Peachy Keenan, Domestic Extremist

Peachy Keenan, Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War.

Obama Presses World to Act Against Islamic Jihad

At WSJ, "U.S. Presses World to Act Against Extremism: Obama Implores Leaders to Join Coalition Against Islamic State":

UNITED NATIONS—The U.S. unleashed a barrage of diplomatic pressure on world leaders gathered in New York, imploring them to join an international coalition against Islamic extremism.

President Barack Obama, in a series of appearances throughout the day, outlined a very different U.S. approach to the Middle East than he did last year at the same forum—one that leans heavily on American military power and tightly focuses on ways to diminish Islamic extremism. He urged leaders in the region to do more to combat what he described as the most pressing threat to global progress.

In his sixth address to the United Nations General Assembly, Mr. Obama said "the cancer of violent extremism" embodied in groups such as Islamic State now dominates his foreign-policy agenda.

"The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force," Mr. Obama said. "So the United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death."

While leaders met at the U.N., the Pentagon said U.S. and Arab warplanes carried out a new wave of strikes on extremist group Islamic State in Syria, emphasizing regional support for the latest expansion of the air campaign against the group. Heads of state recoiled at a new extremist video showing the beheading of a French hostage.

Despite the U.S. appeals, the scope and longevity of his coalition to fight Islamic State remained unclear.

Major European allies—France, the U.K. and Germany, so far all have declined to send their aircraft into Syrian airspace, in part, because of the lack of U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use of such force.

In Paris, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls reiterated the government's refusal. Instead, the French premier bemoaned how world powers had missed the opportunity to deploy air power over Syria in the wake of the alleged chemical attacks last year—when France believed there was a clear legal basis for intervention.

"We wouldn't be in this situation in Syria if the international community had intervened," Mr. Valls said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is still smarting from the defeat he suffered last year when Parliament opposed his plans to join the U.S. in the airstrikes that Mr. Obama eventually called off. Although Mr. Cameron has the authority to launch military action unilaterally, lawmakers say the Syria experience makes it important for the U.K. leader to secure parliamentary approval before taking military action in Iraq.

On Wednesday, Mr. Cameron's government said Parliament would meet on Friday to debate a request from the Iraqi government for airstrikes against Islamic State in Iraq, but not Syria.

In his General Assembly speech Wednesday night, Mr. Cameron backed a U.K. military response in advance of the Friday vote, but left open whether it would entail a combat role against Islamic State militants.

"We should be uncompromising, using all the means at our disposal—including military force—to hunt down these extremists," Mr. Cameron said in his address, while adding in anticipation of criticism that the West should avoid the mistakes of the past in Iraq.

The president heralded the inclusion of five Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, in the airstrikes in Syria this week. And the U.S. welcomed commitments by Belgium and the Netherlands to each deploy fighter jets for military operations.

However, a number of Washington's closest Mideast allies—particularly Turkey and Qatar—appeared to be on the fence in terms of how significantly to support the U.S. campaign, though four Qatari planes provided surveillance for coalition attacks on Islamic State Monday.

More.

USA Today Calls for Ground Troops in Iraq on Anniversary of September 11 Attacks

They're not mincing words.

From the editors, at USA Today, "ISIL haunts 9/11 anniversary: Our view":

Fourteen years ago, the United States suffered a shockingly successful surprise attack by a little known Islamic extremist group based 7,000 miles away in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Since then, a U.S. invasion chased al-Qaeda out of its haven, and targeted strikes eventually eliminated most of its senior leaders, including Osama bin Laden in 2011. The danger from the group that killed nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, has waned.

Its influence lives on, however, through offshoot extremist groups that have eclipsed al-Qaeda — none more so than the Islamic State, the lightning spread of which through Syria and Iraq has been marked by medieval barbarity, adapted to the Internet age....

ISIL represents the embodiment of evil in the modern world, and it mustn't be allowed to establish a foothold from which to plot attacks against the United States or to inspire so-called lone wolf sympathizers to do so. But the U.S.-led effort to "degrade and ultimately defeat" ISIL has shown underwhelming results....

The administration asks for patience, insisting that with U.S. and allied airstrikes, and with the U.S. and its allies painstakingly rebuilding an effective Iraqi army, the tide will turn. Indeed, some metrics hint at progress; the administration says ISIL's movements have been effectively limited in nearly a third of the areas in Iraq it used to control. The U.S. has assembled a coalition of 62 nations and international organizations to counter ISIL, almost double the 34 nations that rallied behind then-President George H.W. Bush to push Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in 1991.

The struggle against ISIL is likely to be long, one that will be won not just by driving the group out of the territory it claims as its caliphate but also by countering the ideology that has brought the group so many followers despite its depravity. Unless the current approach starts to show better results soon, America should prepare to take more aggressive actions, including the use of Apache helicopter gunships to assist ground fights, and deployment of U.S. forces to act as spotters for airstrikes and to bolster Iraqi units.

If there’s one lesson the nation should have learned from that awful day 14 years ago, it’s that the United States cannot afford to ignore a rabidly anti-American terrorist group that has established a haven in a faraway place.

U.S. forces on the ground, "to bolster Iraqi units."

This should happen. But it probably won't. And that's a shame, particularly on this day, 14 years after the worst attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor.

RTWT at the link.

Sickening Leftists Claim 'We Know Absolutely Nothing About What Motivated' Boston Bombing Suspects

Readers may have noticed that I don't go in for the whole speculation game very much. I'd prefer to let the big stories sort themselves out, as the fact become known, before laying out my own grand theories about causes and ideological complicity. I'll tell you, though, since the photos of the suspects were released on Tuesday, along with the information of the crude pressure-cooker bomb that was used in the slaughter, I was certain that the suspects would turn out to be home-grown terrorists influenced by Islamic militants in the Middle East, with most likely affiliations to the global al Qaeda network. And that seems to be the case. As more information comes to light, it's becoming increasingly clear that the Tsarnaev brothers were driven to hatred of Americans through Islamic doctrines calling for jihad warfare against unbelievers.

From this morning's Wall Street Journal, "Boston Attack Renews Fears About Homegrown Terrorism: Threat Evolves From Complex International Plots to Small-Scale Attacks by Individuals Within U.S." According to the story, much remains unknown, although here's some key details:

The brothers spent 10 years in the U.S. during a formative period of their lives, exhibiting normal behavior for first-generation immigrants, said Mitchell Silber, a former intelligence official in the New York Police Department. "The question is, what catalyzed the change? Was it Chechen nationalism? Did it start with Chechen nationalism and somehow migrate to a pan-Islamist jihad cause?"

