TELLING IT LIKE IT IS !

Sen. Barack Obama “is lying” when he insists that he has never prayed in a mosque and was never a Muslim, a prominent Middle East expert and journalist says.

Daniel Pipes, founder of the Middle East Forum think tank, says there is strong evidence that Obama received a Muslim upbringing during his years in Indonesia. Pipes say, “What I have a problem with is that he’s lying when he says he was never a Muslim.

Pipes said, “It would start with the fact that his father was a Muslim. In the Muslim world, if your father is a Muslim, you’re a Muslim. His father named him Hussein, which is a name only given to Muslim babies. He went with his stepfather to a mosque. They celebrated certain Muslim holidays at the mosque together. He had knowledge of the Koran. He had knowledge of Muslim prayers. You put all this together, he was a Muslim.”

A November 12 post on Obama’s Web site headlined, “Barack Obama Is Not and Has Never Been a Muslim,” and stated: “Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim.” The current post includes links intended to debunk any Muslim connection.

Several media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, have reported on Obama’s schooling in Indonesia, where he lived from 1967 to 1971, which included Muslim religious studies. Obama was grouped with Muslim students at the school and engaged in weekly religious studies, including studying the Koran and learning Muslim prayers.

In 1970, Obama’s family moved and he was enrolled in a public school where children such as Obama who were identified as Muslim spent two hours a week studying Islam. His former teachers, along with two people who were identified by Obama’s grade-school teacher as childhood friends, say Obama was registered by his family as a Muslim at both of the schools he attended. That registration meant that during the third and fourth grades, Obama learned about Islam for two hours each week in religion class.

It is a fact in Islam that the religion passes on through the father, and yet it’s denied as a falsehood by people who know better. It’s Islam 101.

Supporting that point is Shireen K. Burki, an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington. Burki, who spent her childhood studying Islam at a school in Islamabad, Pakistan, has first-hand experience as the daughter of a Muslim father and a Christian mother. “According to Islamic jurisprudence,” she wrote in a May article in the Christian Science Monitor, “children of a Muslim father … are automatically Muslims. Most Muslims around the world agree: A child of a Muslim father is a Muslim. Period.”

This clearly shows that Obama was raised as a Muslim while he lived in Indonesia, and a whopping double standard in how the mainstream media has reported on Obama’s past.

It’s been quite intriguing to watch the careful picking over of Sarah Palin’s record, down to her library policies as mayor of Wasilla, and her possible false pregnancies, and so forth, an analysis that involved excruciating details in her case, contrasted to the “the general pass” the media has given Obama, whether over his career in the Illinois Senate, the Annenberg library papers, or his upbringing in Jakarta.

Even the McCain campaign “has been very cautious about looking into Barack Obama at all, and the GOP has demonstrated a general reluctance to raise questions about Obama’s past. Why? They would for anyone else!

Why is it so “hands off” when it comes to Obama while there is so much that is being hidden and undisclosed about his life?

When issue after issue are examined there is but one thought … Democrats seem to always support policies that weaken America while opposing policies that would strengthen her. Democrats consistently choose the policy that would most hurt America. Using this standard it is easy to predict which position Democrats will take on a wide variety of seemingly unrelated issues.

Policies Democrats Oppose that would strengthen America:

• Drilling for oil
• Nuclear power
• Lower Taxes
• Making Life Difficult for terrorists
• Anti-Missile Defense
• Teacher-control of the classroom
• School Choice
• Photo ID when voting
• Protect the borders
• Environmental policies that put people first
• Strong military

In the 1990s Democrats supported policies that would strong arm banks into giving mortgages to underprivileged people so they could buy homes. These people had little ability to pay back the loans and traditionally would have been considered bad credit risks. But through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Clinton administration assured the banks that was no problem.

When a bank makes a mortgage loan these quasi-governmental agencies purchase the loan, providing liquidity to the banking system and making it possible for the banks to turn around and make more mortgage loans. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were directed by the Clinton administration to purchase these bad mortgages from the banks making them and to implement policies to pressure the banks to “liberalize” their lending standards so less credit worthy individuals would qualify for mortgages.

The stated intention was to make home ownership possible for more people. However, conservatives at the time often pointed out that this would eventually come back to haunt us as the less than credit-worthy borrowers defaulted and the taxpayer would have to bail everyone out.

That is exactly what has happened and we are now seeing the devastation these policies have wreaked on the economy. Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch are either bailed out, bankrupted or bought out. And the closure of those banks is reverberating throughout the economy and around the world. There is no doubt now that the policies followed by the Democratic Clinton administration are responsible for the economic devastation we are currently witnessing.

Now let’s look at oil. Following the theory that Democrats support policies that weaken America, you will correctly predict that Democrats will be against drilling domestically for oil. Why? Because drilling for oil would strengthen America and not drilling weakens it. Relying on political enemies for our most critical natural resource is a suicidal position especially in light of the fact that our reliance is caused solely for political reasons. Our reliance on our enemies is not caused because we lack the resources. In fact, we have enough unrecovered oil reserves to supply 100% of our needs for another 251 years!

