Encouraged by President Obama, who has revived talk of passing amnesty legislation in 2010, marchers hope to pressure Congress into moving an amnesty bill ahead of other legislative priorities. The marchers will use the event to vent their frustrations about the failure of Congress and the president to address their concerns.

Previous illegal alien marches have featured the slogan "Today we march, tomorrow we vote," noted Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). "Those in Congress would be well-served to remember that the American public votes too. With an estimated 25 million people either unemployed or underemployed, Americans are far more interested in freeing up the millions of jobs now held by illegal aliens than they are in rewarding people who have broken our laws."

Recent polling data indicate that the American public is adamantly opposed to amnesty for illegal aliens. According to a nationwide Rasmussen poll conducted in February:

• 68% of voters believe that gaining control of the border is more important than granting amnesty to illegal aliens. Only 26% see amnesty as a solution to the problem.
• 67% of voters believe that illegal aliens are a significant strain on the U.S. budget.

"The American people have an immigration reform agenda too, one that Congress and successive administrations have been ignoring for decades," Stein said. "What law-abiding Americans want is an immigration policy that protects their vital interests and the enforcement of our laws, not amnesty for illegal aliens."

FAIR has been a strong advocate of worksite enforcement, denial of nonessential services and benefits to those here illegally, greater cooperation between local and federal law enforcement, and increased border security as a solution to mass illegal immigration. "Strategic enforcement has proven to be effective in reducing illegal immigration, and is the approach favored by the vast majority of Americans," said Stein. "Capitulating to the demands of the people who break our laws, fill scarce jobs, and consume billions of dollars in public services has been repeatedly rejected by the American people.

"It is time for President Obama and the leaders of Congress to decide whose side they are on: Those who demand to be rewarded for breaking the law, or the American people?" concluded Stein.

-----------------------------------

And the key rationale is that we need a lot more foreign workers!

Yes, folks, your Members of Congress are really that clueless.

If you can break loose Friday at any time, please try to run by the local office of one of your Members of Congress to explain that there really are 25 million American workers who want a full-time job but can't find one.

You need to express outrage that the top leaders of both Parties are doing nothing to halt or slow-down the issuance of 160,000 work permits (permanent and temporary) to foreign workers every MONTH.

SCHUMER & GRAHAM SAY REASON FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS NOT ENOUGH WORK VISAS F0R FOREIGNERS

One reason the marchers are coming to Washington this weekend is that they have grown tired of waiting for the Schumer/Graham amnesty bill which everyone agrees will be the most likely amnesty plan to come up for a vote this year.

Today, just in time, the two friends of the most greedy of businesses issued their outline (although still no bill):

Our plan has four pillars:

• requiring biometric Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs;
• fulfilling and strengthening our commitments on border security and interior enforcement;
• creating a process for admitting temporary workers;
• and implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here.

It is the particulars behind the third bullet that is most interesting to me.

Schumer and Graham say that we don't have nearly enough less-educated, less-skilled workers in this country (even though unemployment is the highest among these most vulnerable of our American fellow citizens).

They act as if we don't already have dozens of temporary worker programs in place. But they advocate expanding that greatly. And, just in case the temporary workers don't cause enough damage to the wages of the U.S. workers with whom they are competing, they advocate that all the temporary workers have ways to become permanent!

Schumer and Graham apparently don't want American kids to go into science, math and engineering.

They propose that every foreign student who gets an advanced degree in those areas be given a permanent work permit. It will only take a few tens of thousands of these student/immigrants each year (pulled from 7 billion people) to over-saturate all the good-paying jobs in these fields. Experience shows that that will both drive salaries down in those fields and cause American kids to choose other occupations that aren't already filled with foreign workers.

As far as their tough criteria for giving out amnesty to 11-18 million illegal aliens, about the only new thing they want to require is for the illegal aliens to say they are sorry (sign an admission that they broke immigration laws) and perform some kind of community service (cleaning up the national forests and other eco-systems that they trashed on their way in to the country?).

IMMIGRATION LAWYERS SAY SCHUMER/GRAHAM INCREASE IN FOREIGN WORKERS ISN'T ENOUGH

Still, Schumer and Graham may have trouble because most of the organizations supporting the March on Washington this weekend want to flood the labor market with far more foreign workers.

The Immigration Policy Center (related with the American Immigration Lawyers Association) expressed some disappointment that the outline didn't more aggressively push for more foreign workers.

As you read IPC's statement today, keep in mind that those at the think tank actually live in the same country as you, with 25 million Americans wanting a full-time job and not able to find one:

While many think that immigration reform is only about the millions of unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States, the scope and necessity of reform is much greater. . . .

For example, there are insufficient numbers of visas for either high-skilled or less-skilled workers to meet the changing needs of the U.S. economy and labor market, which hurts U.S. business and fuels unauthorized immigration when economic times are good.

Outdated and arbitrary visa caps have created long backlogs of family members who wait up to 20 years to be reunited with family living in the United States.

-- Immigration Policy Center (an organization for the nation's immigration lawyers)

Folks, the arbitrary caps right now are allowing 75,000 permanent and 85,000 temporary work visas EVERY MONTH. Yes, we need to change them. And obviously we need to cut them by at least three-quarters -- not increase them.

Nearly every organization in America on the left, right or center this weekend is calling for "comprehensive immigration reform" which means amnesty and more foreign workers.

Visit your congressman's and senators' offices to paint a big red X on the Schumer/Graham's preposterous blueprint for more foreign workers.

 ------------------------------------------------

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

The setting was one of the quarterly sessions with "immigration stakeholders" held by Alejandro Mayorkas, the Obama Administration's USCIS director in Washington, D.C., on March 17.

The room, on Massachusetts Ave., was full of immigration lawyers and people from immigrant-serving agencies. Much of the session was given over to questions from the floor, and answers from the director.

My question to him was: "Given the millions of U.S. residents who are unemployed, what is your agency doing, actively, to reduce the flow of nonimmigrant workers into the U.S. labor market? I am not talking about refugees, illegal aliens, or legal immigrants, just nonimmigrant workers, such as those in the E, H, and L categories."

He bristled at the question and replied "that is not what we are charged to do."

He could have said, with some accuracy, that his agency's hands are tied by U.S. law; or he could have said that Congress had, to some extent, addressed that question by putting numerical limits on H-1B and H-2A workers, or he could have said (and I do not know that this is true) that the demand for some of these visas had dropped. But he did not, and then quickly moved to the next question.

At this point Dr. Eugene Nelson, the prominent anti-H-1B advocate, thanked Mayorkas for a recent tightening in the H-1B regulations, which he said would be helpful in protecting the rights of U.S. high-tech workers. (Gene and I had NOT worked this out before hand.)

Mayorkas, in his opening remarks, described an internal agency reorganization designed to improve the USCIS operations. He also indicated, in answer to another question, that USCIS has a draft regulation in clearance dealing with an adjustment, presumably an upward adjustment, of USCIS fee levels. The agency is almost entirely dependent on fees to finance its operations.

Speaking of fees, there had been an intriguing exchange between the director and Rep. David Price (D-NC) the previous day at an Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill, the subject of a prior blog. Price reminded the director that the 2007 increase in fees, which had been announced well in advance of its implementation date, brought a flood of applications (and money) to the agency, giving it at one point a cushion of $900 million.

That cushion has now all but disappeared. I found it interesting that Rep. Price raised the matter of the cushion, while the director discussed his worries about the current declines in application levels.

---------------------------------

  .

 President Felipe Calderón says it is imperative to combat organized crime

 While announcing an Urban Renewal Program, Calderón vowed to continue providing material, intelligence and policy to combat criminal organizations.

Calderón expressed regret about the three deaths of U.S. Consul employees and stated that criminal organizations operating in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and the United States are fed by the consumption of drugs in the United States.  Calderón stated further that the trafficking of arms from the USA to Mexico presents a grave threat to a generation of citizens of both countries.

 "Both nations need to unite to combat these criminal organizations and put a stop to the traffic of arms, drugs and money", said Calcerón.

 -------

 Diario Cambio  (Puebla) 3-17-10

 Kidnappers Arrested

The State Prosecutor announced that two related suspects were apprehended in the region of Izucar Matamoros for kidnapping four people and killing three of them.

 There is evidence that the two were involved in four kidnappings, the first on the 28^th of January in which they were paid 50,000 pesos but they murdered the victim anyway.

 On February 27^th the victims were two women and a man.  They collected 27,000 pesos and the victims were released.  The next day the suspects kidnapped a man and when no ransom was paid, he was murdered. On the 1^st of March another man was killed when no ransom was paid.

 The suspects told the authorities where to locate the last victim's body.

 -------

 Diario de Guadalajara (Guadalajara) 3-17-10

 Head and Body Discovered

 This morning a bag was found containing a man's head and genitals.  Hours later, a few blocks away, the body was found.  An examination showed that the parts belonged to the same victim.  An investigation has been initiated.

 ----

 2009 ended with 305 new cases of aids in Jalisco

 Since 1983, when the first cases were detected, there have been a total of 10,724 cases of AIDS in Jalisco.  Of the 305 cases detected last year, 12 were minors and two of the dozen cases in minors were under one year old.

 The minors all had infected mothers.  The major method of transmission continues to be sex between homosexual men.

 -------

 El Debate (Sinaloa) 3-17-10

 Six killed between Mazatlan and El Quelite

 In Mazatlan, a group with heavy weapons attacked a car lot.  The henchmen were armed with AK-47s and grenades.  Witnesses said the men just opened fire and launched grenades.

 Four people died, five vehicles were destroyed and others damaged, one person was wounded and transported to a hospital.  One of the dead was a 16 year old boy who washed cars at the site.

In El Quelite, two bodies were found in front of a restaurant.  Both died from gunshots and one had the hands and feet tied. Both had been tortured

 ----

 Students Protest Carlos Slim

 Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, appeared at American University in Beirut, Lebanon.  Students held up signs reading, "Down with the Capitalist Terrorists" and others showed pictures of Che Guevara.

 Slim told the students that education and work are the best ways to fight poverty.

 ----

 Leader of kidnappers found strangled

 Ariel Alberto Sanchez-Parra, AKA "El Tio" and "El Licenciado" was found strangled to death in his cell in a Culiacan prison.  This is the fourth death this month at CUCJUDE (prison).

 ----

 Other headlines in El Debate:

 A man died of gunshots in Guamuchil (Sinaloa)

 Four young men shot to death on a rural Sinaloa road

 -------

 El Financiero (3-17-10)

Hilary Clinton Visits

 On March 23, Hilary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of States will arrive in Mexico to discuss the problem of organized crime between Mexico and the United States                 

-------

-end of report-

The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis.

Make no mistake about it:  The pivotal vote in the House will be -- directly or indirectly -- on whether to adopt the corrupt and discredited Senate ObamaCare bill verbatim.  And the votes are being corralled by Obama and Pelosi through a new round of bribes, threats, and corruption.

Consider what has been implanted in the bill which will be voted on in the House this week.

1. Restrictions upon gun owners.  The Senate-passed version would allow the ATF to troll your confidential medical records in order to take guns away from potentially tens of millions of Americans.  The "individual mandate" (in Sections 1501 and 1502) will make it impossible for you to keep private, medical information out of the government-controlled medical database that was created in last year's stimulus bill.  

2. Bribes, bribes, bribes.  The bill your Representative will be voting on still contains virtually all of the bribes that made the Senate version such a disgusting spectacle.  This includes:

* Mary Landrieu's $300,000,000 "Louisiana Purchase;"

* A broadened version of the nauseating "Cornhusker Kickback" to get Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson's vote;

* The roughly $10 BILLION (with a "b") bribe to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for clinics which could well be run by ACORN and Planned Parenthood;

* The $100 million Connecticut "Hospital Handout" bribe to corrupt Senator Chris Dodd; and

* The $300 million Libby, Montana, asbestos bribe.

3. Unconstitutional mandates.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill to be voted on this week would increase the cost of private insurance by 10-13% over what it would be if Congress did nothing -- and require, under penalty of imprisonment, that you buy it.