A YouTube page that appeared to belong to the elder Mr. Tsarnaev featured multiple jihadi videos that he had endorsed in the past six months. One video features the preaching of Abd al-Hamid al-Juhani, who was an assistant to an al Qaeda scholar in Chechnya, and another features Feiz Mohammad, an extremist Salafi Lebanese preacher based in Australia. Four months ago, he also "liked" a well-produced video featuring the black flags of Khorasan, a significant jihadist theme.

Mr. Silber, now with the investigative firm K2 Intelligence, said the Boston bombings show that the terrorist threat persisted even in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden. "This more pedestrian, bare-bones terrorism is out there, and it's going to be very difficult to detect."

And further:

A wild card in the bombing is the possible role of the Chechen separatist cause, which flared after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 only to be crushed by the Kremlin. Olga Oliker, an international security specialist at the Rand Corp. think tank, said that the Chechen separatist leadership has become radicalized and more recently formed an umbrella radical group, the Caucuses Emirate, which was designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization in 2011.

The leadership, however, tends not to direct overseas operations. Ms. Oliker said it is more likely the two brothers were sympathizers who decided to take action in the U.S.

Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University, said Chechen influence in the global jihad shouldn't be discounted. He noted two recent rounds of arrests in Europe that involved Chechens allegedly carrying out plots at the direction of al Qaeda.

Certainly more on the elder Tsarnaev's ties to Chechnya will be unraveled, although his radicalization spiked after he returned from his recent trip to the homeland. Robert Spencer has more on that, "Boston Marathon jihad murderers may have trained in Chechen Islamic school."

Either way, enough is known now. The Tsarnaevs were jihad terrorists, plain and simple. There is no denying it, although such efforts at denial are shamelessly underway by Islamic jihad's apologists on the anti-American left. See Atlas Shrugs, for example, "ELSPETH REEVE AT ATLANTIC WIRE CARRIES WATER FOR SLAUGHTERERS: 'THE U.S. ANTI-MUSLIM CROWD IS QUITE PLEASED WITH ITSELF'."

And here's the sickening spin from far-left extremist Paul Waldman, at the American Prospect, "Substituting Identity for Motivation":

Let's be honest and admit that everyone had a hope about who the Boston bomber would out to be. Conservatives hoped it would be some swarthy Middle Easterner, which would validate their belief that the existential threat from Islam is ongoing and that their preferred policies are the best way to deal with that threat. Liberals hoped it would be a Timothy McVeigh-like character, some radical right-winger or white supremacist, which would perhaps make us all think more broadly about terrorism and what the threats really are. The truth turned out to be … well, we don't really know yet. Assuming these two brothers are indeed the bombers, they're literally Caucasian, but they're also Muslim. Most importantly, as of yet we know absolutely nothing about what motivated them. Nothing. Keep that in mind.

That is so much bullshit it boggles the mind.

"Assuming these brothers are the bombers"?

Right. The entire country is horribly torn over making any assumptions about these two.

And what's this about "we know absolutely nothing about them"? Is it even possible to issue a more bald-faced lie?

Of course not. But it's not just the marquee America-hating leftists at the American Prospect. All across the mainstream media today we have the shameful spectacle of the press moaning about how officials are "struggling" to determine the motives of the bombers. Here's the banner headline right now at the New York Times, "Bomb Investigation Shifts to a New Mystery: Motive." And this just in at the Chicago Tribune, "Boston Marathon bombing investigation turns to motive." And at the Los Angeles Times, "Search for motive in Boston attack begins." Here's Reuters, "Boston Marathon bombing investigation turns to motive."

And on and on...

It's disgusting.

I'll have more on the left's complicity in Islam's jihad against America.

Meanwhile, David Horowitz provides some moral clarity:

Watching the news about the Boston bombing and the Muslim fanatics who perpetrated the deed, I cannot help reflect on all the nasty attacks that liberals and progressives and Muslim activists have conducted against conservatives who have attempted to warn Americans that their enemies are religious fanatics driven by an apocalyptic hatred of us because we are Jews, Christians, atheists, democrats – in a word, infidels.

It has been said by Nancy Pelosi, George Soros and other Democrats that George Bush created the terrorists by attempting to enforce a UN Security council resolution and take down one of the monsters of the 20th Century in Iraq. It has been said by the late Susan Sontag and other progressive intellectuals that the heinous attacks of 9/11 were the result of American policies. The Center for American Progress and university administrators have relentlessly defamed as Islamphobes and bigots those of us who have had the temerity to talk about the Islamic roots of Islamic terror. If only we ignored the Islamic beliefs behind the terrorism and made nice to all Muslims indiscriminately, the terrorists wouldn’t hate us.

Boston has exposed this as the Big Lie and fatuous delusion that it has always been. The Boston killers were treated better in America than all but an elite among Americans born here who love their country. They were given scholarships, they were admitted to the most exclusive prep schools, they lived in a Cambridge environment where critics of Islamic terror were regarded as Islamophobes and they as a minority deserving special consideration and concern. And yet they hated us. They hated America and ordinary Americans like the victims of their mayhem, and enlisted in the army of our mortal enemies. They hated us because they were fanatical believers in the idea that Mohammed had desired them to kill infidels and purify the earth for Allah. This is the face of our enemy and the sooner the delusional liberals among us wake up to this fact, the safer all of us will be.

Charles Johnson, Think Progress Strain to Portray Discovery Gunman as Right-Wing Anti-Immigrant Extremist

If James Lee had been a right-wing militia member --- or a Glenn Beck tea party activist, for that matter --- Charles Johnson would have been all over the story, alleging that Fox News and the GOP were inciting far-right extremist violence. Instead we get this pathetic drivel (safe link):

It would be nice if everyone could just agree that James Jay Lee, the hostage taker killed today in a standoff at the offices of the Discovery Channel, was deranged. And leave it at that. But of course, we’re already seeing some extremely partisan bloggers trying to put him in the “left wing” category, simply because his weird views sprang out of a kind of extreme environmentalism ....

Right.

Last year King Charles was all over the James Von Brunn story, playing up the "white supremacy" angle like there was no tomorrow: "Shooting at Holocaust Museum in Washington DC" (cached version).

