We are being skewered by our own representatives. Time for them to GO!

by Ben Johnson

On election day 2010, more than 70 percent of Oklahoma voters approved State Question 755, which forbids state courts from considering international law or Islamic religious law in pending court cases. However, that measure has been held in judicial limbo by a judicial activist appointed to the federal bench by Bill Clinton. The ridiculous decision can only be explained by the fact that the chief district judge of the western district of Oklahoma, Vicki Miles-LaGrange – who serves for life – is a lifelong beneficiary of Affirmative Action, a thoroughgoing mediocrity, and a committed devotee of reverse discrimination.

Prohibiting Theocracy is Unconstitutional?

Whatever controversy the election has sparked, it was not provoked by the text of the law itself. The amendment requires courts to:

rely on federal and state law when deciding cases. It forbids courts from considering or using international law. It forbids courts from considering or using Sharia Law.

Although media coverage has focused on its banning of Islamic law, known as Shari’a, its first clause is as important. An ever-increasing number of judges – including a five-member majority of sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices – cite foreign law as the equal of the U.S. Constitution. This serves the Obama administration and the Legal Left’s purpose of replacing the constitution with globalist economic and social views. Oklahoma acted prudently in banning the practice from its state courts. The amendment simply requires judges to use the law and the constitution as their guide instead of importing foreign legal sources that advance judicial activist aims.

Prohibiting judges from using Islamic religious law to decide secular cases should be less controversial yet. Any attempt to substitute religious tradition – especially the religion of a tiny minority of Americans that conflicts with the historical Christian faith of this nation’s Founding Fathers – would be a glaring violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. State law, the state constitution, and the U.S. Constitution are the legally binding authorities in Sooner State courts.

Muneer Awad of the Oklahoma state chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) immediately sued to keep the state from implementing the overwhelmingly popular measure. And so far, he has won.

Somehow Vicki Miles-LaGrange saw in this measure, not an attempt to protect the legal basis of her profession, but an insidious attack on innocent Muslims.

Miles-LaGrange has since granted two injunctions barring the measure. In a nine-page letter released November 9, she wrote the state “amendment does not have a secular purpose, that its primary purpose inhibits religion, and that it fosters an excessive government entanglement with religion.”

She said CAIR made a compelling case the bill’s “actual purpose is to disapprove of the plaintiff’s faith,” Islam. The evidence? The bill’s primary author, Republican State Representative Rex Duncan, said, “America was founded on Judeo-Christian values” and wrote the measure to assure Oklahoma courts do not “undermine those founding principles.”

That’s it.

Madam justice issued another temporary injunction Monday, in which she claimed Shari’a “lacks a legal character” and “is not ‘law’ but is religious traditions that differ among Muslims.” In her ruling, it would be an establishment of religion if an Oklahoma judge is not free to make an establishment of religion.

How did a judge come to such an inverted point of view? Miles-LaGrange has spent so much of her life variously exploiting and exacerbating racial tensions that she makes her decisions by siding with the perceived victim, regardless of the clearest principles of the law.

Affirmative Action Baby, 2.0

Vicki Miles-LaGrange grew up in Oklahoma, where she took an interest in identity politics from a young age. In a series of interviews, the judge recounts how she used Affirmative Action guidelines to become a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention, which nominated George McGovern. When told as an 18-year-old she should wait to run, she replied: “No! Because I run on that slot and then if I don’t win I can win on the woman’s slot and then if I don’t win I’ll run on the minority slot and I’ll just keep running until I win!” She described herself at 18: “I had a short afro and just thought I was pretty cool. You know, I was Ms. Activist.”

After graduating from Vassar College, she “received a certificate from the University of Ghana in Accra, Ghana, West Africa.” (She would go on to advise foreign, primarily African, nations on the principles of jurisprudence.) She became editor of The Howard Law Review, saying she chose Howard, because it was the alma mater of Thurgood Marshall, one of the most liberal judicial activists ever to sit on the Supreme Court.

After passing the bar, she clerked for U.S. District Court judge Woodrow Seals from 1977-79. One year later, Seals ruled it was unconstitutional to deny to the children of illegal immigrants public education.

