Entries Tagged 'U.S. law' ↓

Originally published at 2.0: The Blogmocracy.

Fair and balanced? Really?

Anybody who has been following my blog posts and comments, either on 1389 Blog, on 2.0: The Blogmocracy, or anywhere else, is probably aware of my dislike for the Fox News “fair and balanced” slogan. There is no middle ground between good and evil. There is no compromise between truth and falsehood. I am uninterested in “fair and balanced” reporting. As I’ve mentioned before, the devil already has plenty enough spokesmen, and spokeswomen too. What I want instead is the whole truth and nothing but. That is what I endeavor to provide in all of my blog posts and comments.

And yes, I have previously voiced my own complaints about Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. Just for starters, a significant percentage of those who are arrested in any jurisdiction are actually innocent. The U.S. Constitution states that anyone accused of a crime is to be considered innocent until proven guilty. It is bad enough to be wrongfully arrested – and yes, that inevitably happens some of the time in every jurisdiction – without also being subjected to rough and physically uncomfortable treatment. Those who are past middle age and/or already suffering from various physical infirmities have reason to fear permanent bodily harm or death if detained in a hot desert “tent city” facility.

Update, thanks to lobo91 at 2.0: The Blogmocracy:

Evidently, only sentenced inmates are being held in the tent city; pre-trial detainees are held in the regular jail.

From their website:

The Tents Jail was begun in 1993 when Sheriff Joe Arpaio was able to obtain some surplus military tents. These tents were set up in an area adjacent to one of the existing Maricopa County Jails in Phoenix, Arizona. Sheriff Arpaio had previously decided that he would not release any inmates due to jail overcrowding, and housing sentenced inmates in the tents seemed a good solution.

Despite my prior misgivings, there is something important that Sheriff Joe Arpaio is doing right.

Immigration enforcement and Obozo’s stealth amnesty program

With the recent federal lawsuit against the State of Arizona for empowering their local and state law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law, it has become painfully clear that the Obama administration wants an unrestricted flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S. The main reason for this is that the Obama regime sees them as an easily controlled and intimidated future voting bloc who will reliably support the leftist Democrat agenda. Naturally, the ICE employees who are charged with enforcing US immigration laws are disgusted with this.

Border agents vote ‘no confidence’ in ICE leadership (h/t doriangrey)

In an unprecedented move within Homeland Security special agents recently gave ICE leadership a “non confidence” vote.

The Center For Immigration Studies reported:

In an unprecedented move within the Department of Homeland Security, the special agents responsible for enforcing our nation’s immigration laws issued an exhaustive, scathing letter simply titled “VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE IN ICE DIRECTOR JOHN MORTON AND ODPP ASSISTANT DIRECTOR PHYLLIS COVEN” on June 11, 2010. The letter, acquired through sources, provides a litany of examples of how ICE’s mission is being skewed towards supporting an unflinching goal of amnesty by refusing to allow agents to do their job; allowing criminal aliens to roam free; depleting resources for key enforcement initiatives that preceded this administration; and misrepresenting facts and programs, demeaning the extent of the criminal alien problem and geared to support amnesty.

Read the rest.

What is Sheriff Joe Arpaio doing right?

Arpaio Responsible For 25% Of All U.S. Deportees Since 2007

Without the benefit of their state’s strict new immigration law, officers from a single Arizona county helped deport more than 26,000 immigrants from the U.S. through a federal-local partnership program that has been roundly criticized as fraught with problems.

Statistics obtained by The Associated Press show that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office was responsible for deportations or forced departure of 26,146 immigrants since 2007.

That’s about a quarter of the national total of 115,841 sent out of the U.S. by officers in 64 law enforcement agencies deputized to help enforce immigration laws, some since 2006, under the so-called 287(g) program.

The tens of thousands of immigrant arrests show local officials already have a significant amount of authority to enforce immigration laws and help remove illegal immigrants from the country.

