What’ll They Offer Next?

By Stan Goodenough
Jerusalem Watchman

It’s a bit like a transparent – cheap – mafia movie.

First there’s the threat. “You’d better do what we tell you, punk, or else…”

Then when, to their exasperation, the warning doesn’t work, they switch tactics.

Desperate for the good guy to comply with their demands, they’ll offer most anything to buy him off.

They’ll start slow, with inducements increasingly difficult to turn down.

But the really juicy carrots they’ll keep for last. By the time they offer those, the pressure on the good guy to take the bribe will be so intense – from both his enemies and his friends – it’ll be almost impossible to resist.

He’ll buckle, to his personal ruin, and the enduring detriment of those around him.

As for the cartel, it will have secured both its goal, and its revenge.

The cards it’ll let lie where they fall.

For decades the United States – that is to say, the administrations operating out of Washington DC – has been levering first threats, then promises, to drive successive Israeli prime ministers into playing ball with their peace game.

Intensely, since he entered the White House, the current occupant has been practicing this good cop bad cop technique on Benjamin Netanyahu.

First, upon receiving the presidency, Barack Obama stretched out his hand pledging – apparently from the heart – his best effort to ensure peace and security for Israel, and independence and dignity for the “Palestinians.”

Then the leader of the free world went to Cairo, where he bowed before the Muslim world, messaging Israel of his intention to move America closer to the Arab camp, and away from the Jewish one.

In the ensuing months, Obama used Hillary, his right-hand woman – to squeeze Israel into agreeing to a “settlement freeze” in Samaria and Judea. They tried applying that to construction in Jerusalem as well – with less success.

Still, when the American judged the time ripe to tie his personal political prestige to the process, he launched the 2010 Peace Talks – inviting Netanyahu, the PLO’s Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdallah and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak to the White House.

As the five men strode down the corridor to the waiting press corps, the implication for the watchers, and especially Israelis, was clear.

Netanyahu represented one side. Mubarak, Abdallah, Abbas and Barack Hussein Obama the other.

Knuckle under – Israel heard – you’re on your own.

Apparently Obama believed that he would be able to impel these discussions by applying personal and coordinated US-EU-UN-Quartet pressure on Netanyahu to extend the building moratorium; to ensure that the PLO not jump ship again.

This didn’t work in the run-up to September 26 – the deadline on which the freeze was set to expire. Bolstered by members of his government, Jewish groups in Judea and Samaria, ordinary Israelis and Christians in Israel as well as worldwide, Netanyahu stayed strong.

But the nations won’t let this go. No sooner had the freeze been allowed to thaw than they swung back into action.

Washington announced it was “disappointed” with Netanyahu and immediately sent “peace process” point man George Mitchell winging his way to Tel Aviv.

The United Nations said it was “disappointed” with Netanyahu, and secretary-general Ban Ki Moon “reminded” Israel that settlement building was “illegal” under international law.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton held emergency consultations with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday, then quickly announced her intention to make an unscheduled visit to Jerusalem Thursday.

The headlines in the Hebrew press Thursday – a Sabbath day on which the Jewish people conclude the Feast of Tabernacles and celebrate Simchat Torah – were that Obama has made “a personal appeal” to Netanyahu to re-impose the freeze for two months.

It would be a demonstration of damnable poor faith for the prime minister to rebuff the plea.

To sweeten that pill and up the pressure, Obama offered the following goodies:

• A pledge not to ask for a further moratorium extension after the 60 days.
• A commitment to veto any UN Security Council proposal regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the coming year.
• A readiness to allow Israel to keep its forces in the Jordan Valley after a peace deal is signed with the PLO.
• The delivery of weapons systems Israel deems necessary for its defense once a Palestinian state has been established.

These offers were devilishly designed to nudge a hesitant or wavering Netanyahu over the line. He can spread them out before those coalition members opposed to any concessions and “justify” his decision to, after all, comply.

The “quality” of the American promises now on the table should heighten Netanyahu’s state of alert.

Obama looks increasingly desperate to help Israel and the PLO seal a deal. If these bribes don’t produce results, he may dangle those truly juicy ones.