She then headed to Washington, D.C., where she “cycled” through a number of roles in the Justice Department. She states, among other things, she “worked a little bit on the [John] Demjanjuk case, he was at Treblinka.” In fact, the Israeli Supreme Court exonerated Demjanjuk of charges he was Ivan the Terrible, or even at Treblinka, in 1993. That September, Demjanjuk proved to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that DoJ prosecutors deliberately withheld evidence that would have exonerated him. (Prosecutors now allege he may have been a guard at one or more other camps.)

In 1986, she returned home and became the first black woman elected to the Oklahoma state senate, where she chaired the Oklahoma Legislative Black Caucus. She was promptly fast-tracked onto the Education Appropriations Committee her first year (“That’s unheard of!” she admitted) and became chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee two years later. Nonetheless, she described some of her male colleagues (who fast-tracked her in the first place) as “Neanderthal.”

One biography notes in her legislative career, “She is particularly proud of legislation she sponsored which…affording minority contractors a better chance to compete for state projects.”

She drafted the Fair Employment Practices Act, a state Affirmative Action bill. She also supported “reimbursement breaks for child care for women on public assistance,” because “they deserve a quality of child care just like the woman who can afford to pay for the finest care or care in her home…Well, the highest and the best would probably be a momma that can afford to stay home and raise those babies.” Her legislative career appears to have largely revolved around redistributing wealth and heightening racial tensions.

These qualifications launched her to a prominent legal career. She served as a U.S. Attorney “for less than twenty-four months,” once again hitting the fast-track to higher office. She served as U.S. attorney for Western Oklahoma when, in 1994, “She was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1994 as the first African-American federal judge in the six states that make up the 10th Circuit.”

At each point in her life, she has been bumped forward to higher office, none of it clearly justified by talent. She does not sound exceptionally bright text in either the written text nor the audio excerpts of her interviews. She opened a rambling commencement speech to the Oklahoma City University Law School’s class of 2009 with an abysmally immature introduction welcoming “all of the mamas and daddies, and grandmas and grandpas, and nannas and meemaws and pawpaws, and aunties and uncles, and sisters and brothers, and neighbors and friends.”

(Story continues after video.) http://vimeo.com/4767619

Yet up she moves. She has acknowledged her career path “is not a typical route.” Despite significantly benefiting from her double minority status, she remains embittered and views the nation as a swirling torrent of prejudice and white supremacy.

During her brief tenure as a U.S. attorney, she told Ebony magazine, “It’s not like you take off being a black woman because you walk through the door of your workplace.” Echoing Sonia Sotomayor’s statement “that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male,” Miles-LaGrange said, “I just think that my own experiences bring a broader perspective than maybe what had been the norm.”

She encouraged OCU grads to consider imitating ants, the most collectivist of all animals, recreating “how they make progress in preparing for the winter through a unified collective effort.” She revealed her family’s multi-generational commitment to community organizing by doing an impression of her grandfather telling her, “Early to bed, early to rise. Work like Hell and organize.” She then told the students to use their degrees to “agitate” society.

Pick a Victim, Any Victim

With her status as a privileged, entitled “victim,” it is clear how she ruled against the First Amendment. Judge Miles-LaGrange has spent decades dividing society into classes of victims and oppressors, innocents and aggressors, the downtrodden yearning to overcome and the old order unnaturally repressing whole groups of humanity. In the liberals’ demonology, there is no class more offensive than America’s Founding Fathers, those dead white Christian males, many of them Southerners, whose prescience and insights crafted the U.S. Constitution. Muslims are their perceived victims, so Miles-LaGrange knows which side must prevail in her courtroom. Unfortunately, she is not alone in her demeaning view of America’s “tragic” history, spreading the wealth around by political fiat, or granting Islam a preferred status under the law. If Barack Obama is watching, she may have qualified for her next, most extensive, least deserved promotion yet: his next Supreme Court nominee.

CAN MUSLIMS BE GOOD AMERICANS?

This is very interesting and we all need to read it from start to finish. Maybe this is why our American Muslims are so quiet and not speaking out about any atrocities.

Can a good Muslim be a good American?

This question was forwarded to a friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for 20 years. The following is his reply:

Theologically - no. . . . Because his allegiance is to Allah, The moon
God of Arabia .

Religiously - no.. . . Because no other religion is accepted by His Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256)(Koran)

Scripturally - no. . . Because his allegiance is to the five Pillars of
Islam and the Quran.

