Back to Basics

Arizona vs. the U.N. human rights police
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

An indignant President Obama complained last week, “I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead.” Fine. How about plastering a copy of his presidential oath of office there instead? The kowtowing commander-in-chief is in dire need of a daily reminder that his job is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” — not international law or global diktats.

Case in point: Last week, Obama’s State Department handed in America’s first-ever report to the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights in conjunction with something called the “Universal Periodic Review.” In short, the 29-page document (pdf) is a self-aggrandizing report card touting the administration’s far-left domestic and foreign policy initiatives for the world’s approval. The report boasts of racial- and gender-bean-counting in the executive branch; Justice Department outreach to Muslim grievance groups opposed to post-9/11 security measures; teachers’ union payoffs in the federal stimulus law; continuing commitment to closing the Gitmo detention facility for enemy combatants; and the illusory lifesaving effects of Obamacare on minorities through “expanding community health centers” (which have yet to be built, but not that it matters in our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president’s age of post-achievement).

The report also includes a section on “values and immigration,” which essentially singles out Arizona’s immigration enforcement law as a human rights deficiency “that is being addressed in a court action.”

In response, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer rightly blasted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration for succumbing to “internationalism run amok.” Brewer pointed out in a letter to Clinton, “Human rights as guaranteed by the United States and Arizona Constitutions are expressly protected in S.B. 1070 and defended vigorously by my Administration. In fact, the Department of Justice has correctly not included these so-called ‘human rights’ issues in the current litigation against the State of Arizona.” Somehow, that inconvenient detail escaped the Foggy Bottom bureaucrats’ notice.

No one should be surprised, of course, that the Department of Blame America First is prostrating itself before the likes of repressive U.N. Human Rights Council members Libya, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China. No one should be surprised that Obama’s globalist panderers couldn’t simply keep their mouths shut and refrain from trashing Americans with whom they disagree. In May, you’ll recall, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner preemptively trashed our country’s human rights record to Chinese government officials and humiliated Arizonans — and all Americans — who support states’ rights to protect their borders and enhance their security through strict immigration enforcement. An obsequious Posner called S.B. 1070 “a troubling trend in our society” in his bow-and-scrape conversations with the ChiComs.

After crunching the numbers and realizing that backing a mosque near Ground Zero, plays to average Americans about as well as flag burning on 4th of July, the Dems have emerged with a new talking point. The Republicans are “politicizing” Ground Zero. Thanks to the exposure of Jornolist, we’ve already seen how liberal media pundits and Democratic campaign strategists collaborate to develop and distribute talking points in response to a setback. Now we’re seeing the same thing at work as Time’s Mark Halperin goes around promoting the “politicizing Ground Zero” talking point. It’s already been picked up by Senator Robert Menendez and Governor Christie, who worked to help Hamas linked Imam, Mohammad Qatanani, stay in America.

But let’s talk about who’s really been politicizing Ground Zero. The mosque’s biggest supporter, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, had aggressively tried to politicize Ground Zero back in 2005 with the International Freedom Center, with George Soros and the ACLU pushing exhibits on Islamophobia and the loss of civil liberties in America. Governor Pataki shut down the IFC’s plans to politicize Ground Zero over Bloomberg’s loud protests. Meanwhile the current plans for exhibits commemorating 9/11 at the site are being attacked by liberals complaining about a “lack of context”, which is their way of saying that they want to politicize the site by suggesting that America was to blame.

The New York Times has added its voice to the chorus of complaints about “politicizing Ground Zero”. But in 2005, the Times editorial complained that Campaign America’s call to refrain from politicizing Ground Zero is Un-American. The cynicism here is virtually unbelievable.

The entire “Politicizing Ground Zero” talking point is a response to the fallout from Obama’s own attempt to politicize Ground Zero by pandering to a Muslim crowd. When the polls number turned red, the media rushed to attack Republicans for politicizing Obama’s own politicization of the issue. They claimed that Obama had just been functioning as a Constitutional law professor, delivering an abstract lecture on law at a White House event aimed at pandering to Muslims. The transparent ridiculousness of this excuse is almost lost in the clamor of self-righteousness, as the biggest supporters of the IFC suddenly discover a heartfelt desire not to allow politics to intrude on Ground Zero.