4. Corrupt procedures.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) plan to ram this bill through the Congress and onto the President's desk using cheat schemes called "reconciliation" and "self-executing rules."   This is nothing other than a slimy attempt to ignore the will of the people, who according to the latest polls, overwhelmingly oppose this legislation:

* Under "reconciliation," any language qualifying for special Senate procedures had to have been reported out of committee by October 15, 2009.  As of March 15, 2010, the language was still not available, even though the House Budget Committee voted to approve the non-existent draft.

* Under the Senate rules, these special procedures can be used only to reduce the deficit.  Once you discount the accounting tricks and fraud that Reid and Pelosi are employing, ObamaCare would INCREASE the deficit by half a trillion dollars over the first ten years.

* Despite Obama's lies, "reconciliation" has never been used for non-budgetary issues which do not reduce the deficit.

* Now, House Rules Committee Chairman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) is proposing a plan (which has been approved by Pelosi) to "deem" ObamaCare passed without having the House vote on it. 

According to news reports, the phones are ringing off the hook on Capitol Hill.  Estimates as to how close Peosi is to delivering the votes vary widely.  But Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), who opposes the bill on grounds that it would allow for taxpayer funding of abortions, says he thinks Pelosi is about 16 votes away.

Please take action now!


WHERE DOES YOUR REPRESENTATIVE STAND ON HEALTH CARE?  You can go to two URLs to get the latest updates on where your Representative stands.  Please see:

* http://tinyurl.com/ya3oulz

* http://tinyurl.com/y99ccy7

--------------------------------

Gun Owners of America (GOA) is a non-profit lobbying organization formed in 1975 to preserve and defend the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. GOA sees firearms ownership as a freedom issue.

GOA was founded in 1975 by Sen. H.L. (Bill) Richardson (now retired). Richardson continues to serve as the Chairman of Gun Owners of America, bringing his many years of political experience to the leadership of GOA. Richardson is also an avid hunter and outdoorsman.

The GOA Board of Directors brings over 100 years of combined knowledge and experience on guns, legislation and politics. GOA's Board is not satisfied with the "status quo." Americans have lost some of our precious gun rights and WE WANT THEM BACK! This is why GOA is considered the "no compromise" gun lobby.

From state legislatures and city councils to the United States Congress and the White House, GOA represents the views of gun owners whenever their rights are threatened.

GOA has never wavered from its mission to defend the Second Amendment -- liberty's freedom teeth, as George Washington called it.

For years, liberals have imposed their revisionist history on our nation's public school students, expunging important facts and historic figures while loading the textbooks with liberal propaganda, distortions and cliches. It's easy to get a quick lesson in the virulent leftwing bias by checking the index and noting how textbooks treat President Ronald Reagan and Senator Joseph McCarthy.

When parents object to leftwing inclusions and omissions, claiming they should have something to say about what their own children are being taught and how their taxpayers' money is spent, they are usually vilified as "book burners" and belittled as uneducated primitives who should allow the "experts" to decide. The self-identified "experts" are alumni of liberal teachers colleges and/or members of a leftwing teachers union.

In most states, the liberal education establishment enjoys total control over the state's board of education, department of education, and curriculum committees. Texas is different; the Texas State Board of Education is elected, and the people (even including parents!) have a voice.

Texas is uniquely important in textbook content because the state of Texas is the largest single purchaser of textbooks. Publishers can hardly afford to print different versions for other states, so Texas curriculum standards have nationwide influence.

The review of social studies curriculum (covering U.S. Government, American History, World History and Economics) comes up every ten years, and 2010 is one of those years. The unelected education "experts" proposed their history revisions such as eliminating Independence Day, Christopher Columbus, Thomas Edison, Daniel Boone and Neil Armstrong, and replacing Christmas with Diwali.

After a public outcry, the SBOE responded with common-sense improvements. Thomas Edison, the world's greatest inventor, will be again included in the narrative of American History.

Schoolchildren will no longer be misled into believing that capitalism and the free market are dirty words and that America has an unjust economic system. Instead, they will learn how the free-enterprise system gave our nation and the world so much that is good for so many people.

Liberals don't like the concept of American Exceptionalism. The liberals want to teach what's wrong with America (masquerading under the code word "social justice") instead of what's right and successful. The SBOE voted to include describing how American Exceptionalism is based on values that are unique and different from those of other nations.

The SBOE specified that teaching about the Bill of Rights should include a reference to the right to keep and bear arms. Some school curricula pretend the Second Amendment doesn't exist.

Texas curriculum standards will henceforth accurately describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic" rather than as a democracy. The secularists tried to remove reference to the religious basis for the founding of America, but that was voted down.

The Texas Board rejected the anti-Christian crowd's proposal to eliminate the use of B.C. and A.D. for historic dates, as in Before Christ and Anno Domini, and replace them with B.C.E., as in Before the Common Era, and C.E.

The deceptive claim that the United States was founded on a "separation of church and state" gets the ax, and rightfully so. In fact, most of the original thirteen colonies were founded as Christian communities with much overlap between church and state.

History textbooks that deal with Joseph McCarthy will now be required to explain "how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of Communist infiltration in U.S. government." The Venona papers are authentic transcripts of some 3,000 messages between the Soviet Union and its secret agents in the United States.

Discussions of economics will not be limited to the theories of Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and Adam Smith. Textbooks must also include Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market theory.

History textbooks will now be required to cover the "unintended consequences" of Great Society legislation, affirmative action, and Title IX legislation. Textbooks should also include "the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s."

Texas textbooks will now have to mention "the importance of personal responsibility for life choices" instead of blaming society for everything and expecting government to provide remedies for all social ills.

It's no secret that the people who control public schools are at war with our nation's history, culture and achievements. Since taxpayers foot the bill, it is long overdue for a state board of education to correct many textbooks myths and lies about our magnificent national heritage and achievements.

After a public comment period, a final vote on the Texas standards is expected in May.

------------------------------------------

James, who testified last year at the local city council on the dangers of global warming alarmism, was so upset by the obvious bias in the article that he asked to be allowed to respond with an oped or a letter to the editor.

He wrote a typically insightful article, but after rejecting the idea of an oped, the Virginian-Pilot has been silent about whether the letter to the editor will run - a reliable indicator that the article was spiked.

Here's the full text of James' article:

Virginian-Pilot Deceives Readers on Ocean Acidification

By James M. Taylor

The old-fashioned news media are bleeding revenue, jobs, and influence, and media insiders claim they cannot figure out why. I can help: One major reason is reader frustration with a lack of balanced reporting.

A good illustration is a March 11 Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot article on the public showing of a Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) movie on alleged ocean acidification.

The Virginian-Pilot article, "Seas' acidity threatens life, livelihoods, film says," presented arguments made by NRDC-an environmental activist group-in its movie Acid Test, but the article did not mention the substantial scientific evidence that contradicts NRDC's alarmism.

The article parroted, without any critical examination, NRDC claims that the oceans are becoming "more acidic" as a result of higher carbon dioxide content. The oceans, however, are not acidic. The pH balance of water is measured on a scale of 1 to 14. Water with a pH of 7 is neutral. Water with a pH below 7 is acidic, and above 7 is alkaline. The pH of the world's oceans is 8.1, which is alkaline.

The article reported as fact the film's claim that ocean acidity has increased 30 percent since the Industrial Revolution. However, a 2005 study in the peer-reviewed journal Nature reported ocean pH was between 8.1 and 8.2 at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and has decreased by less than 0.1 since then.

The Virginian-Pilot article also presented NRDC claims that ocean acidification is harming marine life. This is contradicted by recent studies published in peer-reviewed journals such as Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, Biogeosciences, Global Change Biology, and Journal of Geophysical Research. All found that marine life is either unaffected by or significantly benefits from higher carbon dioxide content and lower pH.

Finally, and egregiously, the article never mentioned that the film was by made by an environmental activist group. Instead, the piece was written in a manner designed to fool readers into believing the movie's ridiculous claims were presented by objective scientists. The fact that the film was made by an environmental activist group should have been prominently mentioned in the article, especially considering no countervailing science was presented.

After reading the article, I contacted the Virginian-Pilot editorial department and asked for an opportunity to present some facts to provide balance and put the NRDC movie in perspective. The Virginian-Pilot outright refused to consider an oped on the subject and has since declined to publish a cordial letter to the editor I sent pointing out the above facts. Instead, they have chosen to let a propaganda article stand as their "balanced" report on ocean acidification.

The American public understands the news media will often present issues with a certain degree of explicit or implicit editorializing. If this editorializing is done within reasonable bounds, people are willing to accept it without significant objection. The Virginian-Pilot coverage of the NRDC movie and the ocean acidification issue, however, is a perfect illustration of how the media has overstepped these bounds and violated the public trust, and why it is losing readers.

When a "news" publication presents only one side of an argument, does so in a way that deceives readers regarding the source of the one-sided "facts" presented in the article, and refuses to publish a reader's letter providing some context and balance, it is little wonder why traditional media outlets continue to lose credibility, marketability, and relevance.

-----------------------------------

James M. Taylor (jtaylor@heartland.org) is senior fellow of environment policy at The Heartland Institute.

BREAKING NEWS Marshall's Law Townhall Dateline - The following is perhaps most heart breaking security consulting report Texas Drifter has ever had to deliver. Life of America's Constitution depends on three principles:
1. Legislative (House and Senate) constitutional due processes;
2. Executive Branch (President) constitutional due processes;
3. Judicial (Supreme Court) constitutional due processes.

When all three branches of federal government abandon their respective constitutional due processes, America's Constitution is dead and America's Constitutional Republic is in reality nothing more than a memory of history. Example if three following events occur America's constitutional Republic is dead.
1. Leninist Democrats violate constitutional due process to enact contemporary health care statues;
2. Obama signs off on unconstitutional legislative due processes to enact health care statutes;
3. Supreme Court upholds unconstitutional due processes of Leninist Democrats and Obama.

If America's Constitution is defacto murdered by Leninist Democrats, Obama, and Supreme Court; be warned, violence will sweep across America that makes anarchy in Mexico along America's Southern Border seem like children playing good guys and bad guys. With Roman history as our guide, when the ashes settle; America will have evolved from constitutional republic to empire.

Some may say America is only following life cycles of Greek and Roman republics: born, grow, mature, and decay from too much public bureaucracy and citizens' welfare, then die. Positive thought before moving on to this writing exercise's primary theme, even if Obama his bureaucrats, Leninist Democrats, and Obama's Zombies do murder America's Republic; Constitution can be resurrected by providing accused government domestic terrorists constitutional due processes including: indictments, arrests, trials, appeals followed by due process punishments including capital punishment when juries' verdicts.

Title: Never Depend On Sunshine Patriots

Marshall's Law Townhall Dateline - First Amendment includes right of people peacefully assemble. The inalienable right also includes choice of with who to not  peacefully assemble. Top of list would in addition to those trying to murder by destroying America's values, traditions; culture, predominantly ethical capitalist society, constitutional republic, and national security assets would definitely include sunshine patriots.

Origin of this writing exercise was an associate asking me to assemble a few words to "cheer up" those "stressed out" by Obama and Leninist Democrats efforts to destroy Heaven's favorite republic.

First thought was to compare bad days by past generations of Americans to contemporary bad days. Started with some obvious bad days:
1. President Lincoln's emotions when learning of atrocities Americans committed on each other at Gettysburg;
2. Sam Houston's emotions on learning fates of those serving at Alamo and Goliad;
3. Presidents Madison's emotions when having to leave America's capital to being looted, ransacked, and burned by British in 1814;
4. General Washington's emotions after being forced to retreat from battle during early part of America's War for Independence from English royalty.

Purpose of writing exercise was to write cheering up words; sometimes words do not come easy. I just kept thinking how America's baby boomers had brought their problems on their selves by electing Leninist Democrats to highest federal offices. Also thought baby boomers seem like professional cry babies when compared to earlier American generations.

Sometime during my non-productive process, I must have dozed off. Several unknown how many hours later, I halfway opened my eyes and noticed that entry door to my Free Spirit fifth wheel was open. More asleep than awake; moved to close at least screen door to keep unwanted South Texas brush thicket, also known as monte, critters outside.

Still more asleep than awake, maybe even dreaming; as I simultaneously saw I also heard an old man in the shadows say the words you are looking for, have already been written.

My only proper response seemed, "How do you know?"