Geographically - no . Because his allegiance is to Mecca , to which he turns in prayer five times a day.

Socially - no. . . Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews .

Politically - no.. . . Because he must submit to the mullahs (spiritual Leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America , The great Satan.

Domestically - no. .. . Because he is instructed to marry four Women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34 )

Intellectually - no. . Because he cannot accept the American
Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically - no. . . . Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran does not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.

Spiritually - no.. . . Because when we declare 'one nation under God,' the Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as Heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran's 99 Excellent names.

Therefore, after much study and deliberation.... Perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. - - - They obviously cannot be both 'good' Muslims and good Americans.

Call it what you wish, it's still the truth. You had better believe it. The more who understand this, the better it will be for our country and our future.

The religious war is bigger than we know or understand. ....

Footnote: The Muslims have said they will destroy us from within.

SO FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.

Wally Pieper
311 N River Rd
McHenry, Illinois 60051
623 695 4654
wally@wallypieper.ws

The War of Narratives

http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/02/08/the_war_of_narratives

"The awakening of the Islamic Egyptian people is an Islamic liberation movement, and I, in the name of the Iranian government, salute the Egyptian people [and the Tunisian people]," a buoyant if shameless Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iranian worshippers last Friday. "If the Egyptian people manage to continue their movement with the help of God, they will cause an irreparable failure for the American and the Zionist regimes in the region." On Monday, his top ally, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, followed suit by addressing the demonstrators directly. "We see the faces of our martyrs in yours, and we see in your steadfastness in the squares the same steadfastness of the resistance's heroes in Lebanon and Palestine," Nasrallah proclaimed. These marked the opening shot in the battle of foreign narratives to define the context and meaning of Egypt's democracy moment.

Of course, revolutionary Iran has been utterly irrelevant in inspiring the Egyptian uprising -- just as the United States has been. Many protesters in Tahrir Square, who rallied in favor of human dignity, political empowerment, and economic opportunity rather than a blind adherence to a confrontational agenda and greater religious influence in public matters, would find it insulting to suggest otherwise. But the cold war that opposes the United States and Iran in their struggle for regional influence is as much about narratives and soft power as it is hard power, something Tehran understands too well and Washington too little. Fundamentally, it is about convincing the Arab world that history is going its way. And in this struggle, Washington has few tools to win unless it realizes that a narrative is always best undermined from within than from without.

It was no surprise then that Khamenei and Nasrallah hailed Egypt's "Islamic awakening." In their eyes, the uprising works to their benefit: It weakens the Mubarak regime that has been a reliable foe, it exposes Washington's multiple contradictions and dilemmas in the Middle East, and it reveals the gap between the pro-Mubarak Arab rulers and their freedom-starved citizens.

In the war of narratives, Iran and Hezbollah have a decisive advantage. They have found ways to rekindle Arab pride after it was wounded at almost every level in past decades. Through propaganda, military successes, and political deeds, they have captured the Arab imagination. In the process, they have tried to redefine the intangible notions of karameh (dignity) and charaf (honor), words much heard in Cairo's streets these days, as requiring steadfast resistance to Western imperialism as much as an embrace of an alternative system of Islamist thinking and values. This ethos of muqawama (resistance) is perhaps best articulated by Alastair Crooke, an unabashed champion of Iran and Hezbollah, in Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution.

There is nothing the United States -- or any other country -- can do to undermine the Iranian narrative, however flawed. Indeed, Washington is decidedly on the defense even if the Egyptian protesters' ideals are closer to American than Khomeinist ones. Thanks to repeated blunders, questionable relationships, pervasive interference, and failure to advance the Palestinian cause, the United States' image and credibility in the Arab world are beyond repair. A greater Western commitment to democracy promotion would help only at the margin of Arab perceptions.

To make things worse, America's Arab allies are in no position to assist. After all, what successful model can they oppose to Iran's disingenuous but well-crafted assertion of having struck the right balance between Islamist values, popular representation, revolutionary ideals, state modernization, and defiance of the West? The three core Arab states, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, are in a sad condition after a series of disastrous political and economic choices, and the success of the tiny Persian Gulf city-states is hardly replicable elsewhere. Arab leaders have none of the required charisma, populism, and record to take on Iran and Hezbollah's ideological campaign. The only viable example in the Middle East is a non-Arab one, Turkey.