But just as with the IFC, the real politicization comes from Islam and the Left. It was Imam Rauf’s plan for a Cordoba House mosque near Ground Zero that was a deliberate attempt to politicize the site, with an Islamic message. Rauf himself emphasized the location, “New York is the capital of the world, and this location close to 9/11 is iconic.” In response to Governor Patterson’s suggestion that he move the mosque elsewhere, Rauf backtracked claiming that, “this has always been about serving Lower Manhattan“. But there is no actual Muslim community in Lower Manhattan, certainly not one that requires a 100 million dollar mosque. Rauf himself had previously admitted that his mosque does not cater to any Lower Manhattan community: “The people who come here for jum’a [prayer] come from within the New York tri-state area. Of course, the majority work around here, but a number of them come from Uptown, Brooklyn or New Jersey, specifically to participate in the Friday prayer here and to hear my sermon.”

The mosque he has now serves Muslims who work in the area. Commuters. This isn’t about serving a phantom Muslim community in Lower Manhattan. And commuters don’t need a 100 million dollar mosque and community center. Based on the likely number of his worshipers, Rauf would be spending roughly a million dollars per Muslim for a facility that very few of them even live near to.

Imam Rauf and his media defenders have compared this to building a Jewish community center. But there are over 25,000 Jewish household in Lower Manhattan, or almost 20 percent of the population. There is no statistically significant Muslim population in the area. The 2000 census showed 3,522 people living in the Ground Zero mosque zip code, 375 of whom identified as Asian. Considering the proximity of Chinatown, it’s likely that they actually are Asian, as opposed to Pakistani or Bangladeshi. (And the director of Al Arabiya has confirmed that: “there are no practicing Muslims in the area who need a place to worship“.) What the census numbers also show is that the mosque is being built in an area with a small residential population, that is heavily commercial, with far more offices than homes. Even if everyone living in that zip code were a Muslim, Rauf would still be proposing to spend nearly 30,000 dollars per Muslim on the mosque. But since they are not Muslims, what Rauf is proposing is a 100 million dollar expansion in an area whose Muslims are outside commuters and generally use basement and storefront mosques.

Building a 100 million dollar facility for Muslims that most of them can only use on their lunch break or briefly after work, before they go home to Brooklyn or New Jersey, is not about serving the community. It’s about making a statement. There would be no way to raise that kind of money otherwise. Rauf is not building a facility that local Muslims need. His flock comes from different boroughs and states entirely. They hang around Lower Manhattan as part of the Hallal Mafia, peddling unhygienic burned food from carts, or in storefronts selling cheap knockoffs of brand name merchandise, pirated DVD’s and used clothes below Broadway. Some of them work as financial analysts helping Wall Street get the whole Sharia Finance thing right.

There might be a call for a 100 million dollar facility aimed at Muslims in Jersey City or off Atlantic Avenue, but no need or use for it near Ground Zero. There is no reason to build a Mosque there, except to make a statement. Rauf admitted as much early on, billing the mosque as part of a campaign of tolerance or healing. knowing that most liberals would not look past such euphemisms and enthusiastically embrace the project to showcase their vaunted tolerance, and rejection of “right wing extremists”. That Rauf himself is quite the extremist has not interested them at all. The same Time Magazine which wrings its hands over the “politicization” of Ground Zero has whitewashed Rauf and his own plans to politicize the site. Just as the rest of the media has ignored the inconsistencies in Rauf’s changing story, questions about where the money is coming from, and the most elementary question– who actually needs the Ground Zero Mosque.

Sometimes, political corruption is so blatant, it almost seems like make-believe, like a farce concocted by Billy Wilder or Preston Sturges.

Here in Southern California, Bell is a small, poor, mainly Hispanic community of 40,000 that has managed to put itself on the map in the unlikeliest of ways. Although nearly 20% of its population lives under the poverty level, this community is a shining example of the can-do spirit in action. How else can you explain that it had the highest-paid city officials in the nation?

