLEI. The Wildlands Project

“We must make this place an insecure and inhospitable place for Capitalists and their projects – we must reclaim the roads and plowed lands, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres or presently settled land.” Dave Foreman, Earth First.

What is not sustainable?

Ski runs, grazing of livestock, plowing of soil, building fences, industry, single family homes, paves and tarred roads, logging activities, dams and reservoirs, power line construction, and economic systems that fail to set proper value on the environment.” UN’s Biodiversity Assessment Report.

Hide Agenda 21’s UN roots from the people

“Participating in a UN advocated planning process would very likely bring out many of the conspiracy- fixated groups and individuals in our society… This segment of our society who fear ‘one-world government’ and a UN invasion of the United States through which our individual freedom would be stripped away would actively work to defeat any elected official who joined ‘the conspiracy’ by undertaking LA21. So we call our process something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management or smart growth.” J. Gary Lawrence, advisor to President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development.

Glenn Beck discussing Agenda 21 back in June of 2011:

Another recent article on the subject is “Agenda 21 and the Threat in Your Backyard” published from the Heritage Foundation on December 5, 2011. This from that article:

Where do these home-grown smart-growth policies stand today? The Obama Administration has embraced them while also increasing environmental regulations and restrictions on the use of natural resources. But the White House isn’t the only one behind the smart-growth movement. Local and state officials, along with interest groups, are promoting the policies at all levels of government.

And that’s where smart growth must also be thwarted. It’s not just a matter of standing against the implementation of Agenda 21 at the national level; it’s also about protecting our own backyards against the home-grown threat.

Even some Democrats see the danger in implementing this kind of regulation into the U.S. Under this kind of government control, free market and property rights, for example, will be a thing of the past.

The People will always be the last line of defense for our liberty and freedom, and government has shown it cannot be trusted to hold our best interests. Informing, educating, and being heard in our cities, counties, and states is how we stop this. Where is your line?

In closing I’d like to leave you with this video, the truth of CO2′s effect on plant life.

2010 also saw bloggers like Adam Sharp at SharpElbows.net take a stand and point out “an actual racist” in the midst of a Tea Party event in Clayton, Missouri and made it perfectly clear that the racist’s views were not shared by anyone there. Thousands of minutes of video footage and still no proof of openly accepted racism at Tea Party events, yet the Left and the Media continue to push that lie as far as they can…to wear us all down. Tire yet, because I’m not! In 2010 we longed for a chance to remove evil and tyranny from our country. As far as I am concerned there are no parties, only those whose actions are FOR the Constitution and those actions AGAINST.

Those Patriots of 2010, are they still out there? Will they still do the heavy lifting to hold all government officials accountable whether they have a “D” or an “R” behind their name? The government felt the real Power of the People when we all took full advantage of townhall meetings and weren’t afraid to ask the tough questions. Those tough questions should never stop “R” or “D”, lest we fall asleep with petty arguments or wore out from the battle and awake to even more government and less freedom. I pray those Patriots of 2010 are still out there because this is a marathon folks, not a sprint. Let me leave you with this quote from Thomas Paine – “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”

One portion of Jeb’s article that really jumped out at me was also the portion Rush Limbaugh read on his radio show today:

In short, we must choose between the straight line promised by the statists and the jagged line of economic freedom. The straight line of gradual and controlled growth is what the statists promise but can never deliver. The jagged line offers no guarantees but has a powerful record of delivering the most prosperity and the most opportunity to the most people. We cannot possibly know in advance what freedom promises for 312 million individuals. But unless we are willing to explore the jagged line of freedom, we will be stuck with the straight line. And the straight line, it turns out, is a flat line.

In many ways, either consciously or unconsciously, many of us get into a rut. We have that job where the money is only OK, but we sacrifice & deal with it, get comfortable, and eventually fall away from looking hard for that better job with better money. Some even go through their entire life in that mindset, never bothering anymore to look for that greener pasture. We are very adaptable as people and as Americans, but too much willingness to adapt leads us to that “straight line.”

Personally, it took me years to settle on a career field and until then I fell into that rut as well. As anyone who is in it will tell you, the Design industry is very competitive, Web Design as well. New technologies and programming skills get improved quite regularly, and behind any designer is thousands of recent grads eager to prove themselves for ‘next-to-nothing-per-hour.’ Enter the Freelance business.

Granted, the challenges of Freelance work can easily apply to any industry or any self-employed or small business person facing the hurdles of diversifying your (or your business’) skills and trying to expand your own portion of the marketplace. As I now get ready to enter my 6th year of doing freelance work, it has been thoroughly educating.

Like backpacking in the forest, you survive solely by the skills and tools you can carry with you. The rocky trails and dizzying heights can carry enormous risk, but the views are so much better than staying in the comfort of your easy-chair not willing to take that chance. It is those “jagged lines” that lead to the largest rewards, both financially and emotionally.

We are a country of risk-takers and trailblazers, it is who we are and has been in our blood for generations. If this economy and this country is ever to rise from these struggles, which are becoming too often commonplace, then we must only support those who also support the right to risk, the right to succeed, the right to fail, and the right to run free (risks and all). We were not born for the leash, like any good dog, we were born to run.

KenInMontana had an excellent post on the Right Scoop today reminding us with images of that day and specifically those who lost their lives fighting for freedom on the U.S.S. Arizona. Freedom has a price and for some that price is very high.

7 December 1941, a day that the young men and women of our armed forces were weighed, measured, but by no means found wanting. That Sunday has been remembered in many ways over the years, some in revered remembrance, others well, I won’t go into the details of some of the callousness I have seen over the years. For myself it has always been a day for silent reflection and thanks, thanks for those young Sailors, Marines, Soldiers and Airmen who stood their ground that fateful day and carried the fight back to those who would try to strike us down as a people and a nation. But most especially to remember and silently thank those 2,402 who gave that last full measure of their lives to their country.

If you enjoy this tribute in song, visit the band’s site to download the song. Marshall Catch is a band out of Kalispell, Montana, they wrote and recorded this as a tribute to the men of the U.S.S. Arizona and a portion of the proceeds are going to be donated to their local V.F.W. Post. They will also be performing the song today at the U.S.S.Arizona Memorial service at Pearl Harbor.

Our inconveniences pale in comparison to the sacrifices made by our members of the Armed Forces who serve and have served.

All of us fall victim from time to time to bruised egos and tunnel vision. We must always make a concerted effort to remember, as Americans our ultimate mission should always be to preserve freedom, and be a tribute to those who have lost their lives doing the same.

She also served as the Executive Director of MoveOnUp.org, which I wrote about last summer and photographed their 1st national convention which took place in St.Louis, Missouri.
(H/T: Barry Cunningham)

From the Nov. 30th L.A. Times:

Sanitation officials said Wednesday that they expect to haul away 30 tons of debris from the Occupy L.A. encampment –- everything from clothing to heaps of garbage to oddball curiosities left behind by the protesters who lived at the City Hall tent city for two months.

Andrea Alarcon, president of the city Public Works board, said workers already have removed 25 tons of belongings from the City Hall park, all of it heading straight to a landfill.

Sanitation crews also have vacuumed up about 3,000 gallons of water that had washed into a catch basin in recent days and are testing it for hazardous materials, she said.

The sheer volume of personal belongings left behind after the early morning Los Angeles Police Department raid has astonished city workers: books and CDs, luggage and boom boxes, mattresses and dining chairs, cellphones, electric razors, a small red guitar with its neck snapped –- all surrounded by dozens of collapsed and empty tents.

A spokesperson for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Peter Sanders, said it will take 8-10 hours just to clean up the South Lawn of City Hall. The wild variety of items left all over the park have ranged from “pillows, tennis balls, cigarette lighters, packets of instant hot chocolate, a jar of Italian seasoning and an Ashford & Simpson album from 1977 featuring the song “I Waited Too Long.”” just to name a few. As Ramir Delgado, who was out taking photos of the clean-up, stated to the L.A. Times that he was disappointed in Occupy L.A., “This looks like pure anarchy in a Hollywood way.”

For a state that is already struggling in this economy to pay its own bills, the enormous manpower required to clean-up this “war zone” and make this city park sanitary and safe again is an expense they can not afford.

On a personal note, I have been shooting fine art photography for over the past decade and display that work on my photography website. In fact, it was my main mission outside of work until early 2009. About 3-4 years ago I ‘discovered’ a photography website called “Stuck in Customs.” This is a website by an amazing photographer named Trey Ratcliff and the incredible photographic techniques of HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography. Put simply, HDR Photography is the shooting of 3-5 or even 7 bracketed photos with slightly different shutter speeds in order to pick up as much detail in all the shadowy dark corners of an image. It is best to use a tripod, but my first attempt of this process was handheld while leaning against a wall, and I was quite happy with the results.

There are some good tutorials available at “Stuck in Customs.” Next, you take that set of photos and “blend” them together in order to create the HDR image. Photoshop is one great program for performing this process, or at least to start it. Another excellent program, and the one I use in my process after cleaning up images in Photoshop, is called Photomatix. Many of the newer cameras are being designed to make this process easier, but I like to have the total design control that Photoshop and Photomatix offer. Learn, experiment, and find out what works best for you.

Visiting and hearing about the story of this interesting piece of Lincoln-related history was a real treat. And throw in the chance to do what I love the most, photography, made it all the better. Sharing these two photos from my trip to McPike Mansion is my small way to say Thank-You for your support and have a Happy Halloween.

Released Terrorist Ahlam Tamimi Takes Pride in the Number of Casualties She Caused and Proclaims: I Would Do It Again Today

Interviewer: If you could go back in time, would you carry out such a large-scale attack?

Ahlam Tamimi: Of course. I do not regret what happened. Absolutely not. This is the path. I dedicated myself to Jihad for the sake of Allah, and Allah granted me success. You know how many casualties there were [in the 2001 attack on the Sbarro pizzeria]. This was made possible by Allah. Do you want me to denounce what I did? That’s out of the question. I would do it again today, and in the same manner.

Released Terrorist Muhammad Abu Ataya Brandishes Gun and Says: Netanyahu “Will Not Deter Us from Continuing the Journey of Resistance”

Muhammad Abu Ataya: I was arrested for being a member of the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and for killing traitors and spies, and killing traitors and spies, as well as going after the herd of settlers and the Israeli army.

Interviewer: Brother Muhammad, as you regain your freedom, you carry the gun of the rebel, the gun of the fighter, and you wear the fatigues of the Al-Qassam Brigades, even though Netanyahu warned that any released prisoner rejoining the resistance would be severely punished.

Muhammad Abu Ataya: He can make as many warning as he likes. His warning and threats will not deter us from continuing the journey of resistance, on which we embarked decades ago.

Next time someone tries to tell you that you can reason with terrorists, show them these videos.

Schoen described his findings as:

“Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn’t represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence.”