And then there's Think Progress, where the folks are just as desperate to paint the Discovery gunman as some wild right-wing anti-immigration stormtrooper, "Purported Eco-Terrorist Angered Over ‘Immigration Pollution And Anchor Baby Filth’":

This afternoon, a gunman entered the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, MD and appears to have taken at least one person hostage. Among his various bizarre, eco-related demands, one relates directly to immigration. The alleged hostage-taker, James Jay Lee, calls for the elimination of “anchor baby filth” and “immigration pollution”...

Look. I'm just glad that the hostages are safe. And God rest his soul, but James Lee was mentally disturbed. Almost as disturbing is the far-left's hopeless efforts to rewrite the storyline to fit their warped partisan agenda. The bottom line is that the gunman was motivated by radical environmentalism, and he even claimed Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" as inspiration. It's mostly just sad, either way. See Left Coast Rebel, "Following James Jay Lee's Trail on the Net: The Discovery Channel Ecoterrorist's second website 'World Guardian Voices'."

RELATED: At Pirate's Cove, "Excitable Liberals Still Attempting To Paint Discovery Channel Wacko As On The Right." And at Watts Up With That?, "When Warmistas Attack."

"Only those who share the partisan Democrat views of James Fallows, in other words, are avoiding the 'failure of journalism.' Fallows would have us believe that 'what is going on' is not a routine exercise in budget brinksmanship — something to which we have become accustomed as a ritual of divided government — but rather an 'internal crisis' exclusive to the Republican Party..."

From Robert Stacy McCain, "James Fallows, Eminent Fool, and the Surprising Vindication of John C. Calhoun":

The current phony crisis, in which Sen. Harry Reid has declared that the House must approve the Senate’s spending bill or else the government will shut down, has inspired The Atlantic‘s James Fallows to an extravagant exercise in rhetorical excess:

In case the point is not clear yet: there is no post-Civil War precedent for what the House GOP is doing now. It is radical, and dangerous for the economy and our process of government, and its departure from past political disagreements can’t be buffed away or ignored. If someone can think of a precedent after the era of John C. Calhoun . . . let me know.

This is as absurd and inappropriate as it is ignorant. To find a recent precedent, we need only go back to the 1990s, when the budget impasse between the new Republican majority in Congress and President Clinton led to a (partial) government shutdown. Or, really, we might consider the extraordinary process by which Reid and Nancy Pelosi shoved ObamaCare through the legislative grinder — “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it,” as Pelosi infamously said — as more truly “radical, and dangerous for the economy and our process of government” than anything Republicans in Congress are doing now.

Having deliberately ignored the made-for-TV dramatics, I am not the least alarmed by this phony crisis, which is neither particularly new nor remotely frightening. Democrats and their comrades in the media (Fallows was a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter) are dishonestly characterizing opposition to ObamaCare as “extremist,” per se.

This is the exact opposite of truth: It is ObamaCare itself that is truly “extremist,” a measure that could only be rammed through Congress with late-night arm-twisting sessions. Were the 34 House Democrats who voted against ObamaCare in March 2010 “extremists”? Or were the millions of voters who elected a Republican House majority in the 2010 mid-term landslide “extremists”?

James Fallows is a partisan Democrat who evidently does not even read conservatives, and who declares illegitimate any reporting that takes seriously the claims of the president’s Republican opponents...

Fallows is a bald-faced liar (and a Democrat-partisan hack, but I repeat myself).

Continue reading.

IMAGE CREDIT: "Do Not Challenge the Emperor," via Erick Brockway on Twitter.

Concerning the "Anti-Jihadist" Blogosphere

I need to set out some positions regarding the flame up that's been roiling the conservative blogosphere in recent weeks.

As readers know, Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has taken something of a rigidly intolerant turn in recent months, attacking any vestige of robust right-wing activity as "extremist." A number of Johnson's own commenters have begun to ignore him, being burned out on the "Lizard King's" attacks on Christian traditionalists and neoconservatives as "fundamentalist wackos."

I first wrote about this a month or so back, in "On Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs." My initial inclination was mostly fascination at how Johnson could turn off so many people who were previously intensely loyal followers. What happened? Who changed?

Well, despite his protests to the contrary, it does seem that Johnson's lost some of his raison d'etre with the Democrats in power, and now he's attacking bloggers on the right as the new enemy.

Well, the battles continue to escalate.

Here's Johnson's latest: "Pamela Geller: Poster Girl for Eurofascists." And Robert Stacy McCain responds to Johnson: "Pam Geller: 'Poster Girl for Eurofascists' or Just Another 'Rightwing Extremist'?"

And a couple of days ago, Michael van der Galien commented with his post, "Civil War Raging in the Right-Wing Blogosphere."

That one caught my attention, since I'm identified, along with Stacy, not as "anti-jihad," but as a "foreign policy hawk":

Let one thing be clear: in the battle between Gates of Vienna, Atlas Shrugs on the one hand (I do not count Donald Douglas as truly being on their side for he is much more than an “anti-Jihad blogger” and he is not a xenophobe) and LGF on the other hand, I stand by the latter. I do not always agree with Charles - I’m pro-tea party for instance - but he meant such a great deal to the (international) conservative movement in years gone by that turning against him would be a sign of despicable ungratefulness.

Furthermore, GoV and AS have gone off the deep end, and Charles is right to point out that they have and continue to associate with far-right parties and individuals. “Anti-Jihad” bloggers, as they call themselves, have become Anti-Muslim, Anti-Islam, Anti-Tolerance, and Anti-Equality. Reading the comment sections of these websites is a horrific experience for all who care somewhat about common decency and tolerance. These people - again, I am not talking about people like Donald or Robert S. McCain for they are not “anti-Jihad bloggers” but simply conservative bloggers who are also foreign policy hawks - have become radicals in their own right. Associating with them does not merely destroy one’s credibility, it is also a crime against decency.

To conservative bloggers like RSM and DD I have only this to say: make no mistake about it, AS and GoV are not ‘conservative blogs.’ Nor are they websites you should be associated with. They are ignorant radicals driven by hate. Conservatives everywhere are wise to distance themselves as much as possible from them.

I don't know Charles Johnson, but I'm friends with all the other parties to this debate. I communicate with Pamela Geller by e-mail every few days. Robert Stacy McCain is the coolest "blogfather" out there, and we talk by telephone in addition to e-mailing. And I've been friends with Michael van der Galien for a couple of years now, sharing blog posts and what not.

Pamela is passionate and vigilant in what she does, but to attack her as "fascist" is beyond the pale. I know fascists. I've been attacked by fascists. I've repudiated fascists. Pamela is no fascist. She points out that Michael van der Galien is a convert to Islam, however, which might explain why he's so quick to choose up sides (see, a bit on Michael's views at "'Pure Islam' and Michael van der Galien").