For whatever seductive words Democrats use to explain their radical position that America not be allowed to mine its own natural resources, the result is predictable. Americans are now paying record prices at the pump and it’s putting a crimp in many a budget. Democratic energy policy has weakened America.

You can go right down the line on issue after issue after issue, and see that Democrats consistently oppose policies that would make America stronger and support policies that would make her weaker.

You should be asking by now, why would Democrats want to hurt America? The reasons are deep and complex, but there is substantial evidence to suggest that the ruling members of the Democratic Party do not have America’s best interest at heart.

First, a quick look at Barack Obama and his friends, pastor, wife and associates. (This can all be goggled but don’t expect to see the liberal media outlets to do much if anything with it.) But suffice it to say he associates with many people who have been quite outspoken about their disdain for America – including his wife. The closest people in Obama’s life have said terrible things about America. His pastor said America deserved 9/11. Obama first reacted to this by saying he didn’t believe his pastor had said anything that controversial. His wife says she has never before in her adult life been proud of America.

He associates and has been befriended by Bill Ayers, an admitted domestic terrorist. He has the support of Louis Farrakhan (a Jew-hating anti-American), and he has the publicly-declared support of the Middle Eastern terrorist group Hamas.

Obama says it’s not fair to judge a candidate for president on those who support them. But whether or not that is true, one must ask, why do so many people who want to destroy America support Obama? What is it they see in him that engenders their support?

The Left in America, as the Left around the world has one thing in common with these people – they all believe the world would be better off without America in it. And here we come to the crux of the issue. If you believe the world would be better off without America’s influence in it – as many on the far Left do, then what is the easiest way to stop America from spreading its influence? You can’t attack America militarily and simply get rid of it. No, the easiest way to stop America’s influence in the world is to simply weaken America economically, morally and militarily. Weaken her economically so she no longer has the financial resources to spread her influence around the world. (Democrats almost always support economic policies that weaken America because they have become practicing socialists.). Weaken her morally so she no longer has the spiritual resolve to influence the world for the better. And weaken her militarily so she can’t use physical might to spread her influence. (Democrats, including Obama have called for a weaker American military and they have called for surrender in Iraq).

It should be no surprise because the Democratic Party has been taken over by the far Left wing of socialism even though they would deny it … look up the definition of socialism. And once you understand what the Left really believes and the more you understand the positions of the Democratic Party. Once you begin to understand their true disdain for the role America has played historically in the world, you will begin to understand that they do want a weakened America. Once you understand their true loathing of the influence America has around the world, you will begin to understand that they do wish to clip America’s wings.

It may sound far-fetched, but it’s the only theory that is always consistent with Democrats’ actions. You can almost predict what stand they’re going to take on any given issue simply by figuring out which stand would most weaken America.

• Does it weaken America to prohibit the use of our own natural resources? Yes, and Democrats prohibit it.
• Does it weaken America to demand that banks loosen their lending standards so minorities can get mortgages? Yes, and Democrats demanded it – and we are now suffering greatly from their actions – to the tune of a $850 billion bailout passed in Congress that has a Democrat majority.
• Is it suicidal to oppose a defense system that would protect the American population against incoming cruise missiles? Of course! And Democrats oppose it!
• Would it hurt America if we had pulled completely out of Iraq last March as Barack Obama originally insisted on? Of course. Because we stayed, we are now on the verge of having a strong ally in the Middle East. If Democrats had had their way America would have lost what now promises to be a new and brighter future in the Middle East.

Palin’s Pipeline Counters Natural-Gas Cartel

With Russia and Iran seeking to form a natural gas cartel along the lines of OPEC, one project will likely insulate the U.S. against higher gas prices – the $40 billion pipeline Gov. Sarah Palin pushed through in Alaska.

“If OPEC strikes you as a bad group, the new cartel for natural gas, led by Russia and Iran, will be even worse,” Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) stated in an editorial.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin last year said “a gas OPEC is an interesting idea,” and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently drew up the proposed organization’s charter, which he will soon take to Moscow.

Iran’s Gas Exporting Countries Forum will first seek to gain control of reserves through state firms in 14 nations, including Venezuela, with an ultimate goal of controlling production. That will kill competition and “bodes ill for the global gas market,” according to IBD.

As of now, the U.S. is fairly self-sufficient in natural gas. Demand is certain to increase, but “Palin effectively beat back the ambitious petrotyrants 10 years early” with her 1,715-mile pipeline across Canada that will bring 4.5 trillion cubic feet of gas to the lower 48 states – almost one-fifth of projected needs – within a decade, the editorial discloses.

“Palin mowed down 30 years of legislative squabbling in the Alaska Statehouse and then triumphantly signed off on the pipeline in August,” IBD noted.

“Heading off the gas cartel is an important move, and Palin deserves recognition.”