Jonathan Pollard should brace himself; he may be confronted with an unimaginably difficult choice really soon.

For what should the poor man do if, after years of imprisonment for spying for Israel, he is offered his freedom in exchange for guarantees from Bibi to immediately make possible the creation of a Palestinian state?


Related Links

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White House denies Obama sent freeze letter to Netanyahu - Jerusalem Post
US Envoy Intensifies Bid to Salvage Israeli-Palestinian Talks - Voice of America
Diplomats strive to save Mideast peace talks - Daily Times
Israel Through The Eyes Of Scripture - SpiritandTruth.org (Tony Garland)
Dear Prime Minister: U.S. Efforts to Keep the Peace Process on Track - The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

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The Left's Big Astroturf Rally

By Mark Tooley
Institute on Religion & Democracy

A superficially wide coalition of about 300 left and far-left groups, from the AFL-CIO to the Communist Party USA to the United Methodist lobby office, is sponsoring a rally in Washington, D.C. this Saturday to match and counter Glenn Beck’s successful event on the National Mall last month.

Called “One Nation Working Together” (ONWT), the rally will demand more-more-more government, while denouncing U.S. military power, pressing for open borders, and pushing the usual litany of liberationist social causes. They hope to attract 100,000 or more as an antidote to Tea Party populism.

“As people of faith, we deeply care about the issues of justice, education and jobs, and we feel those are issues facing society we have to address,” chimed the Rev. Amy Stapleton, of the United Methodist General Commission on Religion and Race, to the New York Times. “A march like this is something that hasn’t been accomplished since Dr. King brought people together in 1963 around issues of race, war, class and the right to decent pay and good jobs.”

Besides United Methodist liberal elites, ONWT also has sponsorship from the United Church of Christ, Michael Lerner’s Tikkun-Network of Spiritual Progressives and Jim Wallis’s Sojourners Evangelical Left group. But the real muscle will come from trade unions, most of them for government workers, who will bus in their usual placard waving activists.

“The Tea Party has been getting much more media attention than it deserves, and it’s been saying it represents the voice of middle-class America,” explained an official with a New York health care union local, who told the New York Times that his union has chartered 500 buses to carry 25,000 union members to the rally. “A lot of us feel we have to get a different voice out there speaking for working people, one respecting the diversity of this country, which the Tea Party does not.”

Sponsors include the the National Education Association, AFSCME, National Council of La Raza, People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign, Americans for Democratic Action, the NAACP, Democratic Socialists of America, Institute for Policy Studies, U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Win Without War, the American Muslim Association of North America, and Code Pink. The orchestrated marchers want more federal stimulus for local governments, more mortgage bail-outs, liberalized bankruptcy laws, more coerced unionization, a higher minimum wage, reduced military spending, public option health care, and protections from workplace “discrimination” for every conceivable self-described sexual minority, including “gender identity or expression,” which presumably includes transsexuality and cross dressing. Queers for Economic Justice and National Center for Transgender Equality are ONWT sponsors.

“And yet, we are the majority – fueled by hope, not hate,” insists the ONWT website. “We have the pride, power and determination to keep ourselves – and our country – moving up and out of the valley greed created.” Despite the far left groups that comprise the coalition, including the Communist Party USA, ONWT wants to pretend that it is mainstream. It also poses as the natural successor to Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” rally at the Lincoln Memorial, in contrast to Glenn Beck’s rally there last month, which the Left saw as a usurpation of King’s imagery.

ONWT obviously has the November elections in mind, wanting to rally a leftist base against a Republican landslide while also warning Democrats not to further compromise their message in a bid for centrists. ‘On 11-2-10, we will march again – into the voting booths,” the ONWT website warns. “We will bring our families, our friends, and our neighbors. And once the ballots are counted, we will keep organizing, we will hold our leaders accountable, and we will keep making our dream real.” Howard Dean has produced a promotional video for ONWT. And perennial Hollywood leftist Danny Glover is chipping in with an ONWT West Coast pep rally.

