From my own experience, I can tell you all what a great opportunity Chicago has missed out on. In 1983 Caracas, Venezuela hosted the Pan American Games. Like Chicago, Caracas had an over abundant supply of poor people and a shortage of quality housing.

Voila! The Pan American Games gave them the opportunity to help change all that. An “Olympic Village” needed to be constructed for all of the athletes — with modern facilities — a shining example of what the future could hold for the people of Venezuela.

Like the Olympic Games, the selection process was years in advance — Caracas as six long years in which to build their facilities. Six months before the games were to take place — virtually nothing was begun, beyond a few foundations poured and a few walls erected.

Enter the Venezuelan Army and their Corp of Engineers who took charge, razed what had been begun, and build an Olympic village in a matter of weeks. They almost completed the entire thing before the games began.

I say almost, because, while the paint was drying on the Olympic Stadium during the opening ceremonies, the living quarters for the athletes from all across the Americas, was only about 7/8 complete. The six and eight story cinder block buildings were mostly finished on the outside — well, there was glass in the windows on the first couple of stories — but the insides were not yet finished.

Each dormitory suite had an outside door, that locked, but the inside doors separating the bedrooms and the bathroom, were not yet installed. There were working showers in the bathrooms, and running water in the bathroom sinks, but the kitchen hookups — including sinks — were not yet installed.

The block buildings had stairways on both ends — an important feature since, in order to save money, the elevators either stopped at 1,3,5,7 or 2,4,6 and 8. They saved money in elevator doors, but you often found yourself either having to walk up or down a flight of stairs to use an elevator that did not stop at your floor.

The entire Olympic village was built upon an old garbage dump, and because regulations in Venezuela are not as stringent as some regulations in the United States, odors and strange liquids oozed up through the ground, leaving a most unpleasant smell at night.

The moment that the Pan Am Games were over, and the athletes left, the high rise apartments were turned over to poor families — a new government sponsored housing. Of course, the fact that the individual apartments were not complete — [see kitchen above] did nothing to hinder their use, as I came to understand that 7/8 complete is about as good as it gets in South America.

So why do I relate this story of third world Venezuela in a piece about Chicago? The parallel is obvious. Stinking slums — many owned by friends and supporters of President Obama — could have been torn down to make way for a new Olympic Village for the athletes. I feel certain that those plans had already been finalized and the appropriate palms greased.

As soon as those athletes left — following their two weeks of glory — those Olympic apartments could have been turned back into housing for the poor. I mean, two weeks of use would hardly have been long enough for the second-rate materials sold at first-rate prices — built by union contractors with ties to the right people — to have begun to deteriorate.

This was the prime opportunity for the right people to once again get rich — and to be lauded by the urban poor for their generosity — while once again fleecing same. Valarie Jarrett must be crying in her Chardonnay all the way home.

And it must be such a long trip — having failed the citizens of Chicago once again.

Originally published at The Minority Report

Or Why We Want To Keep Al-Qaeda Terrorists Out Of American Prisons

Prison systems around the world have become a breeding ground for radical Islam — a place of recruitment for Jihad. Last week, once again this danger was brought home with the arrest of Talib Islam, aka Michael Finton, as he attempted to blow up a Federal Building in Springfield, IL. Finton turned to radical Islam while in prison.

In 2001, in the days following the attacks of 9-11 President Bush was quick to point out that the United States was not at war with Islam — the religion — but with radical ideological elements within that movement.

“The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war,” President Bush said in a visit to The Islam Center of Washington, DC on Sept 17, 2001.

But that radical element — that perversion of Islam — that ideology that demands death to anyone who fails to believe and adhere to their strict interpretation of Islam — is growing around the world, including our prison system. The growth of that radicalism threatens world peace as never before.

From France there is a 2005 study found that prisoners were being converted to a radical Salafism in 68 of that nation’s prisons — almost all in large urban centers.

The progression of proselytism appears to be linked to the rise of Salafism, a brand of Islam that preaches a strict observance of 7th century rules and a strong rejection of Western values. Even though the Tablighi movement—which is hostile to violence—remains the dominant Islamic movement in French prisons, an unnamed RG official told Le Figaro on January 13 that “we observe a steady increase of Salafism, with two particularities: a strong rejection of Western values and the legitimacy of violence” to achieve their goals.

A definition of Salafism as it is practiced today can be found here:

The Salafi strand of Islam espouses that Islam was in its purest form during the days of the Prophet Muhammad. Salafism is a term that is often used interchangeably with Wahhabism, which holds to the purging of all things non-Islamic from the world, and the common goal of creating a world Islamic state.

The French study found that the imprisonment of terrorists associated with the Algerian GIA in the 1990’s is now bringing forth the fruits of radical recruitment to Jihad today — as a result of their proselytism within the French penal system.