Here is a breakdown of the polling data gathered by Schoen’s research. Tell me if this sounds like the way in which the Occupy Wall Street, as well as those in cities around the country, are promoting themselves:

• (52%) have participated in a political movement before
• (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals
• (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda
• A vast majority of demonstrators are actually employed, and the proportion of protesters unemployed (15%) is within single digits of the national unemployment rate (9.1%)
• An overwhelming majority of demonstrators supported Barack Obama in 2008
• (51%) disapprove of the president while 44% approve, and only 48% say they will vote to re-elect him in 2012, while at least a quarter won’t vote
• (32%) call themselves Democrats, while roughly the same proportion (33%) say they aren’t represented by any political party
• (65%) say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost.
• Protesters are divided on whether the bank bailouts were necessary (49%) or unnecessary (51%)

Schoen summarized his polling data with this statement:

What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.

On the same day Judd Legum at Think Progress came out with his view on Schoen’s polling data. One point of contention was Question 17 where Schoen described 4% of the polled OWS members believing in “radical redistribution of wealth.”

Schoen did not specify in the WSJ article that 35% of those polled would like to “influence the Democratic Party like the Tea Party did with the GOP.” Though I can understand Legum’s concern for that 35% figure not being included in the WSJ article, I am more alarmed by the other answers of the “Open Ended” Question 17. With the exception of a Flat Tax, all the other answers definitely tilt Left. What is even more intriguing is that two words are completely absent from this open-ended question in what the OWS movement wants to achieve; “Constitution” and “freedom.” Oddly enough even “Not Sure” got a greater mention as an answer than either of those two words.

What does this mean? It could be open to interpretation but what it appears to me is that those two words are neither in OWS’ mindset or even their vernacular. This further illustrates the clear difference in the OWS crowd and the Tea Party.

Legum also highlights Question 16, however he misrepresents Schoen’s data as it is presented in the WSJ article.

Schoen did not specifically and solely say that a “large majority express opposition to free-market capitalism.” Instead, Schoen described the information in a list of ideologies that “binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education.” The rest of that list is “support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.”

First off, the polling data already documented that (32%) admitted to being Democratic, while (33%) say they aren’t represented by any political party. In addition, (65%) said they believe “government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost.” In order to defend his argument I can only guess that Legum must believe that these ideologies are something other than “Left-Wing,” because that sure looks like a majority to me.

The article on Think Progress is representative of the radical Left’s frustration in trying to sell the astro-turfed “grassroots” movement as a mass, wide-spectrum People’s movement. In addition to failing to convince many Americans that they share our nation’s goals with some lost souls who are part-time activists & part-time street bums, the quantitative data exposes the facade of just how radical are the views of the OWS groups. Lastly, if you have to call in the “rent-a-thugs” of big labor unions in order to try to give your movement momentum, then you really need to ask yourself, “If you are not motivated enough to leave the park when the owners want to clean it, then why should ANYONE follow you?”
Cross-posted on BigJournalism.com

Local St.Louis Progressive blogger Adam Shriver who, after a quick visit to his political blog at STLActivistHub.Blogspot.com, appears to have made his popularity by being one of the heads of the local hit-squad against local radio personality Dana Loesch and the St.Louis Tea Party.

Adam, like may other local radical groups, has thrown his support behind the ‘permanent vacation’ crowd of OccupySTL – local branch of the Occupy Wall Street. Last Friday, this group protested in downtown St.Louis when they received large amounts of traffic-stopping union support. What looked more like a lovefest for Big Labor, they continue to try to market themselves as a “For the People” movement while most people were still at work during their afternoon protest/parade.

For those outside the range of St.Louis attention, Mr. Shriver is a graduate student at Washington University. While most people recognize that using your employer’s email address to help market and push your radical agenda might not be too kool, this apparently did not ocurr to Mr. Shriver as Dana Loesch pointed out in this graphic:

For many years Washington University has enjoyed the reputation of being an educational institution that provides exceptional learning in many different fields. Granted, I didn’t think philosophy was one of those areas, but I could be wrong. It may be too early to tell if WashU is going to actually enforce their own Terms & Conditions of Use regulations in the case of Mr. Shriver, but if they do nothing then does this set a new precedence for acceptable use of the school’s website?

Will we next see another “grad student” use their email to help organize or promote Communists, anarchists, or antisemitic Naxis?

Or taken from a different angle, does this mean that Tea Party-supporting, pro-Constitution students can use their email address to help promote Tea Party events?

Whatever WashU administrators decide, it should be consistent.

As a side note: I’d like to send a message to any Tea Party-supporting students at WashU. If WashU does decides to do nothing to enforce their own regulations, I’d like to offer you the use of my blog to help promote your contact info with your WashU email address.

According to the St.Louis Beacon local union leaders will be joining today’s protest. Maybe this will bring some direction to an already aimless movement. There has also been a strong push by the Media to compare the Occupy Wallstreet protests to the Tea Party protests, so let’s take a walk down memory lane. As documented by SharpElbows.net and The PO’ed Patriot, these protests are far from a kind or gentle version of any Tea Party protest. This are what ‘anarchy’ looks like, or at least how it starts. If you need proof just look to the UK.

First off here are a couple of photos from the OccupySTL Facebook page, the only place I could find crowd photos at Kiener Plaza. Their other crowd photos, other than the few that look like their were shot of typical downtown foot traffic, have some groups with signs standing in traffic and getting busted by Police.

I guess the good camera was broke.

Two months after the first Tea Party protest in St.Louis which took place in late February and drew a crowd of 1000 (as reported by KMOX Radio), the St.Louis Tea Party held an event on Tax Day 2009 in Kiener Plaza (full photo set) drew 7-10 thousand as stated by the Parks Dept. These are some of those photos from that event, so you can side-by-side compare the two crowds for message, crowd uniforms (or lack of), and of course cleanliness:

Need I point out that there were no racist or antisemitic signs?

I am posting these photos taken only 2 months after their first Tea Party protest in St.Louis so you can compare the sheer massiveness of the Tea Party Movement and the Occupy Wallstreet/STL Movement.

• Both have a right to law abiding protests, yet only one group has ever had trouble with the Police leading to massive arrests.
• One protests for more government control over profit and banks, yet the other protests for less government and less control.
• One group wants money to be taken from the rich and given to the poor (something for nothing), and the other just wants the opportunity and freedom to earn it on their own.

You get the idea. You’ll have to decide for yourself which group you more closely relate.

Update:

KMOV Channel 4 reported their numbers to be between 300 & 400 protesters/paraders. If you thought that the OccupySTL protest/parade would basically be a protest by the Unions co-opting the aimless ramblings of high school and college-aged kids with a sprinkling of ex-hippies, you’d be right:

Ariel view of Kiener Plaza during today's protest by Gateway Pundit's Niece.

St.Louis Tea Party protest in Kiener Plaza on Nov. 28, 2009

Video courtesy of PO’ed Patriot:

An offshoot of ACORN, Missourians Organizing For Reforma and Empowerment (MORE) have Co-Opted the Occupy STL protests. While it seems this Astro Turf Organization can steal an entire movement from Grass Roots, it seems they can’t lead a protest without screwing it up…

Eventually the MORE Organizer gets yelled at by some Anarchists.

Update 2:

PO’ed Patriot also has more excellent video from the OccupySTL/Labor Union protest/parade which took place on Friday Oct. 14th.PO’ed Patriot also reported being handed this flyer at the Oct. 14th protest/parade (click to enlarge):

He also reported that one protester hijacked the St.Louis Cardinal baseball logo to push their own Communist message (also covered in the “Commie & Confusion” video below at about 0:33).

Video of a member of OccupySTL openly admitting to the plan to be co-opted by the Labor Unions. This ends any argument whether or not this is a “grass roots” movement:

From PO’ed Patriot:

Special Thanks to my friend from M.E.W. who helped with some of the filming.

A Retired Wash U Professor at OccupySTL claims to have been waiting years for a revolution like this one.

At a recent Occupy STL protest I had a chance to ask this SEIU member why he was protesting. If you figure it out please inform me….and him.

If this still isn’t enough for you, I have one question I’d love to have answered.

Does the OccupySTL group stand with the Occupy anarchists and the anti-war crowd whose views in 2007, as reported by Little Green Footballs, were depicted by the banner in the photo below.

OccupySTL & Labor Unions, FOR OR AGAINST???

]]> http://keyboardmilitia.com/2011/10/14/occupystl-is-no-tea-party/feed/ 0 http://keyboardmilitia.com/2011/10/06/obama-supporters-sportin-the-stink-eye/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-supporters-sportin-the-stink-eye http://keyboardmilitia.com/2011/10/06/obama-supporters-sportin-the-stink-eye/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:32:46 +0000 Mark Polege http://keyboardmilitia.com/?p=20429 As you may have heard, the St.Louis Tea Party protest that took place on Oct. 4th across the street from a $25,000 a plate, Carnahan hosted fundraiser for President Obama drew a handful of Obama supporters. Taking the brunt of the fowl language and racial slurs was GOP Candidate and Move-On-Up.org member Martin Baker (in the white shirt).

The following are some photos or close-ups of what I can only refer to as ones fit for the “If Looks Could Kill” file. Also known as the “stink eye,” I think these few photos from last Tuesday’s protest really capture the anger, frustration, and vitriol that many Obama supporters are feeling by putting all their hopes in this paper tiger with the glass jaw. As I indicated in my article from Tuesday night’s event on KM and also published on BigGovernment.com, these are the faces of Hope fading like a T-shirt and change that never came. And with a President that keeps kicking up the class warfare, unfortunately, this is a face we will be seeing more of before (and maybe even after) Nov. 2012.

]]> http://keyboardmilitia.com/2011/10/06/obama-supporters-sportin-the-stink-eye/feed/ 0 http://keyboardmilitia.com/2011/10/05/obama-visits-st-louis-but-with-less-star-power/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-visits-st-louis-but-with-less-star-power http://keyboardmilitia.com/2011/10/05/obama-visits-st-louis-but-with-less-star-power/#comments Wed, 05 Oct 2011 06:18:04 +0000 Mark Polege http://keyboardmilitia.com/?p=20378 Last night President Obama visited St.Louis for a $25,000 plate fundraiser courtesy of the Carnahan’s. Across the street from the fundraiser located on Lindell Drive near Forest Park, members of the St.Louis Tea Party stopped by to welcome him with jeers and boos and held signs showing their extreme dissatisfaction of his policies over the past two years. I had the opportunity to capture some images of the event of both the members of the St.Louis Tea Party as well as the handful of Obama supporters.

Adam Sharp of SharpElbows.net and Jim Hoft, the Gateway Pundit, among others.

The show of support for President Obama during his last visit in 2010 was much larger, a far cry from the amount of supporters that turned out for him this time around, shown by my photos from the event in 2010.

This time no “Rednecks for Obama” and no printed union signs showing support.

The handful of Obama supporters

Instead, there was one faded T-shirt, some bad language and accusations of “racism” even toward Congressional Candidate Martin Baker who announced his plans to run for Congress at the 1st Black Conservative Convention which took place in St.Louis back in August and I wrote about on BigGovernment.com.

More on the vial language against Tea Partiers and GOP Candidate Martin Baker can be found on PO’ed Patriot and SharpElbows.net

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

More photos and close-ups from the “Stink Eye Collection.”

