TELLING IT LIKE IT IS !

Every night on the news we hear updates of violence in Iraq. The war continues and commentators debate whether American soldiers should be there or not. We hear little of the positive changes that are happening, but what we do not hear about is the plight of Christian nationals in Iraq. For those who are, or convert to, Christianity, a spiritual war wages every day … not just in Iraq but in all Muslim countries.

The efforts to silence, intimidate, and kill the infidels (all those who are not Muslim … especially Christians) resonates from the mouths and hearts of those devoted to the Koran and to Mohammed. They have no problem killing those who will not join them … even if you are family.

When *Muhammad first converted to Christianity from Islam, he kept his new faith a secret. In fact, the first person he told outside of his wife and son was a Christian named *Joseph. He knew the risks of sharing his faith with others in his homeland of Iraq but felt led to do so anyway. So he then witnessed to his extended family. Following radical and normal teachings of Islam, his family members killed *Muhammad. (*Actual names changed to protect the families.)

*Muhammad’s widow sent *Muhammad’s friend *Joseph an e-mail after the martyrdom of her husband. She wrote: “I have bad news. *Muhammad is dead. Our family killed him for sharing his new faith in Jesus Christ. I miss him dearly. *Muhammad left me two important things: my son and our Bible. I’ll never forget why he died. He died for Jesus. I believe Jesus will help me. Tell the people [other Christians] to pray for me.”

Muhammad’s widow and son are now being supported by VOM’s (Voice of the Martyrs) Families of Martyrs fund. VOM reaches out to families who have been victims of severe persecution and martyrdom. Weekly the martyr cases increase.

America is silent on the martyrdom of Christians and the ethnic cleansing of Christians from Muslim countries and the countries they are taking over by the “sword.” Check out the Koran.

Shame on the politicians who continue to ignore such atrocities as the lives of people are sacrifice daily.

The book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It is about to be banned in Canada.It has been labeled as “flagrantly Islamophobic” by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the New York Times America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It bestseller , is now in paperback-and ironically could soon be sold in America alone.

Why is this book so controversial?

According to Canada it’s because America Alone is “alarmist.” Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because Steyn proclaims the unspeakable, yet undeniable truth: the Western world is falling prey to the unrelenting tide of radical Islam, demographically and ideologically. And if we don’t do something soon, one day we’ll wake up to the end of the world as we know it: the end of church bells, replaced by the muezzin’s call to prayer. The end of free speech, replaced by strict, religious-based censorship. The end of liberty and justice for all, replaced by Sharia law.

Think this can’t happen? Guess again. The future, as Steyn shows, belongs to the fecund and confident. And the Islamists are both, while the West is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization.

Check out England and other European countries if you want proof. Better yet … read the book.

All is not lost though: America can survive, prosper, and defend its freedom. But only if it becomes self-reliant, stays true to itself, and fights for the conviction that our country really is the world’s last, best hope.

If we don’t stand for something, we’ll fall for anything…Canada already has.

By the way, I am Canadian and tolerance to everything but Christianity is killing Canada and America is next!

Muhammad and Islam

Nearly everyone can remember what they were doing on September 11, 2001. That fateful day affected all of us and certainly increased our desire to know more about Islam. In the years following, we have all learned more about the world’s second largest religion. But many times, political correctness has clouded clear thinking about Islam.

We hear that “Islam is a religion of peace.” Some even say, “The God of Islam is the same God as the God of the Jews and the Christians.” So what is the truth about these statements about Islam?

Let’s look at some of these statements and provide a biblically-based response. We need to know the facts about Islam and this current war on terror.

The first statement we will address is often heard in religion classes on college campuses. That is that “Muhammad is like every other religious founder.” This simply is not the case. For example, nearly every major religion in the world teaches a variation of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Islam does not have a Golden Rule. Instead, it makes very definite distinctions in the way Muslims are to treat believers and unbelievers. The latter are called infidels and are often treated harshly or killed. This religious perspective is very different from other religions.

For a moment, let’s compare Jesus and Muhammad. Muslims believe that Muhammad is the final prophet from Allah. He is referred to as the “seal of the prophets” (Sura 33:40). But while he is revered as the greatest of the prophets, most do not teach that he was sinless. The Qur’an does not make the claim that he was sinless, and there are passages that teach that Muhammad was a man like us (Sura 18:110) and that Allah told Muhammad that he must repent of his sins (Sura 40:55).