Prisoners, already with a grievance against the authorities who have imprisoned them, are a natural breeding ground for malcontents.

American prisons are likewise a source of this radicalism, and have been for a long time. Abdul Rahman, aka James Cromitie, converted to radical Islam in a New York prison, and was arrested last May with three other men for attempting to blow up two Synagogues in that state.

The four men all attended the Masjid al-Ikhlas mosque, which has not been implicated in support of terrorism.

The mosque’s head imam, Salahuddin Mustafa Mohammad, an ex-con himself who has worked as an Islamic cleric at the Fishkill correctional facility, said he remembered seeing Cromitie around the mosque only a handful of times, and had no recollection of either Williams ever being there.

Part of the problem in the United States is that the government is either unable, or unwilling to fully vet those Imams allowed to preach in the prison system. Take the case, for instance, of Warith Deen Umar, Director of Ministerial Services for the New York State Department of Correctional Services.

Umar, aka Wallace Gene Marks before his conversion to Islam, was convicted in 1971 of conspiracy to murder New York city policemen. In 1976 he was granted parole, and was hired by the State of New York as a Muslim Prison Chaplain.

The Wall Street Journal reported in February 2003 Umar’s thoughts about the attack on 9-11.

The hijackers should be honored as martyrs, he said. The U.S. risks further terrorism attacks because it oppresses Muslims around the world. “Without justice, there will be warfare, and it can come to this country, too,” he said. The natural candidates to help press such an attack, in his view: African-Americans who embraced Islam in prison.

Much of this prison outreach is paid for by our ally, the government of Saudi Arabia, which has embraced the Wahhabi sect of Islam for more than a century.

Prison dawa, or the spreading of the faith, has become a priority for many Muslim groups in the U.S. and the Saudi Arabian government, which runs what spokesman Nail Al-Jubeir calls a “prison outreach” program. The Islamic Affairs Department of its Washington embassy ships out hundreds of copies of the Quran each month, as well as religious pamphlets and videos, to prison chaplains and Islamic groups who then pass them along to inmates.

In his position with the state of New York, Umar was able to place many radical Salafists in positions controlling the Islamic messages heard in prisons throughout the New York prison system.

And through their proselytism they have converted hundreds, if not thousands of malcontents into radical Islam — and this is a process taking place in prisons all over the world.

“There are very few legitimate imams serving in prisons in places like France, and self-made characters are free to operate – and these are radicals,” said terrorism expert Michael Radu of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

“Every (terrorist) attack has converts, and most of them have criminal records and were converted within prisons,” he said, noting the cases of British “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid and José Emilio Suárez Trashorras, the Spaniard who supplied the explosives used in the 2004 Madrid bombings — both of whom converted while incarcerated.

At least two of the terrorists involved in the Madrid Bombings were converted to radical Islam in this way.

Incarcerated for petty crimes, Trashorras, who was a nominal Christian, and Jamal Ahmidan, a nonobservant Muslim, were both indoctrinated into radical Islam in prison and joined an al-Qaida linked Moroccan group that used drug trafficking to fund terrorist activities before taking lead roles in the deadly train bombings.

The United States should think long and hard before we willingly bring the Guantanamo Bay terrorists onto American soil. There is already a very real threat from the radicalization of our prison population.

Originally posted at The Minority Report

It has been said by a number of people that 2008 was the year that Journalism died. Actually Journalism has been on life support for more than two decades, it is just that in 2008 the corpse was finally declared brain dead.

We have all heard the phrase, “history books are written by the victors.” Usually this is a way of putting down history, suggesting that historical facts are open to interpretation. Our American history books, for instance, once told the story of a people who tamed the wilderness, rolling across a vast continent, and forming the greatest nation, dedicated to human freedom, that the world has ever known.

Of course, much of that has changed in modern education. The story of the Pilgrims and their near-fatal flirt with Communism — all working for the common good, each taking from the common store according to their needs — has been supplanted with the story of stupid white men who needed the indians to educate them to survive.

Our modern education has supplanted the genius of our founding fathers in their determination to create a great nation and their crafting of the United States Constitution — the only such document in the world that acknowledges that all power flows from the people to the government, not the other way around — with the story of rich slave-owners who hacked out a country on the backs of the black man and the indian.

Because, you see, history books and journalism articles really are written by the victors, and in this case, the victors are the radicals of the 1960s who tired of their stone throwing and their anti-war marches, put on ties, and returned to the classrooms they had once occupied in protest.

They obtained their degrees in education and in psychology and in political science, and they went to work to change the institutions they had been protesting against — to change them into their own image. While the non-radicals obtained degrees in business and finance, and set forth to make their mark in the world, the radicals stayed in the universities where they found comfort.