Also cross-posted on BigGovernment.com

Updates:

After seeing the faces of some these Obama supporters (in the Stink Eye collection) during the President’s visit from Oct. 4th, hear the actual cursing and racial slurs in the videos below. Note: Videos will be added to this section as they become available.

Black GOP Candidate Called Uncle Tom Ni88er by Obama Supporter:

Obama Supporters Blame Bush For Racist Remarks:

]]> http://keyboardmilitia.com/2011/10/05/obama-visits-st-louis-but-with-less-star-power/feed/ 2 http://keyboardmilitia.com/2011/09/28/obama-returning-to-st-louis-and-the-tea-party-will-be-ready/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-returning-to-st-louis-and-the-tea-party-will-be-ready http://keyboardmilitia.com/2011/09/28/obama-returning-to-st-louis-and-the-tea-party-will-be-ready/#comments Wed, 28 Sep 2011 16:22:11 +0000 Mark Polege http://keyboardmilitia.com/?p=20270 Back in March of 2010 President Obama came to St.Louis to show support for Claire McCaskell in an upcoming election, and to push his government-run healthcare bill known as Obamacare. Very many local Tea Party members made their voices heard.

Here are more photos from the event.

On Tuesday, Oct. 4th President Obama will be returning to St.Louis again, this time to award Tom Carnahan, brother of Robin and Russ Carnahan “$107 million of stimulus dollars for his Missouri windfarm. To show his appreciation, Carnahan will host a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for Obama next week,” as reported by Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit:

Jim Hoft (The Gateway Pundit) leads St. Louis Tea Party Coalition as it joins Americans for Prosperity, United for Missouri, and other organizations on Tuesday, October 4 to protest Stimulus Waste. Yes, the President will be here.

Date: Tuesday, October 4

Time: 5 p.m. to 6:0 p.m. (or maybe later)

Where: Forest Park along Lindell Blvd, west of the History Museum (see map here)

Theme: Waste and Windmills. Solyndra. The Carnahan Family.

Signs: Please be tasteful, irreverent, and funny.

This is NOT The After Party—this is a good, 2009-era street protest. You know just what to do.

Parking: History Museum, Lagoon Dr. and Grand South of History Museum.

Background
Barack Obama will attend a $25,000-per person fundraiser at the home of Tom Carnahan on Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, MO on Tuesday, October 4, 2011. We’ll be there to greet him.

For more information and directions go here.

Come join us.
And remember.. Obama’s green agenda is not about saving the planet. It’s about control.

Time to dust off the camera and see what kind of wild and crazy Lefties show up this time. Here are a few of my favorites from March 2010.

Ooo scarey! Just in time for Halloween!

]]> http://keyboardmilitia.com/2011/09/28/obama-returning-to-st-louis-and-the-tea-party-will-be-ready/feed/ 0 http://keyboardmilitia.com/2011/09/26/sharia-compliant-finance-and-how-we-are-funding-jihad-in-the-heartland/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sharia-compliant-finance-and-how-we-are-funding-jihad-in-the-heartland http://keyboardmilitia.com/2011/09/26/sharia-compliant-finance-and-how-we-are-funding-jihad-in-the-heartland/#comments Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:00:32 +0000 Mark Polege http://keyboardmilitia.com/?p=20194 Sharia-Compliant Finance

While our eyes are on Obama’s mantra of "Pass the Bill!" or the campaigning of Republican hopefuls, one of the least talked about forms of Jihad is making great advancements into our U.S. financial system, Sharia-Compliant Finance. In short Sharia-compliant finance is "reverse money-laundering" for Islamic extremists or fund-raising for Jihad.

Deroy Murdock describes the basics of this financial scheme very well in an article on Human Events from April 4, 2008:

"Imagine that Wall Street banks and brokerages sold Nuremberg-compliant bonds and stock funds in 1938. American Nazi sympathizers bought financial instruments certified by Berlin-based advisors as free of "Jewish profits" from, say, Salomon Brothers and Bloomingdale’s.

In turn, a percentage of such funds’ gains underwrote pro-Nazi charities, like the German-American Bund, and similar organizations in the Fatherland, like the Hitler Youth."

Sharia-compliant finance, in its modern day form, is not specifically required in the Quran. Instead, it merely prohibits financial transactions of having typical interest fees attached to investments or loans (the charging of excessive interest on the loaning of money). In the 1940′s prominent Islamic figure, Maulana Abul Ala Mawdudi, saw the cultural and political Westernizations of Islam as a loss of religious and national identity to the Muslim World.

To offset this perceived threat Mawdudi, along with others, pushed for a separate ideology, separate politics, and separate economics for Muslims. The result was to create a financial investment transactional status referred as being "authorized" or "pure" (halal) and in accordance to Islamic or Sharia Law. "Impure" transactions were ones which involved money from investments in the pork and alcohol-beverage industries, pornography, gambling, interest-based financing and Western defense.

This concept is explained further in a 2008 Robert R. McCormick Foundation & the Center for Security Policy report called "Shariah, Law and ‘Financial Jihad’: How Should America Respond?" In the report it defines:

• Interest: SCF transactions avoid interest through convoluted nominate contracts developed by Shariah authorities based upon classical Islamic forms;
• Risk: SCF transactions eschew risk (uncertainty or speculation) as defined by Shariah authorities;
• Banned Industries: SCF transactions must not include prohibited (haram) activities, including investments in the pork and alcohol-beverage industries, pornography, gambling, interest-based financing and Western defense, based on lists revised monthly by Shariah authorities;
• Obligatory Tithing: SCF can entail contributions of 2.5% of income or more in a charitable gift (known as zakat) that observant Muslims are obliged to make each year. The Shariah advisors are often responsible for determining the recipients of such contributions;
• Obligatory Donation of “Tainted” Revenue: “Purification” is required of a Shariah-compliant investment or financial transaction that has been tainted
  with forbidden revenue, whether from interest, illicit speculation (such as trading in commodity futures) or a forbidden commercial enterprise (such as the pork industry). These “tainted” funds must be purified by donating the revenue to an acceptable charity, again typically selected by Shariah authorities. The recipients of these funds are currently not disclosed and the process is non-transparent. Shariah law requires charitable donations to jihadist combatants (i.e., terrorists) and their families (e.g., the support of families of suicide-homicide bombers).

As stated in the report, Sharia-compliant finance also requires Muslims to make an annual charitable contribution of 2.5% of their income. The chariable contribution (or Zakat) can be in 8 different categories, half of which go toward funding terrorism. In addition, money or funds deemed "tainted" were required to be "purified" by donating the funds to a "chosen" charity, and only the very select group of Sharia Advisors can choose these charities. Many Islamic banks have been and are being built throughout the world and the U.S. to orchestrate these transactions. According to the McCormick Foundation report in 2008, some "400 Islamic banks active in 75 countries with close to a TRILLION dollars under management as of mid-2007." On Sept. 16, 2008, the Washington Times described the McCormick report, in "…conclusion: banks and investment houses offering SCF products may be enabling or engaging in the following: racketeering, antitrust activity, securities fraud, consumer fraud and/or material support for terror." The article goes on to say;

"What makes Shariah-Compliant Finance even more dangerous than subprime is that, in its effort to legitimize and institutionalize Shariah in America, it is advancing a criminal conspiracy whose purpose is the violent overthrow of the United States Constitution and government in favor of Islamic rule. That would make it sedition."

In 2008 Sharia Financial Advisors worldwide numbered less than 100 as many of them sit on 20 to 25 Sharia advisory boards, while collecting an annual income of $50,000 per board. SCF institutions, along with the power and guidance of Sharia advisors, help to fund some of the most violent Jihadist organizations across the world. Oddly enough, despite their financial importance to these banks and institutions along with their strong views to convert the U.S. into an Islamic State, very few of these advisors have any kind of economic or financial credentials.

Sharia-Compliant Financial Advisors

Many of these Sharia Advisors are well connected with terror-supporting or terror-complacent organizations and institutions worldwide and within the U.S. Here are just a few examples of the men chosen as Sharia Financial Advisors for institutions operating within the U.S. and around the world.

Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani – From the McCormick report: "Mufti Taqi Usmani is one of the most prominent living theoreticians of Sunni Islam and perhaps the best known current exponent of the Deobandi school of Islamism. He is also one of the half-a-dozen most authoritative and sought after Shariah experts in the world of Islamic finance today." In his book titled "Islam and Modernism," he states,

"Killing is to continue until the unbelievers pay jizyah (subjugation tax) after they are humbled or overpowered."

• He was a Judge on the Shariah Appellate Bench, Supreme Court of Pakistan, 1982-2002, and also a Judge, Federal Shariah Court of Pakistan, 1980-1982.
• Member of European Council of Fatwa and Research (ECFR), Dublin, Ireland.
• In Sept. 2001 he was among a small delegation of Sharia sympathizers sent to convince Osama Bin Lauden to give up. It was later leaked by some of the clerics present, such as the jihadist Mufti Shamzai, that the delegation may have, actually tried to encourage the Taliban’s will to resist.
• He was terminated or resigned as Chairman of the Shariah Supervisory Board, Dow Jones Islamic Fund in New York, which is managed by the Illinois-based North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). The Trust controls the funds for at least 27% (if not more) of U.S. mosques. It also has close ties to the terror-linked charity Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development shut down by the government in 2001, along ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
• Chairman of Shariah Supervisory Board for Guidance Financial Group and Guidance Residential headquartered in Reston, VA., USA

Bassam Osman – has held leadership roles with institutions listed as un-indicted co-conspirators during 9/11 terror-funding trials and Sharia-compliant financial institutes. Like Usmani, he is also a key executive in the Dow Jones Islamic Fund. He, along with his brother Ayman Osman, are active with the Islamic Academy of Florida which was charged with funding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in 2003 which later changed its name to American Youth Academy.

He also served or lead major positions in many Islamic Organizations:

• Neurologist of Chief of Neurology at Mercy Hospital in Illinois & Professor at University of Illinois School of Medicine.
• President of The Islamic Academy of Florida
• Board Member of Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) which is based in Indiana, was launched in 1981 by the radical Muslim Students’ Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA), and holds the mortgages of 50% to 80% of all U.S. & Canadian mosques.
• Chairman of North American Islamic Trust (NAIT)
• President, Portfolio Manager, and Chairman of the Board of Allied Asset
  Advisors (AAA) which is an Illinois-based no-load mutual fund and is a product of the subsidiary of NAIT.
• Council Representative of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC) which is a council of dozens of Islamic organizations; including the Mosque Foundation (which has raised funds for terrorists like Sami al Arian & dead Palestinian suicide bombers), the Islamic Circle of North America (named as one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s 29 like-minded "organizations of our friends" that shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation.), and the Muslim American Society (whose doctrine include such quotes as, "If you gain victory over the men of Jews, kill them!") to name a few.

Also, according to Chuck Schumer’s testimony for Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security in 2003, Osman, while president of the Illinois Islamic organization the Quranic Literary Institute, had $1.4 million in assets seized by the Justice Department in June 1998 on the grounds that it was used to support Hamas terrorist activities.

Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah – is one of the handful of prominent figures in the area of Sharia and Islamic finance whose expertise is continually sought by numerous Sharia Boards. Like Osman, he has been careful not to publicly make any controversial political statements. However, his connections and affiliations with a number of Shariah-adherent Islamic organizations and terror-linked groups leave little doubt to his true beliefs of Jihad against the West.

Ghuddah affiliations are numerous but here are a few:

• Expert at the Islamic Fiqh Academy (member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) of the Muslim World League (MWL) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which was created through the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) headed by Osama Bin Lauden’s brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. "IIRO and the closely related Muslim World League were both part of a Herndon, Virginia-based terror network, discovered by the United States government to have had connections to such organizations as al Qaeda (a.k.a. al Qaida), Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas."
• Director of the Department of Financial Instruments and Islamic Research for the Dallah al-Baraka Group (owned by Saleh Abdullah Kamel), 1992-Present. As reported in the Weekly Standard on Aug.18, 2003, "Saleh Abdullah Kamel, whose name appears in the "Golden Chain," a roster seized by Bosnian authorities in Sarajevo in March 2002 listing Saudi donors to bin Laden and his associates. Kamel is named as a supplier of funds to Adil Abdeljalil Batterjee, founder of the Benevolence International Foundation, designated a terror-financing entity by the Treasury Department."
• Member of the Shariah Supervisory Board, Dow Jones Islamic Market Index (IMANX)
• Chairman of Shariah Supervisory Board, Al Baraka Investment and
  Development Corporation (also owned by Saleh Abdullah Kamel). Al Baraka Investment and
  Development Corp., along with Dallah al-Baraka Group, CAIR, IIRO, and others were named as co-conspirators in a 2004 Class Action Lawsuit in the death of WTC Chief of Security John P. O’Neill for the crimes of raising, laundering, and transferring funds for Osama Bin Lauden for the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. President Obama urged the Supreme Court to drop the case in 2009 shortly before a trip to Saudi Arabia.
• Chairman of Executive Committee, Unicorn Investment Bank which also has a branch office in Chicago, Illinois.

Legal Risks of Sharia-Compliant Finance

Sharia-compliant finance at the very least requires willful neglect by its investors into non-transparent, unmonitored, and unregulated investments. These select investment advisors have peripheral, but usually direct, links to terrorist-funding or actual terrorist organizations. Needless to say, any funds invested could potentially be used to aid terrorist organizations, and in turn could easily be frozen or confiscated as with funds used by other criminal organizations. Does that sound like a safe place for your money?

An investment is suppose to be a safe location to either protect your money or invest for your future. Also, those investing or donating the money on your behalf are required to do their due diligence to investigate these entities for any terrorist connections. This is impossible with the guarded nature of Sharia-compliant advisors and the funds or entities they deem "pure."

In addition, charities in the U.S. are required by law to show where exactly the money is going. This is what protects donors from unintentionally funding the pockets of criminals or charlatans. We’ve usually heard about criminals like this shortly after 9/11 or after many natural disasters. Despite the risks, many are throwing caution to the wind and investing or donating in Sharia-compliant funds and charities whose only oversight is a small, guarded group connected to active Jihadists. A perfect example of this is the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF). Once called "America’s largest Islamic charity" was later discovered to be funding the terrorist organization of Hamas.

Criminal liability exposure according to the McCormick Report:

"On close examination, it is clear that Shariah-compliant finance does indeed expose the financial institutions and other businesses involved in this industry to a whole host of disclosure, due diligence, and compliance issues – all of which elevate substantially the civil liability and criminal exposure such companies otherwise factor into their business risk profiles. To date, however, very little of this increased civil and criminal exposure has been recognized or analyzed – let alone been guarded against – in any meaningful way."

Below is a list of civil or criminal charges Sharia-compliant finance exposes to its donors and investors:

Racketeering (RICO): The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (commonly referred to as RICO) is a U.S. federal law that extends criminal penalties for a "pattern of racketeering activity" which include bank fraud and money laundering.

RICO is violated when a defendant – or, in this case, a cadre of defendants acting as Shariah authorities – engage in a "pattern of racketeering activity" and have:

• Invested income from a pattern of racketeering activity in an "enterprise";
• Acquired or maintained an interest in an "enterprise" through a pattern of racketeering activity;
• Conducted or participated in the affairs of an "enterprise" through a pattern of racketeering activity;
• Conspired to do any of the above.

One example of this is the Allied Mortgage fraud ring where 24 were arrested on RICO charges in 2009. The 24 arrested included "straw buyers" (as part of the fraud) as well as tax preparers and a CPA. As FBI Special Agent in Charge, Keith Slotter put it, "It shows how seriously we take the crime. … It’s the most serious charge you could go with." In the case of Sharia-compliant finance, the criminal "enterprise" is the entire Sharia-compliant industry because financial institutions chose to open their doors and grant exclusive and sweeping control of their funds to men who have documented or who have granted "material support or resources" to terror organizations who wish to do the U.S. harm.

Fraud: In a post-9/11 nation, the state & federal securities laws, state consumer anti-fraud laws, and common laws all require full disclosure to the investor. What constitutes a lack of full disclosure is the lack of material provided on associations, the fatwas and writings of the Sharia advisors, as well as the possible terrorist or jihadist groups who would receive the "purified" funds. This is required material for investors, however, in Sharia-compliant finance none of this information, if any, is provided. In its own Islamic context, Sharia advisors are above reproach and not subject to scrutiny or analysis. With this complete lack of oversight or regulation in the SCF industry, the risk to the investors’ funds are not limited strictly to forces within specific business terms and market conditions alone. One fraud law in particular which SCF is susceptible is:

• Common Law Tort Action for Deceit or Fraud: Common Law Fraud is considered; 1. a false representation of, 2. a material fact which, 3. the defendant knew to be false with the intent, 4. to induce the plaintiff to rely upon it and, 5. the plaintiff in fact justifiably relied upon the representation, thereby, 6. suffering damages as a result. In other words, not providing information on Sharia or the Sharia advisors could be considered an omission in which a common law violation may be filed in the plaintiff’s state.

Material Support of Terror: With SCF’s requirement of charitable donations, or zakats, to be "purified, " there are questions legislators, investors, attorneys, and the public should definitely be asking of a financial industry with very little oversight or regulation in place. The McCormick Foundation’s report entitled "Shariah, Law and ‘Financial Jihad’: How Should America Respond?" points out some very good questions which should be answered before spending a dime lest it end up in the pockets of al Qaeda.:

• Who decides what happens to the zakat funds?
• Which charities are selected, and by what criteria?
• What tracking mechanisms are in place to trace these funds?
• If regulators usually do not know which charities are being funded, and no tracking mechanism is in place, is this due to ignorance of the potential for funding terrorism, or willful blindness?
• Who is liable if Shariah-compliant funds are indeed funding terrorism and training for jihadists: the funds themselves? The regulators? The investors? The shariah advisors?

Considering there is a known history between large Muslim charities and jihadist terror groups, it begs the question; is ignorance or willful blindness a defense for funding terrorists? In this post-9/11 world, it is investors and financial entities which are becoming more and more culpable. In other words, if you stand outside a terrorist training camp and hand the first person you see $1000, what are the chances it will be a terrorist? It should surprise no one that men with the resumes they have would send funds in the direction of groups they are already passionate toward.

Reverse Money-Laundering: The reverse money-laundering scheme works like this; move completely legitimate funds into U.S. businesses (and municipalities) through Sharia-compliant finance banks or charities, then direct funds to domestic or overseas charities or organizations with some being directly tied to terrorist or jihad groups. Transactions like this are tough to spot without regulation, or even surveillance, unless it is already in place. There are (2) ways in which the funds are moved and directed:

• As obliged by Islam, faithful Muslims donate a certain percentage of their income to charities through SCF charities or businesses. In the Middle East that amount is calculated by Sharia advisors, however, in the U.S. it is more common that the individual investor decides on an amount. Questions: Which charities are Shariah-compliant? Who makes this determination? Do the businesses or financial institutions direct these contributions or are these decisions made by the Shariah authorities? Is there any vetting of the recipients of these charities to determine what they do with these funds? Why is this process not transparent?
• When gross income of a business or investment is deemed to have come from Shariah-prohibited sources, or the funds are somehow "not purified" from a previous attempt, such "tainted" funds can only be purified by being donated to a Sharia-complaint charity. As a rule such charitable contributions are not fully disclosed in public filings of U.S. SCF financial institutions.

The practice of Muslim charities funneling money to terrorist organizations is so prevalent throughout the world that the U.S. has a running list of organizations they monitor. The (3) largest Muslim charities operating in the U.S. have all had assets frozen and eventually were shutdown. Asking the questions of who benefits from SCF contributions, what is the charities mission, and do they send money overseas would be a good place to start in learning if we are working to fund the jihad against us.

Anti-Trust and Collusion: In 2008 the McCormick Foundation counted about 60 Sharia-compliant advisors worldwide, today that number is reported to be less than 200. Currently, there is a move to universalize the entry process in becoming a Sharia-compliance advisor driven by Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions ("AAOIFI") and the Islamic Financial Services Board ("IFSB"). The move to design universal standards for a newcomer to enter this guarded group has serious anti-trust issues. Since the current Sharia finance advisors have complete control over the entire market share for SCF, this certainly creates a conflict of interest in having the existing group decide the requirements for a new SCF advisor.

For more detailed information on Sharia-compliant finance along with case studies on the Dow Jones Islamic Index, the Dow Jones Islamic Fund (DJIF), Caribou Coffee, and others, I recommend you take the time to read the McCormick Foundation report, "Shariah, Law and ‘Financial Jihad’: How Should America Respond?". It is clear that one of the best guarded secrets in Sharia-Compliant Finance is how the advisors choose which charities or investments to send money, and what these charities or investments help fund. This small group of SCF advisors already have documented views against the U.S. In addition, one of the factors that help deem funds "impure" is specifically "Western defense." This should be an obvious red flag to any individual, business, municipality, or government who chooses to invest in SCF financial products. Unfortunately, despite the seditiousness of these products, some are only seeing dollar signs and among them is our own federal government.

Financing Jihad in the U.S.

In June of 2010 Pajamas Media reported that President Obama appointed Samar Ali as one of the White House Fellows for 2010. She comes from the law firm of Hogan Lovells, and at the reporting of this article it was one of the few law firms in the U.S. specializing in Sharia-compliant finance. As PM pointed out which the Left press did not was:

Samar’s experience includes advising a Middle Eastern university in the potential establishment of a Foreign Aid Conventional and Shari’ah Compliant Student Loan Program. … Before joining Hogan & Hartson, Samar worked as a summer associate for the firm and as a legal intern for the Islamic International Arab Bank.

PM also reported that the White House press release stated that Ms. Ali "is a founding member of the first U.S. Delegation to the World Islamic Economic Forum." What was missed is that the foundation that runs this forum has none other than Saleh Abdullah Kamel on their International Advisory Panel. This is the same Kamel that was mentioned on the "Golden Chain" roster as an un-indicted co-conspirator in helping Osama bin Laden funnel money for the 9/11 attacks. In addition, months later the White House directed $240 million to the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), through Sharia-compliant banks to the Affordable Mortgage and Loan Corporation (AMAL) mortgage finance program to help build housing for Fatah-run areas and Hamas with our tax dollars, as reported by Creeping Sharia.

