Doc's Talk: Barack Obama, Arab political power and a mind-boggling litany of Chicago Corruption

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Barack Obama, Arab political power and a mind-boggling litany of Chicago Corruption

Patti Villacorta

Pajamasmedia.com November 14, 2009 (First post)

What good fortune it was for the largest concentration of Palestinians in the U.S. to choose Chicago as their home away from home — our nation’s capital of graft, corruption and greed, reminiscent of the Palestinian Authority (though less murderous). Their luck didn’t end there. These 400,000 Muslims — 80 percent Palestinians — have also parked themselves in the epicenter of a post-denominational, ecumenical, interfaith machine of “congregation-based community organizers.” Impassioned internationalists, their passions run high for the rights of the uninsured Muslim or homeless jihadist. Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CCIR) is one cog in the Chicago wheel. CCIR board member Reverend Dennis Jacobsen — from the Immanuel Lutheran Church in Kansas City, MO — is director of the Gamaliel Foundation National Clergy Caucus, a signer of the Lutheran Presbyterian joint position paper on congregation-based community organizing, and chair of the Inter-Religious Organizing Initiative of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Last year at a panel discussion at the Hudson Institute, Stanley Kurtz summarized Reverend Jacobsen’s conception of America: America is a sinful and fallen nation to whose pervasive classicism, racism, and militarism all authentic Christians must offer constant resistance. The United States employs illegitimate nationalism, propaganda, racism, bogus civil religion and class enmity to booster its entrenched and oppressive corporate system. Authentic Christians forced to live in such a nation can “come out of Babylon” only by entering into “a perpetual state of internal exile.”

It seems impossible to fathom that the honor student beaten to death in broad daylight last month outside a Chicago school would not ignite a fire beneath these thousands of “community-based congregations,” with peace and justice as their mantra. Yet, the silence is deafening. And, really, the only possible explanation for this insanity comes near the very end of Bernard-Henri Levy’s Who Killed Daniel Pearl, in which he retraces Pearl’s steps in search of reason. Pearl was beheaded, then cut into ten pieces. Levy is a man of the left and a hardened war correspondent, but even he is taken aback when an Arab banker in Dubai, an old friend from the Angola days, explains that al-Qaeda is funded by a worldwide network of extortion and has mastered the art of “selling to the West the rope with which to hang itself. … Which is to say in this case, to turn the West’s own arms and often its own vices against itself.”

The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC) is considered a mainstream organization. Its affiliate mosque, the Bridgeview Mosque, has been under FBI surveillance for over a decade, and Osama bin Laden’s spiritual mentor, Abdullah Azzam, actually visited it as part of a national recruiting tour in the 1980s. Nabil al-Marabh, a suspected planner in 9/11, attended Bridgeview. The mosque’s foundation was linked to the Holy Land Foundation. Mohammed Saleh, another member, was the first American citizen to make the FBI terror list. The mosque itself is owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) — headquartered in Indiana, but funded by Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. Siraj Wahhaj, a former NAIT board member, is listed as an indicted co-conspirator in a 1995 plot to blow up New York landmarks, and he served as a character witness for the “blind sheik.”

In February 2004, the Chicago Tribune investigated the radical anti-Americanism running through CIOGC and its tributaries (”Hard-liners won battle for Bridgeview Mosque“). At the time, then-state Senator Barack Obama was pushing a bill for free and reduced health care for the uninsured. On March 29, 2004, the Chicago Defender announced: “SEIU, ACORN hail Obama’s health bill.” Also at the time, Crucial Inc. — the lucrative concession business at O’Hare International Airport owned by the 77-year-old son of the late Elijah Muhammed — was stripped of its minority business certification.

After grossing $16 million in its first four years at the airport, it was revealed that Syrian-born Arab Tony Rezko was the actual owner and Herbert Muhammed had only served as a front so Crucial Inc. could qualify for Chicago’s minority set-aside program — which directs large contracts to companies owned by women, blacks, or Hispanics.

That year also marked the creation of then-Governor Rod Blagojevich’s new Illinois Finance Authority board, which dissolved five state bonding agencies into one. Ali Ata, former president of the Chicago chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee — and a friend of Rezko — was appointed as director after donating $60,000 to the governor. Ata held no finance experience and left the post in March 2005 following alleged wrongdoings.
This came less than two years after Obama helped pass Public Act 93-0041, which extended the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Association (IFHPA), terminated all existing board members, reduced the board membership from 15 to 9, and gave priority to board members with ties to ethnic and minority communities.

