Smile that melts misconceptions: How Taya, who was born with Down's, became darling of the modelling world

12/01/2011 -

The camera just loves little Taya Kennedy. Wide-eyed, cheeky, engaged; she brims with the confidence of a natural performer. It is little wonder that she has taken the child-modelling world by storm.

The fact that 14-month-old Taya also has Down’s Syndrome is quite incidental. She was selected, not to fulfil a quota, tick a box or adhere to the dictums of some politically-correct code of positive discrimination. Taya was picked because, quite simply, she is a star.

‘Taya is an incredibly photogenic, warm and smiley child, and that shines through in her photographs,’ says Alysia Lewis, owner of Urban Angels, the prestigious UK model agency that has signed her up.

Star quality: 14-month-old Taya Kennedy. Retailers, including the Early Learning Centre and Mothercare, are already queuing up to feature the bright-eyed toddler in their advertising campaigns

‘We only open our books twice a year and select just a few new children each season.

'The standard is high; the desire for places strong. Taya is one of 50 children we chose from 2,000 applicants.

‘That she has Down’s Syndrome did not enter the equation. We chose her because of her vibrancy and sense of fun. Not all children are comfortable in front of a lens and with a photographer looking at them — especially when they are so young. But Taya was so relaxed and happy. She was just what we were looking for.’

And Taya’s devoted mum, Gemma Andre, couldn’t be more proud.

‘I always believed my daughter was stunning but I thought, “I’m her mum. I’m biased,”’ she says.

'When people say "poor you" I find it offensive and irritating,' said Taya's mother Gemma

‘When the agency rang me and said, “We want her on our books. She’s absolutely beautiful”, I was delighted.

‘I asked them if they were aware she had Down’s Syndrome. They said: “It’s immaterial. We’ve accepted her.” At that moment I burst into tears. I was overjoyed, not so much because Taya was going to be a model. More importantly,  she had competed on equal terms with every other child and succeeded.

‘People can be really negative about children with Down’s. They say they can’t do this and won’t be able to achieve that. It’s incredibly frustrating. Someone said to me the other day: “I suppose she’ll never be able to live an independent life,” and I said, “Why on earth not?”

‘When people say “poor you” I find it offensive and irritating. The way I see it, some people cannot even have children and God has given me this special child.’

The story of Taya, her single-minded mum and proud father Robbie Kennedy is an uplifting one. Gemma, 29, a mortgage adviser with Santander, has never accepted that constraints must be imposed on her daughter because she has a disability.

She refuses to countenance the negative and believes that her only child is capable of achieving any dream, however elevated.

‘Already Taya attends a mainstream nursery,’ she says.

‘Her father and I want her to go to an ordinary school, too. After her birth, I was given a list of things she wouldn’t achieve; accomplishments she could never hope to master.

‘It was so dispiriting. I was told her teeth would not all develop. But already she has seven baby teeth. I was warned she would be slow to speak. But she already says “dad, mum, nana, cat and ta”.

‘So now I take no notice of what the experts say.

'And I am determined Taya will have as many chances in life as any other child. I want her to go to dancing school. She loves music and has a sense of rhythm; she sways and claps her hands when I sing to her.

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Put Personhood Amendments Aside, Focus on Ending Abortion

11/14/2011 -

by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 11/10/11 3:01 PM

With the defeat of the personhood amendment in Mississippi, it’s time for the pro-life movement to put aside these amendments and focus on the task at hand: ending abortion and protecting unborn children under law.

The sponsors of the personhood amendments have a great goal — define human life starting at fertilization. After all, what pro-life advocate doesn’t understand that the scientific beginning of human life is at conception. Anyone who has passed 8th grade biology ought to understand that the coming together of sperm and egg confers into existence a unique human being with all of the DNA necessary to make them who they will be after nine months of growth and development.

However, as a legal strategy for ending abortion, personhood amendments are another matter entirely.

The Personhood Amendment Will Not Ban Abortion

As LifeNews reported, personhood language is nothing new — even the state of Texas, whose abortion prohibition became the subject of the Roe v. Wade case that toppled pro-life bans on abortion at the time, contained language declaring unborn children are persons starting at conception. Other states have followed suit with similar personhood language, but the Supreme Court has expressed again and again, in Roe, Akron, Webster, Casey and other prominent abortion cases, that such language can’t be used to end abortions. We’re going on almost four decades of states defining human life at fertilization, yet we’ve experienced the travesty of more than 54 million abortions.

Knowing the personhood amendment will not challenge abortion law or overturn Roe (at best the Supreme Court would uphold the language but declare it not applicable to abortion laws, at worst some top pro-life attorneys argue it could be used to reaffirm Roe and unlimited abortions) sponsors of the amendments are pushing forward with more of them for 2012 and beyond.

