LONDON (TheBlaze/AP) — In a startling case, the Pakistani parents of a teenage girl have been found guilty of murdering a daughter who rebelled against a forced marriage to her cousin — a conviction that was clinched with the girl’s younger sister testifying that she saw her parents suffocate her older sibling.
Justice Roderick Evans on Friday sentenced Iftikhar, 52, and Farzana Ahmed, 49, to life for killing their daughter, Shafilea, in 2003. The couple — first cousins from the Pakistani village of Uttam — were ordered to serve a minimum of 25 years in prison.
“She was being squeezed between two cultures – the culture and way of life that she saw around her and wanted to embrace, and the culture and way of life you wanted to impose on her,” Evans said during the sentencing at the Chester Crown Court in northwest England.
In Britain, more than 25 women have been killed in so-called honor killings in the past decade. Families have sometimes lashed out at their children, often believing they have brought them shame by becoming too westernized or by refusing a marriage.
Let me be CLEAR! This issue is not about gays, it is about freedom. The “gay” issue is just the crutch being used today to disguise an attack on capitalism and freedom. Next time it will be some other crutch, but the attack will be the same. The gay people on my friends list support capitalism and freedom as well as anyone can and in that cause they have my support!
No matter the charge when the left cries wolf:
GAYS! (insert leftist cause here – this time it is let politicians punish freedom of religion)…
RIGHTS FOR WOMEN! (government forces the church and all private enterprises to pay for your birth control)…
RACE! (let government regulate all sorts of things that violate property rights)…
DISABLED VETS! (let government micromanage all sorts of aspects to private business including how high your mirrors are and how the steps to your door are built) …
ENVIRONMENT! (allow government to regulate all forms of production and virtually take over the energy industry picking winners and losers)…
DRUG GANGS! (Efforts to take away guns specifically from the law abiding – LINK)….
GLOBAL COOLING! (Solution is centralized control of the economy, the expansion of the state and abandoning of limited government and capitalism)…
GLOBAL WARMING! (Solution is centralized control of the economy, the expansion of the state and abandoning of limited government and capitalism)…
The waving left hand is the wedge issue, the right hand is doing what they want to accomplish. This is the modus operandi of the far left. The headline from the Huffington Post below is merely an example of this truth”
An association of black church leaders has come out against the attempt to redefine marriage and has spoken out against the Democrat Party leadership. You will notice that the so called “gay groups” have nothing to say about it. Why? Because the leadership of groups such as GLAAD could give a rip about gays and are functioning as a leftist radical group of pure ideology, much like the NAACP whose leadership constantly acts against the interests of inner city black families to support teachers unions and a far left political agenda. If this is about principle why aren’t these same “gay advocacy groups” doing “kiss off” protests at black inner city churches? [Answer – because it could chase away votes from Democrats].
Please enjoy this slideshow from Chick-Fil-A at South Bend and Mishawaka, Indiana
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Radicalized homosexual groups problem is not that they are homosexual, that is just the wedge issue they are using as a distraction, the problem with them is that they are radicalized leftist groups that use the claim that they speak for homosexuals as just another vehicle to attack capitalism and their pro-capitalist political enemies which is their true objective.
The case of MN Forward is another example of this truth – “radicalized homosexual activists” called MN Forward a hate group using all the same rhetoric. MN Forward is a group that supports business in Minnesota, their “crime” is that they gave a small donation to a Republican candidate who supports small business and happens to support traditional marriage. MN Forward is a small group that few had heard of that has no stake in the culture war, but they are effective at lobbying state government in Minnesota in preserving an free economic environment that is favorable for creating wealth and jobs. The average voter didn’t know that MN Forward even existed.
When people act on principle they have no need to lie and in fact have a vested interest in telling the truth to support their cause. GLAAD had this to say about actor Kirk Cameron:
“Saying that gay people are ‘detrimental to civilization’ might be ‘loving’ in Kirk Cameron’s mind, but it’s gay youth and victims of bullying who truly suffer from adults like Cameron who espouse these ideas. Cameron used his platform to attack gay Americans and is now attempting to play victim in an effort to sell his upcoming movie. That Cameron would risk the health and safety of young people in order to do so speaks for itself.
There is one problem, Cameron did not say that. Actually there are two problems, GLAAD changed what Cameron said, and then used the false accusation to paint him as an accessory to violence. GLAAD is making a bogus case that Cameron engaged in some kind of crime, or at least what should be considered a crime. By tying Cameron to violence falsely they are inciting others to do violence to him.
Radicalized leftist groups such as GLAAD falsely accuse the political enemies of the left of being tied to violence, and are, in turn trying to incite others to do violence against them, in this case Christians. It is the worst form of bigotry imaginable. The leadership of GLAAD does this because Christians are more likely to vote for free market Republican candidates and as we pointed out above, you won’t see GLAAD attacking associations of black churches who oppose gay marriage. Why? Because they tend to vote for Democrats who oppose free markets and favor government control of the economy. Such leftist groups are not even the slightest bit interested in protecting the freedom of religion, conscience, speech and association of those with whom they disagree.
Islam, as many a liberal thinker will happily inform you, is a religion of peace, and anyone who disagrees, or questions what else it might teach, is racist [Note, in spite of the fact that Islam is not a race – PoliticalArena Editor]. If this is so, one wonders how such people would defend the following clip, apparently of a sermon by Saudi cleric Sa’d Al-Qa’ud, decrying the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a law which the cleric in the video decries as an attack on “Allah and his Shari’a.”
Sticking up for Chick-fil-a’s freedom of speech, freedom of expressive association and freedom of religion is just that. It is not a “hate gays” play. Let us keep this in perspective. The Muslim Brotherhood and other associated Jihadists want gays dead, along with Jews and blacks (think I am wrong, just ask the Sudanese and other North Africans). To sum up – Islamists want gays dead, Republicans want to kill Jihadists. Gays make GREAT Republicans.
I will never forget how the elite media gave sympathetic treatment to Major Nidal Hasan. The Obama administration has worked to prevent his victims from getting the Purple Heart and defined his act of Islamic terrorism as “workplace violence”.
In the past three years, over 1,000 Christians in Nigeria have been brutally murdered by an extremist Islamic group known as Boko Haram and the United States has refused to classify the group as being a terrorist organization.