But with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio the top law officer among all those deputized, questions remain about what’s in store when Arizona gives more officers the power to enforce immigration laws. The federal government already is under fire for doing a poor job of keeping watch on local officers enforcing immigration laws and ensuring safeguards for protecting civil rights are in place.

…

Joanne Lin, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said it is alarming that one Arizona county is responsible for a disproportionate share of deportations.

The Los Angeles County’s Sheriff’s Office, a distant second to Maricopa, helped find 13,784 immigrants who were later deported or left the country. The Sheriff’s Office’s agreement with the federal government allows it to check its jails for deportable immigrants, but not to enforce immigration laws during street patrols. A renewal of the agreement is under negotiation.

An estimated 10.8 million people, about 26 percent of the state’s population, are living illegally in California, compared with 460,000, about 12 percent, in Arizona.

“These statistics bear out that you have rogue sheriffs in certain counties that are bent on targeting immigrants,” Lin said.

Read the rest.

No, Ms. Lin, what’s alarming is that other sheriffs in other counties are FAILING to do their jobs in targeting those immigrants (some legal, but most not) who have brought about a major crime wave involving not only smuggling of human beings and other contraband, but also gang warfare, widespread property damage, rape, and just about everything else in the criminal code.

Here’s another Arizona sheriff with the right idea

Arizona Sheriff: ‘Our Own Government Has Become Our Enemy’

(CNSNews.com) – Pinal County (Ariz.) Sheriff Paul Babeu is hopping mad at the federal government.

Babeu told CNSNews.com that rather than help law enforcement in Arizona stop the hundreds of thousands of people who come into the United States illegally, the federal government is targeting the state and its law enforcement personnel.

“What’s very troubling is the fact that at a time when we in law enforcement and our state need help from the federal government, instead of sending help they put up billboard-size signs warning our citizens to stay out of the desert in my county because of dangerous drug and human smuggling and weapons and bandits and all these other things and then, behind that, they drag us into court with the ACLU,” Babeu said.

The sheriff was referring to the law suits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Department of Justice challenging the state’s new immigration law.

“So who has partnered with the ACLU?” Babeu said in a telephone interview with CNSNews.com. “It’s the president and (Attorney General) Eric Holder himself. And that’s simply outrageous.”

Read the rest.

And your government bureaucrats are at work, with hilarious results:

Evidently, Sal the cat got on the jury duty roster after his humans, Anna and Guy Esposito, identified Sal as their pet on the long-form 2010 Census report.

See the whole story, with comments, here at Purry Duty.

More feline fun:

From GraphJam.com:

Originally published on 2.0: The Blogmocracy

Originally published on 2.0: The Blogmocracy

In Fundamentally Transforming the United States, Phyllis Schlafly explains how the Democrat party voter base is founded upon those who get (or hope to get) their livelihood from the federal government. It goes much further than Chicago-machine patronage politics writ large; the federal government is deliberately destroying the family structure so as to make people more dependent on the federal government and the Democrat party. Unmarried mothers are a key part of Obama’s voter base. Thus, it is in his interests to discourage men and women from getting and staying married.

How do the Democrats go about attacking the family structure? The attacks go much further than promoting gay marriage and abortion on demand, or free condoms and salacious “sex education” in the public schools. Detrimental as those things are, at least they are visible. It’s the progressives’ stealth jihad against the family that I’m talking about here.

Check out this hidden zinger in Obamacare:

Marriage Penalty in Health Care

A huge marriage penalty is hidden in Obama’s Health Control Law. This law is another federal program providing financial incentives to subsidize marriage avoidance and illegitimate offspring.

Even though all evidence shows that marriage is the best remedy for poverty, lack of health care, domestic violence, child abuse, and school dropouts, federal welfare programs continue to discriminate against marriage and instead give taxpayer handouts to those who reject marriage. This isn’t any accident; it is a central part of the Democrats’ political strategy that produced 70% of unmarried women voting for Obama for President in 2008.