Voters in Pro-Life, Swing States Are Reluctant to Pass Personhood Amendments

The first votes on personhood amendments took place in Colorado, a formerly conservative red state that, thanks to an influx of new residents from places like California and New York, has swung purple. There’s a reason why Barack Obama came to Denver to launch his 2008 campaign. Colorado is a swing state that every political observer says is key to whether or not pro-abortion President Barack Obama gets another four years in office.

Yet, as a swing state that is far less liberal than the West Coast states or those in the northeast like Massachusetts, Colorado overwhelmingly defeated the personhood amendment. Twice.

The 2010 amendment lost by a 70-30 percentage point margin as Amendment 62 failed to gain a majority in any Colorado county. Colorado voters defeated Amendment 48 in 2008 by a 73-27 percentage margin. The 2010 Colorado personhood amendment received the support of more than 100,000 fewer voters than in 2008 — and that was in an election cycle that was a banner one for conservatives and Republicans.

Now the amendment has received a vote on one of the most solidly conservative and pro-life red states in the nation. Mississippi has passed virtually every pro-life law imaginable — to the point that just one abortion business remains in the state. Democratic presidential candidates don’t bother to campaign in Mississippi because it is so strongly conservative and it is so solidly pro-life that both of the gubernatorial candidates — Democrat and Republican — in Tuesday’s election were pro-life.

Yet, the amendment failed in Mississippi, and the 58-42 percentage point margin wasn’t close as the amendment failed by more than 130,000 votes out of nearly 800,000 cast. That 58-42 percentage point margin is the almost the same as the blowout of 1984 when Ronald Reagan beat Walter Mondale in one of the top five most lopsided races in presidential history.

As pro-life political scientist and abortion law researcher Michael New explains, if the amendment can’t win in Mississippi, it’s likely not going to win anywhere in the current political climate.

“It is difficult to see where Personhood proponents go from here. Tuesday’s election offered Personhood supporters their best opportunity for electoral success. They qualified a citizen initiative in Mississippi — among the most pro-life states in the country — during a low-turnout election in which Democrats fielded relatively weak statewide candidates,” he explains. “In spite of all this, the Mississippi Personhood Amendment still lost by a double-digit margin.”

Pushing Personhood Amendments Further Damages the Pro-Life Movement

Knowing that the personhood amendment lost by a landslide twice in a swing state and a lopsided 17-point margin in arguably the most pro-life state in the nation, there’s little realistic expectation that the personhood amendment will be approved anywhere in the country. As the amendment continues to rack up defeats, support from pro-life advocates willing to invest in what will almost assuredly be a losing proposition will wane. Media reports will continue focusing on the pro-life movement losing at the polls and the pro-abortion side will continue gloating that they are in the majority despite clear polling data showing America is pro-life.  Read more here.

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Another Energy Company Goes Bankrupt, $39 Million Borrowed From Taxpayers

11/01/2011 -

An energy company that received a $43 million loan guarantee through the same federal program that backed Solyndra has followed the path of the failed solar firm and filed for bankruptcy.

Beacon Power Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The company, which develops energy storage systems based on what are known as "flywheels," had received the federal guarantee for a 20-megawatt energy storage plant in Stephentown, N.Y., back in August 2010. 

The loan was expected to cover the lion's share of the $69 million project, one of several that Beacon was developing across the country.

But the company's CEO said in a statement to the court that all those projects are "capital intensive," and the firm is struggling to attract the additional investment needed to keep everything running. The fact that the company faced being de-listed from the NASDAQ didn't help, he said.

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Top Muslim Declares All Christians ‘Infidels’ Quoting the Quran (correctly) may be fueling the recent slaughter of Christians in Egypt.

10/31/2011 -

To what extent was Egypt’s Maspero massacre, wherein the military literally mowed down Christian Copts protesting the ongoing destruction of their churches, a product of anti-Christian sentiment?

A video of Sheikh Ali Gomaa (or Gom’a), the grand mufti of Egypt, which began circulating weeks before the massacre, helps elucidate.  While holding that Muslims may coexist with Christians (who, as dhimmis, have rights), Gomaa categorized Christians as kuffar — “infidels” — a word that connotes “enemies,” “evil-doers,” and every bad thing to Muslim ears.

After quoting Quran 5:17, “Infidels are those who say God is the Christ, [Jesus] son of Mary,” he expounded by saying any association between a human and God (in Arabic, shirk) is the greatest sin: “Whoever thinks the Christ is God, or the Son of God, not symbolically — for we are all sons of God — but attributively, has rejected the faith which God requires for salvation,” thereby becoming an infidel.

Gomaa then offered a hypothetical dialogue between Christians and Muslims to illustrate further:

Christians: You have the wrong idea about us; we don’t worship the Christ.

Muslims: Okay, fine; we were under the wrong impression — but, by the way: “Infidels are those who say God is the Christ, son of Mary.”

Christians: But these are philosophical matters that we are unable to explain.