Nigeria’s Christian leaders had asked the United States government to place Boko Haram on the list of terrorist organizations. The radical Islamic group has vowed to eradicate all Christians from Nigerian soil and will continue to murder men, women and children in the process unless something is done to stop them.
Instead of declaring Boko Haram a terrorist organization, the U.S. government only placed three of the group’s leaders on a terrorist blacklist and then said that it was more important to address social inequalities in the country first. Christian leaders in Nigeria said the actions or perhaps lack of action by the United States has only served to make the group bolder and more aggressive in their pursuit to exterminate the remaining Christians.
Appearing before House Foreign Affairs Committee, Christian Association of Nigeria President Ayo Oritsejafor said the decision was:
“The equivalent of designating (Osama) bin Laden a terrorist but failing to designate Al-Qaeda a terrorist organization.”
“By refusing to designate Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization, the United States is sending a very clear message, not just to the federal government of Nigeria, but to the world that the murder of innocent Christians and Muslims who reject Islamism — and I make a clear distinction here between Islam and Islamism — are acceptable losses.”
“It is hypocritical for the United States and the international community to say that they believe in freedom and equality when their actions do not support those who are being persecuted.”
Now why would Obama be so opposed to soldiers getting a purple heart who were shot by home grown jihadists such as those at Fort Hood by Major Hassan? This speaks volumes about the radicalized mindset of this president. Remember how Obama wanted to define the Hassan shootings as “workplace violence” instead of what it really was?
This spring, the Obama administration threatened to veto the 2013 Defense Authorization Act. Of all the reasons given for the threat, the objection to granting the Purple Heart to Pvt. Andy Long stands out as strange. That is, unless you know the story.
On June 1, 2009, Pvt. Long was killed outside an Army recruiting office in Little Rock by Carlos Bledsoe, who had become Abdul Hakim Mohammed after converting to Islam. Since then, we, the fathers of Carlos and Andy, have been trying to tell our story so that other parents do not experience our tragedy.
Carlos grew up in a loving, church-going family. There’s a picture of Carlos at his high school graduation with a huge smile on his face, ready to go off to Tennessee State University for college. He looked forward to becoming a businessman and joining the family owned tour company in Memphis.
Switch to Islamism
But he did not get the education everyone expected. Instead, he became interested in Islamic extremism. At TSU, preachers from a radical Nashville mosque led courses in Islam. Eventually, Carlos began frequenting this mosque, converted, and took the name of the mosque’s imam. This imam taught worshipers that America “is the worst country on earth,” that the Christian faith is “the greatest lie ever told,” that this worldly life “is trash,” and that Muslims must seek death and the afterlife.
Carlos began to change his behavior: He abandoned his dog in the woods because he was told Muslims shouldn’t have dogs. He took Martin Luther King‘s picture off his bedroom wall. He was sent by another Nashville imam to a school in Yemen, which turned out to be an al-Qaeda front. Carlos then returned to America and planned his own jihad.
Andy grew up in a military family and decided to follow in his parents’ footsteps. He found out he was good at it; he enjoyed it. Before being deployed to South Korea, he volunteered to work as a recruiter in Little Rock near our home. His mother, Janet, went to visit him there on June 1, 2009.
Fateful day
That was the day Carlos decided to kill a soldier. He had already firebombed a rabbi’s house in Nashville and shot up another rabbi’s house in Little Rock. That morning, he fired three bullets at Andy. Quinton Ezeagwula, another soldier, was also shot but survived. Carlos eventually pleaded guilty to killing Andy, and was sentenced to life in prison without chance for parole.
Since that tragic day, we have been speaking out about the dangers of homegrown terrorists. We testified to Congress, with mixed results. Some congressmen dismissed us for not being experts. Nevertheless, following our testimony, Congress passed a provision, as part of the defense bill, to give the Purple Heart to Andy and the victims of a similar 2009 attack at Fort Hood, Texas. Now the administration is threatening to deny it.
The president, we believe, doesn’t want to admit the first successful al-Qaeda murder on U.S. soil since 9/11 happened on his watch or to acknowledge the problem of homegrown Islamic radicalization. This indirectly provides cover to extremists at the expense of moderate Muslims. To withhold the Purple Heart from U.S. soldiers for political reasons is to dishonor those who risk everything to protect us all.
We have pledged to our families and to ourselves that we will not be silent until America knows what happened to our sons. On June 1, 2009, it happened to Andy and Carlos. Tomorrow, it could be your children.
Melvin Bledsoe is the father of Carlos, who fatally shot Pvt. Andy Long, son of Daris Long. They have cooperated in producing a documentary that can be viewed at losingoursons.com.
This will probably have to go to the US Supreme Court. The First Amendment is clear on this and so is federal case law. One of the problems with State Judges is that many of them are appointed because they made contributions and thus they are political hacks, not legal minds. The 14th Amendment binds the Bill of Rights to the states. Every lawyer knows this, but so far these judges in New Mexico just don’t care.
Again, if you’re confused, you’re not alone. The mandate is not a tax when Roberts doesn’t want it to be and it is a tax when he wants it to be. That’s confounding enough. But what’s worse is that nowhere in the opinion does he state what of the three types of taxes the mandate is.
Folks you might notice that this is exactly what we said a few hours after the ruling came out LINK. To see part II of Faust’s excellent explanation of the ruling HERE – Editor
There were four issues presented for a ruling to the Supreme Court in the Obamacare case:
Whether the Anti-Injunction Act precluded the Court from even hearing the case in the first place.
Whether the individual mandate was a constitutional exercise of Congress’ power.
Whether it was constitutional for the federal government to withhold all Medicaid funds from states which refused to comply with the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid.
If any provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was unconstitutional, could it be severed from the rest of the Act or must that make the entire Act unconstitutional?
Each issue will be analyzed separately. This article will discuss the first two issues presented. A soon-to-follow article will discuss the second two issues presented as well as a discussion of what this means in practical terms.
The Supreme Court ruled that the “penalty” in 26 U.S.C. Section 5000A (the individual mandate) is NOT a tax for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act.