The fading response as his apparition dissolved into the mist, "I wrote them in 1776. Find "The Day of Freedom" in pamphlet FROM THE CRISIS. Sometime during the old man's visit I had managed to become wide awake.

Stumbled  to my small library and removed AMERICAN PATRIOTIC PROSE By Augustus White Long Published 1917 by D.C. Heath @ Co.

There in the Contents Part III INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED was The Day Of Freedom ....... Thomas Paine.
Parts of his work are as follows:

[It was hastily written during Paine's short service as a trooper in Washington's army during its retreat across New Jersey. The hour was dark, but Paine's stiff courage put new heart into the army. Washington ordered the pamphlet to be read before every company of his soldiers. Augustus White Long]

(Texas Drifter Note: changed few names and titles to relate Paine's message to contemporary times.)

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot, will in this crisis, shrink from the service of his (their) country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.

Obama, and Leninist Democrats with an army of fascist bureaucrats to enforce their tyranny, has declared a right to not only tax but to "bind us in all cases whatsoever," and if bound in that manner is not slavery, then there is no such thing upon earth. Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to God ...

The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his (their) children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole ... If a thief breaks into my house. Burns and destroys my property, and murders or threatens to murder me, or those in it, and to bind me in all cases whatsoever to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?

What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a Marxist Democrat Party elected official acting outside constitutional law, or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain or an army of them? If we reason the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in one case and pardon in the other. End of T. Paine's words entitled "The Day of Freedom."

Tomas Paine truly a patriot inspired by Heaven, Paine's same words motivated General Washington and his troops; now two-hundred thirty plus years later show conservative American patriots how to resurrect America's Constitution with Judicial processes including due process punishments for individual villains and those in the army of villains who are trying to murder the Constitution they took an oath to uphold, protect, and defend.

Thomas Paine was right, what could I add to the words he has already written?

-------------------------------------------------

Texas Drifter writes at Marshall's Law

    .

JK: In the past few of the 20 years I've been going to this conference-and this year is no exception-it has become increasing difficult to pick up any prominent buzz, be it about a sector being red hot or be it about a major new discovery.

TGR: Why do you suppose that's happening?

JK: The reason is simple; this conference has become so big, so global. What in 1994 would have been the big Voisey's Bay's buzz that everybody was talking about or Bre-X in the following year, even if something like this did come along now, the collective size of 400 companies exhibiting would dwarf it. . .There are several hundred trade show exhibitors; numerous talks covering everything from country-focused issues to deposit models to new discoveries and so on. It's very difficult for any single thing to stick out.

Even worse, because it is now so large and dispersed, you do not have that intensity of networking of the past, the random networking where you would bump into people you hadn't seen for a long time and hear about this or that. By the end of the conference you had all these bits and pieces gelling in your head and you could say, "Oh, yeah, this was what was interesting." No, now it's more you know in advance what you're looking for; you make the sessions; you track down those companies, and you have the face-to-face you planned with these. So, the old aspect of serendipity of bumping into stuff and stuff floating to the surface just does not happen in this environment.

TER: Did you come away with any sense of how people are feeling about the economy?

JK: There was no irrational exuberance at all at this conference. In fact, it's a bit like a teeter-totter poised to go either way. There is hope that China will pull the global economy back on track and reinvigorate Europe and the United States. On the other hand, there also is concern that this will fall apart, and that as the fiscal stimulus packages come to an end interest rates start to rise that we will see a double-dip recession in the North American markets. And if that happens to coincide with a problem in China, which has been going hell-bent at an incredible pace thanks to its $585 billion fiscal stimulus program, there is concern that this could end very badly.

So we are almost in the eye of a hurricane, and everybody's wondering where we will be next year.

TER: Which way are you leaning?

JK: My own feeling is that if we come out of this with the global economy back on track and the disparate signs of life that we see in the North American economy are actually more than just flickers, next year we should see the supercycle that dominated the talk at this conference from '03 to '08. This time it will be taken seriously, and massive amounts of money will flow into the sector. But as I say, it all hinges now on where the global economy goes.

TER: Anything else that stands out from your PDAC experience this year?

JK: Quite a few of the rare earth companies were represented, there were several rare earth receptions and a whole morning devoted to talks about the rare earth deposits, geology, market and so on. These were surprisingly well-attended for a Wednesday morning, when traditionally 90% of the delegates are still in bed. So that is actually a pretty good indicator of the interest in this space.

Particularly with the assistance of one of the stocks listed going up during the days of the conference, I would say that the rare earth space is probably on the threshold of achieving a whole new level of serious attention from investors.

TER: Any companies in that space that you find particularly interesting?

JK: The interest has been a lot of talk and a lot of tire-kicking, but not really a lot of money going into the treasury. This may change in the not-too-distant future, though.

TGR: How so?

JK: I had an interesting meeting with a representative of Molycorp Minerals, who explained their timeline of activities. If I understand it correctly, we could see a Molycorp IPO before the summer. What the institutional market is missing in the rare earth sector is a vehicle large enough for serious investments. There has been incredible media buzz about the rare earth space. The Chinese are very clearly interested in seeing rare earth deposits developed outside of China to take the pressure off them to export what they consider a resource they need to hoard for the long term.

Having said that, nobody wants to buy stocks such as Quest Uranium Corporation (TSX.V:QUC) to any large degree. With these smaller players, there are so many uncertainties about whether the feasibility study will indicate a profit margin, whether they'll ever get a permit to get to production, or whether the metallurgical process actually will work. An aversion to investing in these very risky single-asset projects has inhibited the serious money coming into these plays. If a major company such as Molycorp does an IPO and lists on the New York Stock Exchange, though, it will validate the space and pull a lot of money into all the smaller companies. So I sense the timeliness for this improving over the next two or three months.

TER: Do you see any other companies besides Molycorp with an asset base that could actually pull off something as significant as an IPO and list a rare earth play on the New York or Toronto Exchange?

JK: A counterpart is Lynas Corporation Ltd. (ASE:LYC), listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. This company has a market cap of AU$815 million, and last year raised AU$450 million basically from institutional investors around the world after the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board said no to a Chinese proposal to put up debt and equity financing in exchange for majority control of Lynas. So this has already happened in Australia, but that market is not as liquid and popular as, say, the New York Stock Exchange.

I wouldn't be surprised if Lynas Corp. also seeks a New York Stock Exchange listing; however, the significance of Molycorp is that this is a home-grown, American deposit, and on April 1, we're supposed to hear the results of the RESTART bill proposal, an analysis of what America's vulnerabilities are to rare earth supply. If they decide that we have a problem here, the intensity of the hand-wringing about what to do about it would increase and companies such as Molycorp will receive a lot of attention as at least a major part of the solution to the problem. As you may know, Molycorp has been in the process of getting its Mountain Pass deposit back into production, and it also has the ability and the knowledge base necessary to acquire other projects elsewhere in the world to beef up its rare earth supply potential.

TER: Thank you, John. You also mentioned RESTART in a previous Energy Report interview a couple of months ago ("John Kaiser: Balancing Security of Supply Worries with Optimism on the R&D Front"). We recently saw a news release about this recently, and for readers who aren't familiar with it, RESTART stands for "Rare Earth Supply-chain Technology and Resources Transformation" (for more information, see below).

John Kaiser, a mining analyst with 25-plus years of experience, produces the Kaiser Bottom-Fish Report. It specializes in high-risk Canadian resource sector securities and seeks to provide investors with a framework for intelligent speculation. His investment approach integrates his "bottom-fishing strategy" with his "rational speculation model." After graduating from the University of British Columbia in 1982, John joined Continental Carlisle Douglas, a Vancouver brokerage firm that specialized in Vancouver Stock Exchange listed securities, as a research assistant. Six years later, he moved to Pacific International Securities as research director and also became a registered investment adviser. Not long after moving to the U.S. with his family in 1994, John cast his own line in the water, so to speak, with publication of the premier edition of the Kaiser Bottom-Fish Report.

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Note: RESTART, proposed as a means of reviving a competitive rare earths industry in the U.S., has been put forward as potential legislation by an organization known as USMMA, the United States Magnet Materials Association. USMMA reported submitting this proposal, designed to create a path forward toward "a 'whole-of-government' approach to resolving the Rare Earth Elements (REE) supply crisis," to a number of federal entities-the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department Energy, U.S. Department State, U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President. The RESTART proposal calls for up to $1.2 billion in funding to reestablish domestic rare earth mining as well as U.S. facilities for refining, alloying, melting and production of rare earths and rare earth-based products.

USMMA said that it has already successfully advocated for inclusion of a congressionally-mandated study of the rare earth supply-chain in the FY10 National Defense Authorization Act. The organization was founded by three high-performance magnet producers and suppliers in 2006: Thomas & Skinner, Inc. (Indianapolis, IN), Hoosier Magnetics (Ogdensburg, NY) and Electron Energy Corporation (Landisville, PA) in 2006. U.S. Rare Earths, Inc. (a private company) joined the group in 2009.

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DISCLOSURE:
1) Sally Lowder of The Energy Report conducted this interview. She personally and/or her family own none of the companies mentioned in this interview.
2) The following companies mentioned in the interview are sponsors of The Gold Report or The Energy Report: None.
3) John Kaiser-From time to time, Streetwise Inc. and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned and may make purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise. John Kaiser, personally and/or his family is not paid by any of the companies mentioned in this interview.

In a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on February 26, 2010, Defense Minister Ehud Barak made extensive reference to Iran, its attempts to obtain nuclear capabilities, and the policy ramifications for the major powers and Israel towards Iran. Despite a certain measure of opacity in his address, Barak did make some unequivocal statements of interest. These express the situation assessment prevalent in Israel regarding Iran's nuclear goal and the gaps between Israel and the American administration and their implications from Israel's perspective. What follows are highlights:

a. Iran is a threat challenging not only Israel but also the entire international community. It is hard to imagine a stable world order with a nuclear Iran. Iran is attempting to "defy, deceive, and deter" the entire world with its nuclear ambitions and gain time in order to attain military nuclear capabilities.

b. Iran's objective is not merely the construction of a "Manhattan project-like crude nuclear device." Its goal is to skip to the "second or second and a half generation" of nuclear warheads that can be mounted on surface-to-surface missiles with ranges covering not only Israel but also Moscow and Paris.

c. A nuclear Iran will lead to the elimination of the non-proliferation regime. Saudi Arabia, and perhaps another state or two in the region, will also feel obligated to acquire nuclear capabilities of their own. At a later stage this might lead to third-tier dictators acting in the same manner.

d. The model Iran looks to is that of Pakistan rather than that of North Korea. The meaning of this distinction is almost certainly that Iran strives for a solid nuclear capability based on a large number of nuclear warheads and the capacity for launching them at remote targets rather than on single launchers for purposes of show.

e. These circumstances obligate adoption of a clear policy toward Iran before it manages to realize its nuclear ambitions. Such a policy must be "intensive, concrete and conclusive."

f. There is real activity aimed at instituting sanctions against Iran. The severity of these sanctions - from "targeted," to "hurting," "crippling," and "paralyzing" - remains unclear. Israel prefers the most severe option.

g. Israel will not deny its own responsibility or enter into a cycle of self-delusion and turn a blind eye to what is happening right before it. Therefore, it recommends not removing any option - i.e., the military option - from the table.

Barak's statements suggest a gap between US and Israeli perspectives on Iran's nuclear activity, in terms of its significance and severity. The United States, so it seems from Barak's address, can live with a nuclear Iran - despite its declarations to the contrary. Israel, by contrast, cannot accept such a reality. In any event, Israel must first and foremost see to its own existential interests, even to the point of not coordinating its every move with the American administration.

Barak and other senior Israeli government figures have presumably transmitted similar messages, if not even more unequivocal ones, to senior personnel in the administration. The visible result is that Israel has succeeded in convincing the administration that its threat of a unilateral move against Iran is a credible one. If so, this constitutes an impressive Israeli strategic achievement and implies that the American administration assumes that Israel has first, sufficient military capability in order to create a real threat to Iran's nuclear project, and second, the requisite determination to carry this option out. This means that Israel's threats to attack Iran do not only express a tactic of "hold me back" intended to force the administration to take aggressive measures against Iran; rather, it is necessary to relate to Israel's threats as having a high degree of credibility.