Muslims: Okay, fine; God is one—but, by the way: “Infidels are those who say God is the Christ, son of Mary.”

As a graduate of and long-time professor at  Al Azhar  university before being named grand mufti, Ali Gomaa represents mainstream Islam’s — not “radical Islam’s” or “Islamism’s” — position concerning the “other,” in this case, Christians. Regardless, many in the West hail him as a “moderate” — such as this U.S. News article titled “Finding the Voices of Moderate Islam“; Lawrence Wright  describes him as “a highly promoted champion of moderate Islam”:

He is the kind of cleric the West longs for, because of his assurances that there is no conflict with democratic rule and no need for theocracy. Gomaa has also become an advocate for Muslim women, who he says should have equal standing with men.  Read more here.

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State Dept. spends $70K on Obama books

10/27/2011 -

The State Department has bought more than $70,000 worth of books authored by President Obama, sending out copies as Christmas gratuities and stocking “key libraries” around the world with “Dreams From My Father” more than a decade after its release.

The U.S. Embassy in Egypt, for instance, spent $28,636 in August 2009 for copies of Mr. Obama’s best-selling 1995 memoir. Six weeks earlier, the embassy had placed another order for the same book for more than $9,000, federal purchasing records show.

About the same time, halfway around the world, the U.S. Embassy in South Korea had the same idea and spent more than $6,000 for copies of “Dreams From My Father.”

One month later, the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, spent more than $3,800 for hardcover copies of the Indonesian version of Mr. Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope,” records show.

A review of the expenditures in a federal database did not reveal any examples of State Department purchases of books by former Presidents George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. The purchases of Mr. Obama’s literary work mostly, but not always, took place in the months after Mr. Obama captured the White House.  Read more here.

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Meet the real Grover Norquist

10/07/2011 -

This week a Republican member of Congress took on an increasingly controversial political activist, Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist, an influential figure in the conservative movement famous for his "no tax increase pledge."

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., took to the House floor in an unusual and blistering denunciation of Norquist and his "unsavory" connections. Among those, he cited:

• his ties to known terrorist financiers Abdurahman Alamoudi and Sami Al-Arian;
• his support for the Ground Zero mosque;
• his advocacy for transferring Guantanamo detainees to U.S. soil;
• his lobbying on behalf of Fannie Mae;
• his representation of the Internet gambling industry.

"Simply put," said Wolf in a sharp attack recorded on C-SPAN, "I believe Mr. Norquist is connected with or has profited from a number of unsavory people and groups out of the mainstream."

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Issa to launch probe of Obama actions on Solyndra, LightSquared

10/04/2011 -

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that his committee plans to investigate government loan programs to private corporations in light of allegations of improper dealings between the White House and failed energy company Solyndra and wireless start-up LightSquared.

"I want to see when the president and his cronies are picking winners and losers… it wasn't because there were large contributions given to them," the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Tuesday morning on C-SPAN.

Issa said the committee was looking at whether it was improper for members of Congress or White House staff to select companies eligible for subsidized government loans when those companies could give campaign donations. Loan programs have been a popular tool to provide funding for popular industries — like tech, green energy, and American auto companies — at more favorable terms than could be secured privately.

The Obama administration has been defending itself against criticism by Republicans that it exerted improper influence to the aid of both companies.

Solyndra abruptly filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, surprising both employees and the administration, which had secured $535 million in low-interest loans for the company. Read more here.

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A major victory, but the battle rages on

10/03/2011 -

Taking out a big-time terrorist like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s Anwar al-Awlaki is kind of like winning a key game in the fall run for the pennant: It’s a big victory, but it doesn’t mean you’ve won the World Series.

Sure, some high-fives, back-slaps and oh-yeahs have been earned by our intrepid spooks and military special-operations folks for getting a bad actor like Awlaki, who was born in the US but left for his parents’ home in Yemen as a kid.

But it doesn’t mean the fight with terrorism is over.

There’s no doubt the reportedly charismatic, self-proclaimed cleric was a dangerous dude and his demise is another bone-crushing roundhouse to al Qaeda -- and especially to AQAP, probably the most dangerous al Qaeda affiliate out there today.

For instance, Awlaki had contact with at least three of the 9/11 hijackers, who frequented his mosques in Virginia and California, although it’s not clear whether he was aware of the horrific plot before it happened.

More recently, he had a direct or indirect hand in a number of serious terror plots or acts against the United States, including:

* Last year’s attempted Times Square bombing.

* The “ink cartridge caper,” where AQAP modified printer cartridges into bombs that they then sought to mail to the United States on air freight carriers, planning to blow up the bombs over US cities.

* The Underwear Bomber, who tried to bring down a trans-Atlantic Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009 by detonating explosives in his pants.

* The Fort Hood massacre, where a US Army major killed nearly 15 and injured almost twice as many in 2009 at one of our largest military bases.