Health Care, Chicago-Style

Behold, the swamp of Chicago health care and Obama's central role in cultivating it.

Advocate Health Care is the largest health system in Illinois. Dr. Imad Almanaseer — head of pathology at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, a friend of Rezko’s, and part of Rezko’s bloc of five installed on the IFHPA board (which controls all development and expansion of hospitals in the state) — testified under immunity at Rezko’s trial. He admitted that he was handed index cards by Thomas Beck, the chairman of IFHPA, with voting instructions from Rezko prior to votes. Almanaseer also testified that he is a business partner and investor of Rezko’s.

In February 2004, William McNary endorsed Obama in the Communist Party (CPUSA) newspaper the Weekly World. “Obama will be a strong voice in Washington on behalf of working families,” wrote McNary. Obama had worked for McNary in the mid-1990s, registering 100,000 votes for Citizen Action/Illinois — the local branch of US Action, both of which William McNary headed. According to McNary, Obama also collaborated with United Power for Action and Justice (UPAJ) to expand children’s health insurance in Illinois. “Barack was not just willing to meet with community-based groups, not only to be a good vote for us, but he also strategized with us to help move our position forward,” McNary told David Moberg in his 2007 piece “Obama’s Third Way.” McNary is also a member of the Radical Black Congress and was the keynote speaker for the CPUSA 2002 annual fundraiser. The left-wing blog Talking Points Memo described McNary as “one of Obama’s personal friends and long-time supporters — someone Obama went to when considering his run for senate and for president.”

Monsignor John Egan lived just long enough to see his lifelong dream, the UPAJ, open its doors. The $2.6 million dollars in seed money for UPAJ came from Catholic organizations. Egan envisioned UPAJ as a reorganized Metro IAF — the Chicago chapter of Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Arts Foundation. Cardinal Bernadin announced the gift at a 1995 press conference.

There was outrage in the Catholic community over the role that both the Bernadine Center for Theology and Ministry and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) played in UPAJ. CCHD’s annual budget of $18 million funded UPAJ activities. UPAJ’s stated top priorities - Health care for all and fostering relationships with Muslim communities. UPAJ affiliates include the Muslim Student Association, the Lutheran School of Theology, Anshe Shalom B’Nai Israel, Trinity United Church of Christ (Mr. Obama’s Chicago church) and Father Pfleger’s St. Sabina church.

Also, active in CCIR is Tony Campolo, active with the Sojourner Red Letter Christian movement. He is probably best known for “finding it a real privilege” to minister to Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky impeachment proceedings and for drawing gasps and boos for having the following exchange with Gary Bauer at Wheaton College: “I know this is hard for you to believe, but the enemy is not John Ashcroft. The enemy is Osama bin Laden,” said Bauer. Campolo replied, “I don’t know about that.”

Chicago’s Muslim-centric health care networks range from the Gilead’s Campaign for the Uninsured and the Gilead Outreach and Referral Center (both funded by UPAJ), the Illinois Department of Human Services, the Illinois Department of Public Aid, Advocate Health Care, and the Michael Reese Healthcare Trust. The Michael Reese Health Care Trust funds the Sargent Shriver Center National Center on Poverty Law — which is funded by George Soros, Bill Ayers brother John, SEIU Healthcare, William Daley, the William Daley Charitable Gift Fund, the Illinois Department of Health Care and Family Services, and the Chicago Bar Fund.
The Chicago Bar Fund supports the Illinois Coalition for Immigration and Refugee Rights, the National Immigrant and Justice Center, and, amazingly, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Gilead’s board of directors includes Anthony Mitchell of Advocate Health Care, Nancy Cross of SEIU Local and Syed Najullah of CIOCG.

Other networks include the Muslim Community Center, the Association of Muslim Health Professionals, the Compassionate Care Network, UMMA Community Clinic, the Islamic Medical Association of North America, and IMAN, which is funded by the Illinois Department of Human Services and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This excludes the additional $851 million in federal stimulus grants Michele Obama announced on June 29, 2009, to upgrade community health centers because their work “has never been more important.”

Patti Villacorta is an investigative reporter and political research expert

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

Doc's Talk