Its chief administrative officer, Robert Rizzo, was pulling down $787,637 a year. Police Chief Randy Adams was taking home $457,000, and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia was making do on $376,288. The various council members were being paid nearly $100,000 each. Did I mention that being a member of the Bell city council is a part-time job?

There was one exception, one guy riding the rails of the gravy train. City Councilman Lorenzo Velez, who was unaware that all of his colleagues were making out like bandits until the L.A. Times broke the story, was only being paid $8,076-a-year. At least now, I guess he knows why all the other fellows used to chuckle when he suggested getting together at Wendy’s or Taco Bell after council meetings.

But before we all chuckle too heartily at those poor Bell taxpayers who were laying out roughly $2 million-a-year to these lowlifes, let us not get too cocky. Let me remind you that we’re all paying Barack Obama $420,000; Joe Biden, $171,500; Harry Reid, $193,400; Nancy Pelosi, $217,400, and that’s not counting perks that include an army of aides, personal jets and humongous pensions. Do you really think they’re doing a better job than Rizzo, Adams and Spaccia?

On the other side of the country, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who believes he is all-wise because he is all-wealthy, thinks it would be a really terrific idea for the Muslims to erect a gigantic mosque near Ground Zero. The Mayor seems to think it would be a wonderful symbol of something or other. Most normal people, and I’m happy this one time to include Democrats, think 9/11 was symbolic enough of Islamic barbarism without having our noses rubbed in it.

The fact that the Muslim who’s promoting the scheme is a guy with ties to Hamas doesn’t seem to faze Bloomberg. But I guess when his fellow council members left council meetings in their Ferraris and Mr. Velez got on his bicycle, it did nothing to raise any red flags for him, either, but, then, Mr. Velez, unlike Bloomberg, isn’t a billionaire who’s thinking of running for president.

There are two topics I generally try to avoid discussing. Number one on the list is homosexuality. Number two is most things having to do with religion, although it is impossible to ignore it in a world where a militant Islam is causing so much conflict.

I would avoid examining gay “marriage” if I could, but the gay and lesbian community will not let me.

With seven decades of life under my belt, I have had plenty of time to learn about homosexuality, know homosexuals, and to have arrived at some conclusions about it. My basic conclusion is that homosexuality is hard-wired into an individual at birth. It is not, in my opinion, a lifestyle option one learns about and decides to choose.

Those who discover their homosexuality, early or late, know well that it positions them outside the acceptance of our society and those worldwide. As such, it is a cause of much abuse and, to varying degrees, self-hatred.

The three monotheistic religions made it clear in their sacred texts that homosexuality is a sin, but that is a matter of belief. On a strictly physiological basis, nature ordains that there are two sexes, male and female, and they exist for the propagation of the species. That’s why marriage is regarded as essential to any society.

Since homosexuals must function within our society, one might reasonably assume they would accept society’s need to maintain marriage as between a man and a woman, but among militant homosexuals, there has been a growing movement to require a redefinition of this ancient model.

This brings us to the decision by a federal judge to overturn California’s Proposition 8, calling for a state constitutional ban on gay marriage. Proposition 8 was approved by voters by a margin of 52 percent in favor versus 48 percent who opposed it. The majority of U.S. States have laws recognizing marriage as between members of the opposite sex.

When the NAACP allowed itself to be used by the Democratic party to try and smear a grass roots movement for smaller government as racist, the resulting controversy shone a light on more than just racism by individuals associated with the NAACP, but with the organization’s inability to delink class warfare from racism. If there is one thing that both the white media elites at Jornolist and the NAACP leadership agreed on, it’s that fighting for smaller government is racist.

The peculiar notion that reforming government by reducing its size is racist originates from the marriage of racial equality with class warfare to create the 40 Acres and a Mule politics covering everything from wealth redistribution to affirmative action to social welfare programs– all under the aegis of the federal government. And yet this same brand of 40 Acres and a Mule politics underlies the particular tragedy of the black community, whose leaders traded in aspiration and equality for government handouts, forcing them to make the argument over and over again that there can be no social justice without total government control.