Another sponsor of ONWT is the U.S. Peace Council, an affiliate with the World Peace Council, an old Soviet front group founded in the early Cold War to promote Soviet strategic objectives under the banner of “peace.” Amazingly, the Helsinki-based World Peace Council and some of its affiliates survived the Soviet Union’s collapse and the end to KGB funding. Now highly diminished, its U.S. affiliate remains “a multi-racial, pro-working class, anti-imperialist organization committed to peace, economic and social justice, and to international solidarity with the peoples of the world.”

Years ago, serious coalitions of the Left, especially when involving trade unions like the AFL-CIO, worked hard to distinguish themselves from Soviet fronts and other extremist and anti-democratic groups. ONWT, professing to represent the “majority” of Americans, seems indifferent to the company it keeps. The continuing interweaving of some Muslim groups into leftist coalitions like ONWT, despite the involvement of sexual liberationists whose behaviors would earn death sentences under Sharia, is also remarkable.

The common banner that bonds the ONWT coalition seems to be hostility to a strong America and identification with victim mythology. However many show up for ONWT’s October 2 rally, they likely will not effectively counter the Tea Party movement. Instead, ONWT’s bizarre and extremist causes will serve as a useful foil for conservative activists.


Related Links

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Heard about the big D.C. rally Saturday? Probably not. - Christian Science Monitor
Tea Party Movement Emerges as Major Force - FOX News
Liberals to March for Jobs, Justice in ‘One Nation Working Together’ Rally in DC - CNS News
What is 'progressive' about defending communists and terrorists? - World Tribune
Taking Back the United Methodist Church - Mark Tooley (Book)

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The United States and the European Union Say Israel-Palestinian Peace Talks Will Fail if Israel Does Not Stop Building in Biblical Lands

By Dr. Jimmy DeYoung
Prophecy Today

The United States has requested that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu extend the construction moratorium in Jerusalem and the area of Judea and Samaria, referred to as the West Bank, in order to keep the Palestinians from walking out of the peace talk negotiations as they have threatened to do.

Meanwhile, Catherine Ashton, the Chief of Foreign Policy for the European Union, while in Israel has told both the Israeli and the Palestinian leaders the peace process will fail if Israel continues to build in the Jewish settlements and Ashton has applied pressure on Israel to continue the moratorium on building.

Jimmy's Prophetic Prospective on the News

US and European pressure on Israel to stop building in Biblical lands - their promised land - is a precursor to the end of times scenario that can be found in Bible prophecy.

The United States and the European Union are both guilty of applying pressure on the Jewish state of Israel to stop building in a portion of the state that dates back 4000 years ago in Jewish heritage. Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria - referred to by world leaders as the West Bank - is the central focus of the United States and the European Union as they endeavor to manipulate the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Pressure to stop construction in these Jewish areas applied by the United States and the European Union has undermined the entire peace process by giving the Palestinians an issue to hold over the Israelis and hinder any honest approach to this peace process.

This scenario is exactly what Jesus said would happen in the last days. In His Olivet Discourse, as recorded in Luke 21:24, the Lord told the Jewish people that Jerusalem would be trodden down (controlled) by the Gentiles until He returned to the Earth. Daniel, an ancient Jewish prophet, wrote this same scenario in Daniel chapters 2 and 9 as he foretold that the Gentiles would have control of the Jewish people until Jesus Christ comes back to resolve this conflict. By the way, the United States and the European Union are Gentile world powers. John, who wrote the book of Revelation, reveals the plan of God to bring Gentile world powers to defeat (Revelation 6-19).

United States and European Union pressure on the Jewish state of Israel is indeed setting the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.


Related Links

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Obama offering Israel incentives to extend freeze on settlement construction, say reports - The Guardian
Daniel: On the Times of the Gentiles - BPT (David Reagan)
U.S. Works to Persuade Israel on Settlement Freeze - New York Times
Arab League postpones meeting with Abbas on talks - Jerusalem Post
US, Euro diplomats strive to save Mideast talks - AFP
Abrahamic Covenant - SpiritandTruth.org (Tony Garland)

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Islamic Terror Inside America

By Bob Maginnis
BobMaginnis.com

The nation’s leading security experts warn homegrown Islamic terrorism is becoming a serious problem. And it will likely get worse because our politically correct (PC) leaders refuse to address the root cause — fundamentalist Islam — and virtually no Muslim leaders are willing to demonize the teachings that fuel Islamic terrorism.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee heard last week from those charged with America’s domestic security. FBI Director Robert Mueller III testified, “The threat from radicalization has evolved” from homegrown Islamic extremists during the past year and they are “increasingly more savvy, harder to detect, and able to connect with other extremists overseas.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified the homegrown terrorist threat increased over the past year because of cooperation with groups like al Qaeda by “sharing financial resources, training, tactical and operational expertise.”