As the Supreme Court explained, “The Anti-Injunction Act provides that ‘no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court by any person,’ 26 U. S. C. §7421(a), so that those subject to a tax must first pay it and then sue for a refund.” In other words, one cannot sue to prevent the imposition of tax unless and until that tax has already been levied against an individual. Only after the tax is levied and paid can an individual sue the government for a refund of the tax on the grounds that the tax is an invalid use of Congress’ taxing power. So, if the so-called “Free-Rider” provision of the ACA is in fact a tax, then any challenges to it would be premature pursuant to the Anti-Injunction Act because the “tax” in the ACA would not be levied against anyone until 2014 (Section 5000A, which contains the penalty/tax provision, does not go into effect until 2014). Therefore, any lawsuit would have been dismissed because the issue would not have been what is known as “ripe for adjudication” – that is, the plaintiff has not suffered harm or an injury and, consequently, has no standing to bring the suit (the issue of standing is explained in the next paragraph). Thus, it was necessary to determine the issue of whether the individual mandate was a tax or a penalty because if it were a tax, the Supreme Court would never have had a chance to rule on the other issues presented in the lawsuit.
A little background regarding the types of cases the federal courts (including the Supreme Court) can hear is necessary to understanding why the ruling on the Anti-Injunction Act was necessary. There are several requirements which must be met in order for a case to be heard in federal court. Preliminarily, the party bringing the lawsuit must have what is known as “standing” (a requirement set forth in Article III, Section 2, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution). In order to have standing: there must be what is called a “case on controversy” between the parties; the plaintiff must have been actually harmed or injured in some way; and the harm or injury suffered by the plaintiff must be capable of being redressed by the adjudication of the claims set forth in the lawsuit. The purpose of having these requirements is to prevent the federal courts from rendering what are known as “advisory opinions,” that is, opinions on how a lawsuit would turn out if it were to be brought. By limiting the cases which can be heard to cases in which the plaintiff meets these standing requirements, the number of cases heard in federal courts is reduced dramatically. (If there were no standing requirements, anybody could theoretically sue anybody else for anything, regardless of whether they were even affected by it.) The courts exist to settle disputes, so it makes sense there be an actual dispute before the court issues a ruling on the matter.
The Supreme Court (correctly, in my opinion) ruled that the individual mandate was NOT a tax for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. Because the mandate was not a tax, the Anti-Injunction Act did not prevent the Supreme Court from hearing and ruling on the rest of the issues in the case. This is the reason Part II of Roberts’ opinion (beginning on page nine) opens with the line, “[b]efore turning to the merits [of the case], we need to be sure we have the authority to do so.” After discussing the arguments for and against the penalty provisions being considered a tax for the purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act, Roberts explained (and the court held), “the Affordable Care Act does not require that the penalty for failing to comply with the individual mandate be treated as a tax for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Anti-Injunction Act therefore does not apply to this suit, and we may proceed to the merits.” It is extremely important to note here that Roberts specifically rejected the notion that because the penalty functions as a tax, it should be treated as such for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. (It will become obvious why after reading Roberts’ decision on the constitutionality of the individual mandate). The analysis literally turned on whether the ACA referred to the penalty as a tax. Because it did not, the Court held the Anti-Injunction Act did not apply.
To sum up this section: The Anti-Injunction Act was found to be inapplicable because even though the Court said the penalty functions as a tax, it is not a tax for purposes of whether the Anti-Injunction Act applied because the ACA does not refer to the penalty as a tax. Thus, the suit was able to proceed on the merits.
The Supreme Court Ruled that the “penalty” in 26 U.S.C. 5000A IS tax for purposes of whether the mandate is constitutional.
The most important yet illogical portion of the opinion involves the constitutionality of the individual mandate. The individual mandate found in the ACA provides that every individual must either purchase health insurance or pay what the ACA calls a penalty. The main argument set forth (by the government and most liberals) was that the mandate is constitutional under Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce, which is found in Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 (also known as the “Commerce Clause”). The Commerce Clause reads in its entirety: “[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.” This clause has been used to promulgate all sorts of federal legislation because various Supreme Court decisions have held that Congress has the power to regulate virtually anything which, in the aggregate, has a substantial impact on interstate commerce. Interstate commerce is exactly that: commerce that crosses state lines. Because pretty much anything can be argued to affect interstate commerce, this power of Congress has gone largely unchecked. In one absurdly backwards decision in the 1940s, the Supreme Court even went so far as to say that a farmer who grew his own wheat for his own consumption could be regulated because by not purchasing wheat on the open market, he was affecting interstate commerce. If that seems nonsensical to you, don’t worry – you’re not alone. The key takeaway from the wheat farmer case – as expansive and egregious as it was – is that the government’s power to regulate activity is nearly all-encompassing. However, it crucial to keep in mind that even in such an overreaching case, the government was only able to regulate the wheat farmer’s actual activity. It was not trying to regulate his inactivity. In fact, the government had never before tried regulating inactivity – that is, regulating individuals for not acting. In light of this, it seems rather curious that liberals so forcefully believed and argued that the commerce clause gave Congress the constitutional authority to enact the individual mandate.
Predictably, the four liberals on the Supreme Court (Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader-Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer) accepted the notion that commerce clause gave Congress the power to enact the individual mandate. Thankfully, the other five justices (John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Anthony Kennedy) refused to follow suit and rejected such a frivolous argument. If they had chosen to go along with the Court’s liberal bloc, it would have been the greatest expansion of Congressional power ever realized. If the Court held that the government has the power to force individuals to act when they do not want to act, then there literally would nothing that the government could not do. That should have been the end of the individual mandate. However, there were two other arguments given in support of the individual mandate’s constitutionality: the Necessary and Proper Clause; and Congress’ taxing power.
The Necessary and Proper Clause is found in Article I, Section 8, Clause 18, and states: “[The Congress shall have Power] To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” In other words, Congress has the constitutional authority to enact all laws which are necessary to execute its specifically enumerated powers (as set forth in the rest of the Constitution). This argument was specious at best and was not accepted by the Court’s majority. Further exploration of the necessary and proper clause does not add to one’s understanding of the Obamacare ruling and it is not necessary to go into any further detail on this particular argument because it was rejected by the Court.