Here is the approximate cost in the Health Control Law for an unmarried couple who each earn $25,000 a year (total: $50,000). When they both buy health insurance (which will be mandatory), the combined premiums they pay will be capped at $3,076 a year. But if the couple gets married and has the same combined income of $50,000, they will pay annual premiums up to a cap of $5,160 a year. That means they have to fork over a marriage penalty of $2,084.

The marriage penalty is the result of the fact that government subsidies for buying health insurance are pegged to the federal poverty guidelines. Couples that remain unmarried are rewarded with a separate health care subsidy for each income.

When the Wall Street Journal reporter quizzed the Democratic authors of the health care bill, they made it clear that this differential was deliberate. The staffer justified the discriminatory treatment because “you have to decide what your goals are.” Indeed, the Democrats have decided what their goals are. They know that 70% of unmarried women voted for Obama in 2008, and the Democrats plan to reward this group with health insurance subsidies.

The House staffer told the Wall Street Journal reporter that the Democrats can’t make the subsidies neutral towards marriage because that would give a traditional one-breadwinner married couple a more generous subsidy than a single parent at the same income level. Horrors! The Democrats certainly are not going to allow traditional marriage to be preferred over couples who just shack up!

Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously and accurately explained the disastrous results of welfare back in 1965. The welfare system created a matriarchy with millions of children lacking their father in the home. It’s no wonder illegitimate birthrates are soaring and unmarried mothers now give birth to 4 out of every 10 babies born in the United States.

Means-tested welfare programs already cost taxpayers close to $1 trillion a year (even more than national defense!), and Obamacare is projected to add another $2.5 trillion after all its provisions take effect. There’s no end in sight to the increasing costs of these entitlements. In one year, the Obama Administration will spend more taxpayers’ money on spreading the wealth to non-taxpayers than George W. Bush spent on the entire Iraq war.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a liberal firm that consults for clients such as Bill Clinton and John Kerry, admitted: “Unmarried women represent one of the most reliable Democratic cohorts in the electorate . . . leading the charge for fundamental change in health care.”

It used to be that a husband was responsible for the financial support of his wife and children, but the feminists’ agenda calls for replacing husbands with Big Brother Government. The feminists call their movement “women’s liberation,” and Obamacare is one more way to help them achieve their goal.

Feminists keep tightening their control over the social policies of the Democratic Party, and Obamacare will be his third payoff to the feminists. The first bill Obama signed as President, the Lilly Ledbetter Act, enables women to sue employers years many years after any alleged workplace discrimination (when no one is still alive to defend against allegations), and the second payoff was getting Obama to give the majority of taxpayer-paid Stimulus jobs to women even though men have suffered the big majority of job losses.

Read it all.

The scavenger hunt is on

I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant nor a “policy wonk” (whatever that is supposed to be). Sorting through the huge pile of paperwork that makes up the Obamacare bill, or for that matter, the recent financial regulatory bill, and piecing together the hidden “zingers” that are poised to harm each sector of our economy and society, is beyond my capabilities. This is not a one-person job. I would like to urge everyone who is able to do so, to help complete this task by researching how those bills will affect their community and their sector of the economy, and submit that information to 2.0: The Blogmocracy.

The scavenger hunt is on, and the only prize is preserving your freedom.

Originally published at 2.0: The Blogmocracy

Underemployment: Obama’s dirty little secret

Even the best-qualified, highest-skilled, and hardest-working Americans are up against it these days. Yes, even those Americans who still have jobs! We all know that the official unemployment statistics are vastly understated, in that they focus only on claims for unemployment compensation. The stats do not properly account for older workers who have taken early retirement after losing a job; young workers who cannot enter the labor force; “discouraged workers” who are still looking for work, but whose unemployment benefits are exhausted; disabled persons who could work to a limited extent, but who aren’t being hired; and American citizens who have had to travel overseas, often at great sacrifice and financial loss, to find work.