By contrast, Jesus claimed to be God and claimed to have the powers and authority that only God could possess. The New Testament provides eyewitness accounts or records of eyewitness accounts of the claims that Jesus made and the miracles he performed. Moreover, the New Testament teaches that Jesus Christ lived a perfect and sinless life (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Muhammad’s every action is to be imitated by Muslims. His life is a model for these believers. Some Muslims even avoid eating food that Muhammad avoided or never was able to eat. In fact, Muhammad is so revered by Muslims that no perceived criticism upon him or even his likeness (e.g., through a cartoon) may be allowed.

Muhammad also taught that Muslims are to fight in the cause of Allah (Sura 4:76) and fight against the unbelievers (Sura 9:123). By contrast, Jesus taught that Christians are to love their enemies (Matthew 5:44) and turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39).

In conclusion, we can see that the life of Muhammad is different from many of the other founders of religion. Moreover, the life of Muhammad and the life of Jesus Christ are very different.

Islam: A Religion of Peace?

One politically correct phrase that is often repeated is that “Islam is a religion of peace.” While it is true that some Muslims are peace-loving, is it also true that Islam is a religion of peace? To answer that question, it is important to understand the meaning of jihad.

The word jihad is actually the noun of the Arabic verb jahidi, which means to “strive hard.” This verse is an example: “O Prophet! Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell, and evil refuge indeed” (Sura 9:73).

Although some Muslims understand this striving to be merely intellectual and philosophical, the usual translation of jihad involves a holy war. That has been the traditional interpretation since the time of Muhammad.

Jihad was to be waged on the battlefield. Sura 47:4 says, “When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly.” Sura 9:5 says, “Fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, beleager them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem.”

Consider some of these other passages concerning jihad. Faithful Muslims wage jihad against unbelievers: “O ye who believe! Fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you; and know that Allah is with those who fear Him” (Sura 9:123).

Muslims are also to wage jihad not only against unbelievers but against those who have strayed from the faith: “Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: and evil fate” (Sura 9:73).

Another way to understand the term “jihad” is to look at the historical context. After Muhammad’s success in the Battle of Badr, he set forth various principles of warfare. For example, according to Sura 9:29, jihad is a religious duty. He taught in Sura 9:111 that martyrdom in jihad is the highest good and guarantees salvation. Sura 9:5 says that Muslims engaged in jihad should not show tolerance toward unbelievers. And acts of terrorism are justified in Sura 8:2.

While it may be true that there are peaceful Muslims, it is not true that Islam is a peaceful religion. The teaching of jihad and the current interpretation by radical Muslims of this concept can easily be seen in the acts of terrorism around the world.

The Qur’an and the Bible are Both Violent Books

Whenever verses of the sword from the Qur’an are quoted, you can be sure that someone will quickly point out that the Old Testament calls for violence. But are these two books morally equivalent? Let’s look at some of these passages and see.

The Qur’an calls for jihad against the unbelievers (or infidels). Sura 9:5 says, “Fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, beleager them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem.”

Sura 9:29 says, “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Prophet, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, of the People of the Book, [Christians] until they pay the jizyah [per capita tax imposed on non-Muslim adult males] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”

Sura 47:4-7 says, “When you meet unbelievers, smite their necks, then, when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds; then set them free, either by grace or ransom, till the war lays down its loads…And those who are slain in the way of God, He will not send their works astray. He will guide them, and dispose their minds aright, and He will admit them to Paradise, that He has made known to them.”

In the Old Testament, you have a call for military action against specific groups. Deuteronomy 7:1-2 says, “When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, and when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.”

1 Samuel 15:2-3 says, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”

While there are some similarities, notice the difference. In the Old Testament, there was a direct and specific command to fight against a particular group of people. These passages do not apply to you unless you are a Hittite, Girgashite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite, Jebusite, or Amalekite. These commands given during the Old Testament theocracy apply only to those people at that time.

However, the passages in the Qur’an apply to all unbelievers at all times. Notice that there is no time limit on these universally binding commands to all Muslims at all times.

No Christian leader is calling for a Holy War against infidels. But many Muslim leaders cite the Qur’an for that very action. Osama bin Laden, for example, quotes many of these verses of the sword just cited within his various fatwas [legal pronouncement].

And contrast this with the New Testament which calls for believers to love their enemies (Matthew 5:44) and turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39). In conclusion, the Bible and the Qur’an are very different in regard in calling to an act of violence.

Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?

One politically correct phrase that is often repeated is that “Christians and Muslims worship the same God.” It is understandable that people might say that. Both Islam and Christianity are monotheistic, even though a foundational difference is the Christian belief in the trinity.

Certainly the most foundational doctrine in Islam is monotheism. This doctrine is encapsulated in the creed: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah.” And not only is it a creed, it is a statement of faith that routinely heard from the lips of every faithful Muslim. It the creed by which every Muslim is called to prayer five times a day.