The third (and least viable) argument for upholding the individual mandate is that it is allowable under Congress’ taxing power. As the dissent pointed out, this argument was rejected by every single court which heard the case. For reasons still being theorized, Chief Justice Roberts upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate on the basis that it was a valid exercise of Congress’ power to “lay and collect taxes” (a power enumerated in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1). Again, some background is necessary to understand why this is such a puzzling move. Congress only has the power to “lay and collect taxes” in one of three ways: capitation tax, which is essentially a “head tax,” or a tax levied upon an individual simply for existing (this is such an obscure element of the Constitution and one wrought with so much confusion that Congress hasn’t tried enacting such a tax); excise tax, which is a tax for purchasing a good or service (e.g., cigarette tax, gasoline tax – one can avoid the tax by simply refraining from purchasing the taxed good or service); and the income tax, which only became permissible when the 16th Amendment was ratified and specifically granted Congress the power to enact such a tax. Again, these are the only sources of power with which Congress may impose taxes.
As previously mentioned, Roberts found that the individual mandate was a valid exercise of Congress’ taxing power. In contorting logic, he ruled that the same individual mandate that was not a tax for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act functioned as tax for constitutional purposes and therefore was indeed a tax, which he then said made the individual mandate constitutional. Again, if you’re confused, you’re not alone. The mandate is not a tax when Roberts doesn’t want it to be and it is a tax when he wants it to be. That’s confounding enough. But what’s worse is that nowhere in the opinion does he state what of the three types of taxes the mandate is. As discussed in the previous paragraph, the tax imposed by Congress must be one of the three enumerated types.
To sum up this section: The individual mandate was held to be a constitutional exercise of Congress’ taxing power even though Roberts never explains which of the three permissible taxes it is. The other arguments made in favor of upholding the law’s constitutionality (the commerce clause and the necessary and proper clause) were rejected by a majority of the Court.
See part II of Faust’s excellent explanation of the ruling HERE.
#1: The charge that the Roberts Court is a right-of-center court has been proven wrong in dramatic fashion.
It’s not just the ObamaCare decision that can be characterized as liberal. In this term alone, the Court invalidated most of the Arizona immigration law, declared mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles unconstitutional, invalidated FCC fines for fleeting expletives and brief nudity, and broadened protections for criminal defendants in cases involving both search and seizure and ineffective assistance of counsel.
#2: Five is not enough.
It’s no fluke that one or more of the five center-right Justices deeply disappointed conservatives three times in just the last few days. It’s clear that five center-right Justices on the Court will never be enough to substantially advance the law in a conservative direction. Unlike the Democratic appointees on the Court, who can be counted on to vote the progressive way when the stakes are high, Republican appointees – no matter how carefully selected – cannot be counted on to consistently uphold conservative principles.
#3: Though the immediate impact of the decision was a stunning defeat for conservatives, the larger cause of constitutional federalism was advanced.
As legal precedent, the ObamaCare decision strengthens the Constitution’s protection of state sovereignty and its limits on Congress’s power under the Commerce, Spending, and Necessary & Proper clauses. Quin Hillyer concludes that:
“[S]even of nine justices … finding that the Medicaid provision amounts to an unconstitutional coercion of the states … combined with the majority in favor of limiting the reach of the Commerce Clause, effectively means that the left lost far more than it won in terms of lasting legal precedent.”
Justice Ginsburg charged that “The Chief Justice’s crabbed reading of the Commerce Clause harks back to the era in which the Court routinely thwarted Congress’ efforts to regulate the national economy.” Let’s hope so. In any case, now that it “will be hard … to criticize the John Roberts Supreme Court … as partisan” – in the words of liberal Supreme Court litigator and observer Tom Goldstein – it will also be hard to criticize the newly limited reading of the Commerce Clause as out of the mainstream.
#4: Obama and company’s attempt to cow the Supreme Court succeeded.
Harvard Law School Professor Noah Feldman writes that:
“Roberts knew the consequences of striking down the individual mandate: He would have been attacked by the president and the news media as the chief of the most activist conservative court since the 1930s.”
One way or another, the pressure apparently got to Roberts. Professor Lawrence Solum of Georgetown Law expresses the conclusion of many that language in the four-Justice dissent “is highly suggestive of a majority opinion. … This suggests that Justice Roberts switched his vote.”
This problem is nothing new. Moderately conservative appointees to the Court often drift to the left over time. I chalk it up to them caring too much about their reviews in the Washington Post.
#5: The bullet ObamaCare dodged was more deadly than imagined.
The conventional wisdom was that if the individual mandate were declared unconstitutional, only the mandate and two related provisions would be struck down, saving the rest of the statute. Instead, each of the four Justices who found the mandate unconstitutional voted to strike down the entire statute. But for Roberts’s surprise vote, that would have been the holding of the Court, exceeding the hopes of ObamaCare’s opponents.
#6: Roberts’s opinion was judicial activism at its worst.
Those who say the Chief Justice saved the Court from being branded a bunch of right wing activists are at least half wrong. Roberts’ logical contortions – going so far as to conclude that the individual mandate was simultaneously a tax and not a tax – invite charges of activism.
Even famed liberal law professor Alan Dershowitz concedes that, in order to achieve “a political compromise,” “Justice Roberts went out of his way to characterize the penalty for not buying insurance as a tax increase.” Such results-oriented judging, no matter its motive, is the hallmark of judicial activism.
I almost wish President Bush had appointed Barack Obama to the Supreme Court instead of Justice Roberts. That would have given us a majority of five Justices willing to emphatically say that the mandate is not a tax
#7: Chief Justice Roberts will likely be best remembered for disappointing conservatives in the most important case of his judicial career.
Whether fair or unfair, the sentiments of many conservatives are summed up by the editors of National Review: “If the law has been rendered less constitutionally obnoxious, the Court has rendered itself more so. Chief Justice Roberts cannot justly take pride in this legacy.” Michael Walsh compares the Chief Justice’s surprise vote to Justice Owen Roberts’ famous switch, under pressure from President Franklin Roosevelt, that ushered in the era of virtually limitless federal power that continues to this day. There can be no more damning comparison.
On the flipside, Roberts may enjoy the accolades he is getting from more progressive circles. But rest assured– those will last only until the next big Supreme Court decision that offends liberal sensitivities.