Unfortunately, these officials only offer defensive solutions while avoiding Islamic terrorism’s root cause. That’s because our government is operating on the false premise that Islam is only a religion and that terrorism is caused by legitimate complaints — such as social injustice — and not an Islamic imperative.

For the sake of our security, our leaders must acknowledge Islamic terrorism is rooted in their religion. That doesn’t mean all Muslims endorse terrorism but to ignore the association is naively PC.

Our officials cited evidence of surging domestic Islamic terrorism. “The range of al-Qaeda core, affiliated, allied, and inspired U.S. citizens and residents plotting against the homeland during the past year suggests the threat against the West has become more complex and underscores the challenges of identifying and countering a more diverse array of homeland plotting,” testified Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).

FBI Director Mueller testified to recent examples of domestic Islamic terrorism. The FBI disrupted the al Qaeda plot to attack the New York subway system and, in May, an attempt to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, Mueller said. There were homegrown “lone-wolf” extremist attacks on soldiers at Fort Hood last November and the Arkansas recruitment station over a year ago. There were attempted bombings of an office tower in Dallas and a federal building in Springfield, Ill.

Secretary Napolitano testified to evidence of al Qaeda’s growing homeland influence. She said “over the past 12 months, efforts by violent [Islamic] extremist groups and movements to communicate with and recruit individuals within the United States have intensified.” Some Americans, Napolitano said, are inspired by the global jihadist movement to commit violent acts in the U.S. and use the Internet to connect with extremists.

Internet relationships have led to recruiting and overseas terrorist training. NCTC director Leiter testified, “at least 20 U.S. persons — the majority of whom are ethnic Somalis — have traveled to Somalia since 2006 to fight and train with al-Shabaab,” a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

Unfortunately our government has no agency charged with identifying radicalization or preventing terrorism recruitment. Rather, the federal government’s anti-Islamist terrorism efforts focus almost exclusively on defensive systems such as hardening our transportation systems.

Even though our transportation systems were strengthened after 9/11 there are still flaws. The attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Flight 253, bound to Detroit, last Christmas, illustrates aviation’s continued vulnerability.

The FBI developed an extensive outreach program to Muslim communities to develop trust, address concerns, and dispel myths. It established the Specialized Community Outreach Team to work with communities such as those in Minneapolis, where U.S. persons are recruited to travel overseas to fight with the al-Shabaab. There are also numerous information sharing programs across government agencies with links to local law enforcement.

These defensive programs must continue but they will never defeat homegrown Islamic terrorism alone. Rather, fundamentalist Islam’s toxic influence must be addressed but politics are in the way. Some PC leaders like President Obama, who exorcised Islamic references from our security strategies, want us to believe that defeating Islamic terrorism depends on addressing grievances like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Muslim poverty. And those who correctly blame terrorism on Islamic religious and cultural traits are labeled Islamophobic.

In truth, jihadists — Islamic fighters who favor waging religious war — motivate the Islamic terrorist by “creating for him a social environment that provides approbation and a religious environment that provides moral and legal sanction for his actions,” writes Shmuel Bar of the Hoover Institution in his paper “The Religious Sources of Islamic Terrorism.”

Islamic fundamentalists want modern Muslim societies to return to traditional Islam which makes no distinction between the political and the religious. “Islam is the solution” to all problems, explains Mr. Bar, and “no area of human activity is outside its remit.”

That is why one must understand the religious-ideological factors which are deeply embedded in Islam in order to formulate an effective strategy for fighting Islamic terrorism, Mr. Bar argues.