Because of this strong emphasis on monotheism, Muslims reject the idea that God could be more than one person or that God could have a partner. The Qur’an teaches that Allah is one god and the same god for all people. Anyone who does not believe this is guilty of the sin of shirk. This is the quintessential sin in Islam. According to Islam, God cannot have a partner and cannot be joined together in the Godhead with other persons. Muslims therefore reject the Christian idea of the Trinity.

Muslims and Christians also differ in their understanding of the nature and character of God. The God of the Bible is knowable. Jesus came into the world that we might know God (John 17:3).

Islam teaches a very different view of God. Allah is transcendent and distant. He is separate from his creation. He is exalted and far removed from mankind. While we may know his will, we cannot know him personally. Allah is called the creator and sustainer of the creation, but he is also unknowable. No person can ever personally know and have a relationship with Allah. Instead, humans are to be in total submission to the will of Allah.

Moreover, Allah does not personally enter into human history. Instead, he deals with the world through his word (the Qur’an), through his prophets (such as Muhammad), and through angels (such as Gabriel).

If you ask a Muslim to describe Allah, most likely they will recite to you a key passage that lists some of the names of God (Sura 59). The Qur’an requires that God be called by these “beautiful names.” This passage describes him as Most Gracious, Most Merciful, The Sovereign, The Holy One, The Guardian of Faith, The Preserver of Safety, The Exalted in Might, etc.

Finally, a Christian and Muslim perspective on God’s love is also very different. Christians begin with the belief that “God so loved the world” (John 3:16). By contrast, Muslims grow up hearing about all the people Allah does not love. Sura 2:190 says, “For Allah loves not transgressors.” Sura 3:32 says, “Allah loves not the unbelievers.” And Sura 3:57 says, “For Allah loves not the evildoers.”

In conclusion, we can see that Christians and Muslims do not worship the same god.

Are the Bible and Qur’an the same?

A student in a university religion class may hear that all religions are basically the same. They only differ on minor details. This leads some to argue that the Bible and the Qur’an are compatible teachings. This is not true.

We should acknowledge the few similarities. Both the Bible and the Qur’an claim to be divine revelation. And both books claim to have been accurately preserved through the centuries.

But it is also true that the Bible and the Qur’an disagree with one another on major issues. The two books make contradictory claims about God, Jesus, salvation, and biblical history. Both claims cannot be true because the accounts contradict each other. Here are just a few examples of these contradictions:

• The Qur’an teaches (Sura 5:116) that Christians worship three gods: the Father, the Mother (Mary) and the Son (Jesus). But the Bible actually teaches that there is one God in three persons (the Trinity).
• The Qur’an says (Sura 37:100-111) that Abraham was going to sacrifice Ishmael, while the Bible teaches that Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac.
• The Qur’an teaches (Sura 4:157) that Jesus was not crucified. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross.

Before we conclude, we should also mention that many of the statements in the Qur’an are also at odds with historical facts that can be verified through historical accounts.

• The Qur’an says (Sura 20:85-97) that the Samaritans tricked the Israelites at the Exodus and were the ones who built the golden calf. For the record, the word Samaritan wasn’t even used until 722 B.C. which is several hundred years after the Exodus.
• The Qur’an also states (Sura 18:89-98) that Alexander the Great was a Muslim who worshiped Allah. Alexander lived from 356 B.C. to 323 B.C. which was hundreds of years before Muhammad proclaimed his revelation which became the religion of Islam.

In conclusion, we can see that the Bible and the Qur’an are not the same and do not have compatible teachings.

In this day of multiculturalism and political correctness, Christians should have been prepared to learn that a New Jersey school district recently chose “Christian Crusaders” as an imaginary terrorist group for its first live action hostage response drill. To portray the terrorists, the school district organizers made-up a right-wing fundamentalist group that denies the separation of church and state. Then, they created a fake hostage situation instigated by the supposedly angry parent of a student expelled for praying.

The stated goal of the event was summarized nicely by the district superintendent. He claimed that, “You perform as you practice. We need to practice under conditions as real as possible in order to evaluate our procedures and plans so that they’re as effective as possible.” While many comments could be made about the phrase “as real as possible,” the most critical aspect of this issue is a deeper consideration.

Sadly, this is not the first time a school district had deliberately steered clear of the obvious terrorist groups, deciding instead to pick on Christians. For example, three years ago a Michigan school district substituted a group of crazed Christian homeschoolers called “Wackos Against Schools and Education” for their mock terrorism drill to avoid offending any Muslims.

Chalk it up once again for the politically correct anti-Christian crowd … trying to call the sheep wolves and the wolves sheep. I would be careful of those wolves they are giving sheep makeovers to.

