First Fat Lady Michelle Obessama

Fat Michelle Obessama never visited this when she was in Spain!

Legacy of jihad: The Skull Cathedral of Otranto (pics)

Posted on August 12, 2011 by creeping

On this date in history, via The Skull Cathedral of Otranto Where the Bones of 800 Martyrs Adorn the Walls

The year was 1480 and the fateful day July 28 when a fleet of 70 to 200 Ottoman ships reached the city of Otranto, then part of the Kingdom of Naples. It was the beginning of the Ottoman wars (1453-1683) in Europe and invader Mohammed II had conquered Constantinople just 28 years earlier. The garrison and the citizens took cover in the Castle of Otranto but as it had no cannons for defense, it was soon conquered and the garrison killed.
On August 12, 800 citizens were taken to the hill of Minerva, now called the Hill of the Martyrs, and beheaded because they refused to renounce their Catholic faith. Their remains were taken to the cathedral and the skulls preserved in the altar piece as a prominent reminder of these 800 martyrs.

Image: Andreas C.

Image: Laurent Massoptier

The Ottoman Wars were motivated by territory gains and eradicating the Christian faith while spreading the Muslim one.

There’s a similar remnant of Muslim jihad in Serbia. See it in our post, Chele Kula: Tower of Skulls.

Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Ed Said, Mariam Cortas and Bill Ayres all friends

Barack Obama at the Arab American Action Network gala

The photo shows Michelle ( with glasses) and Barack listening in rapt attention to the keynote speaker, PLO advisor Edward Said [with Obama, at left], who died in 2003.

On Friday, an anti-terrorism task force of the FBI conducted eight raids in Chicago and Minneapolis. Among the targets was Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of the Arab American Action Network Network (AAAN). Agents seized laptop computers and other evidence from Abudayyeh's Chicago home. This much has been reported in the media.

What has received less coverage is the connection between the AAAN and the President of the United States. This photo of Michelle and Barack Obama was taken on May 24, 1998 in Burbank, IL, where state senator Obama was an honored guest at a gala dinner. Hosting the event was -- drumroll, please -- the Arab American Action Network.
















In this photo, Obama is speaking with the keynote speaker, PLO advisor Edward Said, who passed away in 2003.

Michelle and Barack Obama at a PLO dinner Supporting the destruction of Israel
Obama was the toastmaster of this dinner  sitting with Ed Said ( deceased ) and his wife Mariam Cortas,

The organization hosting the gala dinner, the AAAN, had been funded by Barack Obama, his terrorist friend Bill Ayers [here, standing on the American flag] and other directors of the Woods Fund. The AAAN had been established by another one of Obama's friends, Rashid Khalidi.  

As many of you know by now, the LA Times has video of Barack Obama toasting and praising Jew-hating PLO operative (and Yasser Arafat henchman) Rashid Khalidi at a 2003 event. As many of you also know, the LA Times is refusing to release the video.
Ben Smith at The Politico is puzzled by the Times’ decision, saying that Politico would have made it public.

The paper hasn’t explained its unwillingness to release the video, and Peter Wallsten, who found the tape and wrote about it, declined to discuss it with me last night. He forwarded an e-mail that the paper has sent readers who have complained as conservative blogs raise the issue.
“Over six months ago the Los Angeles Times published a detailed account of the events shown on the videotape. The Times is not suppressing anything. Just the opposite — the L.A. Times brought the matter to light,” wrote the readers’ representative, Jamie Gold.
L.A. Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan wouldn’t discuss the decision not to release the tape in detail.
“When we reported on the tape six months ago, that was our full report,” she said, and asked, “Does Politico release unpublished information?”
The answer to that question is yes — Politico and most news outlets constantly make available videos and documents, after describing them in part, which is why the Times’ decision not to release the video is puzzling. My instinct, and many reporters’, is to share as much source material as possible.

The Times is now claiming that they can’t release the Khalidi tape because they promised their source they wouldn’t. Which just raises more questions. What’s on that tape that the Times’ source doesn’t want the public at large to see?
And on top of all of this, who could imagine the Times sitting on a similarly inconvenient video for John McCain? Can anyone imagine the Times letting the wishes of some source get in the way of releasing a video that could damage John McCain? Or Sarah Palin?
Of course not.

an Obama Lie!