This assessment explains the sequential visits of senior American administration personnel to Israel in recent months:

• a. CIA director Leon Panetta visited Israel in May 2009 and again in January 2010.
• b. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen has visited Israel three times since assuming his post, most recently in March 2010 at the height of the extensive US ground offensive in Afghanistan.
• c. President Obama's national security advisor, Jim Jones, visited Israel in July 2009 and again in January 2010.
• d. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry, visited Israel in February 2010. He spoke explicitly about the administration's intention of preventing an Israeli attack against Iran.
• e. Similarly motivated, Vice President Joe Biden visited Israel in early March 2010.

The officials' meetings in Israel complement the many meetings held by senior Israeli personnel in the United States, including Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

At the same time, this strategic achievement on Israel's part creates great expectations regarding a military action against Iran. Should it emerge - as is likely - that the efforts to halt Iran's nuclear activity have failed, Israel will find it difficult to avoid acting. Absent any unusual circumstances, an Israeli avoidance of fulfilling its threats against Iran is liable to damage the nation's credibility and deterrent capability.

The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) is an independent academic institute that studies key issues relating to Israel's national security and Middle East affairs. Through its mixture of researchers with backgrounds in academia, the military, government, and public policy, INSS is able to contribute to the public debate and governmental deliberation of leading strategic issues and offer policy analysis and recommendations to decision makers and public leaders, policy analysts, and theoreticians, both in Israel and abroad. As part of its mission, it is committed to encourage new ways of thinking and expand the traditional contours of establishment analysis.

The digressions began when Jane Harman, chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment, read an excerpt from an article published Tuesday by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. It raised concerns about the hearing's absence of Muslim voices who are detached from national political organizations which have a record of extremist rhetoric and hostility toward law enforcement.

Reading from the IPT story, Harman, (D-CA), said the committee tried to include witnesses with varying ideas:

"One of the criticisms today says that 'the committee is seeking input from a narrow viewpoint - one that is sympathetic to Islamist extremist organizations here in America.' Well I'll state my own view, that is not my own view. I am not sympathetic to extremist organizations in America."

The objective, she said, was to build public trust and encourage people to work with authorities to identify possibly dangerous elements in their communities. It is not about silencing extreme rhetoric:

"Extreme views are protected by our Constitution. We're not talking about extreme views. We're not talking about so-called radicals, either on the left or the right of the spectrum. We're talking about people who intend to engage in violent behavior. Behavior is not protected - violent behavior is not protected in our Constitution ... only the expression of extreme views is protected under our First Amendment."

To be clear, the IPT story never advocated silencing anyone's speech. It recommended that other voices be included and included some suggestions. The testimony seemed to validate the concern that the hearing offered a limited perspective on how to court Muslim-American communities.

Harman's response, meanwhile, ignores the link between extremist rhetoric and the radicalization process that may lead to violence. Radical clerics like Anwar Al-Awlaki are creating waves of terrorists through charismatic sermons and a message that America is at war with Islam and Muslims.

One of the most important factors in radicalizing young Muslims is "the perception that Islam is under attack from the West." Many of the groups at the center of government outreach efforts perpetuate that message.

In a way, witness Mohamed Elibiary did too during his testimony. Elibiary, President and CEO of The Freedom and Justice Foundation, criticized federal law enforcement for targeting "low-hanging fruit" and using "agent provocateurs" to infiltrate mosques. That line has been pushed by Islamist organizations for more than a year, despite a growing record of informants disrupting significant terror plots throughout the country.

In his prepared statement, Elibiary made a point of defending one of those Islamist organizations, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The organization was "brave enough to step forward and allow us to facilitate the cooperation with the FBI concerning the recent disappearance of 5 young men to Pakistan from Alexandria, Virginia," he said.

Whether reporting the disappearance of five would-be jihadis is brave or not, CAIR did do the right thing in that case. However, CAIR's broader record - condemning virtually all terror finance prosecutions, and refusing to condemn Hamas and Hizballah - offers ample cause for suspicion whether it represents a trustworthy partner for law enforcement and government agencies. The FBI's decision to cut off outreach communication with CAIR in 2008 is well documented, yet committee members and witnesses seemed ignorant about the reasons behind it.

Exhibits in the Hamas-support trial of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and five former officials show that CAIR was born out of a Hamas-support network in the United States called the Palestine Committee. That network included HLF and entities created by Hamas political leader Mousa Abu Marzook.

Harman repeatedly acknowledged that CAIR is "controversial," but never mentioned its creation or links to a terrorist group. To his credit, Elibiary acknowledged that any CAIR official who is found to be part of a crime should be charged, but asserted the organization should be left alone.

CAIR has never owned up to its history, even though the evidence comes in the form of internal Palestine Committee records and in its founders' participation in a 1993 gathering of Hamas supporters. Having never acknowledged these truths, CAIR cannot even claim that it has changed its ways.

In a recent letter, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote that the HLF exhibits and testimony "demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders, and the Palestine Committee. Evidence was also introduced that demonstrated a relationship between the Palestine Committee and HAMAS, which was designated as a terrorist organization in 1995."

All the witnesses agreed CAIR is not a terrorist organization. But that's not really the question. A grand jury in Washington, D.C. is investigating whether it is a terrorist-supporting organization.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca took great umbrage at U.S. Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), interrupting a question about Baca's close relationship with CAIR:

Souder: "And Sheriff Baca, you've been ten times to the fundraisers for the Council on American-Islamic Relations-which even the FBI has separated themselves from-

Baca: "And I'll be there 10 more times."

Souder then noted the testimony of an FBI agent identifying CAIR as a Hamas front. Baca roared back, denying accusations Souder never made:

"I served in the United States Marine Corps," Baca shot back. "I put my life on the line for people to do what you just did to me, but I'm not going to let you do that here. My record is clear. CAIR is not a terrorist supporting organization. That is my experience, that is my interaction, and if you want to promote that, you're on your own."

Other panelists defended CAIR, too.

Northeastern University School of Law Professor Deborah Ramirez described it as respected in the community and as "a large, well-respected, grassroots organization. And without CAIR at the table or by excluding or demonizing CAIR as a terrorist organization you exclude the grassroots members of the community who have the information that's necessary for thwarting counter terrorism."

Elibiary claimed CAIR "was totally funded by the community."

Again, there's evidence to the contrary. IRS records show that CAIR's membership rolls have plummeted in recent years. Yet, the organization vehemently contested a Washington Times report showing this. CAIR claims not to accept foreign money, yet State Department records show its officials sought hundreds of thousands of dollars during 2006 trips to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The hearing did include ideas for fostering community relations, many of which have merit. But the refusal to address the monopoly held by national Islamist organizations may prevent emerging new voices to gain traction and speak for a broader, more diverse Muslim-American community.

Harman closed the hearing by again referencing criticism she expects to come her committee's way. It was a little odd for a veteran politician - she's in her ninth term - to be so defensive about a call for her to seek out more diversity in her witnesses. There was never a suggestion that the invited witnesses be removed from the panel. The concern that they offered a fairly uniform perspective, with a few exceptions, was validated in their testimonies.

Michael McCaul, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, raised the issue in his opening remarks:

"We must be working together to identify and implement real solutions to counter radical, violent ideology and to prevent terrorism. I look forward to hearing from you about what your solutions are. And we must also ensure a diversity of thought at the table. For instance, who are we partnering and engaging with? Are we strengthening our relationships with those moderate Muslims who may already be doing their part? Or primarily, if not only, engaging with groups that have the loudest voices or perhaps even extremist ties?"

No one answered.

Last week, rumors that Adam Gadahn had been arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, quickly swept through the global media. When the dust settled, it turned out that the rumors were incorrect; the person arrested was not the American-born al Qaeda spokesman. The excitement generated by the rumors overshadowed a message from Gadahn that the al Qaeda media arm as Sahab had released on March 7, the same day as the reported arrest. While many of the messages from al Qaeda figures that as Sahab has released over the past several years have been repetitive and quite unremarkable, after watching Gadahn's March 7 message, we believe that it is a message too interesting to ignore.

The Message 

In the message, which was titled "A Call to Arms," Gadahn starts by telling jihadists to strike targets that are close to them. He repeats the al Qaeda doctrinal position that jihad is a personal, religiously mandated duty for every able-bodied Muslim.

He then tells his audience that "it is for you, like your heroic Mujahid brother Nidal Hasan, to decide how, when and where you discharge this duty. But whatever you do, don't wait for tomorrow to do what can be done today, and don't wait for others to do what you can do yourself."

As the message progresses, Gadahn's praise of Fort Hood shooter Hasan continues. Gadahn lifts up Hasan as an example for other Muslims to emulate: "the Mujahid brother Nidal Hasan is a pioneer, a trailblazer and a role-model who has opened a door, lit a path and shown the way forward for every Muslim who finds himself among the unbelievers and yearns to discharge his duty to Allah." He adds that Hasan was the "ideal role model" for Muslims serving in the armed forces of Western countries and of their Muslim allies. Gadahn's message is clearly intended to encourage more jihadists to emulate Hasan and conduct lone wolf terrorist attacks.

Regarding the planning of such attacks, Gadahn praises Hasan for being a careful planner and for not engaging in a hasty, reckless or poorly planned operation. He states that Hasan clearly learned from the mistakes of others and did not repeat them. Although Gadahn does not specify particular plots in which he believes mistakes were made by grassroots jihadists, he is undoubtedly referring to cases such as the May 2009 arrest of a group of grassroots jihadists in White Plains, N.Y., who came to the attention of authorities when they sought help from a man who turned out to be an FBI informant. Gadahn praises Hasan for practicing careful operational security by keeping his plans to himself and for not discussing them over the phone or Internet. He also notes that Hasan did not make the mistake of confiding in a person who might have been an FBI informant, as several other plotters have done. Gadahn also says Hasan "didn't unnecessarily raise his security profile or waste money better spent on the operation itself by traveling abroad to acquire skills and instructions which could easily be acquired at home, or indeed, deduced by using one's own powers of logic and reasoning."

When discussing methods lone wolf jihadists can use to conduct their attacks, Gadahn notes that while Hasan used firearms in his assault at Fort Hood, jihadists are "no longer limited to bullets and bombs" when it comes to weapons. "As the blessed operations of September 11th showed, a little imagination and planning and a minimal budget can turn almost anything into a deadly, effective and convenient weapon which can take the enemy by surprise and deprive him of sleep for years on end."

Gadahn then turns his attention to targeting. He counsels lone wolf jihadists to follow a three-pronged target selection process. They should choose a target with which they are well acquainted, a target that is feasible to hit and a target that, when struck, will have a major impact. He notes that Hasan's choice of Fort Hood fit all three criteria, but that jihadists should not think that military bases are the only high-value targets in the United States or other Western countries. "On the contrary," Gadahn insists, "there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage."

He then relates that jihadists must attempt to "further undermine the West's already-struggling economies" by carefully timed and targeted attacks against symbols of capitalism in an effort to "shake consumer confidence and stifle spending." (In this way, Gadahn's message tracks with past messages of Osama bin Laden pertaining to economic jihad.) Gadahn notes that even apparently unsuccessful attacks on Western mass-transportation systems can bring major cities to a halt, cost billions of dollars and send corporations into bankruptcy. He also calls upon jihadists to kill or capture "leading Crusaders and Zionists in government, industry and media."

To summarize his lessons on targeting, Gadahn urges jihadists to "look for targets which epitomize Western decadence, depravity, immorality and atheism - targets which the enemy and his mouthpieces will have trouble trying to pass off to the conservative Muslim majority as illegitimate targets full of innocent people."

Implications

First, it is significant that Gadahn, a representative of the core al Qaeda group, is openly advocating a tactical approach to terrorist attacks that was first publicly laid out by the leader of one of the al Qaeda franchise groups. Nasir al-Wahayshi, head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), authored an article that appeared in AQAP's Sada al-Malahim online magazine in October 2009 that encouraged jihadists to conduct simple attacks with readily available weapons. Since that time, al-Wahayshi's group has been linked to Hasan and the Fort Hood shooting, the attempt to destroy Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009 and the June 1, 2009, attack against an armed forces recruitment center in Little Rock, Ark. Normally it is the al Qaeda core group that sets the agenda in the jihadist realm, but the success of AQAP has apparently caused the core group to jump on the AQAP bandwagon and endorse al-Wahayshi's approach.