It will take time for the battle of narratives to settle, but Washington should not take comfort in this. The crisis in Egypt is already a net strategic gain for Tehran, even if, just as the fall of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, it is not one of its doing. Regardless of whether Mubarak goes (now or in September), the regime survives with the military at the helm, or the transition occurs along the lines wished by U.S. President Barack Obama, Egypt will be strategically paralyzed, operationally weak, and inward-looking for the foreseeable future. In zero-sum realpolitik terms, this is a net loss to U.S. regional policy.

Indeed, Egypt was Washington's chief Arab conductor in its campaign to contain Iranian power. In Palestine, it helped prop up the Palestinian Authority, contain Hamas, and keep channels open with Israel. In Lebanon, it has been a forceful supporter of the anti-Hezbollah coalition (it also detained Hezbollah operatives who fled prison after the security breakdown last week). Even after Saudi Arabia softened its tone toward Syria, Egypt maintained a hard line toward Bashar Assad's regime. And when Washington devised its strategy to contain Iran in the Persian Gulf, it made sure to involve Egypt. Thanks to its good relations with the Gulf states, Cairo helped solidify the anti-Iranian front.

Egyptian attention will now turn to domestic matters. Bad blood and mistrust will define relations between Washington's and Cairo's national security elites who will feel betrayed that Washington wavered in its support of the Mubarak regime. And if the Egyptian uprising ends in a bloodbath or massive repression, it will be impossible for Washington to maintain the same strategic relationship with Cairo, for it would face damning charges of condoning in Cairo what it condemns in Tehran. Even U.S. military aid to Egypt would be threatened, fundamentally changing the nature of their dealings.

In the meantime, the void left by Egypt's absence on the regional scene will be hard to fill. Despite claims of religious and political leadership, Saudi Arabia has proved unable and ill equipped to lead, inconsistent, short-breathed, and paralyzed by the question of succession. No other Arab country had the political standing to lead. The United States has to come to terms with the sobering reality that an entire component of its regional strategy is unraveling. This latest blow shows that there was always a missing element in the U.S. approach to Iran.

Washington has defined its containment strategy in the narrowest possible way, focusing on building up the defensive capabilities of its allies as if Iran's main challenge was conventional. But Iranian influence is about "Mullahs, Money and Militias," as aptly described by journalist Barbara Slavin. Military cooperation and arms sales cannot be the backbone of a campaign to roll over Iranian power.

What is missing is the values dimension. During the Cold War, Washington and its European allies shared ideals that they could defend and promote unabashedly to Soviet and Eastern audiences. This created a sense of common destiny among Western allies that helped them surmount the gravest moments and that inspired Eastern dissidents. There is no such community of values between Washington and its Arab allies, in contrast with the ties that link Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas. While Western capitals were condemning the suppression of Iran's Green Movement in 2009, Arab officialdom remained silent because it doesn't subscribe to any democracy agenda. Worse, Washington's pressure on Mubarak has already unsettled its Gulf allies who believe that the United States is foolishly pursuing a democratization agenda that has repeatedly worked to Iran's advantage.

In reality, Washington's best bet is to hope that the Iranians will achieve soon and on their own what the Egyptians may be on the verge of doing. After all, the most potent challenge to the Khomeinist narrative came from within Iran in the aftermath of the fraudulent 2009 presidential election, and an inward-looking Iran would stop exporting its disruptive model of resistance.

Luckily, many Arabs no longer see Iran as a successful model after the 2009 Green Revolution either. They may agree with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli rants and Hassan Nasrallah's proud defiance, but they are unwilling to adopt their resistance agenda -- just as Latin Americans cheered and romanticized the Cuban Revolution but certainly did not wish it for themselves. It is telling that, when asked, young Arabs say they prefer to move to Dubai or Doha rather than Tehran or Beirut's southern suburbs. If the protesters in Cairo have it their way, they may even have a dignified future in their own country that does not require enrolling in the muqawama.

Emile Hokayem is the senior fellow for regional security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies-Middle East.

What Do Israel and Iran Have in Common?

To say that relations between Israel and Iran have seen better days would not be an exaggeration. Israeli concerns about Iran's nuclear program had already pushed tensions to new heights. The formation of a new pro-Hezbollah government in Beirut made them worse.