A number of U.S. banking entities are also looking to SCF products to make money while moving it to our enemies. One such bank, as reported by WorldNetDaily in June of 2010, is AIG. A couple others which I’d like to focus on are Devon Bank and Unicorn Investment Bank, both located in Chicago.

Devon Bank has been selling Sharia-compliant finance home mortgage products since the early 2000′s, as reported by Creeping Sharia. In 2005 Devon Bank increased to a 10 state-wide span with the help of giant mortgage broker Freddie Mac, and in 2008 that number grew to 36 states according to USA Today. Also, in 2009 Freddie Mac received $30.8 billion in federal aid to bail them out, so in essence, taxpayers are funding this Sharia-compliant financing on a national level.

One observation I made is that on their website at DevonBank.com they list their Chicago headquarters at 6445 N. Western Ave. Chicago, IL 60645. What is interesting is that they also have a website at DevonBank.com/Islam/ but there is no mention of Sharia or Islam or even a link from DevonBank.com to DevonBank.com/Islam/ yet they both have the same contact information. Do you suppose that Devon Bank does not want their non-Muslim customers to openly know about their Muslim customers? The closest they come to mentioning Sharia-compliant finance or Islam is using the terms "faith-based financing." Do you suppose they mean "Christian?" Just to be sure I tried DevonBank.com/Christian/, no such website. Maybe Illinois Representative Jan Schakowsky knows why.

Devon Bank states on their "Islam" website that their products were reviewed "by the Honorable Mufti Muhammad Nawal-ur-Rahman and the Shariah Supervisory Board of America, located near Devon Bank’s main office in the Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park." The Rahmat-e-Alam Foundation, which runs the Sharia Supervisory Board of America, was founded by Mufti Muhammad Nawal-ur-Rahman, whose bio now only exists on a handful of forum websites, but oddly does not (proudly) appear on any of the (3) websites the Rahmat-e-Alam Foundation runs. In the bio it describes how he is a Sharia advisor for the Sharia Supervisory Board of America along with; Vice-President: Maulana Mufti Taqi Usmani whose book quotes, "Killing is to continue until the unbelievers pay jizyah (subjugation tax) after they are humbled or overpowered," as mentioned above.

The Unicorn Investment Bank is another Sharia-compliant finance entity also located in Chicago. It has Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah sitting as the Chairman of the Executive Committee, who is well verse in funneling funds to terrorist groups as he has done for Osama bin Lauden’s brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa with the IIRO and for Saleh Abdullah Kamel through the Benevolence International Foundation for the attacks on 9/11.

Another person worth mentioning who also has Unicorn Investment Bank on their resume is Tariq Malhance. According to UIB’s website Malhance retired from a 25-year career in Chicago City Government, holding positions which include "City Comptroller, three years as First Deputy City Treasurer, Managing Deputy Comptroller for Debt and Asset Management, and Deputy Comptroller for Financial Policy." In 2005 he joined UIB as Senior Vice President of Private Equity and President of its wholly owned subsidiary, UIB Capital, Inc., in Chicago. His responsibilities were "originating and facilitating senior loans for private equity deals in North America while being based in UIB Capital’s offices in Chicago." As he stated on the website, "I am excited to be joining UIB Capital, Inc. because of its ability to innovate whilst fusing Shari’ah with international banking best practice. " After 6 years of working for UIB, in January 2011 Malhance left to take the position as Chief Financial Officer for Cook County, courtesy of an invitation by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. Tariq Malhance also servers as Vice-Chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago whose member organizations include; Islamic Circle of North America (known for their anti-semitic views and support for terrorist organizations), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) (who seek to transform students into activists against Israel), Muslim American Society (which blames the U.S. for the attacks on 9/11), and Universal School, (who has on its school board, SCF Advisor Bassam Osman).

If it seems like many of these terror-linked Sharia groups, entities, and organizations are centered around the Chicago region, it may not be by coincidence. As published on DePaul University’s website, they describe the comments of an MBA student Denise Foy who states, "In Islamic banking, the reasons for investing are not all about money – it’s also about helping people, " in reaction to DePaul Finance Professor, Karen Hunt-Ahmed, about a seminar on Islamic Banking on March 13, 2008.

I think the MBA student hit the nail on the head. Progressives/Liberals have always had the practice of wanting to help people (or govern them) so bad that they don’t let basic economics or national security get in the way. What better landscape than Chicago to convince potential "investors," under the guise of "charity" to trust in a financial system that claims to donate to good causes, chosen by a group of terror-linked men, with absolutely no accountability? It would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous. This is the biggest problem with Sharia-compliant finance as well as the best way to pitch it to the U.S. "I can make money AND help people?…Great! Where do I sign?"

Those marketing Sharia-compliant finance banks and products have done it so successfully that even U.S. government entities have bought this line of unvetted, unregulated, uninvestigated bull so completely. They hide the truth of SCF’s unaccountability behind such buzz words as; "interest-free," "ethical," and "socially responsible" investing. It is one thing for individual investors, donors, and businesses to use this ‘corrupt from the top-down’ financial system. However, when cities and municipalities start using this kind of a system for retirement, infrastructure/building projects, education, and more, the money we would be potentially putting in the hands of terrorist hell-bent on killing us would be breath-taking, much like our debt now. One such project is looking to do just that, and its called the Chicago Islamic Microfinance Project.

Chicago Islamic Microfinance Project

What is microfinance? The short answer is microfinance is a group of financial services, like credit or loans, aimed at helping low-income people have the same access to banking services as those of higher incomes. It is, however, not just simply a group of products or services, but in some regards it is a movement for solidarity lending. It has been used as a vehicle to help impoverished countries, but has questionable results of success as described in a Jan. 2011 article on NPR’s website about a study on microfinance in India. The article states, "No evidence was found to suggest that microcredit empowers women or improves health or educational outcomes."

The Chicago Islamic Microfinance Project is the brainchild of DePaul University Finance Professor Karen Hunt-Ahmed along with partners Law Professor Cynthia Shawamreh and, now CFO of Cook County Illinois, Tariq Malhance. According to their development project presentation, which can be downloaded in PDF (also here), they first aim to collect $10 million in charitable contributions. In addition to the $10 million, another $5 million, described as an "additional endowment" would be required to pay for "salaries and benefits of two professors, two staff assistants and soft costs associated with the initiation of the project for the five-year pilot period." Then, they will dole out $10,000 to $200,000 in "Mudaraba structured" partnerships for business or development projects which will be selected with the help of their "Investment Advisory Board." From the presentation:

"We will develop investment underwriting criteria, approved by Shariah Board scholars, to govern the selection of each investment project. Each proposed Mudaraba partnership project will be presented to the Investment Advisory Board for approval to ensure compliance with sound, Shariah-compliant underwriting investment criteria."

The projects, as mentioned in the presentation could "include the area around the Muslim Community Center and Devon Bank on the northwest side, and the area around the University of Chicago on the south side." It is worth noting that partner Tariq Malhance just happens to also be the President of Chicago’s oldest mosque, the Muslim Community Center of Chicago since 2008. I’m sure there is no conflict of interest there.

As for the Investment Advisory Board, maybe their Sharia-compliant advisor of their choice will be Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah, since he already is the Chairman of Executive Committee of Chicago’s Unicorn Investment Bank, and Finance Professor Karen Hunt-Ahmed has a former co-worker from SHUAA Capital in Dubai, Jamal Bin Ghalaita, who also works at terror-linked Dallah al-Baraka Group where Ghuddah is Chairman of the Supervisory Board, as mentioned above. They may also pick Maulana Mufti Taqi Usmani who is already associated with Devon Bank in Chicago. Both have excellent experience with terror-linked charities, funneling money, and having their charities shutdown by the government.

Sharia-Compliant Finance is a vehicle to convince potential "investors," under the guise of "charity" or "investment," to trust in a financial system that claims to donate to good causes and provide "faith-based financing." Though these financial transactions claim to be faith-based, they are subjugated and directed by an elite group of terror-linked men with Jihadists and antisemitic views with absolutely no accountability or oversight. There is evidence the world over of Sharia and Islam circumventing or outright ignoring secular laws. With the practice of SCF’s secretive and unquestioned control of funds deemed "tainted" and at the their disposal, it does not take an economist or mathematician to realize that these funds will find their way to those with views as radical and dangerous as the Sharia advisors.

It is clear that very many terror-linked groups and organizations have set-up shop in or around the Chicago area. Why exactly may be up for debate, but nonetheless they are there. A ‘Sharia America’ will hurt and absolutely control Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It is only through the efforts of individual-freedom-loving Muslims, and non-Muslims alike, working together to identify and expose these financial jihadi tactics which will shutdown this pipeline of funds to terrorists. As Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, President of American Islamic Forum for Democracy states:

"Sharia-compliant finance only empowers Muslim Sharia Law leaders whose real long term vision is to impose Sharia Law on the world and recreate an Islamic Empire. These leaders want to overpower capital free markets and create their version of an Islamic economy. Bankers and business leaders are being duped." – Video.

Some financial entities who have various kinds of Sharia-compliant finance products or services include; Citibank, UBS, AIG, Dowjones, HSBC, MasterCard, and Visa. I would also add that it is not just bankers and businesses being duped, but also the Liberal/Progressive Left and anyone else not looking past the word "charity" or "investment."

We must perform our due diligence in investigating where EXACTLY our money goes, and push our elected officials to do the same. If not, then eventually with every loan payment, house payment, utility payment, or bank transaction from soda to sailboats will have "a portion of these proceeds go toward the support of al Qaeda and the end of the free world."

Also posted on Breitbart’s BigPeace.com

Would you allow a murder to teach your children? What about their friends who support their actions, would they make good teachers? What if the actions these people support involved sex with minors or the mutilating of women? How about the killing someone because they’re gay, is that acceptable? What if we go through and kill all the Atheists, Jews, Christians, Mormons, Muslims, and maybe all the Liberals, Conservatives, Communists, and Capitalists, just to be safe? Does that sound like a good plan? So who is left? Pretty much no one except the animals.

We live in a country that though we disagree with another person’s belief or point of view, it is unlawful to abuse, mutilate, or kill them. The individual has rights and those rights are enforced by our courts and our Constitution. When we encounter people whose actions differ from these rights, we arrest them for the promotion as well as the actions themselves. A good example of this is pedophiles. We not only arrest those who actually have sex with children, we arrest those who promote it. Would it surprise you to know that all the actions described in the first paragraph are all part of the belief doctrine of Sharia Law?

If we look at Muslim countries around the world that obey Sharia Law, those actions listed above are commonplace. What does that have to do with the U.S.? More than you think.

Sharia Law is being integrated into some parts of U.S. communities much like it has in the UK, but is being fought back to some degree in countries like Australia.

