Displaying posts published in

June 2013

ANDREW McCARTHY: “PRAGMATIC MODERATE” WINS IRAN AND THE WEST IS PREDICTABLY SWOONING

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/351222/pragmatic-moderate-wins-iran-west-predictably-swooning-andrew-c-mccarthy The Obama administration and European leaders, so predictably, are swooning over Iran’s newly elected “pragmatic moderate” president Hassan Rouhani, who is actually a Khomeini disciple and supporter of the current, despicable Khameini regime — and who (a) wouold not have been permitted to run without the regime’s blessing, (b) enthusiastically supports Iran’s nuclear program, (c) called […]

Acceptance, Silence, and Submission: Mark Steyn ****

http://www.steynonline.com/5604/acceptance-silence-and-submission Four years ago in this space, I was anticipating an increase in Islamic-conversion rates in the likes of Amsterdam and Rotterdam: Let’s say you work in an office in those cities: One day they install a Muslim prayer room, and a few folks head off at the designated time, while the rest of you […]

Behind Iran’s ‘Moderate’ New Leader SOHRAB AHMARI

Hassan Rohani unleashed attacks on pro-democracy student protesters in 1999. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323566804578549262039104552.html?mod=opinion_newsreel So this is what democracy looks like in a theocratic dictatorship. Iran’s presidential campaign season kicked off last month when an unelected body of 12 Islamic jurists disqualified more than 600 candidates. Women were automatically out; so were Iranian Christians, Jews and even Sunni […]

SETH LIPSKY:REVEALING SECRETS AND RISKING TREASON ****

America sets the bar high in defining traitorous acts. But ‘adhering’ to the enemy in times of war? Watch out.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324688404578543410828226862.html?mod=opinion_newsreel

The case of the runaway spy Edward Snowden is igniting talk of treason. No less a figure than the speaker of the House, John Boehner, has gone on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and called Mr. Snowden a “traitor,” while the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, deemed his revelation of U.S. surveillance methods an “act of treason.”

This is a teachable moment in respect of a heinous crime. It reminds us of why the Founders made it so difficult to bring charges of treason. But it’s also a moment to reflect on a warning sounded by an early chief justice. The constitutional protections against abuses of treason charges remain strong, but once war is levied—that is, waged—citizens will want to take care about how they behave.

For treason turns out to be unique in American law. It is the only crime that the Constitution forbids Congress from defining. It is the only crime to which a court may never accept a confession given to the police. It is the only crime for which restrictions are laid down on how much evidence juries must hear. The Constitution itself underscores that the Founders feared treason law.

The Absent Commander in Chief

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324188604578545233232040760.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Obama isn’t defending the war powers he has used so robustly.

President Obama’s admirers—who include most of the press corps, the Nobel committee and President Obama—believe above all in the power of his oratory: A “major speech,” in Philadelphia, Tucson or Cairo, can always calm troubled political waters. Which makes the silence of this wordiest of Presidents all the more unusual and dangerous amid the political uproar over National Security Agency antiterror surveillance.

In the 11 days since the story broke, Mr. Obama has offered only one brief and elliptical defense of the NSA programs. “I welcome this debate,” he said, adding that “We’ll have a chance to talk further during the course of the next couple days.”

Mr. Obama went on to spend the next couple days avoiding the debate he said he welcomed. Between fund-raising appearances in Miami Beach and Santa Monica, he squeezed in an event welcoming the women’s professional basketball championship team to the White House, an Ed Markey for Senate rally in Boston, and a celebration for gay pride month. The core national-security obligations of the Presidency? Nada.

Samuel Westrop: Prominent British Charity “Linked to Hamas”

  http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3765/prominent-british-charity-linked-to-hamas The British charity, Human Appeal International, seems more than happy to use democratic means, such as the courts, to silence its critics. Britain’s leading Jewish newspaper, The Jewish Chronicle, issued an apology recently to Human Appeal International, a British charity with a number of worldwide affiliated branches, all particularly active in the Palestinian […]

They Voted for a Moderate; Now What? by Shoshana Bryen

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3769/iran-rouhani-moderate The bad news is that Rouhani has little influence on the three major power centers in Iran. Rouhani, who knows for whom he works (and it is not the Iranian people), will try to use his negotiating skills to effect changes in American behavior toward Iran. The 686 men who expressed their desire to […]

President-Elect Hasan Rowhani on the Sublimity of Khomeini’s “Model”: Andrew Bostom

http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2013/06/15/president-elect-hasan-rohwani-on-the-sublimity-of-khomeinis-model/

Shiite cleric Hasan Rohwani has been elected as Iran’s next President, from amongst a slate of ruling Ayatollah “guardian council”-approved candidates.

Hassan Rowhani has a lengthy history in Iranian politics, having served as the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council for more than 16 years. He was also a former deputy speaker of the parliament. During the Mohammad Khatami’s Presidency, in 2003, Rowhani became Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. Rowhani maintained the post for two years before being replaced by Ali Larijani when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad assumed the presidency in 2005. He is also a member of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council, an advisory body to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as the Assembly of Experts, a body vested with the power to elect and remove the Supreme Leader. Rowhani is reputed to be close to both Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the Chairman of Expediency Discernment Council.

Right until his election to the presidency, Hassan Rowhani headed the Tehran-based think tank, the Center for Strategic Research. Rowhani, in a 2009 monograph published by the Center for Strategic Research, “Islamic Political Thought, Volume I: Theory,” extolled Iranian theocrat Ayatollah Khomeini’s alleged enlightened “vision” for Islamic governance, as follows (translation kindly provided by Amil Imani):

It appears distancing from any fundamental ideals of the Islamic Revolution, would only mean to be held in the prison of western politics, “politics without ethics” or a medieval European dungeon, “backward religious thoughts”…And we all have witnessed and taken notes of the warning of great architect of the Islamic government, Ayatollah Khomeini, that we avoid falling over that cliff…[T]he Islamic Revolution and its theorists, and above all, Imam Khomeini, were exemplary leaders who were the first projected, defined and implemented a superb divine Islamic model for all humans and all times.

ISRAELI CREATIVITY SEE VIDEO

….FROM AND E-PAL BUD B. One wonders if all of those people and countries who are advocating a boycott of Israeli companies and products are willing to fly in aircraft not outfitted with this system
The company is based in Haifa. No gimmick, it’s the real thing.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/uVlERTFVSpo?rel=0

EPA TARGETS WYOMING FARMS: KARIN McQUILLAN

http://trib.com/opinion/columns/the-epa-join-in-the-power-abuse-targets-wyoming-farms/article_3a598ea2-0ff3-5f24-b966-83b40b74cd54.html The EPA join in the power abuse, targets Wyoming farms This week, we learned the Environmental Protection Agency illegally released personal names, phone numbers, emails and addresses of 80,000 farmers and ranchers in 30 states to activist environmental groups interested in prosecutions under the EPA’s Clean Water Act. Family farmers with fewer than 1,000 […]