#8: The White House should not be celebrating.
The 2012 election will now be a referendum on ObamaCare both at the federal level, where repeal of ObamaCare will be determined, and at the state level, where the future of the now-optional Medicaid extension will be determined. That’s not a good thing for President Obama, as indicated by his reticence about mentioning ObamaCare on the campaign trail. And that was before the individual mandate became a tax.
Michael Shear of the New York Times sums up the President’s problem:
“[T]he ruling also has the potential to re-energize the Tea Party movement .. and provide new political power to Mitt Romney’s pledge to repeal the law … Republicans eager to seize control of the Senate now have a renewed rallying cry in races across the country.”
#9: Don’t let the oral argument or talking heads fool you.
Early on, I and other attorneys were convinced that 1) Chief Justice Roberts, because of his minimalist tendencies, was as much a swing vote in the ObamaCare case as Justice Kennedy, 2) it would be very tempting for moderates on the Court to make the constitutional problem go away by calling the individual mandate a tax, and 3) the legal challenge to the Medicaid expansion was not being taken seriously enough because of the focus on the mandate. By the time I finished listening to the oral arguments in the Supreme Court and the talking heads on television, I had abandoned all three convictions. I should have trusted my instincts.
#10: The meaning of the ObamaCare decision is yet to be determined.
The malleability of Supreme Court decisions is demonstrated by another landmark decision 34 years ago. Allan Bakke sued the University of California over its use of minority preferences in admissions and won 5-4. A single Justice, Lewis Powell, opined that a school’s interest in achieving intellectual diversity could justify using race as one of many diversity factors. Supporters of affirmative action successfully spun the decision to mean that a majority of the Court supported the diversity rationale and that the rationale could justify huge racial preferences aimed at only skin-deep diversity.
Will the ObamaCare decision come to stand for the renewal of federalism principles or for upholding the biggest federal overreach in history? That will be determined by the litigation and communications skills of federalism’s supporters and critics.
Curt Levey is a constitutional law attorney and President of the Committee for Justice in Washington, DC.
In an effort to punish Arizona for winning the core of the battle in the Supreme Court against the Obama Administration the administration is now going to punish Arizona, Chicago style.
The Obama administration said Monday it is suspending existing agreements with Arizona police over enforcement of federal immigration laws, and said it has issued a directive telling federal authorities to decline many of the calls reporting illegal immigrants that the Homeland Security Department may get from Arizona police.
Administration officials, speaking on condition they not be named, told reporters they expect to see an increase in the number of calls they get from Arizona police — but that won’t change President Obama’s decision to limit whom the government actually tries to detain and deport.
“We will not be issuing detainers on individuals unless they clearly meet our defined priorities,” one official said in a telephone briefing.
The official said that despite the increased number of calls, which presumably means more illegal immigrants being reported, the Homeland Security Department is unlikely to detain a significantly higher number of people and won’t be boosting personnel to handle the new calls.
Since FDR’s court packing threat the Commerce Clause interpretation has gone off the deep end. Everyone who has studied law seriously knows that the “modern” expansionist view of the commerce clause started to become interpreted that way not because the court had a legal epiphany, but rather they feared the Democratic Party would pack the court with 18 or so new justices all of whom would be political hacks. These new interpretations that were done under duress took the entire notion of limited government and tossed it out the window. I am glad to see Justice Scalia come to this point of view.
With a Supreme Court decision on the fate of President Obama’s health care law expected in the next two weeks, every wisp of a hint about the justices’ thinking is getting the scrutiny usually reserved for CAT scans.
Justice Antonin Scalia picked the right moment, then, to deliver more than 500 pages of hints, in a book to be published next week. He wrote it with Bryan A. Garner, and it is an overview and summation of the justice’s approach to making sense of statutes and the Constitution.
It is also studded with telling asides and intimations about past and future decisions.
Justice Scalia writes, for instance, that he has little use for a central precedent the Obama administration has cited to justify the health care law under the Constitution’s commerce clause, Wickard v. Filburn.
In that 1942 decision, Justice Scalia writes, the Supreme Court “expanded the Commerce Clause beyond all reason” by ruling that “a farmer’s cultivation of wheat for his own consumption affected interstate commerce and thus could be regulated under the Commerce Clause.”
That position is good evidence, particularly when coupled with Justice Scalia’s skeptical questioning at the arguments in the health care case in March, that the administration will not capture his vote.
Justice Scalia’s treatment of the Wickard case had been far more respectful in his judicial writings. In the book’s preface, he explains (referring to himself in the third person) that he “knows that there are some, and fears that there may be many, opinions that he has joined or written over the past 30 years that contradict what is written here.” Some inconsistencies can be explained by respect for precedent, he writes, others “because wisdom has come late.”
“Worse still,” he writes, he “does not swear that the opinions that he joins or writes in the future will comply with what is written here,” for the first two reasons “or because a judge must remain open to persuasion by counsel.”
Mr. Garner, a prominent lexicographer and authority on usage, also collaborated with Justice Scalia on an earlier book, “Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges.” He said the timing of the new one was happenstance.
Who is morally superior, the women who is stoned to death for violating Sharia Law by being raped, or a woman with a smoking gun in her hand and a dead Islamist radical at her feet?
Remember that President Obama helped oust the pro-American Egyptian government and called it “The Arab Spring”. Well now it is done and as predicted by myself, Dr. Niall Ferguson and so many others as far back as February of last year.
Watch this video from February of 2011 and look and see how this disastrous chain of events has come about just as conservatives feared. Notice what Ferguson said about a Muslim Brotherhood regime that would be aggressive towards Israel in order to unite radicalized masses under the banner of external aggression.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the grandfather of Al-Qaeda and they are involved in raising money for jihadists here in the United States. The motto for the Muslim Brotherhood is:
‘Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
See our other Egypt coverage HERE for more details.
For a host of reasons this writer believes that this a part of a deliberate plan by the Obama Administration to undermine Israel’s security and ability to defend itself. Why?
1 – Polls of the Egyptian Street showed that almost 70% wanted Sharia Law and war with Israel. The administration denied these polls. The election results showed that these polls were accurate.
2 – The administration has radicalized antisemites such as Samantha Power and Robert Malley in prominent positions in the State Department.