Barack Obama claims to be a supporter of Israel and a friend of the Jewish people. But many of the people who helped him in the course of his rise to political power, or whom he helped during his political ascent, are extremely anti-Israel, or even outright anti-Semitic. Let's examine the views and careers of just a few of Obama's anti-Israel and/or anti-Semitic benefactors and protégés:
Rashid Khalidi was the director of the PLO's press agency WAFA from 1976 to 1982, at a time when the PLO was conducting a massacre of 37 Israeli civilians in a bus on Israel's coastal road, the brutal murder of a four-year-old Israeli girl in Nahariya, and numerous other terrorist killings of Israeli civilians. The PLO was also waging a brutal war against the Lebanese Christian community during this period, and carried out numerous massacres of Lebanese Christians; the worst of these was the killing of about 500 people in the village of Damour. During this same period, Rashid's wife Mona Khalidi was an English translator for WAFA. Rashid Khalidi is now an advocate of a "one state solution" for all of "Palestine" - meaning the destruction of Israel and its replacement by an Arab state. Asaf Romirowsky and Jonathan Calt Harris, in an article in the Washington Times on July 9, 2004, summarized Rashid Khalidi's views about Israel this way: "[His] extremism comes out when he calls Israel an ‘apartheid system in creation' and a ‘racist state' that ‘brainwashed' Americans do not understand. Jerusalem, with its Jewish majority since the 1880s, he deems ‘an Arab city' whose control by Israeli ‘foreigners' is ‘unacceptable.' And so on." Khalidi also accuses Israel of "ethnic cleansing."
In 1995 Rashid and Mona Khalidi co-founded the The Arab-American Action Network, a virulently anti-Israel organization that strongly supports the Palestinian Arab terrorist movement. It regards the creation of the state of Israel as a "naqba" ("catastrophe" in Arabic). Mona Khalidi served as the group's President from its inception until some time this year, although she is now listed only as a member of its board of directors.
Rashid and Mona Khalidi became close friends of Barack and Michelle Obama during the time when both Barack and Rashid taught at the University of Chicago (1992-2003). At a lavish farewell party for Khalidi in Chicago in 2003, when Khalidi left his prestigious position at the University of Chicago for an even more prestigious one at Columbia University in New York, Obama gave Khalidi a glowing eulogy. He said that he and his wife Michelle had been frequent dinner guests of the Khalidis, and that the Khalidis had frequently babysat for the Obama children. According to a Los Angeles Times account based on a video of Obama's speech, he added that "his many talks with the Khalidis, . . .had been ‘consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation-a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table,' but around ‘this entire world.'"
Obama's assistance to the Khalidis, however, went beyond mere kind words at a farewell party. In 2001 and again in 2002, Obama, in his capacity as a member of the board of directors of the Leftist non-profit organization the Woods Fund, voted to give the Arab-American Action Network co-founded by Rashid and Mona, and directed by Mona Khalidi, $75,000 in grants.
Rashid and Mona Khalidi anticipated Obama's generosity to AAAN by holding a fundraiser in their house for Obama's unsuccessful run for Congress in 2000. It would seem that it later proved to be a profitable event for the Khalidis.[1]
Ali Abunimah is the "executive director" of The Electronic Intifada, which is the principal internet mouthpiece for the Palestinian terrorist movement in the United States. Abunimah writes that he became friendly with Obama in the late 1990s in Chicago when Obama was a frequent guest at Palestinian Arab fundraisers in Chicago. One such fundraiser was for the Deisheh refugee camp near Jerusalem - which was soon to become a base for terrorist attacks on Israelis during the "Al-Aksa Intifada" which began in 2000. At one such fundraising dinner, Obama was seated at the same table as Edward Said, the chief PLO propagandist in the United States and the author of Yasser Arafat's notorious "gun and the olive branch" speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 1974.
But it was at the 2000 fundraiser at the home of Rashid and Mona Khalidi for Obama's failed 2000 run for Congress where Abunimah says he "had a chance to really talk to [Obama]. It was an intimate setting. He convinced me he was very aware of the issues [and] critical of U.S. bias toward Israel and lack of sensitivity to Arabs. ... He was very supportive of U.S. pressure on Israel." "On that occasion and others," according to Abunimah, "Obama was forthright in his criticism of U.S. policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict." Obama was "quite frank that the U.S. needed to be more evenhanded, that it leaned too much toward Israel." He was also "very comfortable in speaking up for and being associated with Palestinian rights and opposing the Israeli occupation." Later, during Obama's 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate, at another private gathering in Chicago's (and Obama's and Khalidi's) Hyde Park neighborhood, he excused himself to Abunimah for not being "more up front" in his advocacy of the Palestinian cause: "'Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front.' He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy [and said:] ‘Keep up the good work!'" The Obama campaign has denied the accuracy of Abunimah's account of this conversation. But it offered no explanation as to why Abunimah would have invented it.[2]
The story of Barack Obama's political alliance with Chicago Leftist activists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn ,the couple who had co-founded and led the Weatherman terrorist organization in the 1970s, when Obama was launching his own political career twenty-something years later, has in recent weeks received some modest attention in sections of the press; it has even been mentioned by vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. We do not have space here to review in detail the sordid history of the Obama-Ayers-Dohrn relationship, beyond mentioning that it involved the fundraiser and meet-the candidate reception at Ayers' and Dohrns' house that launched Obama's political career in 1995, and seven years of collaboration by Obama and Ayers as co-executives of two Leftist nonprofit organizations, including the one that funded the Khalidis' AAAN.
With regard to Ayers' and Dohrn's terrorist history, we will note only that the Weathermen killed five people, wounded or attempted to kill scores of others, and bombed up to 35 buildings; that Ayers boasted of these terrorist actions, affirmed his belief in their moral correctness, and allowed himself to be photographed trampling on the American flag in two interviews published in 2001; and that Obama continued to work with Ayers for at leasta year even after he made these public declarations of non-repentance for his murderous youth.[3]
Less well known are Ayers' extremely anti-Israel views. Here are some samples of his comments about the Arab-Israel conflict on his web blog: "In modern times, the founders of Israel used terrorism against the British and the Palestinians; the Palestinians use terrorism against Israel; and Israel currently employs terror in the service of settlement and occupation;" "A bombing in a café in Israel is terrorism, and an Israeli assault on a neighborhood in Gaza is terrorism;" (note Ayers'use of the moral equivalency argument here, which he also uses to justify his own terrorism in the 1970s); "We name the obstacles to our own freedom, to our humanity. We unite with others. We fight against the obstacles. U.S. war and expansion in Iraq , for example, or Israel's insistence on its right to slowly annihilate the Palestinian people. . ." " ‘How is it,' Edward Said asks, ‘that the premises on which Western support for Israel is based are still maintained even though the reality, the facts, cannot possibly bear these premises out?' ...He's right, of course." (Ayers praises the late Edward Said to the skies in his blog).
He complains about what he calls an Israeli "invasion" of New York City's public schools. According to Ayers, this "invasion" took the form of the removal from the curriculum of a New York City Board of Education teacher training program of a course concerned with the Arab-Israel conflict and the Middle East-taught by none other than his friend Rashid Khalidi, who is now "Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies" at Columbia University, and director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs.[4] Khalidi, for his part, in the acknowledgment section of his 2004 book Resurrecting Empire, thanks "Bill" for being "particularly generous in letting me use his family's dining room table to do some writing for the project.". It would seem that both the Khalidi and Ayers dinner tables were very lively places in the 1990s and early 2000s![5]
Barack Obama has never condemned or unambiguously disassociated himself from either the Khalidis' or the Ayers-Dohrn's views about Israel and the Arab-Israel conflict.
Khalid al-Mansour is a somewhat shadowy but nevertheless influential and well-connected figure. In his capacity as a lawyer, he represented the international oil cartel OPEC in an important court case in 1981. Under his birth name Donald Warden in the1960s, Mansour "mentored" the Black Panther party and its leaders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, who soon became deeply involved in terrorism. He claims to have acted as a financial and investment adviser to the Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal, whom he befriended when the prince was an undergraduate student at Menlo College in California in the 1970s (Prince Alwaleed is the man who offered New York City $10 million dollars to rebuild after 9/11, but made a public statement at the same time alleging that the United States was partially to blame for the attack because of its support for Israel; New York's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, rightly rejected the grant offer). Mansour also claims that Alwaleed introduced him to Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, and that he (Mansour) has in turn introduced King Fahd to over 50 African heads of state. While we cannot verify all of Khalid al-Mansour's claims, there is no question that he is a man with some influence in both African-American and international Muslim political-financial circles.