Now, to be clear: I'm not out to ruffle feathers, and not Charles Johnson's by any means. But sometimes you have to take a stand: I think Michael's wrong on this one: Little Green Footballs gives aid and comfort to the enemies of conservatism, or as The Educated Shoprat notes at this post, "He's done an Andrew Sullivan. No other way to put it."

But I'm going to let Robert Spencer have the last word on Johnson's latest screed:

Today he is once again attacking Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, whom he clearly fears a great deal (inasmuch as she tells the truth about him), along with Paul Belien and me for being invited to speak at an anti-Islamization conference by the group Pro-Köln. Pro-Köln, he says, is a neo-Nazi group, and he has a photo of some guy who is not involved with Pro-Köln but is wearing a Hitler-style overcoat to prove it. And if Pamela, Paul and I are speaking there, well, we must be Nazis too, right?

In reality, the fact that we were invited to speak indicates in itself that Pro-Köln is not a neo-Nazi group. We are known to be pro-Israel, and if I go I would speak in defense of Israel and against neo-Nazism, Holocaust denial, etc. Outside of Charles Johnson's fantasies, no one has ever actually seen a pro-Israel neo-Nazi. Racist parties such as the BNP and antisemites such as Jean Marie LePen's National Front are not welcome and have not been invited.

Moreover, as John Rosenthal reported in Pajamas Media last year, the German intelligence service in Hamburg has found that real German neo-Nazis despise Pro-Köln because it is ... pro-Israel.

And finally, this whole line of inquiry is absurd. The idea that if someone speaks somewhere, he must therefore hold all the same views that the other speakers hold, is not worthy of serious consideration. Question for Charles Johnson: as he well knows, since I met with him at the time, I once spoke at the same event at which the featured speaker was none other than Hillary Clinton. Does that make her a neo-Nazi as well? (Or does it make me a Leftist and a socialist?) After all, she spoke on a bill with someone who once spoke on another bill with someone who was accused of being in the same room with someone who was once photographed at a funeral with someone who...

For that matter, is Johnson a neo-Nazi as well, since he met with me then also? Of course not - because after all, he renounces all neofascism, race supremacism, etc., right? He sure does. And so do I.

It is astounding that otherwise reasonable people fall for his sort of "analysis."

Related: Gates of Vienna, "Expedition to Cologne."

'Moderate Muslims Are Going to Be Pushed Into Joining Extremist Movements Like al-Qaida'

So much for moderate Muslims repudiating jihad:

Experts worry the controversy surrounding an Islamic center near ground zero in Lower Manhattan is playing right into the hands of radical extremists.

The supercharged debate over the proposed center has attracted the attention of a quiet, underground audience — young Muslims who drift in and out of jihadi chat rooms and frequent radical Islamic sites on the Web. It has become the No. 1 topic of discussion in recent days and proof positive, according to some of the posted messages, that America is indeed at war with Islam.

"This, unfortunately, is playing right into their hands," said Evan F. Kohlmann, who tracks these kinds of websites and chat rooms for Flashpoint Global partners, a New York-based security firm. "Extremists are encouraging all this, with glee.

"It is their sense that by doing this that Americans are going to alienate American Muslims to the point where even relatively moderate Muslims are going to be pushed into joining extremist movements like al-Qaida. They couldn't be happier."

Hey, Imam Rauf's dreams come true! Build a Victory Mosque at Ground Zero, alienate two-thirds of the American people and piss on the families of the fallen, then turn around and attack them all as a bunch "anti-Muslim bigots," which in turn induces all those millions of "peaceful" Muslims worldwide to show up at al Qaeda's recruiting stations.

Brilliant.

And working true to plan. These folks are da bomb! Really!

Hat Tip: James Taranto.

The Day After One of His Cultists Murders What He Claims Is an 'Extremist Republican' 18-Year-Old Boy, Joe Biden Urges His Demented Followers to ... 'Fight Extremist Republicans'

 At AoSPHQ, "Via Twitchy, despite having just incited one of his crazed followers to murder a teenager in the name of "fighting Republican Extremists," Joe Biden put out a statement telling his cultists to... fight Republican extremists some more."

Islam Still Rooted in the Dark Ages

From Julia Hartley-Brewer, at Telegraph UK, "Islam is still rooted in the values of the dark ages – and until we accept that, we will never get rid of radicalism":

British Muslims must “tackle extremism”.

We must stop tolerating “social segregation”.

“For too long we have buried our heads in the sand” about the growth of extremism among young Muslims in our country.

No, not the words of Ukip’s Nigel Farage but of Labour’s London Mayoral candidate, Sadiq Khan, speaking today at a Westminster lunch.

Mr Khan, a Muslim born in London to Pakistani immigrants, is one of the very few politicians in mainstream politics who is brave enough to speak the truth about the ever growing issues facing Britain’s Muslim population.

Of course, being a Muslim himself, Mr Khan is automatically exempt from the usual barrage of cries of “racist” and “Islamophobe” from the liberal thought police.

Yet it is nevertheless a courageous politician who dares to point out what is blatantly obvious to the rest of us – but which our elected representatives are mostly too timid to admit.

Yes, as Mr Khan said, British Muslims “have a special role to play in tackling extremism”. As he says, that’s not because they – simply by virtue of sharing the same religion as the terrorists – are any more responsible for terror attacks than non-Muslims, but because they can be “more effective” at tackling that extremism.

Britain’s extremist Islamists, after all, are not coming from ordinary Christian, Sikh, Hindu, Jewish or atheist backgrounds. They are coming from ordinary Muslim families, they have Muslim friends and they live in largely Muslim neighbourhoods.

It is therefore those families, friends and neighbours who are likely to be the first to hear those extremist views and thus be in the position to challenge them at the earliest opportunity and, we hope, stem their growth into full-bodied Islamist violence.

And that is crucial to Sadiq Khan’s other key point: it is time the social segregation of Muslims came to an end.

For too many decades, many of Britain’s 2.7 million Muslims have lived here as a separate, co-existing community, right at the heart of our great cities but at the fringes of our society.

As Mr Khan said: “Too many British Muslims grow up without really knowing anyone from a different background. We’ve protected people’s right to live their cultural life at the expense of creating a common life.”