4 – Any student of global security full well knows that the previous pro-American government in Egypt that Obama helped to remove from power was the lynch pin for Middle-East peace. Egypt has a peace treaty with Israel that was signed by the previous government. The Muslim Brotherhood has made it clear that the treaty is shredded.
5 – President Obama’s attitude and other acts of disrespect have shown that there is a hostility towards Israel. So much so that even as far back in 2009 only 6% if Israelis saw President Obama and “pro-Israel”. See details HERE.
The publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention can no longer use military logos on its Bibles for service members.
According to Lifeway Christian Resources spokesman Marty King, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have revoked their authorization to use official service emblems on the Scriptures.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation threatened to sue, claiming that allowing the logos to be placed on Bibles violates the Constitution.
Special Bibles for military members will now bear a generic logo.
King added that the military Bibles “continue to sell well and provide spiritual guidance and comfort to those who serve.”
Palestinian Authority TV chose to rebroadcast a program featuring a little girl reciting a hate poem targeting Jews and Christians as “inferior and smaller, more cowardly and despised.” It was broadcast in May and again this month. Click to view.
In addition, Palestinian Media Watchreported last month that in April, PA TV broadcast a young girl reciting a poem that included the words: “Our enemy, Zion, is Satan with a tail.” One month later, PA TV broadcast an even younger girl reciting the poem with the same hate speech, adding that the child had already recited it at the opening of a Palestinian exhibition of educational tools. Click to view latest broadcast of “Satan with a tail”-poem Click to view first broadcast of “Satan with a tail”-poem
Most people have no idea what is going on at our public universities.
A hundred million secular Marxists didn’t suddenly become libertarians in 1989 when the wall fell. They had to go to work somewhere and many went to work at public schools and universities and they brought their twisted philosophy with them.
Persecution of Christian, Jewish, conservative, libertarian and traditional students on campus is so common and prevalent that there are multiple legal groups fighting it including the Alliance Defense Fund, The Rutherford Institute, the ACLJ, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the Student Press Law Center and believe it or not, many of these cases are so egregious that the ACLU has even been stepping up to defend such persecuted students. These civil rights groups are overwhelmed with requests for help. The problem is that bad. Just because you don’t run into these radical leftists or hear about them in your daily lives does not mean they aren’t there.
[Full Disclosure: FIRE and the ACLU helped in a case I was involved in at Indiana University – Editor.]
Having worked for the campus in a job where I ended up in every office at one time or another I know first hand that about half of the professors in the liberal arts department either have pictures of Karl Marx on their wall and/or have his book prominently displayed. Books by Adam Smith, Frederick Hayek, Milton Friedman…. good luck.
Western Ky. Univ. Turns Blind Eye To Vandalized Pro-Life Display
‘Kids for Christ’ club silenced because they were “religious,” no longer silenced (In Oklahoma of all places).
Honor Student Denied Credit Because Community Service Event Was Religious
Christian Club Told It’s Not Religious; Forced To Have Non-Christian Leaders (In North Carolina)
This May 1991 memo was written by Mohamed Akram, a.k.a. Mohamed Adlouni, for the Shura Council of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the introductory letter, Akram referenced a “long-term plan…approved and adopted” by the Shura Council in 1987 and proposed this memo as a supplement to that plan and requested that the memo be added to the agenda for an upcoming Council meeting. Appended to the document is a list of all Muslim Brotherhood organizations in North America as of 1991.
Notable quotes:
Enablement of Islam in North America, meaning: establishing an effective and stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims’ causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims’ efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic state, wherever it is.
In order for Islam and its Movement to become “a part of the homeland” in which it lives, “stable” in its land, “rooted” in the spirits and minds of its people, “enabled” in the live [sic] of its society and has firmly-established “organizations” on which the Islamic structure is built and with which the testimony of civilization is achieved, the Movement must plan and struggle to obtain “the keys” and the tools of this process in carry [sic] out this grand mission as a “Civilization Jihadist” responsibility which lies on the shoulders of Muslims and – on top of them – the Muslim Brotherhood in this country.
The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Proecess” with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal.
This is so good. Collectivists say that it is about equality, but in practice the collectivist makes it about everyone else and YOU sacrifice. YOU give up your labor, your money, your time, your livelihood…..for “others”…. you know… so it can be good for “everyone else”. If you want to keep most of your money, your labor, your rights than YOU are selfish and amoral. Everyone is “entitled” and “equal” except you because you produce so you must sacrifice. It is no equality at all.
Of course the only ones who truly benefit in a collectivist society are the oligarchs.
Ayn Rand:
The social theory of ethics substitutes “society” for God—and although it claims that its chief concern is life on earth, it is not the life of man, not the life of an individual, but the life of a disembodied entity, the collective, which, in relation to every individual, consists of everybody except himself. As far as the individual is concerned, his ethical duty is to be the selfless, voiceless, rightless slave of any need, claim or demand asserted by others. The motto “dog eat dog”—which is not applicable to capitalism nor to dogs—is applicable to the social theory of ethics. The existential monuments to this theory are Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. – “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 34
The Supreme Court decided its most important religious liberty case in twenty years,Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The government lost 9-nothing as the Court unanimously rejected its narrow view of religious liberty as “extreme,” “untenable” and “remarkable.”
The unanimous decision adopted the Becket Fund’s arguments, saying that religious groups should be free from government interference when they choose their leaders. The church, Hosanna-Tabor, was represented by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Professor Douglas Laycock, University of Virginia Law School. For years, churches have relied on a “ministerial exception” which protects them from employment discrimination lawsuits by their ministers.
“The message of today’s opinion is clear: The government can’t tell a church who should be teaching its religious message,” said Luke Goodrich, Deputy National Litigation Director at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “This is a huge victory for religious freedom and a rebuke to the government, which was trying to regulate how churches select their ministers.”
The Court rejected the government’s extremely narrow understanding of the constitutional protection for religious liberty, stating: “We cannot accept the remarkable view that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers.”
“This is a huge win for religious liberty,” said Professor Doug Laycock. “The Court has unanimously confirmed the right of churches to select their own ministers and religious leaders.”