But this view creates a dilemma for Westerners who believe there are pragmatic causes of Islamic terrorism rather than an ideological basis, says Mr. Bar. That puts Westerners at a disadvantage because the only effective counter to Islamic terrorism requires a religious-ideological solution which is precluded by Western concepts of civil rights and government non-intervention in matters of organized religion.

What can be done?

The U.S. must seek religious reform in the Muslim world. Mr. Bar suggests Islamic authorities must intervene to contradict their radical worldview — such as there is no state of jihad between Islam and the West and terrorism has no justification — and they must “excommunicate” the radicals. But at present the West is unprepared to deal with Islamic imams who incite followers with fiery sermons and fatwas — Islamic rulings — justifying terrorism.

This strategy, Mr. Bar argues, cannot take shape without a “reinterpretation of Western concepts of the boundaries of the freedoms of religion and speech, definitions of religious incitement, and criminal culpability of religious leaders for the acts of their flock as a result of their spiritual influence.”

The solution is to make a paradigm shift and understand that Islam is not a Western-style religion that deserves protection and noninterference from the state.

Fundamentalist Islam is a theocracy which means it is a dominant government philosophy and mandate, a cultural imperative designed to control all aspects of life and an oppressive judicial system designed to establish and enforce certain religious beliefs. Finally, Islam is a national strategy that openly states that it is the only acceptable form of government for the world and that tactics including murder of unbelievers is mandated in order to achieve it.

Once free from the false view of Islam as solely a religion, our leadership will be able to move from the defensive to an offensive mindset and fight for the safety and security of America and the West. Our present PC mindset regarding Islam and terrorism dooms us to reaction and ultimate failure.


Related Links

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Somali Terror Group Targets U.S. For Recruitment - KPBS (Amita Sharma)
Analysts: Europe plot reveals al Qaeda adapting - CNN
National Security Hawks Call for Brennan's Resignation - FOX News
Washington's Schizophrenic Approach Toward the Muslim Brotherhood - Family Security Matters
U.S. Faces Growing Terror Threat from ‘Indigenous Muslims,’ Experts Find - CNS News

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What Was the Year of Creation?

By Jack Kelley
GraceThruFaith.com

Q. Please let me know what you show as the year since creation. The Jews say 5771, but the New King James Bible says 4004 BC, plus 2010 since Jesus Christ showing 6014 years. Who is correct?

A. I don’t think anyone knows the year of creation for certain. Some scholars say it was 4004 BC based on Bishop James Ussher’s 17th Century book, The Annals of the World, a chronological history from Creation to 70 AD. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, renowned Hebrew Scholar, and a contemporary of Ussher’s, agreed with his calculations.

According to the Hebrew calendar this is the 5771st year since the creation, but there are those who claim this total is not accurate due to the belief that when the Israelites were under subjugation by a foreign power their calendar did not advance. They say this introduced an error of 181 years or more into the count. If they’re correct that would make it at least year 5952. I think it’s safe to say we’re somewhere near the 6,000th anniversary of the creation, but I don’t think anyone knows exactly how near.


Related Links

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Introduction to the Jewish Calendar - Hebrew for Christians
Annals of the World: James Ussher's Classic Survey of World History - James Ussher (Book)
What is God's relationship to time? - GotQuestions.org
The World: Born in 4004 BC? - Ussher and the Date of Creation - Answers in Genesis
Children's Stories of the Bible The Adult Version - Jack Kelley (Book)

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Obama Tied to Another Activist in FBI Terror Probe

By Aaron Klein
WorldNetDaily

President Obama has ties to yet another Chicago activist whose home was raided last week by the FBI as part of a terrorism probe, WND has learned.

Last Friday, as part of an investigation into material support for terrorist organizations, the FBI raided eight homes, including that of Chicago anti-war activist Joseph Iosbaker and his wife Stephanie Weiner.

In 1998 the duo worked as leaders of the Chicago New Party, a controversial 1990s political party that sought to elect members to public office with the aim of moving the Democratic Party far leftward to ultimately form a new political party with a socialist agenda.

WND previously reported newspaper evidence showing Obama was a member of the New Party.

As WND reported yesterday, another activist whose home was raided by the FBI was Hatem Abudayyeh, the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN.