It is also telling that the core al Qaeda group chose to produce this particular video message using Gadahn as the spokesman and not one of their other talking heads like Ayman al-Zawahiri or Abu Yahya al-Libi. Gadahn, an American, is often used by the group to address the West, and English speaking-people in particular, so it is clear that the intended audience for his message was aspiring grassroots jihadists in the West. Indeed, Gadahn says in the video that his message is meant particularly for jihadists in the United States, United Kingdom and Israel. Presented in English, Gadahn's video is more easily accessible to English-speakers than al-Wahayshi's article, which was written in Arabic. Even though the al Qaeda core has been marginalized on the physical battlefield, when it comes to areas like militant philosophy, the pronouncements of the core group carry more influence with the wider jihadist world than statements from a regional franchise such as AQAP. When these two factors are combined, it is reasonable to assume that more people in the English-speaking world may pay attention to this call to simple attacks than they did to al-Wahayshi's call in October 2009. Video is also a more viral type of media than the printed word, and video messages are known to be very appealing to aspiring jihadists.

Another thing this video reveals is the continued weakening of the core al Qaeda group. It has come a long way from the early days of as Sahab, when bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders issued defiant threats of launching a follow-on attack against the United States that was going to be even more destructive than 9/11. The group is now asking individual Muslims to conduct lone-wolf terrorist attacks and to follow the examples of Hasan and Mir Amal Kansi, the Pakistani citizen who conducted a shooting at a stoplight outside CIA headquarters in January 1993 that killed two CIA employees. STRATFOR has long been tracking the devolution of the jihadist threat from one primarily based upon al Qaeda the group to one based upon a wider jihadist movement, and this video is a clear indication that the trend toward decentralization is continuing.

This decentralization means grassroots operatives will continue to be a concern. The problems posed by such operatives are illustrated by recent cases involving American citizens like Colleen LaRose (aka Jihad Jane), Jamie Paulin-Ramirez and Sharif Mobley, who are all alleged to have been involved in recent jihadist plots. As blonde Caucasian women, LaRose and Paulin-Ramirez, in particular, do not fit the jihadist operative stereotype in most people's minds and serve to illustrate the difficulty of creating a terrorist profile based on race, ethnicity or gender.

But decentralization can also mean diminished capability. Counseling jihadists against traveling to training camps in places like Pakistan or Yemen and advising them not to coordinate their attacks with others will increase a group's operational security, but it can also have a serious impact on its operational effectiveness. Traditionally, one of the biggest problems for lone-wolf operators is acquiring the skills necessary to conduct a successful terrorist attack. Even though many Web sites and military manuals can provide instruction on such things as hand-to-hand combat and marksmanship, there is no substitute for hands-on experience in the real world. This is especially true when it comes to the more subtle skills required to conduct a complex terrorist attack, such as planning, surveillance and bomb making. This difficulty in translating intent into effective action explains why so few lone-wolf militants have been able to pull off spectacular, mass-casualty attacks.

Not putting their recruits through a more formal training regimen also makes it more difficult for groups to thoroughly indoctrinate recruits with jihadist ideology. In addition to physical training, individuals attending jihadist training camps typically receive hours of theological instruction every day that is intended to ground them in jihadist doctrine and motivate them to follow through with their plans to engage in attacks.

All that said, while the threat posed by grassroots jihadists is less severe than that posed by trained militant operatives from the core al Qaeda group or the regional franchises, grassroots operatives can still kill people - and they most certainly will continue to do so. Because of this, it is important to pay careful attention to the targeting criteria that Gadahn lays out. His focus on mass transportation targets means that historical jihadist targets such as airliners and subways continue to be at risk. For corporate security directors and the protective security details assigned to safeguard high-profile government officials and private individuals, the video should also serve as a reminder of the need to be vigilant. This is doubly true for those assigned to protect individuals of the Jewish faith, who could be thought to fit both the "Crusader" and "Zionist" labels in the mind of a prospective attacker.

For security personnel, the silver lining in all this is that grassroots operatives are often lacking in street skills and tend to be very sloppy when conducting preoperational surveillance. This means that, while these individuals are in many ways more difficult to identify before an attack than operatives who communicate with, or are somehow connected to, jihadist groups (indeed, lone wolves can seemingly appear out of nowhere), their amateurish methods tend to make them more vulnerable to detection than their better-trained counterparts. This is the paradox presented by this class of militant operative - and it is a paradox that will confront security, intelligence and law enforcement officers for many years to come.

Correo (Leon, Guanajuato) 3/15/10

Mexican senators call on U.S. to share responsibility

Gustavo Madero and Carlos Navarrete are the leaders of the "PAN" & "PRD" party factions, respectively, in the Mexican Senate. They now call upon the United States to assume part of the responsibility for the death of three persons linked to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez.

Navarrete, who is also President of the Senate, said that he trusted that President Obama's "indignation" will help the latter to understand that serious condition, "that our country is infested with North American arms," and added that the assassins "used North American arms that are sold with impunity on the North American side and easily cross the border."

[This same theme and report, with slight variations, was seen in a number of other Mexican publications today.]

http://correo-gto.com.mx/notas.asp?id=152726

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El Diario (Saltillo, Coahuila) 3/15/10

"Obama has failed us"

[A narrative article about two Honduran males trying to reach the United States illegally describes their adventures while crossing Mexico en route to Miami, Fla., to work in the shrimp industry. Two, rather telling short portions of the article follow]

"Have no doubt about that, brother Obama - the President of the United States, Barack - has failed all of us, not only those who reside in the American Union, but especially those of us who live in poor countries, to whom he promised to bring up the migratory accord [emphasis supplied,] says Carlos Orellana Madrid, a Honduran migrant."

"....... the bad thing is that, as much on the border as once already in American territory, the migra [slang for Border Patrol and ICE agents]  is quite aggressive, for that reason I say that brother Obama has failed in his promises of making a reality of the migratory accord he offered; he has already forgotten that he comes from a family of migrants, and leaving for a later time the accord I'm telling you about is the same as denying others the opportunity that his family had at one time."

http://www.eldiariodecoahuila.com.mx/notas/2010/3/16/locales-165689.asp

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El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa, Honduras) 3/15/10

Honduras: a threat to national security

The weaknesses, lack of coordination and negligence in and among the officialdom in charge of visa issuance and entry and departure controls in Honduras place the country's national security at risk. Those factors, plus the inefficiency between visa issuance officials and the other officials who must, in some cases, authorize such issuance, have resulted in a failure to record and control no more than 30% of the entry of Chinese and Cubans. These anomalies make Honduras a paradise for people traffickers, and cause the country to be seen as a danger in the matter of immigration security.

The country most affected by these security weaknesses is the United States, since the majority of aliens who enter Honduras illegally aim to reach "the country of the north" in search of the "American Dream." The major fear of the U.S. is that these migrants might be terrorists who would use Honduran officialdom to enter Honduras without being detected, and then depart for the U.S. to carry out attacks.

http://www.elheraldo.hn/Ediciones/2010/03/16/Noticias/Negligencia-de-Migracion-pone-en-riesgo-la-seguridad-nacional

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Journalists assassinated

Three journalists have been assassinated in different events in Honduras within the last few days. All three murders followed the same pattern: the victims were each killed by car-to-car gunfire assaults.

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Critica (Hermosillo, Sonora) 3/15/10

Death on the streets of Nogales

The bodies of four persons were found dumped on a street in Nogales, Sonora, this morning. All four had their hands tied behind their backs and their feet taped together with the same kind of industrial tape that was wrapped around each of their heads. The cause of death was listed as "asphyxia by suffocation."

Nogales has now had 75 murders this year.

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El Diario (Saltillo, Coahuila) 3/15/10

Canada warns about travel to Mexico

Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs warned Canadians against travel to Mexico and in particular to Ciudad Juarez unless absolutely necessary, due to the increase of violence linked to drug traffic.

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Diario (Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua) 3/15/10

Big pot haul

Seven tons of marihuana were found and seized from a truck, and the three men transporting the weed were arrested. The event took place on the free (no toll) highway between Tecate and Mexicali, Baja Calif.

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Violence in the Sierra Madre

An armed group murdered 8 persons in San Juanito and Creel, (two towns in the Sierra Madre, in the southwestern portion of the state of Chihuahua.) Another six were wounded, including a 12 year old girl. Some of the victims were taken out of their homes, then shot and their bodies dumped on nearby highways.

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[Most press coverage centered on Pres. Calderon's third visit to Ciudad Juarez to confer with area officials. Those events and resulting pronouncements are being widely covered by the press on both sides of the border and need not be repeated here.]

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El Sur (Acapulco, Guerrero) 3/15/10

Violence in Guerrero

A review of the state of Guerrero news item headlines showed that there were nine homicides there, including two inside a hotel in the tourist area of Acapulco.

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El Siglo de Torreon (Torreon, Coahuila) 3/15/10

And violence on a national basis

Deaths related to organized crime activities in Mexico have reached 2,049 this year. One fourth of them (521) have taken place in the state of Chihuahua. In second place is Sinaloa, with 447; then Baja California, with 201.

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Excelsior (Mexico City) 3/15/10

A different kind of highway checkpoint

Last Sunday evening, at least 40 men, all armed and dressed in "Federal Preventive Police" uniforms, set up a checkpoint on the highway between Mazatlan, Sinaloa, and San Blas, a town in the neighboring state of Nayarit. They would stop traffic, and make the occupants exit and stand off to one side; they then would go through the motions of searching the vehicles. After a while, they suddenly all fled southbound, with at least 15 of the vehicles they had stopped.

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El Universal (Mexico City) 3/15/10

More cops and robbers

Four policemen of Cuautitlan, state of Mexico, were arrested in connection with the murder of eleven drivers of vehicles beginning in November of 2009. The victims were assassinated to take their cell phones, credit cards, and amounts of cash varying from 300 to 15,000 pesos. Evidence against the four included the use of the victims' credit cards and, in one of the assaults, the use of a firearm issued by the police agency. A fifth member of this group remains loose.

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[Portions of an op/col. by Felix Fuentes, titled "On the Line", follow.]

Due to the intense bloodbath and the wave of terror that extend through the Republic, the population claims an immediate halt from the federal and state governments to the panic imposed by the drug cartels. President Calderon promised to detain the ones guilty of the triple homicide suffered by personnel of the American Consulate in Ciudad Juarez. He ought to say the same to the families of the nearly 18 thousand dead recorded during his administration, carried out by the underworld.

People from nearly the whole country cry for their dead, raise their voice and demand an end to this climate of fear and insecurity, suffered by the unstoppable advance of criminality.

From Tijuana to Matamoros, and from Sinaloa to Quintana Roo, passing through Durango, Michoacan, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Veracruz and Tabasco, the cartels kidnap, make martyrs of the victims, kill, decapitate, mutilate and dismember bodies, for the purpose of causing terror throughout. Ciudad Juarez, already with 480 victims of execution this year, and considered the world's most insecure metropolis, made world news due to the close range assassinations of Lesley Ann Enriquez and her husband Arthur H. Rodelf. Both worked in the U.S. Consulate, and they shot them in their car. Also killed was Jorge Albert Salcido, a Mexican employee of the same diplomatic post.

A month ago President Calderon traveled to Ciudad Juarez twice, and, amidst reproaches and speeches, he promised to return tranquility to the people of Juarez. Nothing was gained. The executions continued, such as the nine that took place yesterday in the state, and some eight more, of thugs killed by Navy personnel at a ranch. The killings multiply in tourist centers, such as Acapulco, where there were 43 deaths in two days, including two decapitated ones and a dismembered one.  Uniformed police are favorite targets in the port where thugs impose panic, just when the season of spring-breakers started, many of who have cancelled their reservations or leave, fleeing to the United States.  

The Ministry of Foreign Relations said they "guarantee the integrity of the persons", be that of diplomats or of Mexican families in general. Nonsense. That agency, like so many others, is not capable of guaranteeing anything.