Mansour was also instrumental in securing Barack Obama's admission to Harvard University law school, and hence in his subsequent rise to political prominence. According to the now retired, but then very powerful, African-American New York City politician Percy Sutton, Mansour approached him in 1988 and asked him to intervene to secure the admission of Obama, whom he described as a "genius," to Sutton's alma mater, Harvard Law School. Mansour also told Sutton that he was raising money to finance Obama's future law studies at Harvard. Sutton duly wrote to his contacts at Harvard Law School that Obama was a "genius," although he had apparently never met him; and Obama was duly admitted, despite mediocre grades as an undergraduate at Columbia.[6]
Of course Obama's eventual graduation from the Harvard Law School immeasurably improved his prospects for a political career. But why did Mansour help Obama in this way? How, when and where did Mansour come to know Obama? Who brought these two men together? These are important questions whose answers we do not know, but we think the American people have a right to know them before they cast their ballots for the next President.
What we do know is that Mansour holds views that can reasonably be regarded as both anti-Israel and anti-Jewish, not to mention anti-white. For example, he asserts that it is a "lie" that "Ashkenazi" (European) Jews are descended from the ancient Israelites, and that they therefore have no legitimate claim to Palestine, which they "stole" from its rightful Arab owners. According to Mansour, European Jews are really descended from a Central Asian tribe known as the Khazars, not the ancient Jews. This is a theory that was invented by American (white) racists in the late nineteenth century, was strongly endorsed by the Nazis, and has recently been adopted by the PLO, other Arab and Muslim propagandists, as well as the (white racist, Aryanist) Christian Identity movement in the United States. Mansour has also said in a video-recorded speech that American blacks have a right to kill and even torture whites as revenge for the wrongs that whites have done them.[7]
We hope that by now nearly everyone who follows the news knows, as they certainly should know, of the sermon in which Barack Obama's pastor for over 20 years, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, repeatedly exclaimed, "God d*** America " just a few years ago. Some of Wright's other unpatriotic sentiments and unsubstantiated accusations against America may be less well known - for example, that he regards the bombing of the World Trade Center as "chickens coming home to roost" for America's bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, its extermination of the American Indians, its alleged support for South African "apartheid" and its alleged support for Israeli "genocide" against the Palestinians; and that he has alleged that the United States invented the AIDS virus and deliberately spread it in Africa in order to exterminate black people.
Least well known, perhaps, is Wright's fierce hostility to Israel. As we have seen, Wright has accused Israel of "genocide;" he has also repeatedly characterized it as an "apartheid" state; and he has expressed support for the terrorist organization Hamas, which openly seeks Israel's destruction and has murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians. He has supported calls for U.S. businesses to "disinvest" in Israel, and has equated the current disinvestment campaign against Israel with the previous disinvestment campaign against white-ruled "apartheid" South Africa - a standard anti-Israel propaganda line. He has compared what he regards as the vindictiveness of America towards its enemies today with what he depicts as the vindictiveness of the ancient Israelites towards their enemies, the Babylonians. Wright even went so far, in one sermon, as to call the very word "Israel" a "dirty word." Only last year, in November 2007, through his journal The Trumpet, Wright gave a ‘lifetime achievement" award to the notorious anti-Semite, Israel-hater and racist Louis Farrakhan, and lavished praise on the old demagogue.
The facts make it difficult for us to believe that Barack Obama disagrees strongly with Wright's views about either America or Israel. Wright was the pastor of the only church to which Obama has ever belonged - Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Obama remained in that church for over 20 years while Wright was its pastor, and only left it in May 31st of this year - after Wright had retired. Wright married Barack and Michelle Obama and baptized their children, as Obama himself was quick to point out when his relationship with Wright was first questioned early in the spring of 2008. Obama has repeatedly described Wright as his spiritual advisor and mentor, and has publicly lauded him as a "great leader;" he even took the title of his second book, The Audacity of Hope, from a sermon by Wright. He only publicly disassociated himself from Wright when he came under intense public pressure to do so. [8]
Louis Farrakhan's anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and anti-white views, including his description of Judaism as a "gutter religion," are too familiar to require recapitulation here. But we should note that the entire religious-political ideology of Farrakhan's organization, the Nation of Islam, is built on a foundation of racist myth; NOI maintains that blacks are "the original nation of earth," and whites are not indigenous to our planet, but were created by a mad black scientist named Jakub 6,600 years ago. We should also recall that Louis Farrakhan is widely suspected within the African-American community to having had a hand in the assassination of Malcolm X; Malcolm's daughter even tried to hire a hit-man to eliminate Farrakhan in revenge.
In spite of Louis Farrakhan's extremely dubious record, Barack Obama has done some work for him in the past; and he has apparently been rewarded for it by political support from Farrakhan in his bid for the Presidency. Obama helped Farrakhan organize the Million Man March to Washington in 1995, supposedly aimed at instilling greater self-esteem in Black men; and he addressed the assembled crowd in Washington from the same rostrum as Farrakhan, who was the principal and featured speaker. While a member of the Illinois State Senate, Obama had three members of the Nation of Islam, the organization headed by Farrakhan, on his staff. He still has a member of the NOI on his U.S. Senatorial staff, working in his Chicago office and assigned to "constituency services." More recently, Farrakhan has strongly endorsed Obama's candidacy for President, and has even suggested to his congregation that Obama may be the Messiah, or at least the Messiah's "herald." Obama, for his part, condemned Farrakhan's anti-Semitic "comments" when asked about it during a debate with Hillary Clinton; but he pointedly declined to reject Farrakhan's endorsement.[9]
Jesse Jackson denies being an official part of the Barack Obama campaign, and the campaign's headquarters supports his denial; but no one denies that Obama and Jackson have been close over the years. The way Jackson puts it,Obama is "a neighbor or, better still, a member of the family." New York Post reporter Amir Taheri points out that "Jackson's son has been a close friend of Obama for years, and Jackson's daughter went to school with Obama's wife Michelle." "We helped him start his career," Taheri quotes Jackson as having told him. "And then we were always there to help him move ahead. He is the continuation of our struggle for justice not only for the black people but also for all those who have been wronged." Jesse Jackson's son, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who represents the Illinois' 2nd congressional district, serves as a national co-chairman of the Barack Obama Presidential campaign.
It is therefore a matter of legitimate concern when Taheri reported in the New York Post that Jackson had told a meeting of a group called the World Policy Forum, which met in Evian, France in early October that "‘decades of putting Israel's interests first' would end" under Barack Obama's administration. According to Taheri, "Jackson believes that, although ‘Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades' remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.'" After an account of Jackson's remarks at the policy forum and in a subsequent interview with Taheri was published by the Post on October 14, Jackson issued a statement claiming that "The recent column in the New York Post by Amir Taheri in no way represents my views on Middle East peace and security. The writer is selectively imposing his own point of view, and distorting mine. I have a long held position of a two state solution to achieve peace in the Middle East. I stand forthrightly for the security and stability of Israel, its protection from any form of hostility, and a peaceful, non-violent resolution to co-existing with its Palestinian neighbors." Jackson specifically denied having used the word "Zionist;" but he did not deny outright the other words attributed to him by the Post reporter. Both Jackson and the Obama campaign issued statements denying that Jackson had spoken with Obama recently about the policies he intends to pursue towards Israel.
However, Amir Taheri is an experienced and respected journalist, making it seem highly unlikely to us that he fabricated Jackson's reported remarks out of whole cloth; and Jackson certainly knows Obama well enough to make at least an "educated guess" about what policies Obama will adopt, as President, towards Israel and the American Jewish community. And we should not forget the facts that Jackson employed Louis Farrakhan as a "warm-up speaker" during his own campaign for the Presidency in 1984, or that he referred to Jews as "Hymies" and New York City as "Hymietown" during that campaign. Whatever influence Jackson may have exerted on Obama's thinking about Israel and Jews over the years is most unlikely to be helpful to either.[10]
Politicians have a way of repaying the political debts that they owe to those who have helped them, directly or indirectly, to climb up the political ladder to high office. It is therefore a matter of the utmost concern to us that many of the political debts that Barack Obama owes are to Israel-haters, Israel-bashers, and/or anti-Semites.