Obama, while serving as a paid director of the far-left nonprofit, the Chicago Woods Fund, provided two grants to the AAAN, which was founded by a longtime Obama associate, Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi. Khalidi's wife, Mona, is president of the AAAN. Obama served at the Woods Fund alongside Weather Underground terrorist-group founder Bill Ayers.

Iosbaker, meanwhile works at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a local chapter leader of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, whose former president, Andy Stern, was listed as the most frequent visitor to the White House.

Iosbaker and his wife were Chicago leaders of the socialist New Party.

The pair held a news conference, along with several Chicago "peace" organizations, claiming their home was raided because of their activism against war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Isobaker told reporters FBI agents took his children's art and poetry and put it into evidence bags.

When asked why they thought they were targeted, Isobaker's wife, Weiner, said "I came from a family that marched against the Vietnam War. I'm proud that my children, as well, are organized."

Obama is closely tied to Isobaker's New Party.

Marxist activist Carl Davidson, a founder of the New Party, recalled in a WND interview Obama's participation with his party.

"A subcommittee met with [Obama] to interview him to see if his stand on the living wage and similar reforms was the same as ours," stated Davidson.

"We determined that our views on these overlapped, and we could endorse his campaign in the Democratic Party," Davidson said.

Davidson remembers Obama attending a New Party meeting to thank attendees for voting for him.

Using qualifying language, Davidson said that to his knowledge Obama was not a member of the New Party "in any practical way."

Becoming a New Party member requires some effort on behalf of the politician. Candidates must be approved by the party's political committee and, once approved, must sign a contract requiring they will have a "visible and active relationship" with the party.

Asked whether Obama signed the New Party contract, Davidson replied there was "no need for him to do so."

"At the end of our session with him, we simply affirmed there was no need to do so, because on all the key points, the stand of his campaign and the New Party reform planks were practically the same," Davidson told WND.

Among the New Party's stated objectives were "full employment, a shorter work week, and a guaranteed minimum income for all adults; a universal 'social wage' to include such basic benefits as health care, child care, vacation time and lifelong access to education and training; a systematic phase-in of comparable worth and like programs to ensure gender equity."

The New Party stated it also sought "the democratization of our banking and financial system – including popular election of those charged with public stewardship of our banking system, worker-owner control over their pension assets [and] community-controlled alternative financial institutions."

Many of the New Party's founding members were Democratic Socialists of America leaders and members of Committees of Correspondence, a breakaway of the Communist Party USA.

Obama attended several DSA events and meetings, including a DSA-sponsored town hall meeting Feb. 25, 1996, entitled "Employment and Survival in Urban America." He sought and received an endorsement from the DSA.

While running for the Illinois state Senate in 1996 as a Democrat, Obama actively sought and received the endorsement of the New Party, according to confirmed reports during last year's presidential campaign.

The New Party worked alongside the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. The New Party's aim was to help elect politicians who espoused its policies.

Among New Party members was linguist and radical activist Noam Chomsky.

Obama Listed as Member of Socialist Party

Obama's presidential campaign in 2008 denied he was ever an actual member of the New Party.

But print copies of the New Party News, the party's official newspaper, show Obama posing with New Party leaders, listing him as a New Party member and publishing quotes from him as a member.

The party's spring 1996 newspaper boasted: "New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary)."

The paper quoted Obama saying, "These victories prove that small 'd' democracy can work."

The newspaper lists other politicians it endorsed who were not members but specifies Obama as a New Party member.

New Ground, the newsletter of Chicago's Democratic Socialists of America, reported in its July/August 1996 edition that Obama attended a New Party membership meeting April 11, 1996, in which he expressed his gratitude for the group's support and "encouraged NPers (New Party members) to join in his task forces on voter education and voter registration."

The New Party, established in 1992, took advantage of what was known as electoral "fusion," which enabled candidates to run on two tickets simultaneously, attracting voters from both parties. But the New Party went defunct in 1998, one year after fusion was halted by the Supreme Court.

According to DSA documents, the New Party worked with ACORN to promote its candidates. ACORN, convicted in massive, nationwide voter fraud cases, has been a point of controversy for Obama over his ties to the group.