The Obama Files
By John Batchelor

What you need to measure about Barack Obama, a likely potent adversary for the presidency, is that while he is a politically junior and consciously liberal-voting member of the U.S. Senate, he is actually a veteran Chicago politician with a fertile record of surprising associations in controversial events well apart from his work in legislatures.

Some of these associations from his years in Chicago law work and urban development, and from his career in the Springfield, Illinois senate, speak to the quality of his judgment and to the strength of his character. Four associations in particular go to the heart of the inquiry ahead in order to ask and answer the fundamental questions about who is Barack Obama.

The story focuses on four astute men who have little in common other than Mr. Obama: Messrs Rezko, Ayers, Khalidi and Auchi. Finding facts about Mr. Obama’s exchanges with this quartet creates much of what can be called a political profile of candidate Obama.

Antoin “Tony” Rezko is the primary history to investigate for Mr. Obama’s political profile. According to Mr. Obama, Mr. Rezko contacted the young law student when he was elected editor of the Harvard Law Review in 1990 and offered him employment in Chicago. Mr. Rezko, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen described by the Chicago press as a “fixer,” is now in federal detention in Chicago and about to go on trial on March 3 for purloining up to $6 million from the people of Illinois with various kickback schemes while he was working for the present Democratic Governor, Rod Blagojevich. Mr. Rezko’s involvement with the rapid rise of the political career of Mr. Obama long predates his work for the governor and remains largely unexamined. Mr. Obama joined a small Chicago law firm in 1993, Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, that was then headed by Allison S. Davis, a politically connected man who would go on to become a partner with Mr. Rezko in real estate deals in Chicago and, much later, a large donor to the current mayor, Richard Daley, and to Governor Blagojevich and Senator Obama.

Through the connection of this law firm, Mr. Obama became a paid director of the progressive Woods Fund of Chicago, a sixty-seven-year-old philanthropy that later committed $1 million to a lucrative project developed by Mr. Davis in 2000 in partnership with Mr. Rezko. Meanwhile, Mr. Rezko advised and raised funds for Mr. Obama from his maiden entry into state politics in 1995-96, when he won a state senate seat from the 13th District, to his unsuccessful campaign for the U.S House of Representatives in 2000, to Mr. Obama’s successful primary and general candidacy for the U.S. Senate in November 2004. Critically, Mr. Rezko became unusually entangled in the purchase of Mr. Obama’s present home while Mr. Obama was a U.S. senator in June 2005.

Of his association with Mr. Rezko and the purchase of the Chicago home in the Hyde Park-Kenwood area, Senator Obama told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News “This Week” on January 27, 2008, “This is a story that has been out there for a year and has been thoroughly gnawed on by the press, both in Chicago and nationally. Tony Rezko was a friend of mine, a supporter, who I had known for 20 years. He was a contributor, not just to myself, but Democrats, as well as some Republicans throughout Illinois. Everybody perceived him as a businessman and a developer. He got into trouble that was completely unrelated to me, and nobody has suggested that I’ve been involved in any of those problems. I did make a mistake by purchasing a small strip of property from him, at a time where at that point he was under the cloud of a potential investigation. I’ve acknowledged that was a mistake. But again, nobody has suggested any wrongdoing, and I think at this point, it’s important for people to recognize that I have actually provided all the information that’s out there about it.”

There is a deal to examine in this statement, offered coincidentally the day before Mr. Rezko’s re-arrest and detention by order of U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve, acting on a warrant by the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald, that argued successfully that Mr. Rezko was a flight risk to Middle Eastern countries that do not have an extradition treaty with the United States.

One detail needing scrutiny for its possible inaccuracy is that the “mistake” that Mr. Obama made was not “purchasing a small strip of property from him.” An established fact is that Mr. Obama did not purchase any property from Mr. Rezko. Mr. Obama bought a ten-foot-wide piece of a yard adjoining his home from Rita Rezko, Mr. Rezko’s wife; and Mrs. Rezko purchased that corner lot of the original estate in part with the help of a $500,000 loan against unclear collateral from a local bank administered by another Rezko political associate in the governor’s circle.

William Ayers is the second Chicago figure to consider in the political profile of Mr. Obama. William C. Ayers, known as Bill Ayers, is notorious as a terrorist bomber from the 1970s who, on September 11, 2001, in the New York Times was quoted as finding “a certain eloquence in bombs.” Now, at 62, Mr. Ayers, a former aide to the current Mayor Richard M. Daley, is an established professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Importantly, Mr. Ayers and his wife, the equally notorious Weatherman terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, hosted a crucial meet-the-candidate event in their Hyde Park neighborhood home in 1995 when Mr. Obama, also a Hyde Park resident, was sounded out by vital citizens, among them the retiring state senator Alice Palmer for the 13th District.