But perhaps the biggest of the dirty little secrets hidden by the official unemployment statistics is underemployment. I know about this from personal experience. Despite all of my qualifications, I have not been able to find full-time employment in over two years. The reason? With all of the hidden ramifications of Obamacare looming over everyone’s heads, along with the other past and future attacks on private enterprise, nobody wants to hire full-time people at all if they can help it. Certainly nobody wants to hire someone over 55 for a full-time job where the employer will be forced to provide overpriced health insurance or be fined for not providing it. Some people may call it age discrimination, but it’s the government that is causing it, not the prejudices of private employers.

There’s no need to take my word for any of this. Look at any job board or want-ad listing and notice the proliferation of part-time, temporary, and contract assignments, and the relative absence of full-time jobs with benefits. For example, a retail store that would normally hire two or three full-time employees will instead hire five part-time employees for 15 to 30 hours per week, at minimum wage, perhaps with commissions, but no benefits. A recent Gallup Poll also reveals large-scale underemployment in the form of part-time workers who want, but cannot get, full-time employment.

The liberal elite wants it that way

Of course, the liberal establishment pretends not to know why unemployment remains so high. Case in point: NYT: Mystery for White House: Where did the jobs go? [H/T: Rodan]

That conundrum, which reclaims center stage in Washington this week, is this: Why is unemployment so high?

The whodunit has flummoxed economists in both parties for a year. In 2009, as the new Obama administration grappled with the financial crisis, joblessness rose nearly two points beyond customary recession forecasts.

Part of the uncertainty concerns why. More consequential now, as the administration and Congress determine what to do, is whether the unemployment spike reflects a short-term or permanent shift in demand for workers.

But seriously…

I have studied economics and I know this for certain: All they have to do is repeal Obozocare, resume drilling, seal the borders, and end the H-1b program, and unemployment will drop three points within a month. I guarantee it!

But none of that will happen until we somehow muster the political will to force our government to do that. Or until enough States secede and decide to govern themselves in the interest of their own citizens.

One way or another, we need to free ourselves from the predatory liberal elites who flout the will of the people and who serve only their own interests and those of our foreign enemies.

The Obama administration, together with the liberal establishment in academia, the mainstream media, the NGOs, the foundations, the Ivy League, and the UN, all have reason to want unemployment to remain high. Why? Because, though it may make the Obama administration look incompetent in the short run, as it did with FDR, it will create more dependency on the government and increase centralized government power in the long run.

Dependency, the Liberals’ Natural Resource explains how this nefarious system works:

A Heritage Foundation report shows that thanks to multiple government programs, the proportion of Americans in some way dependent on government largess has suddenly jumped by 31.2% since 2001 after decades of much slower increases. Even in inflation-adjusted dollars, America now spends thirteen times more on public welfare than it did in 1965. Dependency has snowballed in health care, public welfare, and housing, and the upward trend seems likely to continue as Obama’s statist polices take hold and baby boomers retire. Indeed, the president plans to spend some $10.3 trillion in welfare over the next decades. In a nutshell, Uncle Sam is replacing the family, the church, private charities, and all other non-government sources of assistance, and this means regular jobs for the new caregivers. And it feels good to work for Uncle Sam: Benefits included, the average federal workers in 2008 earned double what those in the private sector took home. So it is hardly unexpected that since about January 2008, some 7.9 million private sectors jobs have disappeared, while 590,000 public sector jobs were created — and this trend seems to be multiplying. It’s a thoroughly modern ménage à trois of dependent citizens, well-paid government employees ministering to them, and harried taxpayers footing the bill.

…

Here’s what makes this “new wealth” so attractive: In today’s uncertain economy, it far outshines the old wealth of building things and selling them at a profit. For one, jobs ministering to the dependent are labor-intensive and immune to mechanization. Government jobs are also wonderfully secure. It is inconceivable, for example, that a counselor working with Vietnamese gangs in Los Angeles will be replaced by an industrial robot or that under-employed social workers will also be asked to direct rush hour traffic to trim labor costs. This is not the cost-cutting-obsessed airlines where passengers make their own reservations, print boarding passes, stow their own luggage, and bring their own food. Nor can these interventions be outsourced to foreign competition. Helping the less fortunate has a permanent “Made in USA” label attached — Toyota has no interest in tackling the pathologies of those living in Detroit.