In 1995, the DSA's New Ground newsletter stated, "In Chicago, the New Party's biggest asset and biggest liability is ACORN.

"Like most organizations, ACORN is a mixed bag," the newsletter said. "On one hand, in Chicago, ACORN is a group that attempts to organize some of the most depressed communities in the city. Chicago organizers for ACORN and organizers for SEIU Local 880 have been given modest monthly recruitment quotas for new New Party members. On the other hand, like most groups that depend on canvassing for fundraising, it's easy enough to find burned out and disgruntled former employees. And ACORN has not had the reputation for being interested in coalition politics – until recently and, happily, not just within the New Party."


Related Links

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FBI Raids Home of Obama Associate & Radical AAAN Leader in Terrorism Sweep - Big Government
President, Bill Ayers channeled money to 'anti-Israel' organization - WorldNetDaily (Aaron Klein)
Socialism is Not Compassionate, and Why This Should Matter to Christians - Faith Facts
Glenn Beck: Show Me Your Friends - FOX News
The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists - Aaron Klein (Book)

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Covert War Underway in Iran to Sabotage Nuclear Facilities

By Joel C. Rosenberg
JoelRosenberg.com

I’m heading to Chicago today to speak at the “Inside The Middle East Crisis Conference” this weekend, as well as to speak at several other events in and around the Windy City.

As I head there, the main storyline in the Middle East I’m tracking is the intensifying covert war underway in Iran by the U.S., Israel and Western intelligence agencies. This is a key element in my forthcoming political thriller, The Twelfth Imam. But it is not fiction. It is all too real.

The goal: to sabotage Iran’s nuclear facilities, assassinate Iranian nuclear officials, and persuade other key Iranian insiders to defect. In January, one of Iran’s top nuclear scientists was killed in a car bombing in Tehran. This followed a series of other scientists dying mysteriously or disappearing without a trace in recent years.

In May, CBS News reported that “intelligence operatives…have sold Iran [nuclear] components with flaws that are difficult to detect, making them unstable or unusable.” Noted Mark Fitzpatrick, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation and now Senior Fellow in Non-Proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, ”Industrial sabotage is a way to stop the program, without military action, without fingerprints on the operation, and really, it is ideal, if it works. One way to sabotage a program is to make minor modifications in some of the components Iran obtains on the black market, and because it’s a black market … you don’t know exactly who you are dealing with,” Fitzpatrick said.

The latest development is a mysterious and highly aggressive ”malware” virus of unknown origin that is suddenly plaguing computer systems at nuclear facilities and other industrial plants throughout the Islamic Republic. The effect appears to be so severe that Iran had to announce at least a two month delay in the launch of on-line operations at its Bushehr Reactor that the Russians helped build. Indeed, an estimated 30,000 computers in Iran have been infected. Neither the CIA nor Israel’s Mossad has commented, much less claimed credit. Nor are they likely to do so. Perhaps they are not involved. But it may be that the relative success of this on-going and intensifying covert war inside Iran accounts for why Israel has not taken direct military action thus far.


Related Links

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An alarmed Iran asks for outside help to stop rampaging Stuxnet malworm - DEBKAfile
Iran puts off Bushehr nuclear plant launch to early 2011 - Ha'aretz
The shape of threats to come - IDG NEWS
U.S. to announce human rights sanctions against Iran - CNN
The Twelfth Imam - Joel C. Rosenberg (Book)

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The "Gay" Deathstyle

By Matt Barber
Liberty Counsel

One has to wonder if Reuters reporter Julie Steenhuysen will soon be joining the millions of other Americans relegated to Obama's swelling unemployment lines. She evidently didn't get the media memo last week and violated the goose-stepping left's Orwellian requirement that we all adhere to obtuse notions of political correctness.

Having contracted a rare case of journalistic objectivity, Ms. Steenhuysen penned a story that dared to detail a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study on homosexuality.

The study exposed the jaw-dropping fact that one-in-five "gay" and "bisexual" men in American cities have been infected with HIV/Aids. Needless to say, this scandalous revelation completely blows out of the water, the left's morally relative, propagandist line that homosexuality is "normal, natural and good."