On Monday, when Columbia University granted tenure to Joseph Massad -- the professor of Modern Arab politics whose alleged intimidation of pro-Israeli students likely doomed his first tenure bid in 2005 -- the University jeopordized its long-standing commitment to cultivating and supporting its Jewish student population.

The University has long managed to balance the often-opposing beliefs of its famously pro-Palestinian Middle Eastern Studies department and its substantial Jewish population. The department is currently home to supporters of Palestine such as Rashid Khalidi, Hamid Dabashi, Nadia abu El-Haj, and George Saliba; Edward Said, one of the most prominent American scholars in support of Palestine, taught English and Comparative at Columbia from 1963 until his death in 2003.
The Middle Eastern Studies department thrives in the midst of a student body that Hillel deemed the sixth most Jewish of all those in American private universities. Located a mere four blocks from The Jewish Theological Seminary (where students can complete a double-degree and cross-register for courses), Columbia's Jewish community boasts a thriving Hillel, a Jewish literary journal, and an active chapter of AEPi, the Jewish fraternity. Cafeterias feature extensive kosher options, and it is not uncommon to see throngs of students donning kippahs migrating across campus.
The Jewish community of alumni and current students has previously exercised its will and sheer manpower to prevent anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli opinions from gaining University support. In 2006, Jewish students successfully prevented Ahmadinejad, the famously anti-Semetic Iranian dictator, from speaking, and in 2007, they again protested his visit. Many believe that alumni efforts to prevent the Palestinian anthropology professor Nadia Abu El-Haj at Columbia affiliate Barnard College from receiving tenure caused the University to deny her bid (in her book, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, Abu El-Haj casts doubt on archaeological evidence used to legitimize Israel as the Jewish homeland).
Some believe that Massad previously failed to receive tenure due to his unflattering portrayal in the student film Columbia Unbecoming (2004), which "gives voice to students who have experienced incidents of academic abuse and intimidation at Columbia University" as a consequence of expressing pro-Israeli sentiment. In the film, Massad calls Israel a "Jewish and a racist state," and a student describes how he once demanded of an Israeli student, "How many Palestinians did you kill?" at a public lecture (the film's website notes that although Massad has publicly stated that he never taught or met the student in question, he also has never denied the claim). The film's fervor can only faintly forecast the outrage the Jewish community could exhibit come fall.
There can be little doubt that many at Columbia, Jewish and otherwise, will be incensed at the newest addition to the tenured faculty. The prospect of lending greater support to a professor who some claim bullied students -- although Massad claimed that he has "been the target of a political campaign by actors inside and outside the university" and successfully proved that "The Ad Hoc Grievance Committee Report suffers from major logical flaws, undefended conclusions, inconsistencies, and clear bias in favor of the witch-hunt that has targeted me for over three years" -- is nonetheless unsavory. Regardless of the legitimacy of the complaints lodged against Massad, the insensitivity exhibited in some of his scholarly work could create an irrevocable rift between him and the many Jews, Zionists, Israel supporters, and students who simply believe that Israelis do not deserve to be called anti-Semites, all of whom he is hired, in part, to educate.
Massad does not just critique Israeli policy in Palestine, or even question the legitimacy of Israel's right to exist. Rather, he attempts to redefine the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by removing terms like anti-Semitic, Nazi, and Jew from their historical context. In his book, The Persistence of the Palestinian Question, and in various articles for publications like The Electronic Intifada and Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Massad argues that the Zionist movement betrays colonialist underpinnings that draw from anti-Semitic rhetoric. He claims that this influence, coupled with the Zionist urge to "transform European (and later other) Jews into European Christians culturally, while continuing to call them Jews", caused a "historical process by which it was to metamorphose Palestinian Arabs into Jews in a displaced geography of anti-Semitism" and to transform "the Jew into the anti-Semite". Massad similarly likens Israelis to their one-time oppressors by comparing Israeli actions in Gaza in 2009 to those of the Nazis during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, and by claiming that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was similar to Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.
As a student just entering my second year at Columbia, I have no means to evaluate the academic legitimacy of his argument. Clearly, Massad is a distinguished scholar. However, as a student just entering my second year at Columbia, I can evaluate the effect that his inflammatory claims could have on the student body.
By reassigning the term "Jew" to the very people who tirelessly fight to eradicate the world's only Jewish state -- putting aside questions Israel's right to statehood -- Massad flagrantly disregards the ethnic, cultural, and religious sensibilities embedded in that term. It is entirely possible that, in many instances, Palestinians are the victims of Israeli military action, but no amount of theorizing can make them Jews: .2% of the world's population who, despite Western prominence, have experienced inestimable persecution.
Similarly, by calling an Israeli an anti-Semite or a Nazi, Massad shows disrespect for the years of oppression the Jews suffered under the Nazi regime. Hypothetically, the Israelis could be racist or tyrannical, but to deem them anti-Semitic Nazis is to fail to appreciate the Holocaust's lasting impact both on Israel and on the wider Jewish community. These words cannot be simply re-appropriated, no matter what the cause; they connote long-lasting and painful memories.
Undoubtedly, Massad is well aware of his argument's implications both for Israel and the Jewish people. While his novel terminology may win him points in the academic world, he will not deliver his lectures to an empty room. Students will fill those seats, and students do not come tabula rasa. Most have grown up hearing stories of oppression from parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents, be it in Vietnam, Lebanon, or Nazi Germany. For these students, a professor's disregard for historical memory transcends mere difference of opinion. On a simple, human level, I, and many others, may accept or appreciate Massad's point, but cannot respect the means with which he makes it -- outside, and according to some, inside the classroom. Such polarizing methodology creates an irrevocable divide between the professor and the students he educates.
At Columbia in particular, such disregard for a religious minority's past undermines the institution's longstanding commitment to diversity and tolerance. In sharp contrast to peer institutions like Princeton or Yale, Columbia lies in the heart of a gritty, vibrant, sometimes-violent city, and its student body reflects New York's diversity. One of the first universities to abolish quotas for Jewish students, Columbia currently boasts 50% students of color in its most recent incoming class.
By granting tenure to one professor -- admittedly a talented, accomplished professor -- Columbia will not erase that history. Its students, Jewish and otherwise, will simply have to remember that even in Manhattan, even at Columbia, Jews and liberals do not reign supreme. We must fight, just as Joseph Massad did, to retain our voices.