In 1999, Mr. Ayers joined the Woods Fund of Chicago as a director and served alongside Mr. Obama for modest remuneration until Mr. Obama left the board on December 11, 2002; Mr. Ayers was for a time the chairman of the board. Also of note is the fact that Bernardine Dohrn works for Northwestern University Law School’s Children and Family Justice Center, which received a grant from the Woods Fund in 2002.

Mr. Ayers, who has been described by one supporter as “friends” with Mr. Obama, openly speaks and writes of his role in the 1974 bombing of the U.S. Capitol Building where Mr. Obama now serves. Mr. Ayers is widely quoted from his reminiscence, which appeared in the New York Times on the infamous Tuesday, September 11, 2001: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.” When asked in that same interview if he would set more bombs today, his response was, “I don’t want to discount the possibility.”

Rashid Khalidi is the third Chicago citizen to consider in the political profile of candidate Obama. Now the voluble Edward Saïd Professor of Arab Studies and head of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University, Mr. Khalidi is said to have made Mr. Obama’s acquaintance when they were colleagues at the University of Chicago, with Mr. Obama a lecturer at the law school and Mr. Khalidi a professor in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

In Chicago in 1995, Mr. Khalidi and his wife Mona founded the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), a group associated with confrontational statements of support for Palestinians and antagonism toward Israel. In 2001 and again in 2002, the Woods Fund of Chicago, with directors Ayers and Obama, made grants of $40,000 and $35,000 to the AAAN. Importantly, the AAAN vice-president Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada has remembered Mr. Obama’s speaking in 1999 against “Israeli occupation” at a charity event for a West Bank refugee camp; and Mr. Abunimah, an American citizen, Hyde Park resident and Princeton graduate, has also recalled Mr. and Mrs. Obama at a fundraiser held for the then-Congressional candidate Obama in 2000 at Rashid and Mona Khalidi’s home, where Mr. Obama made convincing statements in support of the Palestinian cause.

There is also a report that Mr. Obama attended a farewell dinner for Professor Khalidi on the latter’s appointment to Columbia University and move to New York, at which Mr. Obama socialized with the Khalidis as well as with Edward Saïd, and at which Mr. Obama left a polite testimonial, as did Mayor Daley and Governor Blagojevich.

It is necessary to consider, in light of Mr. Obama’s politically rich relationship with Mr. Khalidi and his colleagues, that Palestinian sources in Ramallah confirm, for Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily.com and my radio shows on WABC and KFI, that Rashid Khalidi was a paycheck-receiving PLO agent when it was formally named as a terrorist organization. In Beirut from 1976 to 1982, Mr. Khalidi headed the Palestinian press agency WAFA, for which his wife Mona Khalidi also worked. Mr. Khalidi also served Yasser Arafat’s PLO at the Madrid conference in 1991. Mr. and Mrs. Khalidi have yet to comment on their reported political, financial and programmatic association with Mr. Obama in Chicago; as recently as last week neither of the Khalidis would speak on the telephone when asked about Mr. Obama, Mr. Rezko or Mr. Auchi.

The fourth name that contributes to the political profile of candidate Obama is Nadhmi Auchi of London, an Iraqi-born billionaire investor who founded his global enterprise General Mediterranean Holdings (GMH) in 1979 before he left Iraq.

Mr. Auchi apparently enters the political stage of Mr. Obama in 2003, when he was introduced to Mr. Rezko and became involved in developing a sixty-two-acre vacant lot along the Chicago River with his undercapitalized partner Mr. Rezko. Mr. Auchi is a prominent, mysterious figure, who was convicted in a French court in 2003 of political shenanigans in Iraqi oil contracts with regard French government officials and the oil giant TotalFinaElf. There are suspicions, never proven, of Mr. Auchi’s commerce with Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, and even the Byzantine and corrupt UN sanctions regime for Iraq called “Oil for Food.”

In liberated Baghdad, Mr. Auchi is still regarded as a “Saddam guy” by Iraqi politicians. Nonetheless, Mr. Auchi has been linked with troubled communications systems contracts in Iraq; also, according to published Chicago Business reports, from 2004 to 2006 Mr. Auchi was linked with an aborted project by Mr. Rezko and another adventurous Chicago resident and former Illinois Institute of Technology classmate of Mr. Rezko’s, Aihman Alsammarae, who in 2003 and 2004 was Iraq’s Minister of Electricity, to build a power plant in Iraq. In April 2004, Mr. Auchi traveled to Illinois to meet with Mr. Rezko, Governor Blagojevich, State Senate President Emil Jones, Jr., and reportedly with then-State Senator Obama, who had just won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate.