With his native English-language skills, Awlaki was also key in the development of al Qaeda’s online magazine, Inspire, which not only encouraged the terror group’s efforts to establish a global caliphate, but schooled them in terrorism’s dark arts.

So where do we stand now that Awlaki is gone? Read more here.

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Heat-Seeking Missiles Are Missing From Libyan Arms Stockpile

09/27/2011 -

TRIPOLI, Libya — The sign on the wall reads “Schoolbook Printing and Storage Warehouse,” but the fact that the double gates in the wall have been crudely ripped off suggests that something more interesting might be inside.

It turns out that the only books to be found in any of the three large buildings in the walled compound are manuals — how to fire rocket launchers and wire-guided missiles, among others. The buildings are actually disguised warehouses full of munitions — mortar shells, artillery rounds, anti-tank missiles and more — thousands of pieces of military ordnance that are completely unguarded more than two weeks after the fall of the capital.

Perhaps most interesting of all is what is no longer there, but until recent days apparently was: shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles of the type that could be used by terrorists to shoot down civilian airliners. American authorities have long been concerned that Libyan missiles could easily find their way onto the black market.

These missiles, mostly SA-7b Grails, as NATO refers to them, have been spotted in Libya before and are well known to have been sold to the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi by former Eastern bloc countries. The evidence at the schoolbook warehouse confirms just how large those quantities were. It also raises questions about how many of them may have been purloined by rebels, criminals or smugglers.

Matthew Schroeder, who researches heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles and their proliferation for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said the discovery of yet another looted arms depot in Libya was cause for concern, especially depots that contained what security specialists call Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems, or Manpads.

Western governments and nongovernment organizations have repeatedly asked and prodded the rebel government, the Transitional National Council, to take steps to secure the vast stockpiles of arms that it has inherited, apparently to little avail. Read more here.

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PayPal blacklists Christian writer

09/23/2011 -

Online activist told friends must find another way to support his ministry

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Shariah Lobby's Play Action Fake - "Danger, Danger, Danger!"

08/30/2011 -

Lt. Colonel James Zumwalt, USMC (ret)

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United Arab Emirates Donates $500,000 to Joplin Schools

08/22/2011 -

United Arab Emirates Donates $500,000 to Joplin Schools
In the wake of the May 22, 2011 catastrophic tornado that damaged and destroyed much of Joplin,
Missouri, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Embassy in Washington, DC, on behalf of the people of
the UAE, has pledged a significant donation to Joplin Public Schools (JPS) to assist the school
district in meeting its goal to provide all enrolled high school students with laptops at the start of the
2011-12 academic year. These laptops will allow students to attend “virtual classrooms” while Joplin
High School is being rebuilt, and access educational resources, such as textbooks.
The UAE Embassy is providing an initial $500,000 donation to support JPS’s “One-to-One”
initiative, which aims to provide all 2,200 Joplin High School students with a personal laptop
computer. In addition, the Embassy has issued a challenge grant, in which it will match, dollar-fordollar,
any funds donated to the “One-to-One” initiative, up to an additional $500,000; bringing the
total UAE Embassy grant to $1,000,000. The Embassy issued the challenge in the hope that
encouraging others to donate will help JPS swiftly meet its goal of issuing all students a laptop at the
start of the school year. Read more here.

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The Debt-Ceiling Divide

07/30/2011 -

The Debt-Ceiling Divide
We’re only at the midpoint of the battle to change the ideological course of the country.
 

We’re in the midst of a great four-year national debate on the size and reach of government, the future of the welfare state, indeed, the nature of the social contract between citizen and state. The distinctive visions of the two parties — social-democratic versus limited-government — have underlain every debate on every issue since Barack Obama’s inauguration: the stimulus, the auto bailouts, health-care reform, financial regulation, deficit spending. Everything. The debt ceiling is but the latest focus of this fundamental divide.

The sausage-making may be unsightly, but the problem is not that Washington is broken, that ridiculous, ubiquitous cliché. The problem is that these two visions are in competition, and the definitive popular verdict has not yet been rendered.

We’re only at the midpoint. Obama won a great victory in 2008 that he took as a mandate to transform America toward European-style social democracy. The subsequent counterrevolution delivered to that project a staggering rebuke in November 2010. Under our incremental system, however, a rebuke delivered is not a mandate conferred. That awaits definitive resolution, the rubber match of November 2012.

I have every sympathy with the conservative counterrevolutionaries. Their containment of the Obama experiment has been remarkable. But reversal — rollback, in Cold War parlance — is simply not achievable until conservatives receive a mandate to govern from the White House.

Lincoln is reputed to have said: I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky. I don’t know whether conservatives have God on their side (I keep getting sent to His voicemail), but I do know that they don’t have Kentucky — they don’t have the Senate, they don’t have the White House. And under our constitutional system, you cannot govern from one house alone. Today’s resurgent conservatism, with its fidelity to constitutionalism, should be particularly attuned to this constraint, imposed as it is by a system of deliberately separated — and mutually limiting — powers.