When the Democratic party was forced to make the transition from a party of Northern businessmen and Southern plantation owners, after two Republican Presidents, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, put a severe dent in their Southern plantations and the Northern business offices that had formerly given the party a death grip on the country’s economy– it did so by redefining the “Company Store” to mean the Federal government. The Republican notion of individual rights and free labor met the new Democratic notion of ward boss handouts at the Federal level in a battle for the soul of the Black community, and the Democrats won. Not immediately, not conclusively and not absolutely– but they won, and the NAACP’s leadership demonstrates why.

The black leadership has gained distinct advantages for itself as a separate class, while disadvantaging the black community as a whole. Civil rights leaders who made their money on lawsuit shakedowns and diversity training seminars, corporate executives and business owners who got where they were through affirmative action programs that encouraged companies to hire one black executive for appearance not merit, and rewarded minority business owners for the color of their skin, rather than for results– helped create a black leadership that owed its position and power to government intervention, rather than ability. And in the process that same leadership marginalized more qualified people within the black community, while teaching the lesson that aspiration and ability did not matter, only connections and politics did.

Affirmative action politics closed far more doors than it opened, but those who got through the open door knew exactly what they owed it to. Creating racial quotas as a way to select leaders was an effective tool for perpetuating the same system over and over again, marginalizing black candidates and business owners as a whole, while rewarding a select few who would then be in a position to praise and maintain things the status quo.

The racism charge leveled against the Tea Party is the doing of a leadership that sees itself as completely dependent on the Federal government, so much so that it finds any talk of reducing it to be dangerous and threatening. And as the Democratic party has identified itself closely with the domestic expansion of government and wealth redistribution politics, it has been able to manipulate the black community, to appropriate its decision making powers and use it as a political tool, while virtually eliminating its actual political clout. The sad state of affairs in which the official black leadership damns anyone who doesn’t toe the Democratic party line as Uncle Toms and “not real black people” reveals just who really calls the shots in this arrangement. And it is not the black leadership, which gets trotted out when the Democratic party needs them, and gets told to go home when it doesn’t. Which is no different than the treatment accorded to women’s or Jewish groups.

The attacks hurled at the government reforms advocated by Tea Party groups rely on invoking sixties racist boogeymen about States’ Rights, but the Tea Parties are not fighting to resegregate schools or lunch counters, as many times as liberal political bloggers may try and market that particular smear. Instead the Tea Party is an attempt to salvage the financial viability of the Middle Class that has traditionally been America’s only reliable bastion of political and social equality. And their targets are not Eisenhower’s forced desegregation and challenges to States’ Rights, a Republican President, but the out of control government expansion that began with FDR’s New Deal, which enforced racial segregation and plunged the country deeper into the depression.

Wealth Redistribution will never solve the black community’s problems, only worsen them. Which may be why most of the greatest African-American inventions took place before it, not after. All that spending has not helped the black community, in part because while the spending may use social welfare as a justification, it is mostly directed at building up the size of government itself. The gargantuan bureaucratic structures that form as a result only perpetuate poverty for everyone, while feeding money to a small group of insiders who are politically connected enough to benefit from it. The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac disasters in which black homeowners were saddled with debt, that was then resold worldwide by bankers and brokers, is a typical example of what happens and where the money really goes.

In West Point and military academies around the world, a book written two and a half thousand years ago is studied. It is “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu and it deftly spells out the difference between victory and defeat.

“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.”

On the topic of spies, Sun Tzu wrote, “to remain in ignorance of the enemy’s condition, simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity.” He then names five classes of spies. “Be subtle! And use your spies for every kind of business.”

The lesson from 9/11, published in the Commission report that followed, was that while the U.S. had a fairly massive espionage and counter-espionage community, they were not effectively communicating with one another. Part of the problem was a legal “wall” that had been put up between spymasters and law enforcement personnel.

A series, “Top Secret America”, running in The Washington Post, was initially decried as giving away America’s secrets regarding its intelligence gathering community, but as the report points out, it took two years to put together and was based “on government documents and contracts, job descriptions, property records, corporate and social networking Web sites, additional records, and hundreds of interviews with intelligence, military and corporate officials and former officials..”

If Dana Priest and William M. Arkin were able to access such information, then you can be sure that intelligence agencies in the nations of both our allies and enemies have already done so. The recent exposure of a Russian sleeper spy ring should be a reminder, not just of the bad old Cold War days, but that such spying goes on all the time by every nation.