May 23, 2008

Obama's Good Friend Rashid Khalidi

Rick Moran 

This is getting to be a disturbing pattern for Barack Obama.

A radical association from his past comes to light and he minimizes the relationship. Additional information is gathered showing him to have much more extensive contact with the radical than he originally said, thus proving the candidate to be a liar.

End result? Media silence and the story is buried.

Today's revelations come via Rezkowatch where they quote a World Net Daily story that shows Obama had a close, personal relationship with radical professor and Palestinian apologist Rashid Khalidi.

The issue came up at a recent campaign stop in Florida where a voter asked Obama about the nature of his relationship with Khalidi:

"You mentioned Rashid Khalidi, who's a professor at Columbia," Obama said. "I do know him because I taught at the University of Chicago. And he is Palestinian. And I do know him and I have had conversations. He is not one of my advisors; he's not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the Lab school where my kids go as well. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel's policy."

But then Obama pushed back, launching a broader defense of his associations, while acknowledging that some past relationships have caused people in the Jewish community concerns.

"To pluck out one person who I know and who I've had a conversation with who has very different views than 900 of my friends and then to suggest that somehow that shows that maybe I'm not sufficiently pro-Israel, I think, is a very problematic stand to take," he said. "So we gotta be careful about guilt by association."

But just what is the nature of his association?

According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the Democratic presidential hopeful befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003 while Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.

Sources at the University told WND that Khalidi and Obama lived in nearby faculty residential zones and that the two families dined together a number of times. The sources said the Obama's even babysat the Khalidi children.

Khalidi in 2000 held what was described as a successful fundraiser for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a fact not denied by Khalidi, who spoke to WND in February.

When is the media going to get wise to Obama's game? Trying to square what Obama told the crowd in Florida with what was revealed by WND can't be done. The candidate is obviously trying to minimize his problematic friendship with yet another radical. And he is being allowed to do this by a press that can't be oblivious to the shocking extent of Obama's association with extremists.