Huge numbers of British Muslims are concentrated in distinct neighbourhoods, often living with, going to school with, working with, befriending and marrying only other Muslims. “This,” as Mr Khan so rightly pointed out, “creates the conditions for extremism and radicalisation to take hold.”

Is it really any wonder then that so many young British Muslims feel they are not really British when they have grown up isolated and alienated from the rest of the population?

British Muslims need to face up to some home truths. But so too does Sadiq Khan.

Because, despite talking so much sense about integration and tackling extremism, the Labour MP still wasn’t brave enough to tell the one truth that really does need to be faced if we are going to end this deadly threat.

“It is ludicrous to pretend that Islamism has nothing to do with Islam. It has everything to do with Islam.”

In the very same speech, Mr Khan said the Paris terror attacks were carried out “in the name of a sick and evil ideology, a grotesque and perverse worldview which has nothing to do with the Islam that I know.”

That is nonsense. It is ludicrous to pretend that Islamism has nothing to do with Islam. It has everything to do with Islam and that is precisely why it has such a potent appeal to so many young Muslim men and women.

As any scholar of Islam will tell you, the ideology behind Isil and al-Qaeda is as rooted in the Koran as are daily prayers and eating halal meat. Like Christianity, it just depends which verses you care to read and how literal an interpretation you choose to give them.

The ideology behind Isil is as rooted in the Koran as are daily prayers  Photo: Getty

While Christianity has certainly been the cause of more than its fair share of violent bloodshed over the centuries, it has now evolved into a religion that is largely a force for peace.

Islam, though, has never been through an enlightenment or a reformation and is still rooted in the values of the dark ages. That is why Islamic extremism has boomed at a time when the rest of the world is embracing the liberal, democratic values of the 21st century.

Sadiq Khan should be applauded for his courage in speaking the truth about segregation and radicalisation.

But until we all accept the truth about the roots of Islamic extremism, we won’t win the battle for hearts and minds – let alone the bloody war that awaits...

The Politically Correct Myth of Airline Bombers

From Lorne Gunther, "The Politically Correct Myth of Airline Bombers":

Each new layer of security, each new inconvenience for the travelling public, is mostly a placebo. It does very little to improve our inflight safety. Instead, each is imposed mostly to make it appear as though authorities are doing something and to give us the public some reassurance that they are safe in the air.

And most are implemented, too, to preserve the politically correct, multicultural myth that anyone is a potential terrorist, that all are equally worthy of official suspicion, that everyone must be searched as thoroughly as the next passenger in line.

.... by the time security personnel have caught on to one terror technique, the very real enemies of the West who would blow up airliners loaded with innocents have moved on to a new tactic. Once we learned to forbid box cutters, the terrorists moved on to shoes with fuses, then sports drinks laced with incendiaries and bags of powder strapped to their thighs.

No matter what we screen for, no matter how much we irritate and inconvenience passengers at airports, the bad guys will figure out new ways to bring potential death aboard our planes.

The real trick is screening out bad guys. But to do that would require a cultural will the West has not yet shown itself capable of. It would require us to admit that young Muslims -- mostly young Muslim males -- see themselves at war with the West, so they require a special level of scrutiny from security and intelligence forces.

Abdulmutallab's father, a prominent Nigerian banker, had notified the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria of his son's increasingly extremist religious beliefs. But no one had thought enough of the warning to subject the 23-year-old engineering student to an added thoroughness of search before he boarded a U.S.-bound flight.

Not all Muslims need be harassed -- not even most. Following 9/11, a U.S. think-tank devised a pre-flight screening technique that would red-flag the appropriate suspects.

Anyone, Muslim or not, who had a mortgage, had held the same job for more than 10 years, had a lengthy history of incident-free commercial flights, had a solid credit rating, a retirement account and no reports, like Abdulmutallab's, of extremist tendencies might well still have to do the detector walk-through, but wouldn't need to toss his latte and nail file before getting on a flight.

The trouble is, we are too timid as a culture to do the obvious -- focus on young Muslim men with radical connections, who have proven themselves to be 99 per cent of the problem.

Hat Tip: Kathy Shaidle. Video courtesy of Islamization Watch, "Airline Terror Suspect in Federal Prison."

Ralph Peters on Obama's Fort Hood Memorial: 'Not One Mention of Terrorism'

Via Pat Dollard, "Ralph Peters Pissed at Obama's Ft. Hood Speech":

Note that Peters predicted as much in his essay today, "Deadly Denial: Fudging the Facts on Fort Hood":

As President Obama belatedly appears at Fort Hood today, will he dare to speak the word "terror?"

He won't use the word "Islamist." If he mentions Islam at all, it'll be to sing its praises yet again.

We've already learned that Islamist terrorist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan attended the Northern Virginia mosque of Imam Anwar al-Aulaqi, a fiery al Qaeda supporter who later fled the United States. We know that Hasan's peers, subordinates and patients repeatedly raised red flags that his superiors suppressed. We know he was a player on Islamist-extremist Web sites. The FBI's uncovering one extremist link after another.

But to call this an act of terrorism, the White House would need an autographed photo of Osama bin Laden helping Hasan buy weapons in downtown Killeen, Texas. Even that might not suffice.

Islamist terrorists don't all have al Qaeda union cards in their wallets. Terrorism's increasingly the domain of entrepreneurs and independent contractors. Under Muslim jurisprudence, jihad's an individual responsibility. Hasan was a self-appointed jihadi.

Yet we're told he was just having a bad day.

More at the link.

The Building Backlash Against Rick Santorum

I'm going to say it once more: Not one of the remaining candidates is my first pick, but I'm impressed with Rick Santorum, and I'd like to see him continue in the race and make the case for his candidacy. That's how it works.

That said, things certainly look grim for the GOP, by the looks of some of the responses to Santorum's surge and the increasingly desperate appeals to support Mitt Romney.

Jennifer Rubin, the resident Romney shill at the Washington Post, attempts to knock down Santorum this morning, "Is the not-Romney an improvement for conservatives?" I think attacking Santorum as an "extremist" is over-the-top and personally offensive, but that's Rubin for you:

I had lunch with a conservative scholar and writer on Friday. Remarking on the rise of Rick Santorum, he exclaimed sarcastically, “Oh, swell, the Republicans have found a guy who’s a big spender AND an extremist on social issues!”