Despite the initial displeasure expressed in some circles, I think the two reporters (Priestly is a Pulitzer Prize winner) have done the nation a favor. Consider the following:

President Barack Obama speaks with General Electric Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 20, 2009, during a meeting of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

There is one word being mentioned by business leaders and economists more frequently when the conversation turns to why jobs are not returning more quickly to the U.S. economy: uncertainty.

“By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses,” said Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg at a speech in Washington in late June.

Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh said in a recent speech in Atlanta: “Owing to a less-than-assured economic outlook and broad uncertainty about public policy, employers appear quite reluctant to add to payrolls.”

Roberton Williams, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, said in an interview, “The whole tax situation is very much in flux, very uncertain. It makes it hard to plan.”

“It’s clear that firms are not yet hiring. A lot of them are sitting on big bundles of cash,” Williams said, citing the examples of Google and Apple, which are both hoarding about $30 billion in cash instead of investing it or using it to expand.

Seidenberg’s comments last month were a significant political moment. The Verizon CEO has been one of President Obama’s strongest allies in the business community, and as president of the 170-member Business Roundtable, he had tried to cooperate with the Obama administration on its trademark agenda items – health care, financial reform and energy legislation.

Not far from where I live in New Jersey, in Montclair, Richard and Cynthia Murphy were arrested as Russian sleeper agents, allegedly in the employ of the SVR, the successor to the famed Soviet KGB intelligence services that waged a covert war throughout the Cold War.

Much of the media attention was focused on a beautiful redhead, Anna Chapman, a Manhattan socialite who was charged as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, but largely unnoted was Mihail Semenko, a 28-year-old Seton Hall University graduate. I live in the same community where the university is located.

In all, ten people were arrested by the FBI, suspected of carrying out long-term “deep cover” assignments in the U.S. for Russia.

The ultimate “deep cover” agent, however, may well be Barack Obama.

My friend, Henry Lamb, writing on October 8, 2007 at Canada Free Press.com, said, “It is getting increasingly difficult to distinguish between the agenda of the Democratic Party and the agenda of the Communist Party.” He quoted Joelle Fishman, chairman of the Communist Party USA Political Action Committee and chairman of the Connecticut Communist Party.

“Our Party has an important role to play in keep the focus on the fight for a new direction in our country for jobs, healthcare, and an end to the war. This is how the 2008 elections will be won.” Universal healthcare, a major objective of the Obama administration, has since become the law of the land. The emphasis on withdrawal from Iraq and a specific date for withdrawal from Afghanistan has been another objective.

The campaign team, several of whom now serve as advisers to Obama, was composed of people with deep ties to the “progressive”, i.e., communist movement in America. Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor, was aware that former Green Czar, Van Jones, had a long history of involvement in Communist Party causes. When this was exposed, he resigned.

The ALIPAC Team
www.alipac.us

Some of you may have heard the news stories about Maywood, California. The small town is on the verge of becoming unincorporated and has fired all police and staff. Maywood has fallen to illegal immigration. Is your town next?

National radio show host Roger Hedgecock has written a very important piece about Maywood, Ca. to help our supporters understand how illegal immigration swept Maywood into destruction. In fact, Maywood may just be one of many dominoes falling in California. The evidence is strong that what happened there is coming to your town eventually unless we can stop Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the CEO’s of Hewlett Packard, Boeing, and Disney from passing Comprehensive Amnesty with President Obama.

Welcome to Maywood, Mexico

June 26, 2010

Boasting a population that is 97% Hispanic, more than half foreign born, and 40% illegal, the Los Angeles County, Calif., incorporated city of Maywood has achieved the Reconquista goal. It is now as lawless and chaotic as any place in Mexico. Maywood is a warning to every city and town in America.

The Maywood City Council announced this week that after years of radical policies, corruption and scandal, the city was broke and all city employees would be laid off and essential city services contracted out to neighboring cities or to L.A. County government.

June 25, 2010
Roger Hedgecock
Human Events

How did this happen? Until recently, Maywood was the model for “brown power” politics.