Stimulus for sharia. $6 million is chump change compared to the billions already spent on Obama’s Islamic initiatives. Nevertheless, it’s still $6 million more of your tax dollars going to restore mosques and minarets in the Muslim world. Vote wisely.

WASHINGTON — The good will tour of the Middle [...]

Read More and Comment: Obama Spends $6M to Restore Mosques Worldwide]]> Creeping Sharia blog

Stimulus for sharia. $6 million is chump change compared to the billions already spent on Obama’s Islamic initiatives. Nevertheless, it’s still $6 million more of your tax dollars going to restore mosques and minarets in the Muslim world. Vote wisely.

WASHINGTON — The good will tour of the Middle East by the imam behind the proposed mosque near ground zero is just part of the U.S. government’s efforts to reach out to the Muslim world.

This year, the Obama administration will spend nearly $6 million to restore 63 historic and cultural sites, including mosques and minarets, in 55 nations, according to State Department documents.

Under a program established by Congress in 2001, the department will fund at least five projects in as many countries at a cost of more than $271,000.

Read more.

The Democrats’ “Cash for Clunkers” program had one major impact on the market: it raised prices almost $2,000 per car in a way that disproportionately hurts the poor.  And Obama’s Green Left advisers could not be happier.

The automobile industry authority Edmunds.com has found used car prices are [...]

Read More and Comment: Cash for Clunkers Hurt the Poor – and Obama's Advisers Love It]]> Ben Johnson, Floyd Reports

The Democrats’ “Cash for Clunkers” program had one major impact on the market: it raised prices almost $2,000 per car in a way that disproportionately hurts the poor.  And Obama’s Green Left advisers could not be happier.

The automobile industry authority Edmunds.com has found used car prices are up 10.3 percent over last summer. The average used vehicle costs $1,800 more than it did one year ago. The price hike is even greater for larger vehicles. Warner Todd Huston of Gateway Pundit has the details. (Also h/t to Mass SNAFU.)

The program (which most Americans opposed) cost $3 billion. In the end, taxpayers shelled out $24,000 per car sale generated. A study conducted at the University of California-Davis found even the environmental benefit cost us “at least 10 times the ‘sticker price‘ to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.” As usual, the Obama administration could put up with zero dissent. When the automobile industry authority Edmunds.com pointed out the program’s failure, the White House website carried a savage denunciation, and a Transportation Department official sniped at Edmunds by name. (His claims were later debunked.)

Now we see just how helpful it was: the average citizen paid $24,000 in taxes per unique sale for the privilege of paying $1,800 more per car this summer. Joe Spina of Edmunds.com explained how this happened:

It’s believed that the program delayed purchases prior to the program and also pulled sales forward while in place. The program also eliminated inventory of older vehicles that were traded and then scrapped.

In other words, as soon as Obama announced the Cash for Clunkers program, everyone considering buying a used vehicle waited until the rebate kicked in. Those on the fence hurried to buy a car before the money ran out, causing a short-term boom. And since the program required all the “gas-guzzling” trade-ins to be scrapped, there are fewer used cars available this summer, driving up prices. (After all, the point of the program was not just to provide an economic stimulus but to destroy automobiles with lower fuel standards that emitted more greenhouse gases.) With “Recovery Summer” turning into Recession 2.0, fewer people want to purchase new vehicles and are getting less expensive, used models.

So, greater demand plus lower supply equals higher prices.

Since wealthier Americans, who would ordinarily buy a new car, are now purchasing “pre-owned” vehicles, they can outbid poorer Americans. The people really hurt by this are the poor and lower middle class, who needed to buy a new-to-them minivan or SUV to take the kids to practice. They have been priced out of the market and have to stick with their decrepit vehicles. (That puts a new twist on the phrase, “Cash for Clunkers,” doesn’t it?)

Rest assured, run-of-the-mill liberals will look at the damage their policies have created and suggest it can be fixed by an even bigger “stimulus.” But Obama’s Green Left advisers have a different reaction.

Higher prices were not an unintended consequence for them. They are ideologically committed to reducing America’s carbon footprint, ideally by herding more poor people into public transportation. Pricing the poor out of the market for used cars is one step in that direction.

Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren has dedicated his life to imagining a future radically different from the one envisioned by our Founding Fathers. He wrote a 2006 paper that analyzed reducing “GDP per person” — that is, cutting your personal wealth — in order to reduce greenhouse gases. While he said this is “not a lever that most people would want to use to reduce emissions,” it a possibility. After all,  “People are not getting rich as fast as they think” if their happiness comes “at the expense of the environmental underpinnings of well-being.” In 1997, Holdren said raising the price of natural gas was “actually a good idea.” His close friend Dr. James Hansen, whom Holdren called “one of the most distinguished climate scientists in the world,” suggested to Obama in late 2008 that he should tax gasoline up to “$4/5 gallons again.”

Higher prices for cars and gasoline — and the misery they inflict on the poor and middle class — fulfill their purposes.

Unfortunately, the higher cost of used cars is  the least important price we are paying for putting Barack Obama into power.

This is priceless. After 19 months of sucking up to Islam – bowing to the Saudi King, apologizing to terrorist states for our “arrogance,” singing Islam’s praises, supporting the Ground Zero mosque (opposed by upwards of 70% of the public) – a growing number of Americans believe POTUS is [...]

Read More and Comment: Obama Follows Saul Alinsky, Not Saul of Tarsus]]> Don Feder, GrassTopsUSA.com

This is priceless. After 19 months of sucking up to Islam – bowing to the Saudi King, apologizing to terrorist states for our “arrogance,” singing Islam’s praises, supporting the Ground Zero mosque (opposed by upwards of 70% of the public) – a growing number of Americans believe POTUS is a Muslim.

White House operatives must be pulling their hair out. The latest Pew Research Center poll shows 18% of his fellow Americans think Obama is a person of the jihad persuasion, up from 11% in 2009. Only 34% accept the media’s claim that he’s a Christian, down from 48% last year.

More remarkable yet, after Obama has been president for over a year and a half, 43% of voters don’t know what faith he follows. Even among blacks and Democrats, a majority can’t say that POTUS is a Christian.

The White House denial-machine issued frantic, if somewhat vague, pronouncements of presidential piety:

The president prays every day. (So do many non-Christians.) His faith is an important part of his life. (The same could be said of animists, Zoroastrians and members of the Church of Scientology.) Perhaps most hilariously, we are told that every day Obama gets homilies on his Blackberry from “spiritual advisors” – e-Christianity?

One of the men of faith counseling POTUS is Henry Knox (president of Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based And Neighborhood Partnerships), who once charged that Pope Benedict XVI is “hurting people in the name of Jesus,” by opposing condom-distribution to fight the spread of AIDS in Africa. Knox also described the pope and certain bishops as “discredited leaders” for opposing gay marriage. On this basis, evangelical preachers and Orthodox rabbis are equally “discredited.”

“While the president has been diligent and personally committed to his own Christian faith, there’s (sic.) certainly folks who are intent on spreading falsehoods about the president and his values and beliefs,” says faith adviser Joshua DuBois. Spreading falsehoods about the president’s values? Are they saying he’s a patriot who believes in the free market and border security?

There’s little in the president’s background, beliefs or behavior that would suggest he’s a serious Christian – or even a casual Christian, for that matter.

Obama’s upbringing was hardly church bells chiming on a Sunday morn – more the muezzin’s call to prayer on Friday eve. The president spent his formative years studying in a Jakarta madrassa.

His mother was an ex-hippy agnostic. Both his biological and step-father were Muslims. His grandparents (a lapsed Baptist and Methodist) joined the Unitarian Universalists – a denomination which proudly proclaims its rejection of Christianity.

In Chicago, Obama was a member of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Church of the Grotesque for 19 years. This was his introduction to Christianity.

The Rev. G.D. America, Wright preached Black Liberation theology – America is evil, Caucasians are evil, capitalism is super-evil, and Jesus was a Palestinian guerilla. How many churches have given an award to Nation of Islam fuehrer Louis Farrakhan? When Obama says he’s a Christian, he means in the bizarro tradition of the Trinity United Church of Christ.

“What do you believe?” Obama was asked in a Chicago Sun Times interview in 2004, when he was a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Answer: “I am a Christian. So I have a deep faith. So I draw from the Christian faith.” (If I say I’m a Buddhist, does that make me the Dalai Lama?) What does he mean by drawing from the Christian faith – taking what he likes and leaving the rest?

If the question was posed to the Christians I know, they would say: “I believe in the message of the Gospels,” or “I believe Jesus died for my sins” or “I believe Jesus is the only begotten son of God and savior of the world.”

So what does Barack Hussein (I know, there I go again) Obama think of a certain 1st century rabbi?

“Who is Jesus to you?” The Sun Times interviewer asked.