“It is amazing when a church from Redford, Michigan stands up for its rights and ends up going all the way to the Supreme Court,” said Reverend Paul Undlin of Hosanna Tabor. “Praise God for giving the Justices the wisdom to uphold the religious freedom enshrined in our Constitution!”
The Court found that the ministerial exception is rooted in both Religion Clauses—the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion. Justice Alito joined by Justice Kagan also filed a concurring opinion.
“For six years I fought the government, sacrificing my practice and livelihood because I believed the government had no right to choose teachers for our small school,” says Deano Ware, local attorney for the church. “In the end, we showed up at the steps of the Supreme Court with our sling and stone, in the company of the Becket Fund and the greater community of faith, fought the government and won. This is a great day for all Americans of every of faith and all freedom-loving citizens.”
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is a non-profit, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions. The Becket Fund has a 17-year history of defending religious liberty for people of all faiths. Its attorneys are recognized as experts in the field of church-state law.
For more information, or to arrange an interview with one of the attorneys, please contact Emily Hardman, Communications Director, at ehardman@becketfund.org or call 202.349.7224.
The jihad on “uncovered meat” has just begun. Norway distinguishes two kinds of rapes: rape and attack-rape. In rapes, the rapist and the victim know each other beforehand, while an attack-rape is when the two do not know each other before the rape. In Oslo, 100 percent of the attack-rapes are committed by non-Western immigrants with a “view of women” that makes them rape, according to the leading police officer, Hanne Kristin Rohde.
With 76 rapes during the first 91 days of 2012, the number of rapes in Oslo has increased by an alarming 69 percent compared to the same period last year. Translated from Norwegian by Nicolai Sennels, Aftenposten April 16: “Alarming rise in reported rapes in Oslo“:
Last year, the number of reported rapes in the Norwegian capital rose by 30 percent. 2012 has only gotten worse.- Overall, in the first quarter, there is an increase of 69 percent in reported rapes and attempted rapes. There are 27 more cases than in the same period last year.
Police Inspector Hanne Kristin Rohde does not like the stats she has extracted on sexual crimes in the Oslo police district.
– Very ugly numbers, she concludes.
– Is this a real increase, or are there others who choose to report rape?
– We do not know. But there has been a lot of talking about rape in the public, so we think that the increase is a result of people’s willingness to report rapes to the police.
During this year’s first 91 days, Oslo police have received reports on 76 rape cases, compared to 45 during the same period last year. The so called attack-rapes were included.
Denmark: Over 70% of young violent criminals are Islamists – LINK (Warning a tad lengthy but a scholarly piece worth reading).
Leftist teachers at school teach that other cultures are equal to or superior to Western Civilization. The Obama Administration has been actively supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and even parroting their PR.
Egypt’s Islamist-dominated parliament is set to introduce a law allowing husbands to have sex with their dead wives up to six hours after death. Critics fear that the controversial law highlights a trend of increasingly anti-women legislation since the so-called Arab Spring.
The proposed law has sparked much controversy, specifically within Egypt’s National Council for Women, which has been campaigning against the law, saying that it “marginalizes and undermines the status of women and would negatively affect the country’s human development.”
Related:
Prof. Niall Ferguson Blasts Obama and MSNBC on Egypt – LINK
Analysis: Obama proposes $800 million in aid for the Muslim Brotherhood – LINK
Former head of CIA “bin Laden Unit”: Libyan rebels are like the Taliban – LINK
My Concerns About the Operation in Libya & Egypt – LINK
Islamic militants receive two-thirds vote in Egypt – LINK
AP: Egyptian Women March Against Abuse by Military – LINK
Former Palestinian intelligence official Muhammad Abu Shahala has reportedly been sentenced to death by the Palestinian Authority for selling a Hebron home to Jews. In response, Jewish officials from the community in Hebron are calling for international officials now to get involved—in order to save Abu Shahala’s life.
Mr. Abu Shahala reportedly confessed following torture sessions at the hands of his captors. The death sentence can be executed only following concurrence by Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, president of the PA. After he signs the death warrant, Abu Shahala may be killed.
It is appalling to think that property sales should be defined as a ‘capital crime’ punishable by death. The very fact that such a ‘law’ exists within the framework of the PA legal system points to a barbaric and perverse type of justice, reminiscent of practices implemented during the dark ages.
It is incumbent upon the entire international community, which views Abu Mazen and the Palestinian Authority as a viable Middle East peace partner, to publicly reject such acts of legal murder, when the ‘crime’ is nothing more than property sales. What would be the reaction to a law in the United States, England, France, or Switzerland, forbidding property sales to Jews?
Ask yourself this: In which administration have there been more egregious miscarriages of justice than the following list?
1. Challenges voter ID laws
The Justice Department has challenged state voter ID laws, first in South Carolina and more recently in Texas, the first such actions in 20 years. Apparently requiring a U.S. citizen to bring a driver’s license to the voting booth is an onerous infringement on their constitutional rights. Why would the chief law-enforcement office in the nation try to make it easier to engage in voter fraud? Could it be because Barack Hussein Obama is on the ballot this November?
2. Challenges immigration laws
The Justice Department is also challenging immigration laws enacted by states—most notably Arizona’s legislation (hasn’t Mr. Holder heard of the Constitution’s 10th Amendment?) In its brief challenging Arizona’s S.B. 1070, the Justice Department said the law interferes with the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration policy. We didn’t know that the federal government was doing much of anything to control illegal immigration.
3. Fast and Furious outrage
The Justice Department turned a blind-eye to the Fast and Furious gun-running operations, with the weaponry ending up in the hands of deadly Mexican drug gangs, and then obfuscated when Congress reviewed the operation. Allowing guns to cross the border resulted in the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and some 300 deaths in Mexico. New revelations are still coming, such as the news that one of the chief gun traffickers was questioned and released by Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents.
4. New Black Panther Party dismissal
The Justice Department decided to dismiss charges of violating the Voting Rights Act against three members of the New Black Panther Party, who acted menacingly outside a polling station in Philadelphia in 2008, hurling threats, racial slurs, and brandishing a night stick. The action by the Justice Department prompted a probe by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which heard testimony by J. Christian Adams, who resigned from the department over the issue. Adams said he was instructed by his superiors to ignore cases involving black defendants and white victims.