Prevented from returning to Chicago in November 2005 by the U.S. State Department, despite the written pleas of Mr. Rezko and others, Mr. Auchi has continued to make connections with Rezko affairs. The chief reason Mr. Rezko was rearrested on January 28, 2008, was because of allegedly hidden wire transfers in April and July 2007 of $3.7 million from Mr. Auchi’s GMH via a Beirut bank to the accused and otherwise impoverished Mr. Rezko.

Considering the breadth and depth of the involvement of these four unusual men, Rezko, Ayers, Rashidi and Auchi, with the Chicago political journey and fortunes of Mr. Obama, it is reasonable to assume that more discovery will result in more anecdotes, comments, even electronic and paper records of the relationships. In April 2007, Mr. Obama, commenting about Mr. Rezko to the Chicago Sun-Times, anticipated many of the questions now being asked about his choice of political associations and his subsequent career decisions when he said, “One of the perils of public life is that you end up being responsible for, or you’re being held responsible for, associations that you didn’t necessarily know were a problem.”

Finally, it is surprising to observe that the Democratic Party looks ready to nominate for the presidency a gifted Chicago politician, from the remnants of the old Richard Daley (father of the current mayor) machine, who asserts, against Mr. Obama’s own established ideological and self-interested record, that he is “post-partisan.”

There is a flickering presidential campaign analogy from the 1970s while Mr. McCain was detained in Hanoi – while Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn were setting bombs, Mr. Rashidi was in the Mideast with the PLO, Mr. Auchi was in Baghdad with Saddam Hussein and Mr. Obama was eleven years old in Hawaii. In March and April 1972, Democratic primary voters elbowed aside Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s favorite, Ed Muskie of Maine, in order to nominate for the presidency the self-described “people’s president,” George McGovern of South Dakota. The Daley team telephoned Rowland Evans and Robert Novak to complain, “anybody but McGovern.” The prescient quote from the Daley partisan: “I think the nomination of George McGovern would mean the end of the Democratic Party we have known.”

Well, Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern, forty-nine states to one. Will the four horsemen of Mr. Obama’s November, Rezko, Ayers, Rashidi and Auchi, lead to a similar defeat for the spectacular candidacy of Barack Obama? If you are concerned about

Obama: More Taxes, Rights for bin Laden
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 9:12 AM
Ronald Kessler

Two events made Condoleezza Rice switch from being a registered Democrat to a Republican.

The first was when she watched the 1984 Democratic National Convention that nominated Walter Mondale for president. Rice, who grew up during segregation, was turned off by an endless refrain of appeals to “women, minorities, and the poor, which basically means helpless people and the poor,” she has said. Rice decided she would “rather be ignored than patronized.”

The second event was Jimmy Carter’s professed shock at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, demonstrating naivete and spotlighting his feeble approach to national security. The spectacle sickened her.

Substitute the name Barack Obama for Walter Mondale and Jimmy Carter and you have a good summation of this presidential candidate’s approach.

To be sure, Obama is a master at seeming to appeal to all sides. But his voting record makes it clear he is a doctrinaire liberal who sees minorities as victims and the government as the solution to all problems – except when it comes to protecting us from terrorist attacks.

According to the National Taxpayers Union, Obama has proposed at least $287 billion a year in new government spending. That does not include his more recent $150 billion “green energy plan.” He also co-sponsored a Senate bill to spend at least $845 billion a year to fight global poverty.

Obama would pay for these increases with much higher taxes, including by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010.

Americans for Tax Reform gives him a lifetime rating of 7.5, compared with 82.7 for John McCain. Indeed, the National Journal has ranked Obama the most liberal senator for 2007.

“He’s a bleeding heart liberal, but he’s smart enough not to put it in people’s face right now,” says Republican Illinois State Sen. Bill Brady, who worked with Obama in the Illinois State Senate and calls him that body’s most liberal member.

When speaking out against tax cuts, Obama has likened the Ownership Society, which includes such measures as personal Social Security accounts, health savings accounts, incentives to expand home ownership, and tax cuts to encourage growth of small businesses, to “social Darwinism.”

Speaking to the National Women’s Law Center in November 2005, Obama said, “The idea here is to give everyone one big refund on their government – divvy it up into some tax breaks, hand them out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own healthcare, their own retirement plan, their own unemployment insurance, education, and so forth.”

In Washington, he said, “They call this the Ownership Society. But in our past, there has been another term for it – social Darwinism, every man and woman for him or herself.”