They became tenured professors in the very colleges they had once tried to burn down. As “respected academicians” they gradually took control of those department as the older generation aged and retired. The ’60s radicals, steeped in Communist and anti-Capitalist rhetoric, became the establishment, and they began shaping that establishment in their own image.

The radicals took over the education departments, subtly changing the curricula to whitewash all of the good the United States has done in the world, and to glorify any and all opposition to capitalism. Today’s radicals teach that Germany’s Fascism was bad, but pass on any condemnation of Socialism or Communism which have resulted in more misery and death than any other ideology in history.

Once the radicals began setting the educational agenda, and began turning out teachers indoctrinated in the same, their philosophy began filtering down into the high schools, the middle schools, and especially the elementary schools. The radicals understood that if you can capture the minds of the children, you can control them for life.

The 1960s were the perfect storm for the incubation of this agenda. Military Conscription, which saw hundreds of thousands of young men taken into the military against their will, created a natural constituency of anti-war youth, soaking up the hatred for the United States from the left. The suddenly available contraceptives fueled the free love movement, and since no contraceptive is fool-proof, helped to foster in the breakdown of the family.

The Great Society, President Johnson’s war on poverty, removed the father from the family in order to receive government assistance, and one of the great truths was born — “To get more of something, subsidize it. To get less of something, tax it!” The war on poverty subsided the very poverty it sought to eradicate, thereby increasing it, and furthering the breakdown of society.

The radicals took over the soft science departments of the universities — psychology, sociology and psychiatry — turning out learned experts who blame society for the ills of the individual. Crime, they now told us was caused by the poverty in our society. The individual has been absolved from all blame for his unfortunate circumstances. Personal responsibility has been replaced with sociatal ills. New psychoses and illnesses are created almost daily to absolve the individual from any responsibility. Obesity is an illness. Gambling is a sickness. Drug use is merely an understandable response to the helplessness an individual feels when overwhelmed by society.

The radicals took control of the Journalism departments that “report” the news. At one time, a reporter was someone who stood outside of the story, reporting the facts in as objective a manner as possible. Who, what, when, where and why were the operative words taught in journalism schools — or in their predissessor the news room. At one time, reporters learned their craft on the job, from editors who had worked their way into those positions through their own writing skills. When the electronic media came along, those print media journalists gravitated into that medium, providing them with talented reporters who knew the craft.

Today, radicals-turned-academics teach advocacy journalism instead of reporting. Ask any first year journalism student why they want to be a journalist and the answer will unswervingly be, “Because I want to change the world. I want to make a difference.” If you want to change the world, join the Peace Corps — if you want to be a journalist learn how to write objectively. But that is no longer the agenda, or how it is done.

Frighteningly, the radicals took control of the Law and Business schools. Leftists with no repect for law or for business took control of the curricula of both. Too many lawyers turned out today see the Constitution of the United States, the foundation of our nation, as a living breathing document, that can be made to mean whatever they choose it to mean. These radicals are now judicial appointments, re-writing that Constitution in their own image. As judges they now look outside the US Constitution to the laws of other nations to find their rulings, supplanting our laws for mob rule elsewhere.

Radical business and finance professors, with no respect for market forces or Capitalism, have led the way in turning out the business professionals that have paved the way to Worldcom and Global Crossing scandals, and the complete collapse of today’s markets through subprime mortgages, credit swaps and derivatives. Through their complete disdain for the capitalist system the radicals now in charge of the economy have engineered the destruction of same.

And finally, the radicals created entirely new genres of study in the universities. Women’s Studies, Black Studies and Diversity Studies are all now accredited departments at virtually all universities, churning out degrees that prepare students to…Well, they prepare students to hate white men and to rail against society, and to obtain advanced degrees so that they can teach at those same universities, to indoctrinate others into hating white men and railing against society and obtaining advanced degrees…

The radicals have taken over, and are busy re-writing history, beginning with happenings today. Whole narratives are created — Selected Not Elected, BushLied, “greed” caused the market collapse, government is the answer to the economy, etc. By engineering what is reported in today’s media, the radicals are force-feeding the American public on the evils of “unfettered” Capitalism and leading us into a Socialist model that has failed everywhere it has ever been tried.

History books are, indeed, written by the winners. Who will write tomorrow’s history books is up to us to determine.

Originally Published at The Minority Report

While I feel certain that actor Tim Robbins is equally as dissatisfied with the erosion of personal liberties under the Obama Administration as he was under the Bush Administration, he has not been afforded the opportunity to express those concerns before a national audience. That is an oversight that must be rectified. Here are his words — exactly as, I am sure, he would deliver them if he were given the chance.

National Press Club — Washington, DC — April 15, 2003

“A chill wind is blowing in this nation. A message is being sent through the White House and its allies… If you oppose this administration, there can and will be ramifications.