Answer: “Jesus is an historical figure for me (so was Napoleon), and he’s a bridge between God and man (Jews would say the same of Moses or any of the prophets, as would Muslims of Mohammed) … and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as a means of us reaching something higher. And he’s also a wonderful teacher. I think it’s important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history.” Without a teleprompter, this is the way the president babbles.

In other words, Jesus was an important teacher, a really swell guy, a cool dude, and Obama likes him – a lot. This is to normative Christianity what Cheese Whiz is to French cuisine.

If I can analogize Obama’s perspective on Christianity, it’s like asking a Jew, “What do you think of the Torah?” And he responds: “Interesting book, filled with historical figures like Moses and Isaiah. There’s a lot of food for thought there. Can’t wait for the screen adaptation.”

My friend Dr. Rick Scarborough, president of Vision America, who’s pastored Southern Baptist churches in East Texas for 25 years, is emphatic: “For evangelical Christians, our only authority is Scriptures. John 1:1-12 is clear. Jesus is not a ‘bridge to God;’ he is God incarnate. Jesus said: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me.’”

I’m a Jew. But this is always what I’ve understood Christianity to mean.

Despite avowals of commitment to his “Christian faith,” Obama’s administration is at war with Christianity. Unlike the war on terrorism, the president is deadly serious about this conflict.

Start with his bitter-clingers comments during the 2008 primary campaign. Speaking off the record (so he thought) to members of his church – Democratic donors at a San Francisco fundraiser – Obama tried to explain what’s wrong with Middle America.

People in rust-belt towns have been losing jobs for 25 years “and nothing’s replaced them.” So, “it’s not surprising that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain (he probably meant express) their frustrations.”

In Obama’s worldview, what do religion, guns, “anti-immigrant sentiment,” “anti-trade sentiment” and “antipathy to people who aren’t like them” have in common? They’re all bad things – the result of ignorance, malice or right-wing indoctrination. This is what Obama thinks of the Christianity practiced in fly-over country, where they take the New Testament seriously.

As president, Obama has shown his contempt for normative Christianity – the Christianity that thinks of Jesus as more than a community organizer from Nazareth.

Atheists and agnostics have been warmly received in the White House. In his inaugural address, along with various faith communities, Obama paid homage to “non-believers” (the first president to do so) as one of the groups that made America great. Exactly how non-belief inspired the pioneers, settlers, soldiers, statesmen and industrialists who built this country, the president did not say.

Muslims are also a favored minority. Why the White House has practically become their second home. Obama has hosted several ceremonial meals for Muslims. In the latest Iftar dinner (marking a break from the Ramadan fast), the messiah held forth in the usual fashion: “These rituals remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

Okay, all kidding aside, try to imagine Obama hosting a Christmas party for Southern Baptists at which he praises Christianity’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. Now, picture the president cutting the ribbon at a Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem.

Besides telling us that America is not (or no longer is) a Christian nation – a distortion of history and reality that defies description – unlike his predecessors, Obama has yet to honor National Day of Prayer with a White House ceremony.

While Bush had an interfaith service in the White House for eight straight years, Obama grudgingly signed a presidential proclamation. He was also a no-show at Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day, where he might have encountered the type of Christianity practiced by bitter-clingers.

Obama’s political appointees have a special animus toward Christianity.

One of his first judicial nominations was Judge David Hamilton for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. As a federal district court judge, Hamilton ruled that it was unconstitutional to offer a prayer in Jesus’ name before sessions of the Indiana legislature. The ruling was overturned by the same circuit court Obama appointed him to.

In explaining his injunction, Hamilton said that, in the same circumstances, prayers in Allah’s name passed constitutional muster – Allah being a generic name for God, in Hamilton’s opinion. Further, because there are so few Muslims in Indiana, invoking the Muslim deity can’t be considered an establishment of religion, unlike praying to Jesus.

Like Hamilton, Obama worships at the altar of political correctness, America’s established church, and has worked diligently to advance its creed.

Other than signing a new hate-crimes law making homosexuals a protected class (which will be used to censor religious speech), the two clearest indications of Obama’s distance from the Christianity practiced by most Americans is his devotion to abortion and the gay agenda.

Facilitating abortion is an article of faith for the man who once said that having an opinion on when life begins was above his pay-grade.