Note also that Obama called Khaladi a "respected scholar" - just like William Ayers - as if this washed away a litany of other sins. Perhaps Obama believes that teachers are immune from criticism.

Ayers, Dohrn, Wright, Meeks, Khaladi - and those are just the radicals we know of. There is something about radical ideology or personalities that attracts Barack Obama. And we better find out what it is before we elect him president.

 

White House bolstering rise of Chinese dragon? Pass this on!

White House bolstering rise of Chinese dragon?

Minimizing Beijing's military threat, denying its expansionist intentions

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Posted: July 23, 2011
10:55 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein

President Obama's China adviser, Evan Medeiros, has a long history of downplaying the threat to U.S. interests posed by Beijing's rapid military and economic growth, once even penning a paper that argued China should embrace a "great power mentality."
Medeiros was appointed as China director of the White House National Security Council in 2009.
He was a foreign policy adviser to Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign and even donated $3,800 to the candidate, his only campaign contribution on record since 2000.
Read about the growing conflict, in "AMERICA FOR SALE: Fighting the...
Medeiros has been an external researcher at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, where he has given several recent lectures.
He was formerly a senior research analyst at the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C. He was also a project associate with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and joined the RAND Corporation as a political scientist in 2002.
Prior to that, Medeiros was a senior research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute

Tiananmen Square, Beijing
In his most recent "Inside the Ring" column in the Washington Times, Bill Gertz cited congressional Republicans as identifying Medeiros as a key player involved in the Obama administration's policy of refusing to sell needed arms to Taiwan.
The same report blamed Medeiros for delaying the release of a second Pentagon report to Congress on the shifting air power balance in the Taiwan Strait.
The Times also cited Republican staff aides and a defense official as stating they believe Medeiros is behind efforts to block the release to Congress of the Pentagon's annual report on Chinese military power, completed months ago and due to Capitol Hill on March 1.
The report on China's military was also delayed last year. When it was eventually released, the report was watered down with a minimized title. Previously called the "Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People's Republic of China," the report was renamed "Annual Report on Security Developments Involving China."
Medeiros, meanwhile, was fingered by Gertz's sources as a key official in preventing the U.S. sale of 66 advanced F-16 jets to Taiwan and for delaying the sale of equipment to upgrade Taiwan's existing F-16s. Both military moves were expected to anger China.
A review of Medeiros's articles and statements to the news media finds a regular trend of minimizing China's threat to the U.S.
In 2009, just before his appointment to the NSC, Medeiros stated China was not seeking to "confront the United States or expel it from the region."
He argued China was not aiming to replace America as a superpower.
In 2007, Medeiros, speaking as an expert at the RAND Corporation, argued Beijing's military buildup is limited to Asia and it has not sought to project power globally.
"Cumulatively, this is a substantial amount of money devoted toward military modernization. And it's clearly a reflection of the Chinese government's priorities and the fact that they seek to build a modern military with regional power projection capabilities," Medeiros said.
In 2005, Medeiros said of China's People's Liberation Army: "Do the old shibboleths still apply – that the Chinese defense industry is backward, poor and low-quality?"
"No," he continued. "It seems China has turned the corner. … For the first time in 20 years, the PLA has adopted reforms that make sense. They adopted, and implemented, and are really learning quickly."
Medeiros that year was lead author of a 300-page RAND study, "New Directions for China's Defense Industry."
In 2002, he minimized China's missile project, telling The Economist that the Chinese "don't really see missiles as weapons of mass destruction while most American policymakers equate the two."
In an article in the November-December 2003 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Medeiros, with analyst M. Taylor Fravel, presented the views of experts on Chinese foreign policy as stating China should overcome its long-held ''victim mentality'' and adopt a ''great power mentality'' instead.
Speaking to Knight Ridder in 2001, Medeiros stated, "The Chinese defense industrial base is very outdated and dilapidated, especially in these areas where warfare is headed.
"They don't have the high technology to compete at all," he said.
He stated China's ships and planes, at least those not acquired from Russia, are outfitted with technology equal to what American forces had in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
"So if they ever got in a battle with the United States, we could destroy their forces before they ever saw us," Medeiros added.
Still, Medeiros has incorporated criticism of China into his work. His 2005 RAND study, for example, said China "needs to do more to enforce its own controls."
Stated the study: "China has erected a structure that has a strong legal basis to control exports of goods that can be used for making weapons of mass destruction, but it hasn't devoted the necessary financial or political resources to make these controls effective.
"This is a persistent and glaring weakness," the study said.
With research by Brenda J. Elliott


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Does Obama have a Pacifier and a Baba????Or is his diaper wet???

Does Obama have a Pacifier and a Baba????Or is his diaper wet???
Obama has proven he isn't a leader. He is not able to control his temper and his latest example was yesterday, July 13, 2011, as he stormed out of a meeting with US Senators and Congressman who are trying to come with a workable solution to fix the debt. However, Obama, who wants it his or no way  at all, yelled and screamed stompt his feet like a child having a temper tantrum and stormed out. Obama, 50 years old, still throwing his toys out of the playpen. 

This display of childlike behavior is dangerous because he can't control his temper he could have a total meltdown in front of a foreign government official and cause nuclear war where it could not matter who wins because we would all be dead as Obama heads for the underground tunnels that are designed to save the government who would be the government of the dead people of the USA.

Is this the type of President you want, a loose cannon? A lethal weapon? He can't make compromises. He can't make up his mind but his comment on if you don't do it my way I am going tell mommy who are the American People.  

However he reminds me of a character from the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where Veruca Salt the spoiled little rich girl who demand "I want and do my way or I'll scream" because she wanted a squirrel who was picking bad nuts and throwing them away, only she ends up being a bad nut and tossed down to the garbage.