A survey conducted by Mapping Sharia discovered that of 100 randomly selected mosques in the U.S., 51% had texts on site rated as severely advocating violence; 30% had texts rated as moderately advocating violence; and 19% had no violent texts at all.
Also discovered was that 84.5% of those mosques had imams recommending the reading of pro-violence texts. 58% of those mosques also invited guest imams to speak who promote violent jihad. Sharia-adherent mosques were more likely to recommend that a worshipper study violence-positive texts.

The texts referred to above are the Koran and the Hadith, the "Koran and the Hadith are accepted as infallible sources because they are the foundations and title-deeds of the religion of Islam. " The Koran and the Hadith promote Jihad, which is the conversion to Islam or the eradication of non-believers. This can take place in one of 3 ways; financial, cultural, or violent.
Joy Brighton at Stop Sharia Now & ACT for America explains this very well.

What sets Muslim’s Sharia Law apart from other religious beliefs in the U.S. is that they believe their Sharia court system supersedes our U.S. courts and our Constitution. Essentially, the outdated, barbaric practices by Muslims according to Sharia Law are applied to punishments, according to their interpretation of today’s crimes and righteous indignation. Those practices have included; beaten for drinking, wife beating, acid thrown in face of women [Warning: Graphic], stoning women, polygamy and pedophilia, child brides, female circumcision, death to those who do not convert to Islam, execution of Muslims who refuse Sharia Law, treating women as slaves or property, forced marriages, death to homosexuals, and even crucifixions.

Some countries that practice Sharia Law are, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, and some terror organizations that include Hamas, Hezbollah, Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HUT), Taliban, Al Qaeda, and President Obama’s new outreach recipient, the Muslim Brotherhood. Countries who have suffered from Sharia Law killings include Egypt, Pakistan, Indonia, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Canada, the U.S., and others.

Sharia Law is not solely the practicing law of Islam, it is a religious movement as well as a social-political movement like Nazism or Communism. In fact, with Sharia Law’s complete and extreme prejudice against non-believers of Islam, their practicing ideology might be more closely recognized to that of White Supremacists. Both have strong tyrannical order and punishment that can lead to death. Granted, White Supremacists, at least in the U.S., may not publicly hang those they deem deserving as they did several decades ago, but the ideology of requiring the world around them to obey their order or suffer extreme consequences is the same.

Maybe it is our history of White Supremacy groups that has made our country tone deaf to this kind of ideological infiltration. In this ‘politically correct’ world we have allowed, in an effort to be more "open," many ideologies to flourish that do not represent America’s Constitutional persona. For over 100 years different religious and political ideologies have been able to take a foothold in the U.S. One such example was a Nazi Convention in Madison Square Garden in NYC in 1938. Though we have had major flare ups over the years, we have successfully held them back from completely alternating our governmental process…so far. As some have said, ‘political correctness’ could be our Achilles Heel. Bill Cosby once said, I paraphrase, ‘don’t be so open that your brains fall out.’

One reason for the propagation of recent Islamic growth throughout the world, coupled with violence, may be related to the book, "Jihad in Islam." This book is the text of a speech by Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi given in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1939. A few words of Maududi’s speech clarifies what he believes is the mission of Islam, though the entire speech is chilling and worth reading.

"In reality Islam is a revolutionary ideology and programme which seeks to alter the social order of the whole world and rebuild it in conformity with its own tenets and ideals."
.. "Islam wishes to destroy all States and Governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it."

Maududi’s other lectures, along with his speeches, were published into a book entitled "Fundamentals of Islam." Since the days of WWII his words have been published into several different languages and in the forms of hardcover, paperback, and online. Because of the time period, Maududi makes references to his "enemies" not as Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. Instead his "enemies" are western European countries like England and France. Since Maududi’s influences were Leninist revolutionaries, his hatred of freer, western culture is not surprising. With the technological advancements of the Internet, Facebook, Youtube, PDF filesharing, and the help of the International Islamic Federation Of Student Organizations, their "moderate" facade of Maududi’s violent, revolutionary doctrine continues to spread at an alarming rate.

Islam is so much more than simply a religion. As Frontpage Magazine puts it on April 21, 2008 in an article titled "What Islam Isn’t," Islam is described as a complete belief system with "religious, legal, political, economic, and military components. " The typical tactic in which Islam and Sharia infiltrates, and later incorporates, itself into a country is by its believers establishing small ghettos or communities. Within those communities the local imam controls by dictating all aspect of life with the hanging threat of their wicked punishments. The more that community grows, the less they respect or recognize the authority of the country in which the community inhabits. This method is usually referred to as "civilization Jihad" or "stealth Jihad." A good example of the level of Islamic growth in proportion to the amount of control and violence they weld is well recorded throughout the nations of the world. Here is a statistical table from "What Islam Isn’t":

"As long as the Muslim population remains around 1% of any given country they will be regarded as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to anyone. In fact, they may be featured in articles and films, stereotyped for their colorful uniqueness:

United States — Muslim 1.0%
Australia — Muslim 1.5%
Canada — Muslim 1.9%
China — Muslim 1%-2%
Italy — Muslim 1.5%
Norway — Muslim 1.8%

At 2% and 3% they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs:

Denmark — Muslim 2%
Germany — Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom — Muslim 2.7%
Spain — Muslim 4%
Thailand — Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population.

They will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature it on their shelves — along with threats for failure to comply. ( United States ).

France — Muslim 8%
Philippines — Muslim 5%
Sweden — Muslim 5%
Switzerland — Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands — Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad &Tobago — Muslim 5.8%

At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islam is not to convert the world but to establish Sharia law over the entire world, and with an alarming growing population of Muslims in almost every country in the world, they may just do that."

This video does an even better job of explaining the correlation between the percentage of Muslim communities in a country verses the increase in violence and civil unrest.

As with the U.S., Mexico is also a country with a growing Muslim population. Reported at around 1% in 2008, that number is surely on the rise. It has also been reported that Hezbollah has begun working with Mexican Drug Cartels to assist in constructing; tunnels, gun running networks, roadside bombs, and methods to extend their terrorist network.

Canada also has large problems with the infiltration of Sharia Law. The public school of Valley Park Middle School in Toronto now conducts prayers before lunch every Friday in the cafeteria in accordance with Sharia Law. This means that during prayers there are 3 rows of middle school children. The front row is the boys, the second row is the girls, and the third row is girls who are currently menstruating. Needless to say, this age can be an embarrassing time for your girls and being publicly divided for this reason alone can have a devastating effect on any young girl.

The population of Muslims in the U.S. is estimated at 2.8 million according the findings of a Pew report from 2010. Pew also states that by 2030 the Muslim population in the U.S. could reach 6.2 million. As a result, the use of Sharia Law has already begun to show up in U.S. courtrooms in 17 court cases across 11 states. One example is the "cultural defense" of a New Jersey man from Morocco which had sex with his wife repeatedly against her will. The Defendant described his reasons why this was not a crime.

"This is according to our religion. You are my wife, I c[an] do anything to you. The woman, she should submit and do anything I ask her to do."

For any other American or foreign citizen, this would be a crime of rape. However, because women are seen much like property according to Sharia Law, this hanus act is not even considered a misdemeanor. For a religion that claims to be one of love and peace, it is acts like this that express neither. In fact, Muslim women in the U.S. began by calling for the federal government to help end gender segregation.

Despite the cries for individual freedom by Muslims living in the U.S., our own Voice of America assists in candy-coating terror-supported Muslim groups like the Muslim Public Service Network (MPSN) and the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In addition, President Obama’s attempts, either through ignorance or arrogance, to give legitimacy and acceptance to the beliefs of the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama has done more damage in our fight against terrorism than anyone may truly realize. In fact, it is President Obama which has been assisting the Brotherhood in repackaging themselves for a kinder, gentler American and world public. Part of their repackaging is their new party name, the "Freedom & Justice Party." I must confess, at first I thought this was a new Progressive organization, in some ways I was right.

Sharia Law and Jihad

Financial: One of the least known and least visible ways in which Sharia Law is infiltrating the U.S. is through Sharia Compliant Finance (SCF). What is "Sharia-compliant Finance?" Sharia-compliant finance works to institutionalize and legitimize Sharia Law, which Sharia Finance Watch describes as "a theo-political-legal doctrine violently opposed to Western values. " Muslims are religiously ‘urged’ to invest in "purified" funds, institutions or charities. These would be charities or investments that have been used to help spread Sharia Law, Jihad, and terrorism. A few examples of this practice were 3 of the largest Sharia-compliant charities in the U.S., The Holy Land Foundation, Benevolence International Foundation, and the Global Relief Foundation. The government later shut these charities down after it was proven they helped fund terrorist organizations like Hamas. There is more here on Sharia-compliant finance. Sharia Finance Watch explains:

"Promoting Shariah encapsulates Muslim communities from mainstream society and even creates enclaves controlled by Shariah. Shariah-compliant finance plays a particular role in this because, a devout Muslim living in a Western country in which there are no Shariah-compliant banks are allowed to use conventional "infidel" institutions under the Sharia doctrine of "extreme necessity." However, once Shariah-compliant institutions do exist, they are religiously obligated to patronize them exclusively. Thus, by allowing the spread of Shariah finance in the West and the US, we are pushing Muslims toward Shariah."

This can also be explained by an interview between Rep. Sue Mrick and Marshall Sana, Director of Communications for the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity:

It is worth asking the question, if an American bank, business, or charity was caught laundering money, willfully funding an organization that promoted and practiced violence, for example let’s just say "The Mob, " what would the government or law enforcement officials do about it? They would prosecute them of course. Now extend that layer by saying this "Mob" also used those funds to perform violent acts here or in other countries, to the extent of abuse, mutilations, murder, mass destruction, and even terrorism. Would the government prosecute "the Mob?" Wouldn’t the government also prosecute the willful investors of a mob? Of course they would. We have a history of prosecuting criminal enterprises and those who fund them. These Sharia-compliant banks, charities, and other entities are no different.

Educational: Another method in which Sharia Law is being spread throughout the U.S. is in our schools, from elementary to college & university campuses. One such example in the U.S. is with the school children at the Mansfield Independent School District in Texas. WTAA in Dallas reported that the school district planned on incorporating a new class on the Arabic language and culture, all to the total surprise of the children’s own parents. It was planned to be a "mandatory" class due to a grant from the Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) from the Department of Education. This may seem like a benign example but without parents’ active and guarded involvement in their child’s education, the result can develop into a situation like the Valley Park Middle School in Toronto, Canada. As David Horowitz has said, “I am skeptical about the district’s claim that the courses will be, or remain, about language and culture, and not about the Islamic religion. In Islam one cannot separate culture from religion.”

The Department of Education has been doing its own part in spreading Islamic culture, and in turn Sharia Law. This is also most certainly true in our nation’s colleges and universities. Here is a list of student organizations teaching Sharia Law in the U.S. along with some of their low points:

• Al-Maghrib Institute: The Investigative Report on Terrorism reported on Feb. 14, 2011:
  

  Teachers at Houston-based AlMaghrib Institute have advocated Sharia law to students, both in recent statements about events in Egypt and more generally in the past. The organization has also advocated violence in the cause of Islam.

  Muhammad AlShareef, the director and founder of AlMaghrib Institute, has given speeches like “Why the Jews are Cursed” and “The World’s Bravest People.”

• Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA): As reported by Creeping Sharia, April 5th, 2011:
  

  [In their] seventh annual American conference in Houston (October 15-18, 2010) to train American imams, AMJA has issued rulings which sanction the killing of apostates, "blasphemers" (including non-Muslims guilty of this "crime"), or adulterers (by stoning to death), and condone marital rape and female genital mutilation. Moreover, AMJA, despite some equivocation, has also issued a blatantly anti-American fatwa directed at U.S. troops and their mission, which was deemed an "occupation." Indeed, as AMJA cleric Katem Al-Hajj explained in a 23 page 2007 fatwa forbidding U.S. Muslims to work for the FBI or U.S. security services because of the ostensible harm these institutions cause Muslims, Muslim minorities in non-Islamic countries are "subject to man-made laws, which Islamic law [Sharia] does not recognize, either fully or in part."

• Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA): The ICNA has been investigated by the FBI more than once, has a track record of inviting anti-American radicals to speak at their annual conventions. Discover the Networks also reports that the INCA was named in a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document titled "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America":
  

  ""as one of the Brotherhood’s 29 like minded “organizations of our friends” that shared the common goal of destroying America and turning it into a Muslim nation. These “friends” were identified
  by the Brotherhood as groups that could help teach Muslims “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 … so that … God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions.”

• Muslim Student Association of American & Canada (also known as MSA National): Launched in 1963 by Muslim Brotherhood members at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the MSA was the first MB affiliate to opening up in the U.S. As the most influential Islamic student organization in North America, it also help start up to 600 chapters on campuses with about 150 of them directly associated with MSA National. The rest are independently operated. Discover the Networks reports that on MSA National’s website, it proudly proclaims that it helped launch the following Islamic organizations:
  

  MSA National was the precursor of ISNA [the Islamic
  Society of North America], ICNA [the Islamic
  Circle of North America], MAYA [the Muslim
  Arab Youth Association], IMA [the Islamic
  Medical Association of North America], AMSS [the Association
  of Muslim Social Scientists], AMSE [the Association
  of Muslim Scientists and Engineers], MYNA [Muslim
  Youth of North America], Islamic
  Book Service, and the North
  American Islamic Trust.

During a speech for "Israel Apartheid Week" hosted by the Young Americans for Freedom at the University of California San Diego, David Horowitz was asked a question by a student to explain the connection between MSA and Jihad terrorist networks. After the student’s pitch for "Hitler Youth Week " hosted by MSA, the rest you need to hear for yourself.

It is worth noting that the organizations listed here are only a few. There are many, many other Muslim groups and organizations worldwide that work to promote Sharia Law, Jihad in the Islamic religion, and death to anyone who does not share their beliefs.

Cultural: As referenced earlier, many Muslim communities or neighborhoods are urged not to integrate with other citizens of a country with which they live. This is advised in every aspect of life, from finance to education to culture. Nothing is more prominent of this than the bright yellow signs showing up in some communities in the UK which read "You are entering a Sharia-controlled zone – Islamic rules enforced." Just the mere posting of these signs shows their complete disregard and lack of respect for governing laws in the country in which some of these "ghettos" have settled. However, this is very apparent in the U.S. Arab community of Dearborn, Michigan, where in their "No-Go Zone" they hold their annual "Arab Festival."

First, in 2009 a small group of Christians started out by asking questions about a Muslim brochure from one of their festival’s booths at another booth with a sign that read, "Islam: Got Questions? Get Answers." As you can see from their video, the reaction from security and even the police did not go over too well. In fact, the police of Dearborn pressed charges which were not substantiated by the video the group’s cameras caught. Needless to say, the Constitutional rights of Free Speech were violated in this incident and have continued by one degree or another in this community since this event.

Another example is the story of Kenneth Gamble in Philadelphia who has received $1.6 million in U.S. tax-payer funded grants for his charity Universal Company. Gamble’s stated goal was to clean up a dilapidated section of Philly, but local residents say that the $1.6 million has been used to build a Muslim ghetto. This is further supported by Gamble’s own statement, "We are not here for Universal, we are here for Islam." Even the website ‘Muslims Against Sharia’ has spoken out against Kenneth Gamble.

Violent: Violence is the final form of Jihad to take place in a country once the terror-supporting Muslim populations have been built up enough. As stated in an article titled "Muslim Brotherhood Declares War on America; Will America Notice?" – "there is a far bigger and wider battle going on in which revolutionary Islamists seek to overthrow their own rulers and wage long-term, full-scale struggle against the West. If it doesn’t involve violence right now it will when they get strong enough or gain power." Despite their belief of Jihad against the West, President Obama still thinks his kind words will help create peace with the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qeada are two sides of the same sword. Where Al Qeada wishes for an "armed struggle" to conquer the U.S., the Muslim Brotherhood has a more long term calculated approach through cultural infiltration, indoctrination, mass media, and eventually governmental acceptance….with the final goal being the U.S. as an Islamic State. Muslims are not in the habit of being open to other religions of any kind. A current and recent example of the wraith of violent Jihad is being felt by Coptic Christians in Egypt. Many Copts have been the target of devastating Jihad by Muslim groups in the fall of the Mubarak Administration, even though there are religious freedom rights found in Egypt’s constitution. As Frontpage Magazine described on Feb. 1, 2011, "..if the Muslim Brotherhood takes power in Egypt, the treatment of the Copts is likely only to get worse."

On Oct. 6, 2010, the Middle East Media Research Institute posted excerpts from a sermon entitle "How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny [against the Muslims]," by the Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Badi. This portion of the sermon was posted on the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website:

"Today the Muslims desperately need a mentality of honor and means of power [that will enable them] to confront global Zionism. [This movement] knows nothing but the language of force, so [the Muslims] must meet iron with iron, and winds with [even more powerful] storms. They crucially need to understand that the improvement and change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life."

Violent Jihad is essential to Islam. These Jihadi groups target and manipulate students in much the same way some cults do, by focusing on the introvertive, those suffering from social difficulties, and those very devoted to Islam. Nani Afrida from the Jakarta Post on May 11, 2011 reports:

"..the violent jihadist movement has also infiltrated secular universities, including the secular University of Indonesia (UI) where members of Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), a hard-line organization founded by alleged terrorist mastermind Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, may have gained ground.

UI spokesman Vishnu Juwono believes the group will attempt to penetrate the university, given the fact it was the biggest campus in Indonesia and the birthplace of many national leaders.

"We know about their efforts, especially during the intake of new students. We know they want to indoctrinate our students with their jihadist agenda, but we are confident it will be difficult for them to do this," he said.

UI has been presenting information to new students on extreme ideologies, Vishnu said."

One example of this indoctrination toward violent Jihad being carried out in the U.S. is in the Muslim Student Association’s own pledge, "Jihad in my spirit…and I will die to establish Islam." This kind of indoctrination has also been spread to younger ages through the form of animated cartoons. Today’s indoctrinated children and young adults are tomorrow’s "Jihadi generation."

Throughout history violent Jihad has had only two results, slavery or death to the non-Muslim and Muslim’s that do not support Islamic Law. More recently, violent Jihad has done as much to kill Muslims as non-Muslims. For example, as Islamic Watch reports on March 25, 2011:

"Muslims comprised 85% of al-Qaeda’s victims from 2004 to 2008, numerous innocent Muslims like Hamdani died on 9/11, and the March 10 testimony of Abdirizak Bihi, whose nephew had been radicalized in the U.S. and killed while on Jihad in Somalia, illuminated yet another path by which Islamism snuffs out the lives of Muslims."

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, with 80% of U.S. mosques promoting violent Jihad with many of the texts and speeches by visiting imams, what other result can we expect?

Muslims Without Sharia

In spite of the wake of Jihad and death in the Islamic ideology, there appears to be a small but growing number of Muslims who, through the freedom and openness of the U.S., are making their voices heard. One such group is called Muslims Against Sharia. The President, Khalim Massoud, of this reform movement told Frontpage Magazine on Nov. 13, 2007 about their mission:

"Our organization is created to give voice to moderate Muslims who are virtually ignored by governments and media and to expose the radicals masquerading as moderates. Our goals are:

• to educate Muslims about dangers presented by Islamic religious texts and why Islam must be reformed.
• to educate non-Muslims about the differences between moderate Muslims and Islamists (a.k.a. Islamic Religious Fanatics, Radical Muslims, Muslim Fundamentalists, Islamic Extremists or Islamofascists).
• to educate both Muslims and non-Muslims alike that Moderate Muslims are also targets of Islamic Terror."

Massoud went on to say:

"Most of American mosques are financed and run by Wahhabis. Wahhabi imams are anything but moderate, hence most of religious leaders are radicals. So-called “civil rights” groups, i.e., CAIR, MPAC, ICNA, MAS, etc. that comprise Muslim establishment are nothing more than offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood and fronts for Hamas and Al-Qaeda. They are very well financed and are extremely skilful manipulators of the media. And most of the people in government and media truly believe that those groups are moderate, because they are either too lazy to do research or they choose to ignore terrorist ties.

As a result, when either the government or the media needs an Islamic point of view, Muslim establishment groups are go-to “experts” by default. With the “expert” seat being filled, moderate Muslims are left out.

Another problem with moderate Muslims is they are scared and not organized. They are scared because they cannot speak up in mosques for fear of being kicked out and there are virtually no organizations that represent their views. They are not organized, because, unlike the radical, they do not receive tens of millions of dollars in financial support, therefore they have to work for a living."

On Oct. 29, 2007 Lores Rizkalla Show did an interview with a man from the Islam reform movement, Muslims Against Sharia. Here is that interview:

Since 2007 there has been a rise in Muslim reform groups and those who have left Islam, speaking out against some of the wicked and violent practices of Islam and Sharia Law. Some of those groups are Muslim Republicans, Apostates of Islam, and the Faith Freedom International launched by Ali Sina. Thanks to the Internet as well, there has also been a rise in blogs and websites voicing their opposition against Sharia Law, terrorist-linked Muslim groups, and the barbaric and controlling practices within Islam. Here are just a few great websites to learn more about this ideological threat to freedom in the U.S. and around the world:

• Jihad Watch
• No Sharia in Canada and the essays of Tarek Fatah
• Creeping Sharia
• Anti-CAIR
• Sultan Knish

Some in the Jewish communities have also seen hope in the melting pot of America, as described by the Institute for Global Jewish Affairs in an article titled "American Muslims: The Community and Their Relations with Jews" on Jan. 16, 2011:

"Since America’s Muslim citizens offer more hope for peaceful coexistence than any other Muslim community in the West, dialogue with Jews is bound to hold promise. The local level is the most encouraging, as common civic issues are easier to unify around. The broad strategic national endeavors will prove harder to maintain, so long as the mainstream Muslim groups are tarnished with extremist affinities and the issue of Israel divides the sides. Muslims will continue to interact with Jews in business and community settings, as the openness of America and non-ghettoized residences of the two peoples will naturally encourage such encounters. One hopes that these normalized encounters will erase stereotypes and lead to other positive developments."