On one level it was a funny remark, symptomatic of the notion among many conservative curmudgeons that if there is a way to screw up an election the GOP will find it. On the other, it was an interesting statement that suggests that the Republicans, after winning a House majority in 2010 by stressing limited government and focusing much less on social issues, may undo their success by choosing a candidate with positions unpopular with a substantial majority of Americans — big government and excessive meddling in personal lives (having nothing to do with abortion, on which the GOP is virtually united and public opinion in general is at least evenly divided.)

The two issues that I raised this past week — Santorum’s unconservative economic thinking and his extremism on social issues — have not gone unnoticed by others.

There's more at the link.

Again, that notion of "extremism on social issues" really rankles. Tell me, what's so extreme to say that traditional marriage is the foundation of a decent, ordered society? And what's so extreme to say that abortion is an abomination, and we should do everything we can to discourage it. It's funny too, since no doubt much of Rubin's attack on Santorum as "extreme" is directed at his Catholicism. But Rubin is Jewish, and one of the hardest of the neoconservative hardliners on the defense of Israel, something I admire in fact. The point is the hypocrisy here is astounding, and frankly a real turnoff.

In any case, Dan Riehl has more on this, taking on John Hinderaker for his whiny pleadings in favor of Mitt. See: "Powerline's Pansy Politics."

BONUS: Some additional thoughts from William Jacobson, "I feel Santorum supporters’ pain."

EXTRA: At Reuters, "Santorum says Obama agenda not 'based on Bible'." (Via Memeorandum.)

Santorum's walking that back a bit now at the video above.

Thousands Sign Letter Protesting the New York Times' Coverage of Trans People, Coordinated With Letter from GLAAD -- New York Times Defends Its Journalism

A big brouhaha today on the trans extremist world. 

At Neiman Lab, "One open letter draws parallels between the Times’ coverage of trans people and, in earlier decades, its coverage of gay people and HIV/AIDS."

And see Esther Wang, "New York Times Writers Call Out the Paper’s Anti-Trans Onslaught":

On Wednesday morning, a group of almost 200 journalists and writers released an open letter addressed to the New York Times, sharing their "serious concerns about editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people" and criticizing how the Times has "follow[ed] the lead of far-right hate groups in presenting gender diversity as a new controversy warranting new, punitive legislation."

The open letter, whose signees include regular contributors to the Times and prominent writers and journalists like Ed Yong, Lucy Sante, Roxane Gay, and Rebecca Solnit, comes at a time when far-right extremist groups and their analogues in state legislatures are ramping up their attacks on trans young people; just yesterday, South Dakota became the sixth state to ban or restrict gender-affirming care for youth, efforts that one conservative activist recently acknowledged was merely the first step toward their goal of banning transition care altogether.

In recent years and months, the Times has decided to play an outsized role in laundering anti-trans narratives and seeding the discourse with those narratives, publishing tens of thousands of handwringing words on trans youth—reporting that is now approvingly cited and lauded, as the letter writers note, by those who seek to ban and criminalize gender-affirming care.

As the critic Tom Scocca wrote of the Times' reporting, "This is pretty obviously—and yet not obviously enough—a plain old-fashioned newspaper crusade. Month after month, story after story, the Times is pouring its attention and resources into the message that there is something seriously concerning about the way young people who identify as trans are receiving care." He then asked: "If it's not a problem, why else would it be in the paper?"

Loads of links at the article, but see, if you can stomach it, "THE WORST THING WE READ THIS WEEK: Why Is the New York Times So Obsessed With Trans Kids?" (Via Memeorandum.)

Why Macron Won

Here's NYT "voxsplaining" the French election:

Et voilà. MUST READ this very good @AdamNossiter analysis of why Emmanuel Macron won and Marine Le Pen lost. https://t.co/EPWo2V6ofz

— Rachel Donadio — NYT (@RachelDonadio) May 8, 2017

PARIS — The French presidential runoff transcended national politics. It was globalization against nationalism. It was the future versus the past. Open versus closed.

But in his resounding victory on Sunday night, Emmanuel Macron, the centrist who has never held elected office, won because he was the beneficiary of a uniquely French historic and cultural legacy, where many voters wanted change but were appalled at the type of populist anger that had upturned politics in Britain and the United States. He trounced the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, keeping her well under 40 percent, even as her aides said before the vote that anything below that figure would be considered a failure.

His victory quickly brought joy from Europe’s political establishment, especially since a Le Pen victory would have plunged the European Union into crisis. But in the end, Mr. Macron, only 39, a former investment banker and an uninspired campaigner, won because of luck, an unexpected demonstration of political skill, and the ingrained fears and contempt that a majority of French still feel toward Ms. Le Pen and her party, the National Front.

For the past year, a pressing political question has been whether widespread public frustration against Western political establishments had morphed into a global populist movement. Britain’s vote to leave the European Union last June, followed by the presidential election of Donald J. Trump in the United States, created the impression of a mounting wave. Ms. Le Pen, stalwart of the European far right, was the next truly big test.

But Ms. Le Pen’s challenge was different because French history is different. She has spent the last six years as president of the National Front single-mindedly focused on one objective: erasing the stain of her party’s association with the ex-collaborationists, right-wing extremists, immigrant-hating racists and anti-Semites who founded it 45 years ago.

She knew — as her father, the party patriarch Jean-Marie Le Pen, always refused to acknowledge — that she would always be a minority candidate as long as she reminded the French of perhaps the greatest stain in their history, the four years of far-right rule during World War II. Inside and outside the party this process was called “undemonization” — a term suggesting the demons still associated with her party. The French do not want them back.

“There was no choice. I couldn’t vote for Le Pen. You’re not going to vote for the extremist,” said Martine Nurit, 52, a small-restaurant owner who had just cast her ballot in Paris’s 20th Arrondissement on Sunday. She had voted for the far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round, on April 23, and it was with “not an ounce of joy” that she voted for the “business-oriented” Mr. Macron in the second.

“Mostly, I voted against Le Pen,” she said.

In the end Ms. Le Pen failed to “undemonize,” spectacularly. She failed during the course of the campaign, when her angry rallies drew the Front inexorably back into the swamp from which it had emerged. And then she failed decisively in one of the campaign’s critical moments, last week’s debate with Mr. Macron, when she effectively “redemonized” herself and the party, as many French commentators noted...

More.

You know, that's fair enough, as far as it goes. I wouldn't vote for a party that was essentially the Vichy warmed over. But that's not what the National Front is today. Alas, too late. The party's going to change its name, attempting to put its so-called collaborationist, right-wing extremist, immigrant-hating, and racist anti-Semitic history behind. At Politico:

National Front will change its name after Le Pen’s defeat https://t.co/psbUtUDRA4 pic.twitter.com/90v1Yh2aGj

— POLITICO Europe (@POLITICOEurope) May 7, 2017

The Oak Creek Massacre and Political Ideologies

Bob Belvedere has an interesting post, "Sikh Shooting: Don’t Buy The Leftist Lies."