Given this reality, trying to force the issue — trying to turn a blocking minority into a governing authority — is not just counter-constitutional in spirit but self-destructive in practice.  Read more here.

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Founders Without Whom America Would Not Exist

07/02/2011 -

As we enter another Independence Day weekend, I think it would be good to remind ourselves of who those men were that counted the cost and paid the price to bring this land of liberty into existence. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans today seem to have very little–if any–knowledge and appreciation for the sacrifices that our Founding Fathers made in order to birth this great country. We can thank the vast majority of our schools (including the institutions of higher learning), major media, political institutions, and even churches for this egregious embarrassment. Accordingly, I think it fitting that today’s column will attempt to renew in our hearts the respect and reverence that these great men whom we call Founding Fathers so richly deserve.

George Washington

Called “The Father of His Country,” George Washington was, perhaps, the most important man of the founding era. Supernaturally spared during the Indian wars, Washington became the military leader who held the Continental Army together when it was virtually impossible for any man to do so. Without his leadership at Valley Forge and elsewhere, there is absolutely no doubt that the Continental Army would have fallen apart and the fight for independence would have been lost.

Equally significant is the leadership that George Washington demonstrated in the Continental Congress. Without question, Washington was the glue that held the political bodies of the colonies together. Then add the fact that George Washington was America’s first President, whose leadership solidified the colonies into a new United States, and his value to the cause of American independence cannot be in any way overstated.

Think of it: George Washington was the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. And he led that inferior army to victory over the greatest military force in the world at the time: Great Britain. Afterward, Washington rebuffed a strong effort to inaugurate him as America’s king, and led the fledgling nation to embrace republican government instead. Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention that drafted the US Constitution. He was America’s first President. Washington’s Farewell Address formed the compass and rudder of America for at least the next hundred years and, in my opinion, is the greatest political address ever delivered on American soil. Without George Washington, there would be no America.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of America’s birth certificate: the Declaration of Independence. In my mind, there is no greater document of liberty ever written by man. When it came to the understanding of human rights, individual liberty, State rights, and enlightenment philosophy, Jefferson had no peer.

President John F. Kennedy once held a dinner at the White House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: “This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” He was probably right.

Jefferson served in the Continental Congress; he was the first Secretary of State; he was the third President of the United States; he commissioned the Lewis and Clark expedition; he was the author of the Virginia Statute For Religious Freedom, which is regarded as one of the greatest declarations of religious liberty ever written; he spoke five languages and could read two others; he knew and influenced virtually every man who would be regarded as a Founding Father today; and he wrote nearly 16,000 personal letters. Had not the British burned much of it in the War of 1812, his library would probably go down as the greatest personal collection of literary works ever collected by one man. Without Thomas Jefferson, there would be no America.

Patrick Henry  Read more here.

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Radical Islamist groups gaining stranglehold in Egypt

04/18/2011 -

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Unreported Soros Event Aims to Remake Entire Global Economy

03/25/2011 -

• By Dan Gainor
• Wednesday, March 23, 2011 4:48 PM EDT

Two years ago, George Soros said he wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system. In two short weeks, he is going to start - and no one seems to have noticed.

On April 8, a group he's funded with $50 million is holding a major economic conference and Soros's goal for such an event is to "establish new international rules" and "reform the currency system." It's all according to a plan laid out in a Nov. 4, 2009, Soros op-ed calling for "a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order."

The event is bringing together "more than 200 academic, business and government policy thought leaders' to repeat the famed 1944 Bretton Woods gathering that helped create the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Soros wants a new 'multilateral system," or an economic system where America isn't so dominant.

More than two-thirds of the slated speakers have direct ties to Soros. The billionaire who thinks "the main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat" is taking no chances.

Thus far, this global gathering has generated less publicity than a spelling bee. And that's with at least four journalists on the speakers list, including a managing editor for the Financial Times and editors for both Reuters and The Times. Given Soros's warnings of what might happen without an agreement, this should be a big deal. But it's not.

What is a big deal is that Soros is doing exactly what he wanted to do. His 2009 commentary pushed for "a new Bretton Woods conference, like the one that established the post-WWII international financial architecture." And he had already set the wheels in motion.  Read more here.

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A European's Warning to America

03/14/2011 -

• MARCH 11, 2011

The perils of following us toward greater regulation, higher taxes and centralized power.

By DANIEL HANNAN

On a U.S. talk-radio show recently, I was asked what I thought about the notion that Barack Obama had been born in Kenya. "Pah!" I replied. "Your president was plainly born in Brussels."

American conservatives have struggled to press the president's policies into a meaningful narrative. Is he a socialist? No, at least not in the sense of wanting the state to own key industries. Is he a straightforward New Deal big spender, in the model of FDR and LBJ? Not exactly.