In other words, instead of helping people to help themselves and grow the economy at the same time, Obama’s approach would keep them dependent on government handouts, encouraging them to think of themselves as victims. When it comes to keeping America strong against terrorist threats, it’s quite a different story.

Like a 6-year-old kid who wants to be friends with everyone on the block, Obama has said he would offer prompt negotiations with anti-American despots. More frightening, Obama voted last August to give Osama bin Laden and other terrorists the same rights as Americans when it comes to intercepting their overseas calls in order to pick up clues needed to stop another attack.

Obama recently avoided voting on extending the Protect America Act, thus putting America at risk when immediate interception of terrorist communications is required.

Obama would withdraw immediately from Iraq, leaving that country to morph into a haven for al-Qaida and a staging ground for attacks on America.

While Obama has portrayed himself as a candidate for all Americans, his closeness to his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, tells a different story. For more than two decades, Wright has been Obama’s friend and sounding board, a man he consults before making important decisions like whether to run for president.

In December, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan as a man who epitomizes greatness. Farrakhan has blamed blacks’ troubles on Jews, America, and whites, whom he calls “blue-eyed devils.”

Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago espouses what it calls the Black Value System. While the Black Value System encourages commitment to God, education, and self-discipline, it refers to “our racist competitive society” and includes the disavowal of the pursuit of “middle-classness” and a pledge of allegiance to “all black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System.”

The Black Value System defines “middle-classness” as a way for American society to “snare” blacks rather than “killing them off directly” or “placing them in concentration camps,” just as the country structures “an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.”

Contrary to Obama’s portrayal of himself as a unifier, on every bipartisan effort in the Senate to forge compromises on tough issues, Obama has been missing in action.

In sum, Barack Obama’s voting record, the comments of his close friend and sounding board, and his own statements suggest that the dazzling orator from Illinois represents everything that Condoleezza Rice rejected about the Democratic Party.

If Obama is his party’s nominee, we will all applaud the symbolism of a black man achieving so much. But if they are aware of his radical agenda, it’s doubtful most Americans will buy entrusting the country’s future to him.

Faced with a press that adores Obama, the question will be whether Republicans can portray the stark difference between the man and the myth.

Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.

Farrakhan Sings Obama’s Praises

In his first major public address since a cancer crisis, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said Sunday that presidential candidate Barack Obama is the “hope of the entire world” that the U.S. will change for the better.

The 74-year-old Farrakhan, addressing an estimated crowd of 20,000 people at the annual Saviours’ Day celebration, never outrightly endorsed Obama but spent most of the nearly two-hour speech praising the Illinois senator.

“This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better,” he said. “This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama’s audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed.”

Farrakhan compared Obama to the religion’s founder, Fard Muhammad, who also had a white mother and black father.

“A black man with a white mother became a savior to us,” he told the crowd of mostly followers. “A black man with a white mother could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall.”

Farrakhan also leveled small jabs at Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama’s rival for the Democratic nomination, suggesting that she represents the politics of the past and has been engaging in dirty politics.

Farrakhan’s keynote address at McCormick Place, the city’s convention center, wrapped up three days of events geared at unifying followers and targeting youth.

The Unilateral Disarmament Democrats: Putting Trial Lawyers Ahead Of Your Family’s Safety

It’s hard to think of an action that has put as many lives at risk as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D.-Calif.) declaration of unilateral disarmament in the War on Terror last week.

By refusing to renew our ability to monitor terrorist communications overseas, Speaker Pelosi has put Americans at risk. She has blinded our counterterrorism capability and shut down America’s most sophisticated defenses against the irreconcilable wing of Islam. As of midnight last Saturday, the law governing America’s defense is totally inadequate to stop terrorists.

Why? Because the Democratic left believes lining the pockets of trial lawyers is more important than stopping terrorists.

Suing Telecom Companies For Helping Keep America Safe

At issue is the extension of the Protect America Act that was passed last August to allow U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor foreigner-to-foreigner communications without a warrant. Congress has known for six months that this ability under the Protect America Act was set to expire on Sunday. So last week, by an overwhelmingly bipartisan majority, the Senate passed legislation to prevent the authority from lapsing.

But the House Democratic leadership, led by Speaker Pelosi, refused to let the House vote on the bill. This led to a House GOP walk out led by Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio), who said, “We will not stand idly by and watch the floor of the United States House of Representatives be abused for pure, political grandstanding at the expense of our national security.”

Why? Not because the bill lacked bipartisan support, but because it lacked trial lawyer support. The Senate-passed bill contains a provision granting immunity from lawsuits to telecommunications companies that have been cooperating with the government in the War on Terror.