Holding the Line

On September 11th, 2001 it became clear that our nation’s enemy was Islamic extremists as they sent a clear message to every American that ‘they are at war with us‘ and ‘they wish us all dead,’ PERIOD. Where is that clarity now?

In order to maintain, and strengthen, our Constitutional United States, we must recognize that the threat by Islamic extremists is real and that they operate in many ways both subtle and direct. We are a nation that believes so strongly in an individual’s right to live free and unencumbered by government that we made it our most precious set of rights to every citizen. In that arena we have the right, and the responsibility, to question everything. Why is it so hard then to recognize that an ideology that believes in absolute control over the individual is an enemy ideology?

We have seen this throughout history in Communism, Nazism, Fascism, and others. We have also seen hate crimes that assault and murder those who are different. We have recognized this extreme level of hate so much so that we have provided those crimes special status and punishment for the abuse and killing by those who hate blacks, Jews, Gays, and others. So why can’t we realize that when an ideology designates every religious believer but its own as a viable target for murder, this is also a hate crime?

We do not accept a hate crime ideology from racists like the KKK as our nationally accepted norm, so why are we accepting it with the hateful text of the religious-social-economic-political ideology of Islam with Sharia Law?

Many of the Muslim groups in the U.S. which promote violence and support terror groups believe they have traction by playing themselves as ‘the victim’, and the Media and the government are all to happy to accept this rhetoric. However, statistics do not lie. The FBI has been tracking hate crime victims for many years. Here are some of the statistics for ‘offender bias’ for the last decade including 2001, the same year of the attacks against NYC and D.C. by Islamic terrorists:

For 2009 – Of the 1,575 victims of an anti-religious hate crime::

• 71.9 percent were victims because of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias.
• 8.4 percent were victims because of an anti-Islamic bias.

For 2008 – Of the 1,732 victims of anti-religious hate crimes:

• 66.1 percent were targeted because of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias.
• 7.5 percent were victims because of an anti-Islamic bias.

For 2007 – Of the 1,628 victims of an anti-religious hate crime:

• 69.2 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias.
• 8.7 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.

For 2006 – Of the 1,750 victims of an anti-religion hate crime:

• 65.4 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias.
• 11.9 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.

For 2005 – Of the 1,405 victims of an anti-religion hate crime:

• 69.5 percent were victims of an anti-Jewish bias.
• 10.7 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.

For 2004 – Of the 1,480 reported offenses within single-bias incidents that were motivated by the offender’s religious bias:

• 67.8 percent were anti-Jewish.
• 13.0 percent were anti-Islamic.

For 2003 (PDF) – Of the 1,489 victims of an anti-religion hate crime:

• 68.8 percent were victims of an anti-Jewish bias.
• 11.4 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.

For 2002 (PDF) – Of the 1,659 victims of an anti-religion hate crime:

• 65.3 percent were victims of an anti-Jewish bias.
• 10.5 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.

For 2001 (PDF) (the same year of the WTC and Pentagon attacks) – Of the 2,118 victims of an anti-religion hate crime:

• 56.4 percent were victims of an anti-Jewish bias.
• 26.1 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.

Though hate crime against any religion is despicable and should not be tolerated, the so-called rising wave of anti-Muslim hate crimes just isn’t supported by the facts. In fact, if any religious group needs our most support against hate crimes, it is the Jewish religion with the out of control numbers of offenders against them.

The Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) would rather you ignore this data and focus only on their misrepresentation of the facts as reported in an article by Ryan Mauro of Frontpage Magazine, Aug. 24, 2010:

"As Daniel Pipes has documented for years, Islamist organizations in the West are quick to label crimes as anti-Muslim hate crimes as part of their effort to make Muslims feel under attack and to paint themselves as Muslims’ protectors. For example, immediately following the Fort Hood shooting, CAIR asked Muslims to respond by donating to it. “We need financial help to meet these crises and push back against those who seek to score political points off the Muslim community in the wake of the Fort Hood tragedy,” the fundraising pitch read. To no one’s surprise, an anti-Muslim backlash did not ensue."

So what is to be done against such an effective religious propaganda movement whose work is to misrepresent their extreme ideology in the U.S., while intimidating members of their own religion into fear and silence? What has America done in the past when a people have suffered from totalitarian control? We have educated ourselves and worked to support those who wish to be free and remain free. We have done this in an endless list of foreign countries, so why not in our own country?

Many states have begun to recognize this indoctrinated threat. As some Muslim groups have worked toward getting Sharia Law approved and practiced in some of our own civil courts, some state legislators have written bills to help keep our civil courts practicing only our elected laws void of any foreign or religious ones. The initial bill presented to the Oklahoma Congress designated Sharia Law by name. Because of the specific language, the bill was deemed unconstitutional and did not passed. However, when the language of the bill was altered to address the integrity of our civil courts’ jurisprudence in oppose to enforcing ‘any’ religious doctrine, the bill was then passed. The Colorado Springs Gazette put it this way:

"The key to preventing the insidious infiltration of Sharia (or any other) religious practice into our system of laws is to address the issue without reference to religion at all. We can separate the religious practice of Sharia from the legal obligations of Sharia by prohibiting the latter from being acknowledged by our legal system. We can do so not by referencing religion, but by making it explicit that the only "laws" that are enforceable in the United States are laws passed by our elected representatives."

They went on to say:

"I think it’s important for every state to place on their books a statement to the effect that our courts, at all levels, shall only enforce the provisions of the duly enacted civil and criminal laws of this nation and not any form of religious practice or belief. One would think that this principle is manifest in the Establishment Clause, but evidently not."

The U.S. has its own groups of religious communities that live peacefully amongst themselves. Some examples of them are, the Amish, the Mennonites, or the Hutterites. The difference between these groups and some Muslim communities is they respect the civil laws of the U.S. and do not work to circumvent them or ignore them all together. I think Ali Sina explains this concept very well in an article named "Why Attack Islam?":

"I am attacking the Islam of Muhammad – the only real Islam. I don’t know your neighbors and I am not interested in how they interpret their religion. Faith is personal. I am not attacking their faith. I am attacking a religion that is violent and evil. If their Islam is not like that they don’t have to fear me.

Now this is really a no brainer. Yet, I hear it all the time. So let me give you one example that any child can understand. Let us say there is a dog in the neighborhood with rabies that is running around biting everyone.  I grab my gun and go after him. Someone stops me and says my dog is docile and friendly. That bad dog is not my dog.  I say, fine, then there is no reason to worry. I love friendly dogs. Now let go of my collar so I can deal with this dangerous animal.  Then this person starts attacking me and says I must not harm his dog.  Doesn’t that prove that his "friendly dog" and that vicious dog are one and the same?"

You can learn alot about a religion by the actions of its followers. For example, good Christians as a whole do acts of kindness and appear to have peace in their hearts. Countries that have a heavy Christian population have a citizenry that reflect these actions. The same is also true for Islam. A good Muslim is considered one who obeys Sharia Law, the Koran, and the Hadith. Practices strictly followed by this ideology can include; wife beating, polygamy and pedophilia, child brides, female circumcision, death to those who do not convert to Islam, and execution of Muslims who refuse Sharia Law. The Islamic ideology is so enraged with hatred that even the slightest challenge of their beliefs brings panic and outrage to anyone who dares to question, be it Muslim or non-Muslim. Why?

Ali Sina wrote in an article on May 23, 2006 called "Defeating Islam".

"Muslims know that Islam will fall if exposed. On a subconscious level Muslims know that Islam is a lie and that it cannot be defended logically. That is why when you criticize Islam they panic. You can criticize all other religions, but all you can do is destroy their superstitions and fallacies. The foundation of these religions remains intact. As a matter of fact these religions have benefited immensely from criticism and thanks to that they were forced to give up most of their absurd tenets. They have adapted to the changing world. The evil practices of Sati in Hinduism, stoning in Judaism and inquisition in Christianity are things of the past.

But you can’t criticize Islam. If you tamper with the sands beneath it, the whole edifice will fall. Muslims know that. They know that Islam can’t take criticism and that it is very fragile. That is why they are so protective of it. That is why they become hysteric when a few cartoons are drawn depicting Muhammad. That is why they killed Theo Van Gogh and threaten to kill anyone who attempts to remove those sands of lies on which Islam stands."

The belief and practice of hatred and violence, as well as the absolute control over its followers is much like Communism, Nazism, or even a cult, therefore defending against this belief and practice may be much the same. One such program reported by Creeping Sharia on Aug. 2, 2011 involved the St.Paul, MN. Police Department’s outreach program to help counter the Islamic radicalization of Somali-American youth. The program consisted of regular meetings with elders and Police Chief Thomas Smith.

""We strongly believe that by creating these safe, diverse and ongoing opportunities for Somali-American youth and the police to interact, that trust, cooperation, friendship and mentorship will increase, and opportunities for al-Shabaab to recruit and radicalize our youth will decrease," Smith said in remarks prepared for a U.S. House Homeland Security Committee hearing in Washington."

Despite the success of this particular program, there are others involving the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR, and other terrorist-linked groups who are coopting the challenges of the deradicalization movement. The lesson here is that deradicalization groups can work, but we need to be careful of the ones we support.

Whatever your opinion of the religion of Islam, there is a wildly popular violent streak with the practice of Sharia Law that is gaining strength in countries around the world, including the U.S. The result is indoctrination, grizzly, violent practices, terrorism, and death, despite the sugar-coating of peace and love. If a man has peace and love in his heart but cuts off your head anyway, is he somehow not evil? For most faiths and those with common sense, that answer is clear. It is only some Muslims who struggle with that question.

Americans are understandably apprehensive of Muslims as a whole. After an event like 9/11 wouldn’t any other country’s citizens feel the same? Holding back the wave of radicalization and indoctrination with Sharia Law will take more active involvement in our communities, much like the new national awareness of our government’s increase in control and corruption. It is going to take a group effort by Muslims and non-Muslims. First, it will require "actual," peaceful practicing Muslims who are not complacent with terrorist groups, or those supporting them, to take a greater stand.

It will also take non-Muslims doing the hard work of learning about the groups that are active in our communities and the ones active in our child’s lives. America’s greatest purpose has always been in protecting others from evil when we can, regardless of religious belief. We have done this in other countries, so why not in our own backyard? There is so much complacency out there, from even our own government and our military, that like the fight against huge government spending and corruption, it has fallen on the American people to push to make it right and protect our freedom. This means making our voices heard, protecting the U.S. Constitutionally-supported court system, exposing anything and everyone linked to terror groups (Muslim or not), and most of all not being afraid to call evil by its name.

If any Muslim seeks real peace and individual freedom in the U.S., they can find it here more than any other country. However, if they seek violence we have laws to address that behavior. Our nation’s history of battling challenging ideologies has proven this, but it is not a quick or easy road. It will take time and hard work from all those truly wanting peace AND individual freedom. If Islam truly has a practice that is outside the violence and control of Sharia Law, I would happily support the rights for those who practice that belief, as I would the freedom for any other religion. Though I have found little separation between Islam and Sharia Law, if there is any country that can help nurture a peaceful reform movement for Islam it will be America.