My guess is that, if anything, Obama would verbalize his ideology using the same vocabulary that Eurocrats do. He would say he wants a fairer America, a more tolerant America, a less arrogant America, a more engaged America. When you prize away the cliché, what these phrases amount to are higher taxes, less patriotism, a bigger role for state bureaucracies, and a transfer of sovereignty to global institutions.

He is not pursuing a set of random initiatives but a program of comprehensive Europeanization: European health care, European welfare, European carbon taxes, European day care, European college education, even a European foreign policy, based on engagement with supranational technocracies, nuclear disarmament and a reluctance to deploy forces overseas.

No previous president has offered such uncritical support for European integration. On his very first trip to Europe as president, Mr. Obama declared, "In my view, there is no Old Europe or New Europe. There is a united Europe."

I don't doubt the sincerity of those Americans who want to copy the European model. A few may be snobs who wear their euro-enthusiasm as a badge of sophistication. But most genuinely believe that making their country less American and more like the rest of the world would make it more comfortable and peaceable.

All right, growth would be slower, but the quality of life might improve. All right, taxes would be higher, but workers need no longer fear sickness or unemployment. All right, the U.S. would no longer be the world's superpower, but perhaps that would make it more popular. Is a European future truly so terrible?

Yes. I have been an elected member of the European Parliament for 11 years. I have seen firsthand what the European political model means.

The critical difference between the American and European unions has to do with the location of power. The U.S. was founded on what we might loosely call the Jeffersonian ideal: the notion that decisions should be taken as closely as possible to the people they affect. The European Union was based on precisely the opposite ideal. Article One of its foundational treaty commits its nations to establish "an ever-closer union." Read more here.

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Extremist cleric to lead White House protest calling for Muslims to 'rise up and establish Islamic state in America

02/23/2011 -

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:27 PM on 20th February 2011

 

Call to arms: Muslim extremist Anjem Choudary will call for Sharia law to be established across the U.S.

A hardline Muslim cleric who sparked anger across the U.S. with his anti-American comments in a television interview this month is to hold a protest outside the White House.

British extremist Anjem Choudary - who once said 'the flag of Islam will fly over the White House' - has announced he will lead a demonstration calling on Muslims to establish the Sharia law across America.

The rally, planned for March 3, is to take place just weeks after his on-screen row with Fox News presenter Sean Hannity.
 

Mr Choudary, 43, called Americans 'the biggest criminals in the world today.'

The former leader of outlawed group Islam4UK told the Daily Star 'we expect thousands to come out and support us.'

Mr Choudary said the March rally was organised by the Islamic Thinkers society, an extremist group based in New York.

Two other British extremists,  Abu Izzadeen and Sayful Islam, have also been asked to speak at the demonstration.
 

Izzadeen is the hate preacher who caused fury last year when he called British soldiers 'murderers' the day he was released from jail after a three-and-a-half year sentence for inciting terrorism.
 

Mr Choudary told the newspaper: 'The event is a rally, a call for the Sharia, a call for the Muslims to rise up and ­establish the Islamic state in America.'

However, whether the three will be able to enter the U.S., especially Izzadeen, remains to be seen. Even a tourist visa requires applicants to answer questions on whether they have been involved in acts of terrorism or plan to commit crimes in the U.S.

'This is a unique event taking place in Washington, outside the White House which, Inshallah, (God willing) will garner huge support.'

He hit U.S. headlines just two weeks ago after his furious exchange with Mr Hannity on Fox News. The presenter became so enraged with his anti-American comments he ended the interview by calling him a 'sick, miserable, evil S.O.B'.

The East London-based cleric's anti-American stance is well-documented. Last year he led protesters in burning the American flag outside the U.S. embassy in London.  Read more here.
 

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‘String of failures’ cited in Fort Hood attack Report: Warning signs unheeded

02/07/2011 -

An extensive investigation by a Senate committee says the massacre at the U.S. Army Base at Fort Hood, Texas, in which 13 people were killed and 32 others were wounded should have been prevented, but a “string of failures” by the FBI and the Army allowed a “ticking time bomb” to open fire at a crowded deployment center in the worst domestic terrorism ambush since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee investigation, released Thursday by Chairman Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent, and the ranking Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, says the FBI and the Army failed to act on evidence “in plain sight” that the suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, had become an increasingly radicalized Muslim and was in communication with radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.

The committee‘s report says that though the FBI and the Defense Department did not have specific information concerning the time, place or nature of the attack, “they collectively had sufficient information to have detected Hasan‘s radicalization to violent Islamist extremism but failed both to understand and to act on it.

“Our investigation found specific and systemic failures in the government’s handling of the Hasan case and raises additional concerns about what may be broader systemic issues,” the report says. “DOD possessed compelling evidence that Hasan embraced views so extreme that it should have disciplined him or discharged him from the military, but DOD failed to take action against him.”