To believers, it's never surprising when modern science serves to validate the transcendent truths found in Scripture (not that God's truth needs validating.)

James 1:15 warns:

"Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death."

Indeed, it seems the common moniker "homosexual lifestyle" has it exactly backwards. As opponents of the extremist "gay" lobby have long illustrated, homosexuality falls dead center within our nation's burgeoning culture of death.

First, take that feminist rite of passage: abortion. Due to a national lack of sexual self-governance, in 2010 we find that – post Roe v. Wade – 50 million of God's precious children have been slaughtered at Satan's altar of euphemistic "choice."

Moreover, millions of self-styled "gay" men have – as a direct result of homosexual conduct – died from AIDS, Syphilis, Hepatitis and all other forms of homosexually transmitted disease.

Romans 1:26-27, which Obama once comically called an "obscure passage in Romans," addresses the homosexual deathstyle:

"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

It's tragic when people yield to disordered sexual temptations that can literally kill them spiritually, emotionally and physically. Nobody with any compassion enjoys watching others "[receive] in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." But a corollary to free will is living – or dying – with the choices we've made.

Another problem lies in the fact that far too many Christians have contributed to the dilemma by failing to speak truth, in love, on the issue of homosexuality (pastors with "gay" congregants and family members, I'm talking to you). Nobody likes to be unfairly labeled a hater, "homophobe" or bigot, but fear of such attacks offers no justification for failing to speak truth in love. There are even self-professed Christians today who inexcusably join in with the secular-left in affirming homosexual sin as a good thing. There's a word for these types: apostate.

There's no wiggle room here. If you defend or seek to justify homosexual conduct, you defy God. Not good. As I recall, He's got a little something to say about "causing one of these little ones" to sin.

But even if you choose not to acknowledge biblical truth, you're still left without excuse. As the CDC has once again verified, if you affirm or defend homosexual behavior as "normal, natural and good," you also defy science. You're on the wrong side of history, let alone reality.

What is it about this particular PC-protected practice that causes so many otherwise intelligent people to become blinded blathering buffoons?

Let's say we had a group of people who defined their identity based upon a penchant for running headlong into brick walls. Oh, we'll call them, "Wallies." (Wally pride, baby!)

As significant percentages of Wallies began to drop dead, or suffer irreversible brain damage, do you suppose the left would demand tolerance for such behavior? Do you think they'd begin handing out bicycle helmets in elementary schools, telling kids to practice safe walling? With liberals, anything's possible, but I'm more inclined to think that even the moonbat left might agree that people tending toward such behavior would be best served to simply avoid running headlong into walls altogether.

I don't mean to be flip (okay, maybe a little flip) but can someone please tell me why on earth the left insists that we "tolerate" homosexual behavior while – as the CDC has once again confirmed – it continues to have results similar to brick walling?

We throw paper-thin latex condoms at kids who struggle with same-sex attraction and tell them: "You're gay! Embrace who you are. Gay pride, baby!"

We push them out onto a paper-thin latex tightrope with a one-in-five chance they'll plummet to their death.

What in the name of all things sacred are we doing? One-in-five with AIDS? Seriously? If five people got into a car and were told that one of them wasn't going to survive the drive, how quickly do you suppose they'd scatter?

Unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences. Scripture admonishes:

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23.

Do you consider yourself "gay" or lesbian? As untold thousands of ex-gays will tell you, you don't have to be. It's my most sincere prayer that going forward you'll choose Christ over sin: Life over death.

You think sexual "freedom" makes you happy? You should experience the true freedom that comes through abiding in He who is "the way, the truth and the life."

That's liberation.

[If you struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction, please visit the Web site for Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays: PFOX – pfox.org]


Related Links

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1 in 5 gay, bisexual men in U.S. cities has HIV - Reuters
God's Word on Abortion - BPT (Tony Garland)
God's Plan for the Gay Agenda - Grace to You (John MacArthur)
Sex and consequences - WorldNetDaily (Jill Stanek)
The Right Hook: From The Ring To The Culture War - Matt Barber (Book)

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