Read it all at the link. I wouldn't go quite that far to say that fascism is entirely a left-wing phenomenon, and it's not true that totalitarianism is entirely found on the left of the spectrum. It would require a book-length exegesis to square the point, although Bob's right to push back against the mainstream progressive meme that  the "neo-Nazis" are associated with conservative politics. They aren't. (Speaking of books, Robert Paxton's got one of the best volumes on this, The Anatomy of Fascism.)

That said, Jonathan Capehart needs a smack over the head, the idiot. At WaPo, "Sikh temple shooting: A ‘lone wolf’ in Wisconsin":

The Department of Homeland Security warned us about the likes of Wade Michael Page, the alleged gunman who killed six people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisc.

In an April 2009 report , entitled, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” DHS warned that “lone wolves . . . embracing violent right-wing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.” It went on to say that “white supremacist lone wolves pose the most significant domestic terrorist threat because of their low profile and autonomy — separate from any formalized group — which hampers warning efforts.” And it noted that military expertise and knowledge made lone wolves especially dangerous.

WaPo even embeds the report at that piece. And that trash report was widely condemned at the time, as bad research and abject political trash. Notice how it's sure coming in handy now.

FLASHBACK: From Michelle, "Confirmed: The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real":

I have covered DHS for many years and am quite familiar with past assessments they and the FBI have done on animal rights terrorists and environmental terrorists. But those past reports have always been very specific in identifying the exact groups, causes, and targets of domestic terrorism, i.e., the ALF, ELF, and Stop Huntingdon wackos who have engaged in physical harassment, arson, vandalism, and worse against pharmaceutical companies, farms, labs, and university researchers.

By contrast, the piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives. And the intent is clear. As the two spokespeople I talked with on the phone today made clear: They both pinpointed the recent “economic downturn” and the “general state of the economy” for stoking “rightwing extremism.” One of the spokespeople said he was told that the report has been in the works for a year. My b.s. detector went off the chart, and yours will, too, if you read through the entire report — which asserts with no evidence that an unquantified “resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalizations activity” is due to home foreclosures, job losses, and…the historical presidential election.

In Obama land, there are no coincidences. It is no coincidence that this report echoes Tea Party-bashing left-wing blogs (check this one out comparing the Tea Party movement to the Weather Underground!) and demonizes the very Americans who will be protesting in the thousands on Wednesday for the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party.

The issue isn't so much that there's are far-right reactionary ideologies. It's the double standard that progressives employ to destroy the American right by falsely equating libertarian-conservatives with the 20th century racist ideologies of pre-WWII Europe.

Year of the Woman? Not for Feminists

I guess it's logical in our identity-obssessed, quota driven politics, but all this talk about "The Year of the Woman" is so yesterday. In California we've had two women senators for two decades. In 2008, Hillary Clinton nearly won the Democratic nomination and Sarah Palin was the GOP vice presidential nominee. And with Elena Kagan's likely confirmation, there'll be three women sitting on the United States Supreme Court. We have full gender equality in the United States. Women are still moving in top positions of power, and their numbers have yet to catch up with men in governmental institutions, but it's silly to deny full equality of opportunity. Indeed, Hanna Rosin at The Atlantic --- a gender extremist if there ever was one, in her demonization of breast-feeding, for example --- is jumping for joy in "The End of Men" from the July/August edition. Sure, a lot of it's over-the-top, but the larger reality of the empowerment of women is no longer in question.

So why all the attention to the string of women's victories in Tuesday's primaries? The press needs a catchy spin, for one thing. Or, more likely, journalists need to feed the cultish mavens of gender equality. For example, at Wall Street Journal, "Women Candidates Come Into Their Own." And at USA Today, "Women candidates play major role in 2010."

But wait! Everything's not so hunky dory on the feminist front. At the Los Angeles Times, "2010: the Year of the Conservative Woman?", you'll notice the stress on "conservative women," as if women on the right aren't for equality. And check the comments at Jezebel, "Meet The Political Ladies Who Triumphed Last Night." Tuesday was a big night for women candidates, but leftists can't stand it:

Republican women politicians (and just in general) are the worst. They want to take away my rights but have the right to keep theirs. Fuck all of these bishes!

I'm all for sisterhood (or whatever) but not if it includes women like these.

*****

Do we really want politicians, even if they are women, making decisions for our states and/or country that includes many people they don't even consider worth their time, not to mention trying to take ownership of our reproductive organs and forcing religion into politics?

*****

Oh hello there women of the GOP. Why don't we make a deal here. I won't try to control your uterus and you don't try to control mine.

That kind of downer on the left has Rachael Larimore asking, "Where’s the Rah-Rah Sisterhood?"

Why the schizophrenia on women's progress? Why the disconnect and disenchantment? Obviously, feminism today is an ideology that leverages victimhood and male-hatred into a regime of abortion-on-demand and gender quota set-asides. It's one of the most important currents on the contemporary radical left. And the trend isn't just isolated to extremist feminist bloggers like Amanda Marcotte or Jessica Valenti. Take a look at Barbara Kellerman's piece at yesterday's Business Week, "Don’t Drink Yet to New ‘Year of the Woman’":

There’s no doubt, obviously, that the role of women in society is changing, in some cases in important ways. Among the changes are those in education, where females are increasingly more educated, better educated and better credentialed than their male counterparts.

But so far as leadership roles are concerned, whether in government or industry, or for that matter in nonprofits and in the military, women in America still badly lag behind. Here are just a few of the figures...

What follows there is a long list of statistics on the comparative indicators of women's progress. But we'll always have differences in achievement in America. We're to the point where women are catching up and surpassing men in the everyday measurements of success such as college attendance and middle-class earnings. That's what Hanna Rosin's boasting about at The Atlantic. And until the rest of the downbeat press corps and radical feminists start picking up that meme, despite increasing female representation in politics, we'll never truly ever have a "Year of the Woman."

McCain-Palin and the Sanctity of Life

In my essay, "The Secret Life of Senator Infanticide," I confessed that Barack Obama's consistent votes against Illinois' Born Alive Infant Protection Act was perhaps the most disturbing revelation so far on Obama's extreme left-wing ideology (and that really is saying a lot).