Yet all of a sudden, events in Egypt have given both countries something they haven't had for a long time: shared interest. For both the Islamic Republic and Israel, the immediate implications of massive demonstrations on the streets of Egypt are bad.

For Iran's leaders, the fact that tens of thousands of Egyptians have defied the security forces and poured onto the streets to demand more jobs ought to make them nervous. The economic situation in Iran is also deteriorating. Recent changes to the government's vast subsidy program pushed up the price of food and other basic commodities, thus increasing economic hardship. As they watch events in Egypt, it would be logical for Iran's leaders to worry that their citizens may follow suit. (And the fact that the Iranian government deployed large numbers of security forces when the subsidy reform plan was implemented in December is a sign of just how worried it already was.)

There is also the political factor. Many Egyptian demonstrators initially asked for better economic conditions, but soon went on to call for the removal of President Hosni Mubarak, whose democratic credentials are slim and getting slimmer. After President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial reelection, which millions saw as fraudulent, and the subsequent brutal crackdown, these days an increasing number of Iranians also believe that they live under a dictatorship. In a statement issued Jan. 29, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi likened the situation in Egypt to Iran in June 2009. "Pharaohs usually hear the voice of the nation when it is too late," he warned, meaning the regime in Tehran should heed the demands of its people lest it, too, be at risk of being overthrown.

For now the Iranian government is doing all it can to counter the threat. Its key strategy consists of emphasizing the message that Islam is the real reason behind the uprising of Egyptians. "The uprising of the people of Egypt is due to the awakening of Islam in the region," an Iranian Foreign Ministry official said Jan. 28. Other officials try to convey the message that just like Iran today, Egypt will be an Islamic country in character. "To those who do not see the realities, I clarify that an Islamic Middle East is being created based on Islam, religion, and democracy with prevailing religious principals," stated Tehran's Friday prayers leader, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, on Jan. 28.

The Iranian press is following suit by conveying the message that the situation facing Mubarak is not like the one that Supreme leader Al: Khamenei faces. "Similarities between Mubarak and the shah of Iran, prior to being deposed" ran the headline of an article published Jan. 29 on the pro-Ahmadinejad Raja News website. "The fate of the shah of Iran awaits Mubarak" read another headline, this time published by the Iran News Network on Jan. 31.

The same goes for Israel's leaders, albeit for different reasons.

First, there is the Gaza factor. While Egypt's security forces are busy worrying about domestic developments, Israelis worry, Hamas could use the chaos to increase the transfer of weapons and militants, possibly from Hezbollah, through Sinai and into the Gaza Strip via its sophisticated network of tunnels.

There's also no question the demonstrations are weakening Mubarak's regime, a key ally of Israel in the Middle East. His government has cooperated with Israel for years: sharing intelligence, working to contain Hamas, and of course maintaining bilateral peace. Egypt has been a key player in negotiations over the release of Israeli soldiers such as Gilad Shalit. A weakened Mubarak will most probably have to scale back such cooperation. And if Mubarak is deposed, it's highly doubtful that whatever government replaces him will be nearly as helpful.

In the long run, assuming events in Egypt are not replicated in Iran, Mubarak's ouster could in fact benefit the Islamic Republic. Mohamed ElBaradei, the former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief who has emerged as a key figurehead for the Egyptian opposition, would most probably allow Iran to open an embassy in Cairo. During his tenure as the head of the IAEA, he tried to maintain good relations with the West and Iran at the same time. It's likely that he would follow this strategy as president. Under his leadership, Egypt could become the second Turkey, meaning an emerging country that tries to reach out to the West and Islamic countries at the same time. But if the Muslim Brotherhood takes power, its vehement anti-Israel tirades and support for Hamas would be cheered in Tehran -- concerns Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed in a Jan. 31 news conference.

Although Mubarak's fall would be very bad news for Israel as a whole, some right-wing parties, such as Yisrael Beitenu and its head Avigdor Lieberman, would share the ayatollahs' joy, albeit for a different reason. For Lieberman, who famously stated in October 2008 that Mubarak could "go to hell," a less Israel-friendly Egypt or one that is altogether anti-Israel would greatly serve his party's ultranationalist platform, which thrives on the message that the entire Arab world is against Israel.

Politics makes strange bedfellows indeed.

Glenn Beck Show (February 14, 2011): Time To Get Organized

Glenn Beck Show (February 14, 2011): Time To Get Organized