The supply of these jobs-generating assets is also inexhaustible. America will never, never run out of this newly discovered “wealth.” We may deplete our oil and ravage our forests, but what are the odds of drug addicts, the mentally ill, young unwed mothers, and others needing intervention vanishing? Those mired in pathology are a truly renewable natural resource. Social problems do recede, but rest assured, replacements are easily found (e.g., sex addiction). In a pinch, just open the borders and receive a bountiful fresh supply. And compare the ease of setting up an in-school clinic to mentor anorexic, non-English-speaking adolescent girls with low self-esteem versus building a factory. The former is instantly shovel-ready.

Read it all.

In other words, if the government stops the private sector from offering relatively secure, remunerative, full-time employment to American citizens, that will eventually leave the government as the only source of good jobs on American soil. This is how the federal government creates a new class of Soviet-style apparatchiki. Of course, those jobs ONLY go to those who actively support the regime and do their part to enhance the careers of those already in power, while keeping everyone else down.

Now what?

Our goal is to re-empower ourselves and our families, and decentralize and take back control over everything that has been usurped from us. That means we need to go on the attack to discredit the liberal establishment and all its pomps and all its works, anywhere and everywhere it appears.

We must overcome not only economic underemployment, but the underemployment of the human spirit.

To that end, please turn your attention to this excellent article: Read the rest of this excellent article at America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution. [H/T: doriangrey]

… Consider: The ruling class denies its opponents’ legitimacy. Seldom does a Democratic official or member of the ruling class speak on public affairs without reiterating the litany of his class’s claim to authority, contrasting it with opponents who are either uninformed, stupid, racist, shills for business, violent, fundamentalist, or all of the above. They do this in the hope that opponents, hearing no other characterizations of themselves and no authoritative voice discrediting the ruling class, will be dispirited. For the country class seriously to contend for self-governance, the political party that represents it will have to discredit not just such patent frauds as ethanol mandates, the pretense that taxes can control “climate change,” and the outrage of banning God from public life. More important, such a serious party would have to attack the ruling class’s fundamental claims to its superior intellect and morality in ways that dispirit the target and hearten one’s own. The Democrats having set the rules of modern politics, opponents who want electoral success are obliged to follow them.

…

Reducing the taxes that most Americans resent requires eliminating the network of subsidies to millions of other Americans that these taxes finance, and eliminating the jobs of government employees who administer them. Eliminating that network is practical, if at all, if done simultaneously, both because subsidies are morally wrong and economically counterproductive, and because the country cannot afford the practice in general. The electorate is likely to cut off millions of government clients, high and low, only if its choice is between no economic privilege for anyone and ratifying government’s role as the arbiter of all our fortunes. The same goes for government grants to and contracts with so-called nonprofit institutions or non-governmental organizations. The case against all arrangements by which the government favors some groups of citizens is easier to make than that against any such arrangement. Without too much fuss, a few obviously burdensome bureaucracies, like the Department of Education, can be eliminated, while money can be cut off to partisan enterprises such as the National Endowments and public broadcasting. That sort of thing is as necessary to the American body politic as a weight reduction program is essential to restoring the health of any human body degraded by obesity and lack of exercise. Yet shedding fat is the easy part. Restoring atrophied muscles is harder. Reenabling the body to do elementary tasks takes yet more concentration.

The grandparents of today’s Americans (132 million in 1940) had opportunities to serve on 117,000 school boards. To exercise responsibilities comparable to their grandparents’, today’s 310 million Americans would have radically to decentralize the mere 15,000 districts into which public school children are now concentrated. They would have to take responsibility for curriculum and administration away from credentialed experts, and they would have to explain why they know better. This would involve a level of political articulation of the body politic far beyond voting in elections every two years.