Instead of putting her fellow Democrats in a position where they have to make a public vote in favor of trial lawyers over the safety of Americans, Speaker Pelosi opted to leave Washington for vacation.

The President Just Wants To Protect American Telephone Companies

As Robert Novak reported Monday , the trial lawyers – the Democrats’ most important source of political contributions – have filed dozens of lawsuits seeking millions of dollars against phone companies for helping keep us safe by responding to the request of intelligence agencies to provide critical information about suspected terrorist communications without a warrant.

The continued cooperation of the telecom companies in monitoring terrorist communications is crucial to America’s defense, which is why the Senate bill contained the immunity provision.

The simple fact is that if a company cooperates with the United States government in tracking down terrorists, it should receive our thanks and gratitude, not a lawsuit.

But some Democrats evidently don’t agree. Note that House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) chose to attack the bill and the President’s support for it by siding with the trial lawyers: “This is not about protecting Americans. The President just wants to protect American telephone companies.”

The House’s Unilateral Disarmament Contrasts Sharply With the Senate’s Leadership

Speaker Pelosi’s and the House Democratic leadership’s unilateral disarmament contrasts sharply with the Senate Democrats who joined in the bipartisan 68-vote majority to strengthen America’s defenses against terrorism.

The Senate bill was a compromise between Senate Democrats and the White House. As former Justice Official Andy McCarthy put it: “Democrats surely did not want to give President Bush this legislative victory, and President Bush certainly did not want to cave on these issues. But both sides compromised precisely because they understood that failing to do so, failing to preserve current surveillance authority, would endanger the United States.”

Senate Democrats such as Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.) and Jim Webb (Va.) deserve thanks for putting the safety of America ahead of their partisan political interests.

The Law Was Never Meant To Protect Foreign Terrorists

So what is the state of our national defenses as I write this today?

The Protect America Act amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that was passed in 1978 to protect people inside the United States from being monitored by U.S. intelligence without a warrant proving they were agents of a foreign government.

This point is crucial: FISA was never meant to apply to foreigners outside the United States communicating with other foreigners outside the United States.

For 30 years, this was the understanding of the law. But a court case last year said that foreigner-to-foreigner overseas communications now have FISA protections – that is, they require a warrant before they can be monitored – because technology has changed and these non-U.S. communications now technically may pass through U.S. channels in the global telecommunications network.

The result is that for U.S. intelligence to monitor suspected terrorist communications between a Pakistani and an Afghani, they have to go through the time-consuming, bureaucratic procedure of having the attorney general and others approve lengthy affidavits proving that the targets are agents of a foreign power.

As of Midnight Saturday, American Lives Are At Risk

So as of midnight last Saturday, if U.S. intelligence discovers a new terrorist threat, it must spend valuable time preparing bureaucratic documents and seeking approval of busy officials before their communications can be monitored. By the time they’ve jumped through the bureaucratic hoops forced on them by House Democrats, it may be too late.

What’s more, American telecommunications companies are less inclined to cooperate with intelligence officials because they lack protection from lawsuits under the law.

In short, Americans are at greater risk today than we were four days ago.

Don’t Take My Word for It – Listen to the Intelligence Professionals

But don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell – an intelligence professional who served under President Clinton as well as President Bush – told “Fox News Sunday”:

“Our situation now, when the terrorist threat is increasing because they’ve achieved – al Qaeda’s achieved de facto safe haven in the border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan – the threat is going up.

“And therefore, we do not have the agility and the speed that we had before to be able to move and try to capture their communications to thwart their planning.

“…[Our country is in] increased danger, and it will increase more and more as time goes on. And the key is the – if you think about the private sector global communications, many people think the government operates that.

“Ninety-eight percent of it is owned and operated by the private sector. We cannot do this mission without help and support from the private sector. And the private sector, although willingly helped us in the past, are now saying, ‘You can’t protect me. Why should I help you?'”

Obama and Clinton Were AWOL on Protecting Americans

The potential threat to our safety is so great that the situation calls for leaders of all political parties to come together to call for Congress to act – without delay – to restore these crucial authorities to U.S. intelligence.

Senators and presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama missed the vote that passed the Senate to extend the Protect America Act. But they now have an obligation to keep America safe by joining President Bush in calling for the House return to Washington and pass the Senate bill.

No presidential primary, no 12-day vacation, is more important than the safety and security of our country.

Our leaders and would-be leaders must act!

The United States Congress by its inaction has created a gap in our national defense. A gap we can now only hope will not be filled by our enemies. Congress has the solemn responsibility not to put politics over American security. The President should implore Congress, as a national security priority, to return to Washington and pass the Protect America Act to give our intelligence agencies the tools they need to defeat our enemies.