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The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis.

The commander-in-chief's open-government guarantee has turned out to be a big joke that has actually led to more secrecy than under the Bush Administration. Federal agencies have increasingly used "legal exemptions" to withhold information that should probably be made public, according to an analysis conducted by a national news organization. 

The probe examined public records requests from more than a dozen federal agencies-including the Federal Reserve Board, Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Justice, State, Homeland Security, Transportation and Treasury-during a two-year period to compare statistics from the Bush and Obama administrations. 

In Obama's first year in office, major government agencies abused legitimate exemptions to withhold information tens of thousands of times more often than during George W. Bush's final year, according to the findings. The federal agencies rejected public records requests 312,683 times in 2008-Bush's last year-compared to 466,872 in 2009, Obama's first in the White House.  

The most common exemption cited is one that lets the government hide records that detail "internal decision-making." Because this particular excuse can be vague, broad and downright bogus, Obama specifically ordered agencies to cease using it so frequently and the Justice Department followed up by reminding agencies that disclosing such records is "fully consistent with the purpose" of a federal law intended to keep government accountable to the public.

Statistics prove that the executive directive and Justice Department order have been widely ignored because it's the most frequently used excuse by government officials who deny public records requests. Major agencies cited that particular exemption at least 70,779 times during 2009 compared to 47,395 during Bush's final year. 

A couple of examples involve the Federal Aviation Administration. The agency refused to provide records involving incidents of collisions between airplanes and birds as well as records related to its approval of a controversial publicity stunt involving an Air Force One flyover of New York City that cause panic among residents.

Evidently, Obama's pledge to provide Americans with "transparency like you've never seen before" has instead turned out to be a level of government secrecy never before seen. 

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Without the greenhouse effect to keep our world warm, the planet would have an average temperature of minus 18 degrees Celsius. Because we do have it, the temperature is a comfortable plus 15 degrees Celsius.

Other inconvenient facts ignored by the activists: Carbon dioxide is a non-polluting gas that is essential for plant photosynthesis. Higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere produce bigger crop harvests and larger and healthier forests--results environmentalists used to like.

There are legitimate reasons to restrict emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere. Recycling makes sense and protecting the environment is good for everyone. But we should not fool ourselves into thinking we can change the temperature of the Earth by doing these things.

The Missing Effects of Global Warming
For the past decade, according to highly accurate measurements taken from satellites, there has been no global warming. Even though atmospheric CO2 has continued to accumulate-up about 4 percent in the past 10 years-the global mean temperature has remained flat. That should raise obvious questions about CO2 being the cause of climate change.Orbiting satellites gather temperature readings around the globe, accurate to 0.1 degree Celsius. Warming in the upper atmosphere should occur before any surface warming effect, but NASA's data show that has not been happening. Interestingly, in the 18 years those satellites have been recording global temperatures, they actually have shown a slight decrease in average temperatures. The images shown in Figure 6 reveal that the expected "fingerprint" of warming in the upper atmosphere is missing.

In spite of warnings of severe consequences from rising seas, droughts, severe weather, species extinction, and other disasters, the record shows little if any evidence of such effects. With scientific evidence being ignored, emotional arguments and anecdotal data are ruling the day. The media subjects us to one frightening image of environmental nightmares after another, linking each to global warming. Journalists and activist scientists use hurricanes, wildfires, and starving polar bears to appeal to our emotions, not our reason. They are far more concerned with anecdotal observations of such things as frozen sea ice inside the Arctic Circle than they are with understanding why it is happening and how frequently it has occurred in the past.

Real-World Observations
A report by a team of 40 scientists from a dozen countries, released in June 2009, found the following:

• "The average temperature history of Antarctica provides no evidence of twentieth century warming."
• "The results of several research studies argue strongly against claims that CO2-induced global warming would cause catastrophic disintegration of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets.
• "The mean rate of global sea level rise has not accelerated over the recent past. The determinants of sea level are poorly understood due to considerable uncertainty associated with a number of basic parameters that are related to the water balance of the world's oceans and the meltwater contribution of Greenland and Antarctica."
• "[D]espite the supposedly "unprecedented" warming of the twentieth century, there has been no increase in the intensity or frequency of tropical cyclones globally or in any of the specific oceans."

After warnings that 2007 would be the hottest year on record and a record year for hurricanes, we experienced, in 2008, the coolest year since 2001 and, by some measures, the most benign hurricane season in the Northern Hemisphere in three decades.

Even though recent changes in our atmosphere are all within the bounds of the Earth's natural variability, a growing number of people seem willing to throw away trillions of dollars on fruitless solutions. It's ridiculous to allow emotional appeals and anecdotal data to shape our conclusions and influence our expenditures when real science and technology are at our fingertips.

Based on the seasonal and geographic distribution of any projected warming, a good case can be made that today's temperature is not as beneficial for humans as a warmer world temperature would be.

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Walter Cunningham (walt@waltercunningham.com) maintains the waltercunningham.com Web site.

Its Philadelphia chapter is holding a press conference on March 17 at which it plans "to announce the launch of a nationwide campaign to challenge anti-Islam bias in a series of children's books that the Washington-based Muslim civil rights group says promote 'hostility toward Islam and suspicion of Muslims'."

The reference is to a ten-volume series for middle-schools and high schools titled the "World of Islam" produced by the Foreign Policy Research Institute. and published by Mason Crest Publishers. (For the record, in 1986-93, I served as director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute; I had no role in the "World of Islam" series.)

In advance of the press conference, it may be helpful to review an incriminating e-mail exchange among the CAIR staff about the series. It took place on December 9, 2009, when Moein M. Khawaja, "civil rights director" for CAIR's Philadelphia office, sent a memo to the CAIR staff. Khawaja reported that he had gone through some of the Mason Crest volumes and flagged materials he disapproved of (such as, "The burqa is a visible symbol of European Muslims resistance to assimilation in society").

Relying on an informant at Mason Crest, Khawaja then wrote:

I've been given the entire order list for this series (orders that came in up until yesterday). This list shows which school districts and libraries have purchased the individual books or entire series - It is a nationwide campaign. This is valuable information because we can contact each of them and explain that they really got propaganda. I'm not sure what legal issues there are here - but there has to be some sort of thing about masked propaganda in schools and libraries?

Karen Dabdoub of CAIR's Cincinnati chapter replied later that day that she shared Khawaja's concerns.

Many of these authors have names that at the very least sound Jewish and none that sound like Muslim names. While I know we can't judge a book by its cover it still gives me reason to doubt the balance of the information in these books. I also noticed another book [published by Mason Crest - DP] on Islamic Fundamentalism and the glowing review they quote is from the Association of Jewish Libraries.

Still on December 9, Babak Darvish of CAIR's Columbus office replied:

Good call Sr. Karen, the names do sound like that...one of them sounds almost Serbian/Romanian. It sounds like everybody that has a beef with Islam is producing books to brainwash the youth with for the next generation. This is really hateful and would be like Neo-Nazis writing books to teach about Judaism in Public schools.

Presumably the "almost Serbian/Romanian" name is that of the late Michael Radu, my onetime co-author and author of the recently published book, Europe's Ghost: Tolerance, Jihadism, and the Crisis of the West (Encounter).

Comments: (1) This episode raises unsettling questions: What is CAIR doing with an "informant" inside Mason Crest Publishers? How many other publishing houses has it penetrated? And which other cultural institutions have staff more loyal to CAIR than to their employers?

(2) Remarks about authors' names "that at the very least sound Jewish" and one that "sound almost Serbian/Romanian" give a sense of how CAIR staff think and write when they think they are not being watched, with biased and even racist attitudes toward Jews and Balkan peoples very much at odds with their usual public face. (That public face too sometimes lapses, as I documented at "Look Now Who's Profiling - CAIR's Staff Is.")

(3) Even more alarming is the conclusion from the authors' names that the Mason Crest series "is really hateful" and a comparison of it to "Neo-Nazis writing books to teach about Judaism in Public schools." Implicit to this reasoning is the false and demeaning assumption that Jews and Balkan peoples may not write about Islam.

(4) I challenge Mason Crest Publishers to investigate which employee smuggled its proprietary information to CAIR and then inform the public of his or her identity.

(5) And I challenge CAIR to disown and disavow its staff's anti-Semitic and racist statements.

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Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University

Authorities including a religious affairs official, the district head, district police and the chief of Katin village in Ta-Oyl district, Saravan province, expelled the 48 Christians at gunpoint on Jan. 18.

Prior to the expulsion, officials raided a worship service, destroyed homes and belongings and demanded that the Christians renounce their faith. (See www.compassdirect.org, "Lao Officials Force Christians from Worship at Gunpoint," Feb. 8.)

Left to survive in the open, the Christians began to build temporary shelters, and then more permanent homes, on the edge of the jungle, according to HRWLRF. They continued to do so even after deputy district head Khammun, identified only by his surname, arrived at the site on Feb. 9 and ordered them to cease construction.

More officials arrived on Feb. 18 and ordered the Christians to cease building and either renounce their faith or relocate to another area. When the group insisted on retaining their Christian identity, the officials left in frustration.

On Monday (March 15), district head Bounma, identified only by his surname, summoned seven of the believers to his office, HRWLRF reported.

Bounma declared that although the republic's law and constitution allowed for freedom of religious belief, he would not allow Christian beliefs and practices in areas under his control. If the Katin believers would not give up their faith, he said, they must relocate to a district where Christianity was tolerated.

When the seven Christians asked Bounma to supply them with a written eviction order, he refused.

The Christians later heard through local sources that the chiefs of Katin and neighboring Ta Loong village planned to burn down their temporary shelters and 11 partially-constructed homes erected on land owned by Ta Loong, according to HRWLRF.

These threats have left the Christians in a dilemma, as permission is required to move into another district.

Both adults and children in the group are also suffering from a lack of adequate food and shelter, according to HRWLRF.

"They are without light, food and clean water, except for a small stream nearby," a spokesman said. Officials also forced them to leave the village with minimal clothing and other items necessary for basic survival.

Village officials have said they will only allow spirit worship in the area. A communist country, Laos is 1.5 percent Christian and 67 percent Buddhist, with the remainder unspecified. Article 6 and Article 30 of the Lao Constitution guarantee the right of Christians and other religious minorities to practice the religion of their choice without discrimination or penalty.

Decree 92, promulgated in July 2002 by the prime minister to "manage and protect" religious activities in Laos, also declares the central government's intent to "ensure the exercise of the right of Lao people to believe or not to believe."
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I have been telling friends for days that it doesn't matter if Obamacare is somehow "passed" by the House and sent to the White House for the President's signature. It is as dead as Marley's ghost.

The law will be challenged by law suits or possibly nullified because of the manner of passage and elements of its content that require citizens to buy health insurance. That is manifestly unconstitutional.

I know the common wisdom among the Democrat denizens of Washington, D.C. is that once Obamacare becomes law the great heaving mass of ignorant and unwashed citizens will quickly forget about the whole thing. They are wrong.

Obamacare is the equivalent of the Confederate States declaring secession and the first shots fired at Fort Sumter. That time it took a war to restore the Union, but this time a huge majority of people, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, independents, and every other political flag other than the Communist and Socialist Parties USA is opposed to this 2,700 page monstrosity.

Truly, Barack Hussein Obama has brought us all together. Against him!

With regard to the States, one after another is passing resolutions and laws to exempt themselves from the authority of Obamacare and it is likely to reignite and vivify the Tenth Amendment as nothing has in decades.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The people. That's us.

The people who got Prohibition repealed. The people who finally granted suffrage to women. The people who volunteer to be in our Armed Forces. The people in our police and fire departments. The people in the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. The people who drive trucks providing goods to the rest of us. The people who marry and raise kids. You know who they are. They are your neighbors, your friends, your co-workers.

In his iconic novel, "On the Road", Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) wrote, "This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do."

That's how the Tea Party movement exploded out of nowhere and suddenly was everywhere. It's all those people jamming the phones on Capital Hill, burning up its fax machines, overheating its email system. It is quintessentially American.

And, as for the States, they are all sovereign republics! They have their own constitutions. And they will fight back, too.