Frankly, I was appalled (and nearly sick) reading stories of babies left to die in soiled-utility closets. Knowing that readers of this blog might share my indignation, I distributed my essay via e-mail to dozens of regulars.

Some responded by redistributing the post on their own pages (thanks here and here), but others were not so pleased with my pro-life audacity. Especially upset was Elaine from Elaine's Place, a generally nice women with whom I've had occasional contact, who sent this uncharacteristic attack in response:

Here I thought you were a nice Reagan neocon and instead I find you are a right wing extremist, in the same category of left wing extremist Wade Churchill. I was shocked....then mad...........then just plain disappointed. And what's really frightening is you are in a teaching position! I shudder at the thought.

Well, you know, I shudder at the thought of the indifference to life among Obama defenders, including the many, many more like Elaine who've become so enamored of the oratorical powers of "The One," that they've checked their intellectual faculties at the gates of Mile High.

So on that point, next to Andrew McCarthy and Elizabeth Scalia, this week's essay by Jeff Jacoby - on the power of life in the John McCain-Sarah Palin presidential ticket - is unsurpassed in moral clarity: "A Stark Choice on Abortion":

DURING a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania last March, Senator Barack Obama was asked about teenagers and sexually transmitted diseases.

He replied that "the most important prevention is education," including "information about contraception." Then he added: "Look, I've got two daughters - 9 years old and 6 years old. I'm going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16."

If Obama had deliberately set out to appall prolife voters, he couldn't have uttered four words more jarring than "punished with a baby." The equation of any new child with punishment set teeth on edge, and Obama's campaign quickly issued a clarification. The candidate, a loving father of two, believes that "children are miracles," it said; he only meant to underscore the importance of reducing teen pregnancy. But Obama's unscripted words needed no clarifying. They tartly encapsulated the extreme position on "choice" he has staked out in his career.

What brings Obama's revealing turn of phrase to mind, of course, is the pregnancy of Governor Sarah Palin's unmarried 17-year-old daughter.

"Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned," Palin and her husband announced in a statement. "We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support. Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family."

Granted, Obama was engaging in a hypothetical speculation, while the Palins were dealing with a real-life family challenge. Still, what a contrast! To the Democratic nominee, a teenage daughter's unforeseen baby is a punishment to be prevented; to the Republican Veep-designee, it is a blessing to be embraced.

Jacoby also mentions Obama's clinical, lawyerly dodge of the issue at last month's Saddleback Civil Forum, adding this:

And when has a Republican ticket ever been so unabashedly prolife? Senator John McCain, long one of the Senate's reliably prolife votes, is a father of seven, including an adopted orphan from Bangladesh. His running mate lacks McCain's voting record, yet her bona fides are even more impressive: When Palin and her husband learned last winter that she was carrying a baby with Down syndrome, they never considered not having him. More than 90 percent of pregnant American women in the same position choose abortion. Palin chose life....

Ambiguities may muddle the 2008 campaign, but not when it comes to abortion. The next president and vice president will be the most pro-choice in US history. Or the most pro-life.

With the selection of Sarah Palin, social issues have emerged as the undeniable dividing line in the 2008 election.

The differences between the Democrats and the Republicans on the sanctity of life couldn't be more clear, and frankly, if there's any extremism involved here, it's on the far left-wing end of the spectrum.

Radical Leftist Norman Lear Claims American Dream is 'Born Again' in Occupy Wall Street

I'd swear this guy's off his rocker, but he's a radical extremist, so no surprise.

At Los Angeles Times, "Norman Lear on fighting the good fight" (at Memeorandum):

I was recently shown a picture from one of the Occupy protests taking place across the country. It featured a young woman surrounded by police. She was the only protester in the picture, but she didn't seem intimidated. All by herself, up against the police barricade, she held a handwritten sign saying simply "I am a born again American."

I've never met this woman, but I think I know exactly what she's feeling.

I had my first "born again American" moment 30 years ago, when I was moved to outrage and action by a group of hate-preaching televangelists who were trying to claim sole ownership of patriotism, faith and flag for the far right. One of them asked his viewing congregation to pray for the removal of a Supreme Court justice.

I did what I knew how to do and produced a 60-second TV spot. It featured a factory worker whose family members, all Christians, held an array of political beliefs. He didn't believe that anyone, not even a minister, had a right to judge whether people were good or bad Christians based on their political views. "That's not the American way," he wound up saying. I ran it on local TV, and it was picked up by the networks. People For the American Way grew out of the overwhelming response to that ad.

One of the most encouraging things to happen in 2011 was the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is giving the entire country the chance for a "born again American" moment. In calling attention to the country's widening chasm between rich and poor, the Occupiers have unleashed decades of pent-up patriotic outrage against the systematic violation of our nation's core principles by the "say good-bye to the middle class" alliance of the neocons, theocons and corporate America.

Jeez, a true believer --- in an extremist anti-America, Jew-hating movement.

The New Editor comments on Lear's op-ed, indicating that, "Frankly, not much in Lear's piece is all that new or interesting, except perhaps for the continued hypocrisy and demagoguery."

Word.

And it turns out that Lear was the chief organizer for the pro-terror anti-war front group United For Peace and Justice, whose  former chairman was Leslie Cagan, "a committed communist who aligns her politics with those of the longtime Cuban dictator Fidel Castro."

Wow, what an awesome endorsement for Occupy Wall Street!

The guy's a freak and Occupy's an abomination.

PHOTO CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons.

David Cameron Pledges Crackdown on 'Hate Clerics'

I'll believe it when I see it.

At London's Daily Mail, "I'll gag the hate clerics: Cameron to launch new terror task force to stamp out religious extremism":

David Cameron is planning new powers to muzzle Islamic hate preachers accused of provoking terrorist outrages such as the killing of soldier Lee Rigby.

The Prime Minister wants to stop extremist clerics using schools, colleges, prisons and mosques to spread their ‘poison’ and is to head a new Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Task Force (TERFOR) made up of senior Ministers, MI5, police and moderate religious leaders.

The high-powered group will study a number of measures, including banning extremist clerics from being given public platforms to incite students, prisoners and other followers – and forcing mosque leaders to answer for ‘hate preachers’.

More at the link.

At the photo is prominent Muslim hate preacher Anjem Choudary at a demonstration with jihad killer Michael Adebojalo in 2007.

More at Pat Dollard, "Feel-Good Story of the Day: Anti-Muslim Actions Rise In Britain After Public Beheading."