The report says evidence of Mr. Hasan‘s radicalization to violent Islamist extremism was on “full display to his superiors and colleagues during his military medical training” and that an instructor and a colleague each referred to him as a “ticking time bomb.” Not only was no action taken to discipline or discharge him, the report says, but also his officer evaluation reports sanitized his obsession with violent Islamist extremism into praiseworthy research on counterterrorism.

“The Department of Defense and the FBI had ample evidence of alleged killer Nidal Hasan‘s growing sympathies toward violent Islamist extremism in the years before the attack,” said Mr. Lieberman, who along with Ms. Collins conducted the investigation into the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting. “He was not just a ticking time bomb but a traitor. Thirteen people died needlessly at Fort Hood.”

In response, the FBI said Thursday that it recognizes the value of congressional oversight and agrees with much in the report and many of its recommendations.

“During the internal FBI review undertaken immediately after the attack at Fort Hood, we identified several of the areas of concern outlined in the report, and, as noted in the report, have implemented changes to our systems and processes to address them,” the FBI said. “We will review each of the report’s recommendations and adopt them, as appropriate.”

Read more here.

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GOP freshmen are ready to rock 'n' roll

01/09/2011 -

When the 112th Congress convenes Jan. 5, many familiar faces will be gone from the Capitol's hallways, replaced by newcomers sent by angry voters eager to shake up Washington, D.C.

The incoming class of freshmen lawmakers is enormous by historical standards, and mostly Republican. Of the 435 House members, 96 were newly elected Nov. 2 and 87 of them are Republicans. In the Senate, 13 of the chamber's 100 members are new arrivals, all but one of them Republican.

"Our election represents one of the strongest statements from the American people in the history of our country," incoming Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., told The Washington Examiner.

Scott, the freshman class president, won his House seat much like many of his fellow newcomers: by defeating a Democratic incumbent. Scott beat four-term Rep. Jim Marshall, a moderate Democrat who, like so many others this year, was rejected largely because voters linked him with what they perceived to be an overspending, overreaching federal government run by Democrats. Scott arrives knowing that voters don't want more of the same.

"We are well aware that we need to get to work immediately to stop Washington's spending spree and get this economy turned around," Scott said.

Republicans in November took 63 seats away from House Democrats, recapturing the majority they lost in 2006, and picked up six seats in the Senate, narrowing Democrats' hold on that chamber. By comparison, the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994 yielded 54 new GOP seats in the House and eight in the Senate.

Unlike past years, however, dozens of the Republican freshmen come to Washington carrying the banner of the Tea Party, whose members want a smaller, less intrusive federal government that spends less, a philosophy underscored by their demand that Congress repeal President Obama's new health care reforms.

Tea Party activists aren't just sitting back now that their candidates have won. They say they intend to hold accountable the new lawmakers they helped elect, particularly when it comes to reducing government spending.

"What I want them to accomplish is nothing short of a nonviolent revolution," said Tea Party Patriots co-founder and national coordinator Mark Meckler. "What we expect them to do is absolutely go in and turn Washington, D.C., on its head. We are looking for them to evolve away from the ruling elite and back to the people and back to the states."

Some political experts say the Tea Party's expectations may be too high.

"To some extent, the belief that the freshmen are wild-eyed radicals might work to their benefit by rattling the Washington establishment," Claremont McKenna College political science professor John Pitney said. "In the end, though, I don't think they are going to shut the government down. For the most part, these are sensible people and they realize that such a move would ultimately backfire."

House and Senate GOP leaders have already signaled plans to give the freshmen a greater voice than in the past. Read more here.

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Big Nannies of the Year

01/05/2011 -

by Michelle Malkin

It was a nefarious year for nettlesome nosy-bodies employed by the Nanny State. Here are the top power-grabbers of 2010 who just can’t leave us alone:

– New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Two feet of snow paralyzed trains, buses, plows and emergency vehicles in the Big Apple this week. Perhaps if Bloomberg — the nation’s top self-appointed municipal food cop — spent more of his time on core government duties instead of waging incessant war on taxpayers’ salt, soda, trans-fat and sugar intakes, his battered bailiwick would have been better equipped to weather the storm.

– Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. He proposed meddling mileage taxes, mused about a system to track drivers’ routes, lobbied for high-speed rail boondoggles and promoted a “livability initiative” to limit suburban growth and force dwellers into public transportation. Then America’s driving czar floated a plan earlier this fall to disable cell phones through some kind of centralized government mechanism. LaHood backed off that creepy crusade, but he is still intent on waging war against drivers who choose to use cell phones, entertainment systems and GPS devices on the road. Just last week, the unstoppable control freak proposed a new rule banning truck and bus drivers from any use of cell phones while driving — including emergency calls on hands-free devices. His anti-car agenda is stuck in overdrive.  Read more here.

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The Net Neutrality Coup

12/25/2010 -

The campaign to regulate the Internet was funded by a who's who of left-liberal foundations.