When Obama can;t get his way he acts like a child having a temper-tantrum only he's not 3 years old but supposed to be an adult of 50 years old who has been proven to We the People of the many mental disorders described by the DSM and ICD. He cannot control his temper. Maybe he does need a vacation, a permanent vacation in a nice padded room with a nice straight jacket and the men in white to feed him. Then Michelle can call all the attendants "Whitey". But then again we all know Michelle is a Racist who hates Whites,

Obama is a dangerous man-child who is just as immature as the Late Micheal Jackson if not more. Remove him from office on the 25th Amendment and relieve him of the pressures of this job before he has a total melt down in front a head of another country. 

Obama Storms Out of Debt Ceiling Meeting

Written by Raven Clabough

Thursday, 14 July 2011 12:18

According to House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, “Nobody can out debate” President Obama in the debt ceiling debate. Why then has President Obama reportedly scolded congressional leaders during a debt meeting and then stormed out, contending, “Enough is enough?”

The meeting began to become contentious when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor told President Obama that “Congress should instead consider a series of debt ceiling votes based on spending cuts that already have been identified. Talks could then continue to identify additional cuts for subsequent voters.”

Cantor told reporters at the meeting, “I suggested we were so far apart I didn’t see in the time before us how we get to where he wants us to be.”

The President’s reaction was a bit defensive. The Blaze reports: Obama, in his typical affable and diplomatic manner, warned Cantor not to set such an ultimatum and threatened to veto legislation that would extend the debt ceiling only for a short period.

“The president told me, ‘Eric, don’t call my bluff. I’m going to take this to the American people,’ ” Cantor said.

President Obama went on to criticize both sides.

“This process is confirming what the American people think is the worst about Washington: that everyone is more interested in posturing, political position and protecting their base than solving real problems,” Obama said.

The Blaze notes the irony of the President’s assertions, however:

Of course, this is coming from the man who warned Tuesday that failure to raise the debt ceiling could mean that Social Security checks, veterans benefits and other government obligations would not be paid as scheduled in August. If anyone knows anything about posturing, surely it is Obama.

After the verbal tongue-lashing issued by the President, a top Republican accused the White House of playing political games to provoke a “yes” vote on extending the ceiling. President Obama then allegedly stormed out of the meeting.

According to Cantor, “He became very agitated. He said ‘Ronald Reagan wouldn’t sit here. You either have to compromise on the dollar figure or the grand bargain.’ ” Cantor said Obama then shoved back and said, “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Democrats have tried to deny that the President actually “walked out” of the meeting. One official explained, “Left abruptly is perfectly fair. But the meeting was over — in no sense did he walk out on it.”

One Democratic aide said, ““Obama was concluding the meeting, giving the closing remarks and talking about meeting tomorrow. Cantor interrupted him and raised for the third time doing a short-term (so after it had already been addressed twice), and Obama shut him down. Cantor was playing the role he’s played throughout this whole thing — being not productive.”

But according to another congressional aide, Obama “dressed down” Eric Cantor.

“The President spoke for several minutes uninterrupted about how he would not be deterred in doing what is best for the country,” the aide said. “The meeting ended with Cantor being dressed down while sitting in silence.”

Still others defended the President’s reaction. “[Obama] was most insistent that he wanted the debt limit extended into 2013, because he believes a repeat of what we’re going through now, when things will be politically more tense, would be very destabilizing,” claimed another aide.

According to other aides present at the meeting, who wished to remain anonymous, the meeting was the most heated that they’ve experienced during the past few months of discussions on the debt ceiling.

Cantor made a similar assertion, saying it was “the most intense meeting of the week.”

Some sources claim the president walked out on the meeting simply because Republicans have refused Democrats’ calls for taxes.

The Los Angeles Times explains:

Republicans have refused to vote for the debt ceiling increase unless it is accompanied by steep spending cuts equaling about $2.4 trillion over the next decade, though their own spending plan requires that the limit be raised. Obama is seeking a larger deficit reduction plan, totaling about $4 trillion over the decade, but would include both spending cuts and tax revenue. The GOP has rejected that idea.

Congress and the White House have been engaged in a stalemate for over a month on whether the debt $14.3 trillion debt ceiling should be raised. The administration claims that without raising the debt ceiling by the time it reaches its limit on August 2, the government will be unable to pay all of its bills.

Meanwhile, Moody’s Investors Services warned that the United States credit rating is about to be downgraded again, which could potentially impact financial markets.

Photo: President Barack Obama meets with Congressional leaders regarding the debt ceiling, July 13, 2011, in the Cabinet Room at the White House. From left are, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va., House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, and Obama: AP Images

What happened to Michelle Obama's law license? First lady's legal career on 'court ordered inactive status'

What happened to Michelle Obama's law license?

First lady's legal career on 'court ordered inactive status'

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Posted: August 04, 2009
10:27 pm Eastern
By Chelsea Schilling


Why did Michelle Obama give up her license to practice law in 1993?
Records at the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois list her status as "voluntarily inactive and not authorized to practice law."
It further states that Michelle license is "on court ordered inactive status."
The statement has many bloggers wondering why a court would issue an order to stop Michelle Obama from practicing law, and some have even suggested the first lady may have been facing allegations of misconduct.

Michelle Obama'sIllinois registration status listed as "court ordered inactive"

Michelle Obama, known as Michelle Robinson at the time, attended Princeton University and earned her juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1988. She took the bar exam in Illinois, passing it on her second try and receiving her license from the state of Illinois.