If self-governance means anything, it means that those who exercise government power must depend on elections. The shorter the electoral leash, the likelier an official to have his chain yanked by voters, the more truly republican the government is. Yet to subject the modern administrative state’s agencies to electoral control would require ordinary citizens to take an interest in any number of technical matters. Law can require environmental regulators or insurance commissioners, or judges or auditors to be elected. But only citizens’ discernment and vigilance could make these officials good. Only citizens’ understanding of and commitment to law can possibly reverse the patent disregard for the Constitution and statutes that has permeated American life. Unfortunately, it is easier for anyone who dislikes a court’s or an official’s unlawful act to counter it with another unlawful one than to draw all parties back to the foundation of truth.

Read it all.

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What a tragic irony!

In case you haven’t heard, Satyam was the fourth-largest IT outsourcing company in India, with 55,000 employees (or so they claimed). The CEO, Ramalinga Raju, recently resigned after admitting massive financial fraud. As of this writing, the company is almost out of cash.

Here we go again…

Satyam has done business with companies and governments in over 60 countries, including the U.S. This scandal appears to be even larger in scope than the Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal of late 2001. Price Waterhouse, the Indian subsidiary of PricewaterhouseCoopers, is facing close scrutiny over having signed off on Satyam’s audits.

Obviously, the much-touted Sarbanes-Oxley law enacted after the Enron/Arthur Andersen debacle did nothing to prevent the recent collapse of the U.S. real estate, stock market, and financial sector. The take-home lesson is that once any corporation becomes multinational in scope, and politically well-connected, no laws, no regulations, no bureaucratic restructuring can possibly keep it honest if its management chooses to do otherwise.

Another reason why outsourcing is wrong

Outsourcing and offshoring are always and everywhere the enemies of accountability. The further away one’s trading partners are located, the harder it is to comprehend what they are up to, and that will never change.

Why corporate cheating is contagious

Whenever one major company in an industry has been “cooking the books” to promote or exaggerate its own success, what effect do you suppose that has? Think about it! Every other executive, every other company in that industry will be pressured to match or exceed the cheater’s inflated results, by fair means or foul, or face the wrath of board members and stockholders.

Some news links and other sources:

• Business Standard: Regulators, government tighten noose around Satyam
• Business Standard: Government supersedes Satyam board
• Wikipedia: Satyam Computer Services Ltd.
• NYT: Satyam Chief Admits Huge Fraud
• IHT: India hears calls for Satyam bailout
• IHT: Auditor in cross hairs over fraud at Satyam
• The Australian: Police arrest Satyam founder, Government sacks board
• Information Week Blog: Satyam And Its 8-Year Ban from World Bank
• Bloomberg.com: Satyam U.S. Investors File Actions Alleging Fraud (Update2)
• TheDeal.com: Enron went bankrupt, but what of Satyam’s future?

Perhaps some of this would be funny if it were not so sad.

Note: The screen capture was taken by 1389AD from www.satyam.com, shortly after the announcement. The pixelated area was blurred in the original.

What You Can Do:

From activist Naomi Ragen:

Friends,

I have been anxiously following the travails of courageous author Rachel Ehrenfeld, who dared to expose the Saudi connection to terrorist funding, and has since been hit with one frivolous and ridiculous lawsuit after another. From personal experience, I can tell you that this is the way that fanatics and the enemies of free speech wear down and intimidate authors with the guts to tell the truth. They wear them down financially, because lawyers are expensive and you have to use a lawyer even if you are completely innocent and the other side are self-serving, immoral liars and/or idiots with absolutely no case. They wear you down emotionally, because you have to face court dates, and public scrutiny, and the fear of some clueless judge (like the one in Britain Rachel faced) finding you guilty and imposing multi-million dollar fines against you.