By JOHN FUND

The Federal Communications Commission's new "net neutrality" rules, passed on a partisan 3-2 vote yesterday, represent a huge win for a slick lobbying campaign run by liberal activist groups and foundations. The losers are likely to be consumers who will see innovation and investment chilled by regulations that treat the Internet like a public utility.

There's little evidence the public is demanding these rules, which purport to stop the non-problem of phone and cable companies blocking access to websites and interfering with Internet traffic. Over 300 House and Senate members have signed a letter opposing FCC Internet regulation, and there will undoubtedly be even less support in the next Congress.

Yet President Obama, long an ardent backer of net neutrality, is ignoring both Congress and adverse court rulings, especially by a federal appeals court in April that the agency doesn't have the power to enforce net neutrality. He is seeking to impose his will on the Internet through the executive branch. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a former law school friend of Mr. Obama, has worked closely with the White House on the issue. Official visitor logs show he's had at least 11 personal meetings with the president.

The net neutrality vision for government regulation of the Internet began with the work of Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications professor who founded the liberal lobby Free Press in 2002. Mr. McChesney's agenda? "At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies," he told the website SocialistProject in 2009. "But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control." Read more here.

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Election of black conservatives signals 'awakening'

11/09/2010 -

With South Carolina's victory of the first 'Deep South' black Republican to Congress since Reconstruction, one conservative thinks it's evident that the tea party is not racist.

Ron Miller, a conservative author, columnist, veteran and tea party member, says Tim Scott's election to Congress is "an impressive victory."

"I think it's a great testimony to Americans' ability to evaluate people by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin," he suggests.

In winning the election, Scott beat out two white candidates in the Republican primary, including the son of late Senator Strom Thurmond and the son of former South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell.

"You would think that if there was going to be any state where race would be an issue [it] would be South Carolina. But they've demonstrated their ability, not just with Tim Scott's election, but with Nikki Haley's election as the first female and Indian-American governor of that state, that they're perfectly capable of voting based on the issues," the conservative columnist notes.

He decides the endorsements Scott and Haley both received from the tea party should reject claims that the grassroots movement is racist. Miller also predicts more black conservatives will get involved in the political process in the future.

"We had the largest number of black conservatives run for Congress this year than in any other, and we're going to have two black conservatives in Congress for the first time since 1996," Miller points out. "So we have a beachhead -- to use a military term -- and we want to start using that, not only to show everyone that the black community doesn't think or act alike, [but also] to give black conservatives the courage to speak out and let themselves be heard." Read more here.

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Why Liberals Don't Get the Tea Party Movement

10/18/2010 -

Our universities haven't taught much political history for decades. No wonder so many progressives have disdain for the principles that animated the Federalist debates.

By

Highly educated people say the darndest things, these days particularly about the tea party movement. Vast numbers of other highly educated people read and hear these dubious pronouncements, smile knowingly, and nod their heads in agreement. University educations and advanced degrees notwithstanding, they lack a basic understanding of the contours of American constitutional government.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman got the ball rolling in April 2009, just ahead of the first major tea party rallies on April 15, by falsely asserting that "the tea parties don't represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They're AstroTurf (fake grass-roots) events."

Having learned next to nothing in the intervening 16 months about one of the most spectacular grass-roots political movements in American history, fellow Times columnist Frank Rich denied in August of this year that the tea party movement is "spontaneous and leaderless," insisting instead that it is the instrument of billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne criticized the tea party as unrepresentative in two ways. It "constitutes a sliver of opinion on the extreme end of politics receiving attention out of all proportion with its numbers," he asserted last month. This was a step back from his rash prediction five months before that since it "represents a relatively small minority of Americans on the right end of politics," the tea party movement "will not determine the outcome of the 2010 elections." Read more here.

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Obama Approval Averages 45% in September

10/07/2010 -

Blacks, Democrats, liberals show greatest support for Obama

PRINCETON, NJ -- President Barack Obama's job approval ratings remain below 50%, with an average 45% job approval score for the president in September. That is a slight improvement from his term-low 44% average in August.

More generally, Obama's approval rating has not exceeded 50% in any month this year. Also, he has not had an approval rating above 50% in any Gallup Daily tracking three-day rolling average since mid-May.

These are troubling signs for the Democratic Party as presidents below 50% approval at the time of midterm elections typically see their party lose a substantial number of seats.

With his public approval solidly below 50% in September, it follows that less than a majority in most key demographic subgroups approve of the job the president is doing. His staunchest supporters remain blacks (91%), self-identified Democrats (79%), and self-identified liberals (75%).

Several other groups, all tending to be Democratic in their political orientation, give Obama approval ratings just above the majority level. These include young adults, Hispanics, Eastern region residents, political moderates, those who are unmarried, those with a postgraduate education, and those in the lowest income bracket. Read more here.

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