Michelle Robinson as a Harvard student before she becomes Michelle Obama (photo: Harvard University)

In 1988, Michelle became an associate at Sidley & Austin, a corporate law firm in her home town of Chicago. She was assigned to mentor summer associate and future husband, Barack Obama.
She remained at the law firm for three years, leaving the lucrative practice and corporate law behind in 1991 upon her father's death. According to the Washington Post, Sidley & Austin offered Barack Obama a job upon his graduation from Harvard, but the future president declined – even though he planned on returning to Chicago. He explained that he wanted to go into politics and that Michelle would be leaving the firm to go with him.
According to the New York Times, Michelle was unfulfilled by her law career. She told the newspaper, "I wanted to have a career motivated by passion and not just money."
She elaborated in an interview with Newsweek: "I didn't see a whole lot of people who were just thrilled to be there," she said. "I met people who thought this was a good life. But were people waking up just bounding out of bed to get to work? No."

Rev. Wright marries Barack and Michelle Obama in 1992

In 1991, Michelle wrote to Valerie Jarrett, then-deputy chief of staff for Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Jarrett offered her a job as an assistant to the mayor, a position that offered $60,000 a year. When Jarrett was promoted to head the Department of Planning and Development, Michelle became an "economic development coordinator," responsible for "developing strategies and negotiating business agreements to promote and stimulate economic growth within the City of Chicago."
Michelle and Obama married in 1992 at Trinity United Church of Christ, in a ceremony officiated by Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
In 1993, Michelle left the mayor's office and became executive director for the Chicago office of Public Allies, a taxpayer-funded organization that encourages young activists and places them in positions for nonprofit groups and government agencies. Barack Obama was a member of the group's founding advisory board.
Public Allies promises to help adults, ages 18 to 30, find "community leadership" positions and attend weekly training workshops and retreats. Recruits receive a monthly stipend of up to $1,800, plus paid health and child care and an additional award of $4,725 to pay for student loans or college tuition.
According to Investor's Business Daily, the program promotes "diversity and inclusion" and boasts that more than 70 percent of its recruits are "people of color."
"When they're not protesting, they're staffing AIDS clinics, handing out condoms, bailing criminals out of jail and helping illegal aliens and the homeless obtain food stamps and other welfare," Investor's Business Daily states.
One member of the 2005 Los Angeles class told IBD, "It was too touchy-feely. It's a lot of talk about race, a lot of talk about sexism, a lot of talk about homophobia, talk about -isms and phobias."
According to the report, one of those -isms is "heterosexism." The Chicago-based Public Allies training seminar describes it as a negative result of "capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and male-dominated privilege."
The IBD report calls it "a boot camp for radicals who hate the military."
Michelle Obama worked at Public Allies from spring 1993 until fall 1996 and served on its national board of directors from 1997 until 2001. She said, "The happiest time of my life was working to build Public Allies."
On the campaign trail with her husband last year, Michelle touted her choice to give up a lucrative legal career for community service.
"We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we're asking young people to do," she said. "Don't go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we're encouraging our young people to do that."

Michelle Obama campaigns for her husband

In 1993, the same year she began working for Public Allies, she applied to change her Illinois registration status for practicing law – only four years after she received her license. It is now listed as "inactive."
James Grogan, deputy administrator and chief counsel for the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois, or ARDC, has been with the commission for 30 years. He told WND that on July 1, 1994, the Illinois Supreme Court entered an order allowing Michelle to be transferred to inactive status pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court rule 770.
The ARDC website explains, "Prior to November 1, 1999, former Supreme Court Rule 770 provided for a proceeding in the Court for any voluntary transfer to inactive status, whether because of some incapacitating condition or solely as a matter of the lawyer's preference because the lawyer would not be practicing law."
Grogan explained, "At the time, the only way to go on inactive status was to do what she did – which was to file a petition in the Illinois Supreme Court."
He said attorneys often filed a petition for 770 when they wanted to pursue other careers, retire or begin raising a family.
"At the time, this happened all the time," he said. "Our office would have to file what's known as a consent."
Grogan said his office would have immediately alerted the court in a public filing if there had been reason to believe she should face disciplinary action.
"We filed a consent in Michelle Obama's case in which we had no objection to her transferring to inactive status," he said. "In the event that she did go on inactive status and she engaged in any disbarrable offenses, there would be a disciplinary case of public record."
He continued, "Just because someone goes on inactive it doesn't deprive us of the jurisdiction to prosecute."
Inundated by numerous 770 filings that each required a separate court ruling, the Illinois Supreme Court later simplified the inactivation process. In 2005, after Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, he changed his status to inactive as well.
"By 2005, which is several years later than his wife, the rule had changed such that you no longer had to file a petition that was such a pain for the court," Grogan explained. "Instead, the court had changed it to two types of status: inactive or retired. Either situation involves merely sending a letter to us basically saying, 'I want to transfer to inactive status.'"
Active lawyers are required to pay $289 each year and take 30 hours of Continuing Legal Education, or CLE, every two years. Under inactive status, attorneys are not required to take the courses, but they must pay $105 each year. "Inactive" registrants are not authorized to practice law. Lawyers who retire do not have to pay fees or take courses.
"A lot of people who aren't practicing say, 'Why bother?'" Grogan said.
Barack Obama remained listed as inactive until he retired this year.

Barack Obama listed as "retired"

"If you are currently inactive and want to get back in, all you have to do is send us a letter and pay the current balance of your registration," Grogan said. "However, if you're retired and want to come back in, you have to pay the full registration fee for the years you were out. I don't think Obama's going to come back to Chicago to practice, you know what I mean?"
In the case of Michelle Obama, Grogan said she would need to obtain another court order to reactivate her status because her file still falls under old rules that required her to go through the court for all status changes. He called her 1993 petition "unremarkable," saying there is no reason to believe her standing was in question.
"There's absolutely no indication of any disciplinary proceeding ever lodged against Michelle Obama," he said.
In June 1996, she was named associate dean of student services at the University of Chicago. In 2002, she began working for the University of Chicago Hospitals, eventually earning $317,000 a year after her husband became a senator. She scaled back her responsibilities to support Barack Obama's presidential campaign
The White House declined to respond to questions about the status of her license. Michelle Obama has not revealed exactly what prompted her to change her status to inactive or whether she plans to ever practice law again.


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