5. Defense of marriage recusal
The Justice Department served notice last year that it would no long defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which states that the federal government defines marriage to be between one man and one woman. The action, in a letter from the attorney general to congressional leaders, said President Obama had decided that the act, signed into law in 1996 by President Clinton, was unconstitutional. Odd, we can’t seem to find the spot in the Constitution that allows the President to declare a law unconstitutional.
6. Sen. Ted Stevens case bungled
In its pursuit of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on charges he failed to report gifts on his financial disclosure forms, the Justice Department concealed evidence from the defense. A report by a special counsel said there was “systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence” by the Justice Department, “which would have independently corroborated Senator Stevens’ defense.” Stevens was found guilty and died in a plane crash before he could be exonerated. Imagine the howls from the mainstream media, if the senator in question had been Ted Kennedy, instead of Ted Stevens.
7. Civilian trials for terror detainees
The Justice Department sought to bring 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to trial in a civilian New York City courtroom, blocks from the World Trade Center site. The action would have afforded Mohammed all the constitutional guarantees of a fair trial, raising the possibility that Mohammed could go free on a technicality despite confessing to involvement in the 1993 and 2001World Trade Center attacks, the Bali, Indonesia, bombings, the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl, and other failed terror plots. The outcry against civilian trials forced Holder to back down, and Mohammed and four co-defendants will now face a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.
8. CIA probed
Attorney General Holder re-opened a probe of CIA officials involved in the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on terror detainees. Holder’s action came despite earlier rulings that the interrogations were legally authorized, despite seven former CIA directors asking the probe be shut down, and despite the fact that the interrogations provided valuable intelligence that led to Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani hideaway. Holder later admitted he hadn’t read Justice Department memos that concluded no laws were broken.
9. NYPD probed
When the New York Police Department conducted surveillance operations in the Muslim community—including monitoring members of the Muslim Student Association, which has connections to the Muslim Brotherhood—the Justice Department decided to review the police department. While the NYPD is trying to thwart another 9/11, the Justice Department is siding with Muslim apologists. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had the right response to the Justice Department when he said, “To let our guard down would just be an outrage.”
10. Pool fiasco
Justice Department guidelines for compliance with the Americans for Disabilities Act included a requirement for public swimming pools to install a lift that could move the disabled from a wheelchair to the water. As 300,000 public pools faced a March 15 deadline to install the lifts—at a cost of up to $20,000 each—DOJ backed down and issued a 60-day stay of execution in March before allowing lawsuits over the matter. Considering there is not an available number of lifts or installers of the devices for every pool in America, “poolmagedon” will provide the nation’s trial lawyers—major supporters of the Democrats—with plenty of new business opportunities.
Teresa Wagner, pictured above, is suing a former dean at the University of Iowa College of Law for employment discrimination after she was turned down for a faculty position. The law school rejected her candidacy because of her conservative political views.
Iowa Republicans are taking aim at the state’s top law school for denying a faculty position to a conservative law professor, who an assistant dean once said embraces politics the rest of the faculty “despises.”
Teresa Wagner, who works as an associate director of writing at the University of Iowa College of Law, is suing former dean Carolyn Jones for employment discrimination, claiming she was not hired for a professor position because Jones and other law faculty disapproved of her conservative views and activism.
To hold a law faculty position at the publicly funded university is viewed as a “sacred cow,” Wagner said in an interview, and “Republicans need not apply.”
The case, which goes to trial this October, has become a chief concern for Republicans in Johnson County, who on Monday passed a resolution calling on the Iowa House of Representatives’ oversight committee to investigate hiring practices involved in Wagner’s case and others like it.
“We think the hiring policies need to be such where there a
re certainly non-discriminatory practices which relate to political philosophy, as well as to race and gender and other issues,” said Bob Anderson, chairman of the Johnson County Republican Party. He claims students are deprived of “diversity of political thought” when conservative thinkers, like Wagner, are rejected based on their politics.
“We have a very active, conservative Republican community within the University of Iowa, which has not been met with an appropriate sense of respect for their ideas,” he told FoxNews.com. “We see generally the climate as unfavorable.”
Wagner, who graduated with honors from the law school in 1993, has taught at the George Mason University School of Law. She has also worked for the National Right to Life Committee, which opposes abortion, and the conservative Family Research Council.
In 2006, Wagner applied for a full-time instructor position with the law school and was denied. She was also rejected for an adjunct or full-time position in four subsequent attempts, according to her attorney, Stephen T. Fieweger.
“For the first time in years, there are more registered Republicans in the state of Iowa than there are Democrats, which is obviously not reflected at the University of Iowa,” Fieweger told FoxNews.com.
Fieweger said Wagner’s candidacy was dismissed because of her conservative views, and he cited a 2007 email from Associate Dean Jonathan C. Carlson to Jones in which Carlson wrote: “Frankly, one thing that worries me is that some people may be opposed to Teresa serving in any role, in part at least because they so despise her politics (and especially her activism about it).”
Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church has said it is “pointless” to take part in talks on a new constitution, saying mounting Islamist domination in the talks has led them to withdraw from the assembly, Egypt’s state news agency said.
The 100-member constitutional assembly selected by the parliament is dominated by Islamists, reflecting their resounding victory in parliamentary elections.
Late on Sunday, the Church announced the decision to withdraw; a move which followed earlier calls by Egyptian liberals to boycott the constitution drafting committee, which is seen as failing to adequately represent the nation’s diversity.
“The Coptic Orthodox Church General Council agreed with the approval of all of the council’s 20 members to withdraw from the constitutional assembly… as it found it was pointless for the church to be represented following the comments made by the national forces about the way the assembly was formed,” the state news agency said, quoting a church statement.
The current constitution was suspended by the country’s army rulers in February of last year shortly after they took power from Egypt’s long-serving autocratic president, Hosni Mubarak.
Coptic Christians, who form Egypt’s biggest minority group and constitute most of Egypt’s 10 percent Christian population, have long had a difficult relationship with the country’s overwhelmingly Muslim majority.
Since Mubarak’s ouster, Christians have become increasingly worried after an upsurge in attacks on churches, which they blame on hardline Islamists, although experts say local disputes are often also behind them.
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 