There isn't a governor breathing who (a) doesn't know his State is broke and (b) knows Obamacare will aggravate that condition to a point where they no longer will have any budget over which they can exercise any control because this "entitlement" is the ultimate deal-breaker.

So let Madame Pelosi babble away about leaping over fences and parachuting in as if America was some enemy nation to conquer. It does not matter whether she gets Obamacare "passed" or not.

For now, I am going to assume that it will be defeated in the House.

Even if Obamacare passes the House and is sent to the President, Obamacare will still be a dead man walking.
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© Alan Caruba, 2010

First, a primer about the program, drawing on a recent Center of Near East Policy Research study by David Bedein and Arlene Kushner:

Shortly after Yasir Arafat died in late 2004, the U.S. government established the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator to reform, recruit, train, and equip the PA militia (called the National Security Forces or Quwwat al-Amn al-Watani) and make them politically accountable. For nearly all of its existence, the office has been headed by Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton. Since 2007, American taxpayers have funded it to the tune of US$100 million a year. Many agencies of the U.S. government have been involved in the program, including the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the Secret Service, and branches of the military.

The PA militia has in total about 30,000 troops, of which four battalions comprising 2,100 troops have passed scrutiny for lack of criminal or terrorist ties and undergone 1,400 hours of training at an American facility in Jordan. There they study subjects ranging from small-unit tactics and crime-scene investigations to first aid and human rights law.

With Israeli permission, these troops have deployed in areas of Hebron, Jenin, and Nablus. So far, this experiment has gone well, prompting widespread praise. Senator John Kerry (Democrat of Massachusetts) calls the program "extremely encouraging" and Thomas Friedman of the New York Times discerns in the U.S.-trained troops a possible "Palestinian peace partner for Israel" taking shape.

Looking ahead, however, I predict that those troops will more likely be a war partner than a peace partner for Israel. Consider the troops' likely role in several scenarios:

No Palestinian state: Dayton proudly calls the U.S.-trained forces "founders of a Palestinian state," a polity he expects to come into existence by 2011. What if - as has happened often before - the Palestinian state does not emerge on schedule? Dayton himself warns of "big risks," presumably meaning that his freshly-minted troops would start directing their firepower against Israel.

Palestinian state: The PA has never wavered in its goal of eliminating Israel, as the briefest glance at documentation collected by Palestinian Media Watch makes evident. Should the PA achieve statehood, it will certainly pursue its historic goal - only now equipped with a shiny new American-trained soldiery and arsenal.

The PA defeats Hamas: For the same reason, in the unlikely event that the PA prevails over Hamas, its Gaza-based Islamist rival, it will incorporate Hamas troops into its own militia and then order the combined troops to attack Israel. The rival organizations may differ in outlook, methods, and personnel, but they share the overarching goal of eliminating Israel.

Hamas defeats the PA: Should the PA succumb to Hamas, it will absorb at least some of "Dayton's men" into its own militia and deploy them in the effort to eliminate the Jewish state.

Hamas and PA cooperate: Even as Dayton imagines he is preparing a militia to fight Hamas, the PA leadership participates in Egyptian-sponsored talks with Hamas about power sharing - raising the specter that the U.S. trained forces and Hamas will coordinate attacks on Israel.

The law of unintended consequences provides one temporary consolation: As Washington sponsors the PA forces and Tehran sponsors those of Hamas, Palestinian forces are more ideologically riven, perhaps weakening their overall ability to damage Israel.

Admittedly, Dayton's men are behaving themselves at present. But whatever the future brings - state, no state, Hamas defeats the PA, the PA defeats Hamas, or the two cooperate - these militiamen will eventually turn their guns against Israel. When that happens, Dayton and the geniuses idealistically building the forces of Israel's enemy will likely shrug and say, "No one could have foreseen this outcome."

Not so: Some of us foresee it and are warning against it. More deeply, some of us understand that the 1993 Oslo process did not end the Palestinian leadership's drive to eliminate Israel.

The Dayton mission needs to be stopped before it does more harm. Congress should immediately cut all funding for the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator.

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Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University

This week the Democratic Party is scheduled to commit suicide. Their intention to ram ObamaCare, a socialized medicine bill, down the collective throats of a highly P.O.ed America will finish them off for the remainder of 2010 and most likely return them to the wilderness whence they came. For the record, we'd like to say: "Good Riddance!"

Susan Ferrechio, of the Washington Examiner, in an article entitled: "Democrats lack health care votes, but not bravado," says the following: "Even though Democrats control 253 votes in the House, more than 40 in their party are refusing to vote for the bill because they don't like its tax on expensive insurance policies, subsidies for insurance policies that cover elective abortions, lack of cost containment and sweetheart deals for some senators." Ms Ferrechio also says: "Congress intends to take up a second bill that corrects some of the provisions in the Senate bill that House members don't like, but that bill would have to be passed using a politically divisive parliamentary maneuver called budget reconciliation, which would require just 51 votes in the Senate." You may read the entire article HERE.

Can you say "gridlock?" Why is the term gridlock important? Well, after ObamaCare is passed or killed, there will be an onset of gridlock on both sides of Capital Hill. There will be a dash for the goal line, at the Mid Term Election, this coming November. The Republicans will be charged by their constituents with blocking any moves by the Democrats, boxing them in, hemming them in, and generally neutralizing them until the nation can vote them out of office in November. THAT will be the primary job of the GOP now until November.

The Democrats, on the other hand, will be extremely busy "backing and filling" in a vain attempt to repair all the damage they will have done to their party. Plus, they will be trying, as best they can, to distance themselves from the their president, who, as it turns out, is the worst president in the history of the republic.

Out here in the hinterlands, the explosive conservative movement known as the Tea Party will be growing exponentially, and devising new ways to unseat unresponsive congresspersons and senators in the Mid Terem Election. (By the way the word "TEA," as in TEA PARTY, is an acronym. It stands for TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY!) But most of you knew that, already.

If the Kamikaze Congress does, indeed, pass ObamaCare into law, the battle cry from the voters of America will immediately become "REPEAL OBAMACARE." Public relations campaigns are already being planned around the concept. Candidates who subscribe to a repeal of ObamaCare, and promise to work towards such a goal, will be virtual "shoo-ins" at the polls in November.

The democrats are deviously plotting a way, some way, ANY way to sneak ObamaCare through the US House without Democrats actually having to vote for it! They are scared "witless" of what they know is coming - a purge of the Congress.

They can possibly pass the bill by using the process of "self-executing" which entails attaching ObamaCare to another bill so that recorded votes will only show the democrats voted for the bill to which ObamaCare is attached, although ObamaCare would be passed at the same time as the bill to which it is attached. Not only is the concept confusing and devious, it is most likely unconstitutional.

As usual, the democrats think the American people are stupid. They REALLY think we will not discover who voted for ObamaCare. Of COURSE, we WILL -- and we will publish those finding for the world to see.

As we watch a vast number of political careers in Washington, DC come to an end this week, remember, we are watching history unfold right before our eyes.

In the months ahead more history will unfold as a citizen's movement, of the conservative persuasion, reshapes the political landscape of America. When the dust settles, finally, after the election in 2012, the New America will resemble the Old America -- the Old America, which was more aligned with the US Constitution (as The Founders of this nation intended) and NOT as a socialist nation more akin to the socialist states of Europe.

ObamaCare MUST be defeated and the Congress and White House must be purged of the Socialists, Marxists, Progressives, and Communists if the union is to be preserved. That is the bottom line NOBODY wants to speak publicly about. The uncomfortable fact is, this nation cannot continue as 50 "united" states if she continues on the path our current crop of leaders have chosen for us. The differences are far too deep and the chasm is far to wide to ever be filled or bridged. A house divided cannot stand.

America must be rescued at the polls this coming November. May God, in his infinite wisdom, lend his assistance to the effort to preserve this noble experiment we call America.
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J. D. Longstreet is a conservative Southern American (A native sandlapper and an adopted Tar Heel) with a deep passion for the history, heritage, and culture of the southern states of America. At the same time he is a deeply loyal American believing strongly in "America First".

He is a thirty-year veteran of the broadcasting business, as an "in the field" and "on-air" news reporter (contributing to radio, TV, and newspapers) and a conservative broadcast commentator. 

Longstreet is a veteran of the US Army and US Army Reserve. He is a member of the American Legion and the Sons of Confederate Veterans.  A lifelong Christian, Longstreet subscribes to "old Lutheranism" to express and exercise his faith.

Articles by J.D. Longstreet are posted at: "INSIGHT on Freedom" and at: "Hurricane Alley... by Longstreet"; also at "The Carolina Post" at and at numerous other conservative websites around the web.

I trust Carroll would have loved to watch his move in 3D, to make a point about mathematics too. Melanie Bayley, a doctoral candidate in English literature, understands that some of the book's characters were real people in Carroll's life at Oxford. But think numbers too, she writes.

Bayley notes:
In the mid-19th century, mathematics was rapidly blossoming into what it is today: a finely honed language for describing the conceptual relations between things. Dodgson [Carroll] found the radical new math illogical and lacking in intellectual rigor. In ‘Alice,' he attacked some of the new ideas as nonsense - using a technique familiar from Euclid's proofs, reductio ad absurdum, where the validity of an idea is tested by taking its premises to their logical extreme.

In this respect, Alice is conservative and I'd also draw number-centric nerds to Carroll's card soldiers and militant chess-pieces.

The viewer is almost killed with laughter however, when he gets to know the Red Queen (Helen Bonham Carter) and one very charming porker under her feet, in this Halal-unfriendly movie. Or as the tyrannical ruler cheekily states: "I love a warm pig belly for my aching feet."

And yet, the queen's - sorry Queen's - penchant for chopping heads off and scaring her submissive monkey servants, though is offset by Alice's innocence. While Carter's character appeals to her own authority, Mia Wasikowska is simply appealing, like the film's complimentary computer-generated objects that seem to fly into our laps.

Familiar voices, from the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen) to the unforgettable Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry) also add to the movie's very British appeal. And even when the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) switches from English to Scottish accents, I'm sure this is a sign of his delightful madness, and not a pointless exercise, as one reviewer claimed.

Of course, some human beings are prone to imposing politically-correct values on storybook characters, raising yet more questions for conservative-minded viewers. "So, does Disney's movie succeed in highlighting Alice's individualism over the Hollyweird's desire to present antiseptic girl power characters?" I hear some people ask. "Yes," I'd answer. "Alice is strong - but not in the annoying sense of the word."

But here's what I really love about Alice. I love the fact that Disney's movie captures Carroll's disdain for groupthink, double-speak, and folly as illustrated in "Through the Looking-Glass" before Orwell's day:

"When I use a word, "Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it too mean - neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

While, Disney's Alice isn't Carroll's word-for-word Alice, the character's spirit lives on, thanks to writer Linda Woolverton. And to Burton's credit again, her father, a merchant trader and seafarer isn't presented to us an evil free-trading, worker-bashing capitalist, with wicked patriarchal plans. In truth, he's actually very nice.

What's more, Alice the neoconservative dreamer also offsets Matt Damon's smug antiwar flop of a movie, Green Zone. For in addition to her free-trade tendencies - which become more apparent near the film's conclusion - she taps into her inner crusader. Blood will spill. Wars will liberate. 

Ben-Peter Terpstra is an Australian satirist and cartoon lover. His works have been posted on numerous sites from American Thinker (California) to Quadrant Online(Sydney, Australia). His commentary has been linked to such popular websites as Ann Coulter, WorldNetDaily,Rush Limbaugh and Big Hollywood.

Consider the experiences of Shiria Khatun, a secular Muslim who serves as a Labour Party councilor in Tower Hamlets, a borough of London and an Islamist stronghold. Police are investigating claims of harassment by locals objecting to her style of dress. She explains:

They're really disgusting. They would talk about my Western clothes, my tight jeans, and my body parts.

One man said - and it sounds much nastier in [the Bangladeshi dialect] Sylheti - "I know where you live and I'm going to come and show you and your kids." I just hung up.

I really thought it was a pervert, but then it started to get more intense. My parents died when I was young and the callers must know that because they said they would dig up their graves and bury me inside. I think they're sick.