And in the midst of all this madness, where is the political opposition?… We need leaders, not pragmatists that cower before the spin zones of former entertainment journalists. We need leaders who can understand the Constitution…

The journalists in this country can battle back at those who would rewrite our Constitution… You have, whether you like it or not, an awesome responsibility and an awesome power: the fate of discourse, the health of this republic is in your hands, whether you write on the left or the right. This is your time, and the destiny you have chosen.

We lay the continuance of our democracy on your desks, and count on your pens to be mightier. Millions are watching and waiting in mute frustration and hope – hoping for someone to defend the spirit and letter of our Constitution, and to defy the intimidation that is visited upon us daily…

Our ability to disagree, and our inherent right to question our leaders and criticize their actions define who we are. To allow those rights to be taken away out of fear, to punish people for their beliefs, to limit access in the news media to differing opinions is to acknowledge our democracy’s defeat…”

You tell them, Tim!

Hillary Clinton said it best…

“I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic, and we should stand up and say, ‘WE ARE AMERICANS AND WE HAVE A RIGHT TO DEBATE AND DISAGREE WITH ANY ADMINISTRATION!’”

More complete article at The Minority Report

Nobody else here at Redstate seems to be reporting this:

This weekend an Alaska rag blog made national headlines by promoting a story that former Governor Sarah Palin and her husband Todd were contemplating divorce. As any propagandist will tell you, once the lie become public knowledge no amount of denial can completely remove the thought from the public mind.

Naturally, the national news services ran with the story — a pattern that has emerged in recent months — with liberal bloggers “breaking” news stories and liberal media then quoting those bloggers as reliable sources.

This latest “news story” appears to be the concoction of an Alaskan kindergarten teaching assistant by the name of Jesse Griffin.

Read more at The Minority Report

Facebook Censors Anti-Pelosi Page For Ideological Reasons

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Alright, I realize that the issues we are facing today with runaway government spending, Socialized Medicine, Cap and Trade legislation that will cripple an already vulnerable economy, and federal government takeover of banking and private industry, far outweigh the censorship of free speech on the internet.

Or do they?

Last summer, following the Pelosi shutdown of Congress, rather than actually act upon an energy bill, the Dontgo movement was born, and Steve Foley, founder of The Minority Report, put up an “Impeach Nancy Pelosi” petition on Facebook.

Put there is a joke, before long it had attracted more than 4000 signatures.

Earlier this year, as opposition to the Pelosi run House of Representatives has become more pronounced, Steve turned the petition page into the “Impeach Nancy Pelosi” fan page.  As of today, there are 31,824 members of that page.

Today, Facebook has revoked the publishing rights of the administrators of that page, Steve Foley and Dr Bill Smith of the ARRA News Service. While members of the site can currently still post comments, the administrators can no longer add to the site.

Inquiries of Facebook elicited this response:

Hello,

The Page Impeach Nancy Pelosi has had its publishing rights blocked because it violates our Pages Terms of Use. Amongst other things, Facebook restricts the publishing rights of Pages that impersonate other entities, represent generic concepts, spam users, or otherwise violate our Terms of Use. These policies are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users.

The Facebook Team

A quick perusal of Facebook finds many anti-Bush pages, anti-military pages, anti-Conservative and anti-Republican groups.  They do not find themselves censored. Impeach Nancy Pelosi does!

Outside of a few comments from members that might step outside the bounds of good taste [with over 31,000 members this is going to happen] there is NOTHING on this group page that violates any terms of service.

So why has Facebook chosen this particular Facebook group to censor? Apparently ideology trumps free speech at Facebook.

Contact Facebook and make your displeasure at this censorship known.

When HWSNBN had Bots crawling all across the internet spamming websites like Redstate, the management of this site placed a ban on all mention of HWSNBN for six months.

What we have here is a unique Bot situation.  We have the Pro-Bots crawling all over the internet promoting SWSNBN as a combination Joan of Arc, Ronald Reagan and Mother Teresa.

At the same time we have the Anti-Bots who swarm all over the internet deriding SWSNBN as demonstrating all of the worst traits of Lizzy Bordon, Adolph Hitler and Attila the Hun.

Maybe it is time that Redstate had a complete six month moratorium on any diary or comment about SWSNBN!

Anyone else agree?

Sanity beckons…

Originally Published at The Minority Report

Please Join Us at The Minority Report

Originally Published at The Minority Report

Originally Published at The Minority Report

Presidente For Life Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales — Not So Fast Jose

Originally Published At The Minority Report

Originally Published at The Minority Report

Medal of Honor Awardee

Ed Freeman!

Since the Media didn’t give him the coverage he deserves send this to every red blooded American you know.
THANKS AGAIN ED FOR WHAT YOU DID FOR OUR COUNTRY.
RIP

Originally published at The Minority Report

Originally Published at The Minority Report

from Lord Vegas