Now, the capital of freedom and of publishing, New York, is about to pass legislation that will stop the success of the kind of lawsuits facing the Rachel Ehrenfelds of the world, protecting them from the insanities of foreign justice. You can help to see this law passed. Below, details. Please, please get involved. Brigitte Gabriel, another author I admire, has written the letter below. Please write the assemblymen involved, Please write influential editors of influential papers. Help us to see this happen!!

Naomi

For more articles,please visit my Web page at: http://www.NaomiRagen.com

---

From Brigitte Gabriel, ACT For America:

Libel Terrorism Protection Act

We are concerned with the bi-partisan “Libel Terrorism Protection Act,” introduced in the New York Assembly and Senate by Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D) and Senator Dean Skelos (R).This bill has been introduced to protect New York authors who investigate and expose the enablers of terrorism from libel lawsuits filed in foreign courts.

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed – And How to Stop It, was the target of one of those lawsuits. The wealthy Saudi who filed the lawsuit against Dr. Ehrenfeld in the United Kingdom has successfully silenced more than 40 authors and publishers, including many Americans. If these lawsuits are allowed to continue, the ramifications for our cherished freedoms of speech and the press are chilling and ominous. The sooner “The Libel Terrorism Protection Act,” is signed into law, the sooner New York – the publishing capital of the U.S. and the free world – and New York authors will be protected from meritless and frivolous libel suits filed in foreign jurisdictions.

The “Libel Terrorism Protection Act” directly affects me (Brigitte). My first book, Because They Hate, was published by a New York publisher. My second book, scheduled for release later this year, will be published by that same New York publisher. Passage of this New York law will bring much-needed legal protection to the work I am doing. If you agree that this protection is essential to preserve the ability of authors like myself to speak out on matters of terrorism, please carefully read the action items below and then ACT! today. Thank you!

ACTION ITEMS

If the links don’t work, please just Google to get this information!

1. 
   For those of you who live in New York State, please contact your Assembly Member and State Senator today. Contact them either by phone or email or both. Tell them you are calling in support of the “Libel Terrorism Protection Act,” bill number A9652, and ask for their support of the bill. The links below will take you to a listing of New York’s Assembly Members and Senators
   http://senate.state.ny.us/senatehomepage.nsf/senators?OpenForm
   http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/

   In addition, if you have time, contact the Chair-person of the Judiciary Committees in both the Assembly and the Senate. The bill has been referred to these committees. Ask for the chairperson’s support for the bill. The links below will take you to the chair persons of the Assembly and Senate Judiciary Committees.
   Helene E. Weinstein http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=041 (Assembly)
   http://senatordefrancisco.org/50/default.aspx (Senate)

   Write a short letter to the Editor of your local newspaper, explaining the background of the bill and why it’s needed. Elected officials usually monitor letters to the editor as one way to keep their fingers on the local pulse.

2. 
   For those of you who do not live in New York State, please contact the two Judiciary chair persons identified above. When you do, emphasize how important this bill is, that it is a model for other states and the federal government, and thus it has national implications – which is why you, a resident of a state other than New York, are contacting them. You, too, could send letters to the editor of New York newspapers. This would demonstrate to the press, public and New York legislators that “the nation is watching.”

3. 
   Forward this email to other people you know, using the forwarding link at the bottom.

It is critical that we help get this legislation passed. We cannot allow those involved in terrorism to succeed in silencing those who would expose their activities. Please ACT! today. And if you can financially help us make this nationwide grassroots lobbying effort successful, please click here:
https://www.donation-net.net/Act4America/donate.cfm ?dn=1097&commid=1687484&id=17022

Thank you for your support and your activism.