Moroccan-born Fatima Ghailan, who works for the government of Cunit, Spain, has had her own run-ins with hijab bullies. Local imam Mohamed Benbrahim and Islamic Association head Abderraman el-Osri now face criminal charges of harassing, slandering, and threatening Ghailan, whose duties as a "cultural mediator" include encouraging "cloistered" Muslim females to participate in the life of the town. As the Washington Post reports, her influence over the community "was something the traditionalists could not accept - particularly because it involved a woman who refused to cover her hair." The Telegraph elaborates:

In a statement to the court in the nearby town of Vendrells, Mrs. Ghailan, 31, said Benbrahim had harassed her and campaigned to have her removed from her job in the town hall's cultural department purely because she had a job, dressed in a Western style, drove a car, and associated with non-Muslims.

Finally, self-appointed "morality police" have been patrolling the Muslim-heavy Grønland district of Oslo. According to Aftenposten, women passing through in Western attire can consider themselves lucky if they suffer only "aggressive looks of rebuke, scorn, and contempt." The unlucky ones are abused by men who "touch their breasts and pinch their bottom, claiming that it's the girls' own fault for not covering themselves." The vigilantes also have taken to tormenting gays and anybody caught snacking on the streets during Ramadan.

Grønland illuminates a vital truth: Islamists may start out as hijab bullies, seeking to enforce dress codes among Muslims. But they do not stop with dress codes - or with Muslims.

Following dialogue is from Hamas Children's show

'Alloush: "Uncle Hassan! Uncle Hassan!"

Uncle Hassan: "My God, why are you so happy, 'Alloush?"

'Alloush: "I am like the grown-ups, watching the news."

Uncle Hassan: "Good, I hope it will be a good day to watch the news."

'Alloush: "I've heard a very good report. Very good."

Uncle Hassan: "That good?! This report will make us happy?"

=============

The following are excerpts from a Hamas TV puppet show, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 11, 2010.  

· To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memri.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/2419.htm .

· To view the MEMRI TV page for Al-Aqsa TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/content/en/tv_channel_indiv.htm?id=175 .

· To view the MEMRI page on Indoctrination of Children, visit http://www.memri.org/subject/en/814.htm .

============= 

'Alloush: "Yes! Do you know the Ibrahimi Mosque [in Hebron]?"

Uncle Hassan: "Who doesn't know it? We all do."

'Alloush: "Well, they have turned it into a museum."

Uncle Hassan: "What?!"

'Alloush: "So the people - all the Jews and the Christians - can visit it."

Uncle Hassan: "Are you sure that's what you heard? Are you sure?"

'Alloush: "Yes."

Uncle Hassan: "And you are still happy?!"

'Alloush: "Yes, this way they will protect it and stop destroying it. People will be able to see it, but not to touch it."

Uncle Hassan: "Are you out of your mind, 'Alloush?"

'Alloush: "Why? What's wrong?"

Uncle Hassan: "Do you know that this mosque, at the Cave of the Patriarchs..."

'Alloush: "What about it?"

Uncle Hassan: "It dates back to the days of Ibrahim. This is our legacy, and part of the Islamic waqf. How can you possibly be happy when a mosque - where we would worship Allah and pray to Him night and day - is turned into a synagogue and an archeological site, and the Jews come to defile it?"

The Jews "Want to Steal [the Mosque] and Make It Like Their False Temple"

'Alloush: "I didn't know this. What, they're making fun of us in the news?!"

Uncle Hassan: "No, they are telling the truth in the news, but as you can see, the whole world is in turmoil over this. This is sad news, a real catastrophe for the Arab and Islamic world, 'Alloush."

'Alloush: "Those Jews want to steal the Ibrahimi Mosque?"

Uncle Hassan: "Yes, they want to steal it, and then make it like their false temple. They want to add it to their legacy for their future generations, 'Alloush."

'Alloush: "Okay, so what should we do about this sad thing?"

"Dear Children... Each One Of You Must Tell His Father, His Grandfather, and the Rest of His Family That They Should All Arise as One... Against the Zionist Criminals the Enemies of Allah, and Liberate Jerusalem and All the Holy Places"

Uncle Hassan: "Unfortunately, 'Alloush and dear children, the Arab and Islamic nation is in a slumber. A deep slumber. We must stand up. We must awaken. 'Alloush and dear children - each one of you must tell his father, his grandfather, and the rest of his family that they should all arise as one. They must rise up against the criminal Zionists, who are planning to destroy Jerusalem, and to turn the Islamic waqf into something bad. We must rise against the Zionist criminals, the enemies of Allah, and liberate Jerusalem and all the holy places. We should liberate them. Do you hear, 'Alloush?"

'Alloush: "Ah, now I get it. I thought the Jews wanted to enable people to visit the Ibrahimi Mosque, but it turns out that they want to steal it."

Uncle Hassan: "That's right, 'Alloush. It's a good thing that you got it. Did you tell this to anyone else, or just me?"

'Alloush: "Just you."

Uncle: "If You Said This in the Street... People Would Accuse You Of Being a... Zionist Collaborator"

Uncle Hassan: "Very good. You didn't make us look bad. Do you know what people would accuse you of, if you said this in the street?"

'Alloush: "Of what, Uncle Hassan?"

Uncle Hassan: "They would accuse you of being a collaborator. They would think that you are a Zionist collaborator. I would like to tell you two things, in conclusion: We must think before we speak. Get it? We should be familiar with all our Arab and Islamic holy places, okay?"

'Alloush: "Okay."

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explores the Middle East through the region's media (both print and television), websites, religious sermons and school books. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Pashtu, Dari, Hindi, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East.

Muslim Fulani herdsmen strike two more villages, slaughtering women and children.

LAGOS, Nigeria, March 17 (Compass Direct News) - Less than two weeks after a massive attack in Nigeria that killed 500 Christians, Muslim Fulani herdsmen today unleashed more horrific violence on two Christian villages in Plateau state, killing 13 persons, including a pregnant woman and children.

In attacks presumably over disputed property but with a level of violence characteristic of jihadist method and motive, men in military camouflage and others in customary clothing also burned 20 houses in Byei and Baten villages, in the Riyom Local Government Area of the state, about 45 kilometers (29 miles) from the state capital, Jos.

Christians in neighboring villages are living in fear of possible attacks by the herdsmen, who have not been deterred by the joint military and police security team enforcing curfew in the state. The ethnic Berom Christians, who live as farmers, have long faced off with Fulani nomads who graze their cattle on the Beroms' land.

The slaughter comes after a similar attack on March 7 on Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Rastat, three villages in Jos South and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas where hundreds of villagers were struck with machetes and burned to death.

"The assailants armed with dangerous weapons attacked the two communities simultaneously at about 1 a.m. on Wednesday, March 17," Brig. Gen. Donald Oji said in a press statement, adding that timely deployment of troops averted further carnage. "Seven of the assailants have been arrested, while troops are still on the trail of more of them. Items recovered from the assailants include three locally made short guns with cartridges, bow and arrows, machetes, knives and cutlasses." 

State Gov. Jonah Jang condemned the killings, alleging that some unnamed persons were fueling misunderstanding among communities in conflict. Because the style of killing is typical of jihadist fundamentalists, Christian leaders suspect Islamic extremists are encouraging the attacks, throwing religious gas on low-burning land and ethnic conflicts.

Dalyop Nyango Mandung, a survivor of the attack whose 90-year-old mother, Ngo Hwo Dongo, was killed in her room, told newsmen that the villagers were awakened by gunshots from the Muslim herdsmen who were barricading their houses. Mandung, however, distinguished the assailants in military fatigues from the Fulani herders.

"We saw them in military uniforms, about two of them were in military uniform and the Fulani were in their normal clothes," Mandun reportedly said. "My mother was the only one killed in the family."

Another survivor, Kachollom Pam Dauda, who is pregnant, told Nigerian media that she was lucky to have escaped the killers. She also described the men in military uniform as distinct from the herders, saying, "The killers came and first shot, and the Fulani were machete-ing people."

"I climbed the roof of the house and held to the wood," she reportedly said. "It was painful more so that I am pregnant. I saw the killers kill my two sisters-in-law, Chundung and Kangyang - they could not escape. I saw as they were being butchered and slain."

Dauda said she dared not make any movement that would attract the attention of the killers.

"After they killed my sisters-in-law, they sat at the back of our house and were saying they would still come back in two days to finish us in the village," she reportedly said. "I saw two soldiers. They were speaking English and were saying, "Come let's go.' The Fulanis were more than 20 in number. When they left, my husband's uncle, Yohanna, came crying saying, 'They have killed people in the next compound.'"

In the March 7 attack, the ethnic Berom victims also included many women and children killed with machetes by rampaging Fulani herdsmen. About 75 houses were burned. State Information Commissioner Gregory Yenlong confirmed that about 500 persons were killed in the attacks.

Christian leaders said that in the March 7 attack, eyewitnesses said the Fulani Muslims were chanting "Allah Akbar" as they broke into homes and slashed men, women and children.

Gov. Jang said word of the new attacks challenged everyone's strength to endure.

"It gets to a stage when one remains strong, but when you receive the news of fresh attacks, you get broken before you recover again," he said. "I have total faith in God because I am a child of God; and because I know there is nothing that happens that God is not aware particularly when it happens to His children. I have talked to God that whatever sin we have committed on the Plateau He should have mercy on us."

**********

Copyright 2010 Compass Direct News

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In recent days your Administration has unleashed an unprecedented barrage of criticism at Israel, our most reliable ally in the Middle East. The ostensible reason for this assault was a municipal zoning decision permitting construction to continue on a housing division inside Israel's capital city.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly and immediately apologized to the United States and to Vice President Biden personally for the announcement's awkward timing, which occurred during Biden's visit. Between two allies, that should have ended the matter. But in the 72 hours that followed, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senior White House advisor David Axelrod all turned up the rhetorical heat in what the press reports is a concerted effort directed by your Administration to manufacture a crisis that weakens Israel on the eve of new peace talks.

Friends handle disagreements privately. Your public escalation sends a clear message of hostility and has increased tensions in the region. Your actions are likely to delay the resumption of peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis. You are now demanding that Israel make concessions to you on issues that are to be negotiated with the Palestinian Authority.

The building authorized by Israel, as we are sure you know, is not a "settlement," in the minds of anyone other than Israel's most committed enemies. Ramat Shlomo is a neighborhood in northern Jerusalem where more than 18,000 people already live. It is clearly understood by everyone, Palestinians included, that Israel regards this area as inside Jerusalem's municipal borders and would not be included as part of any future Palestinian state.

Were it not so dangerous, the very idea that allowing Israel to build homes in this Jerusalem neighborhood can in any way threaten the peace process would be laughable. Alas, the only ones laughing are Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. We are left to wonder why you have chosen to create a public diplomatic crisis over a zoning issue in Jerusalem.

Adding to our concern is the fact that at the same time you are bludgeoning Israel, your Administration has yet to present any viable policy to stop Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. You have repeatedly extended an open hand of friendship to Iran, even after Ahmadinejad responds with a clenched fist and poisoned tongue. He is furiously rushing to develop the nuclear weapons he promised to use to destroy Israel and weaken the U.S. through blackmail and intimidation.

Yet you save your own vitriol for Israelis building homes for Jewish families in the Jewish capital. You offer Iran extension after extension for each deadline it fails to meet. You were the last Western leader to condemn Iran's human rights outrages last June, but the first and only leader to condemn Israel's decision to build homes for Israelis to live in Jerusalem.

Mr. President, on September 11th, 2001, Americans watched in horror as demonstrations broke out in Palestinian neighborhoods, celebrating the death of 3,000 Americans. In contrast, in Israel they declared a day of mourning, lowered their flag and cried with us. The American people cherish our alliance with Israel because it is based upon our shared experiences and shared values of liberty, freedom and the right to self-defense.

We call on you to immediately stop your attempts to weaken our ally and turn your efforts to the real security threat facing the U.S. and Israel - the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Sincerely,

Gary L. Bauer
President of American Values

American Values is a non-profit organization committed to uniting the American people around the vision of our Founding Fathers. Centuries ago, our Founders boldly proclaimed to the world a distinctly American faith in democracy; a faith rooted in the self-evident truths that "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." We believe these liberties need to be upheld and cherished, especially given how closely divided our country seems...Read More..