Brigitte Gabriel, Founder and President
Guy Rodgers, Executive Director
ACT for America

P.O. Box 6884
Virginia Beach, VA 23456
www.actforamerica.org

ACT for America is an issues advocacy organization dedicated to effectively organizing and mobilizing the most powerful grassroots citizen action network in America, a grassroots network committed to informed and coordinated civic action that will lead to public policies that promote America’s national security and the defense of American democratic values against the assault of radical Islam. We are only as strong as our supporters, and your volunteer and financial support is essential to our success. Thank you for helping us make America safer and more secure.

https://www.donation-net.net/Act4America/donate.cfm
?dn=1097&commid=1687484&id=17022

More:

• Canada: Private Motion M-446 Introduced to Protect Free Speech
• Petition for Afghan Journalist Perwiz Kambakhsh
• 1389 Blog articles about Rachel Ehrenfeld
• Articles about litigation jihad
• Articles about censorship in general

By Jenn Sierra

Let’s say you’re attending a meeting of your state legislature, and when it is time to give the opening prayer, a Muslim takes his turn at the lectern. You politely bow your head, and he prays for about four minutes, part of which is in Arabic, and part of which is in English. Since you don’t speak Arabic, this is the part you manage to understand (hat-tip straightarrow, and 1389):

I seek refuge in God against the accursed Satan in the name of God, most gracious, most merciful…master of the day of judgment…[give us] victory over those who disbelieve.

As we begin this new year…in a world with trials and tribulations, we ask you to open the hearts of our legislators and policy makers to make the right decisions….We ask that you guide our legislators and give them the wisdom and knowledge to tackle the difficult problems that face us today in order to eliminate the senseless crimes on humanity. Help them, Lord, to solve the complicated problems…so that we can be a model to the world.

Are you ready to say, “Amen,” and shout “Hallelujah”? Or do you feel like you’ve been slapped in the face as an American? This happened in Des Moines, Iowa, and some of the legislators there did, indeed find this prayer inappropriate.

Yesterday, in Tulsa, Oklahoma City Counselors voted to move from a “generic” prayer format to allowing prayers to be in the name of any organized religion. There were two dissenting votes, one from Councilor Jack Henderson, who warned:

What you are doing is opening a Pandora’s box and you might not like what you see.

Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry Executive Director James Mishler echoed the sentiment:

I think the very people who have been encouraging you to make this change are going to be very uncomfortable when the priest from the Hindu temple is standing here chanting in the name of Krishna or when someone from the Wiccan community offers prayers to the earth mother.

Like, perhaps when a Muslim prays for God to deliver him from the infidels in the United States during his opening prayer? Think that’ll make some folks uncomfortable?

The Hindu part of Mischler’s prophecy is already happening, in five states:

Rajan Zed, prominent Hindu chaplain and Indo-American leader, will recite these history making prayers in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Washington and Arizona, which will reportedly be the first Hindu prayers of these Senates since their formation.

Zed, who lives in Reno (Nevada), will deliver these prayers from ancient Hindu scriptures at Senate halls in State Capitols in Santa Fe (January 28), Denver (January 29), Salt Lake City (February 13), Olympia (February 22), and Phoenix (March 24). After first reciting in Sanskrit, he will then read the English translation of the prayer.

This has also been ruled into law in some places for the wiccans:

Judges have ruled that witches must be allowed to lead prayers at local government meetings, and that Wiccan convicts must be provided with requested “sacred objects” so they can perform spells in their cells. Witches in the armed services have even formed covens and routinely “worship” on U.S. military bases.

Over the past few years, due to unrelenting lawsuits by the ACLU (like this one in Indiana) over Christian prayers at government meetings, the trend has been to use non-sectarian “prayers,” sometimes called “invocations.” It will be interesting, now that the tide is turning back to allowing various religions to pray to their own gods during this time, to see if the ACLU will as vehemntly fight the Hindus, the Muslims, the Wiccans, etc., and if the Christians (who, by the way, are STILL the overwhelming majority of the United States) will now be allowed to pray to their Father in the name of Jesus Christ without fear of being sued…?

One of my childhood preachers used to shout, “Say, ‘Amen!’ or ‘Oh, My!’”

Oh, my!

(also on FHK and Jenn Sierra)