As a member of the Illinois Senate, Obama voted for infanticide (against a born-alive bill). As a presidential candidate, he boasted, “Throughout my career, I’ve been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice (apparently, a step or two beyond mere ‘reproductive rights’), and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL,” the Vatican of Obama-style Christianity.

As president, on his third day in office, he canceled the Mexico City Policy (which denied foreign-aid grants to groups that perform or promote abortion), sent $50 million to the UN Population Fund for these purposes, picked a Secretary of Health and Human Services who was tight with the king of partial-birth abortions in Kansas, and illegally spent $27 million in tax-dollars to assure the passage of a pro-abortion constitution in Kenya.

Obama Care will inevitably lead to the rationing of medical services for the elderly and euthanasia.

Other than performing a partial-birth abortion himself, on live TV, on Margaret Sanger’s birthday (with an in-studio audience of NOW and NARAL members), it’s hard to imagine what more the president could do to promote abortion on demand.

But that’s nothing next to the presidential embrace of the gay agenda.

Obama was bursting with pride when he told a homosexual gathering that he was the first president to invite gays, lesbians and the “transgendered” to the annual White House Easter egg hunt in 2009 – a very traditional way to celebrate this most important of Christian holy days. Perhaps next year they could hunt for multi-colored condoms.

He wants to repeal don’t-ask-don’t-tell and the Defense of Marriage Act, which will open the door to the federal judiciary mandating same-sex “marriage” nationwide.

His Safe Schools Czar, Kevin Jennings, (who once neglected to report an incident of pedophilia) is the founder of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (Indoctrinators R Us) who calls Bible-believing Christians “hardcore bigots” who should all “drop dead!”

Speaking to the homosexual Human Rights Campaign last fall, Butch Obama promised: “We will see a time in which we, as a nation, finally recognize the relationships between two men or two women.” Would that be before or after we close most evangelical churches, outlaw Catholicism and tear pages out of Bibles?

“This fight continues now, and I’m here with a simple message: I’m here with you in that fight,” Obama told the wildly cheering crowd. That makes him against the voters of 30 states who’ve enacted defense-of-marriage amendments to their state constitutions, the homophobes!

In an effort to reconcile his alleged Christianity with his homosexual advocacy, in 2008 Obama told voters that he follows the Sermon on the Mount (which contains no reference to men who lie with other men), instead of “an obscure passage in Romans.”

That “obscure passage” – Romans 1:26-27 – is crucial to Christian teaching. (“For this cause God gave them unto vile affections …. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another: men with men working that which is unseemly….”) Our president is quite the Bible scholar.

For the record, I do not believe Obama is a Muslim. Where are the gay-friendly imams and mosques that support Planned Parenthood?

It’s true: Obama is inordinately fond of Islam. But so are leftists who didn’t have Muslim fathers and step-fathers and weren’t educated in an Indonesian madrassa.

Islam has become the left’s pet religion. It’s unremittingly anti-American, which trumps every other consideration in their minds. Leftists view Islam as the religion of the dispossessed, like all of those oil-rich Saudis.

Jihad is seen as a war of liberation against the arrogant, colonial West. Thus the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Hamas become inheritors of the mantle of the Viet Cong, Sandinistas and Khmer Rouge. Leftists who gag at the sight of a Ten Commandments monument find the prospect of a mosque at Ground Zero utterly charming.

It’s a mistake to think of Obama’s belief system in the context of traditional religion. The president of the United States is an orthodox, dogmatic, doctrinaire, devout leftist.

Leftism is modernity’s most popular heretical religion. It has a rigid belief system which is impervious to reason and science. It offers a secular vision of heaven (confiscatory taxation and the abolition of private property) and hell (the free market, Sarah Palin and Global Warming).

Its sacraments are income redistribution, distributing condoms to third-graders, surrender in the war on terrorism, and destroying industrial civilization to fight carbon-emissions. Its priesthood includes Michael Moore, Oliver Stone, Al Gore, George Soros, Barney Frank and the Unabomber.

This is the faith of Barack Obama. It speaks with the prophetic voice not of Saul of Tarsus but Saul of Alinsky.

This column originally appeared on GrassTopsUSA.com and is published with permission. Visit the author’s website, DonFeder.com.

Elections have consequences. Words really do have meaning. The fools in the Blue States are learning these truths the hard way.

The Hope and Change crowd is getting some change, but not the kind they thought they were getting when they closed their ears and eyes [...]

Read More and Comment: ObamaCare Already Jacking Up Rates]]> Kevin “Coach” Collins, Coach Is Right

Elections have consequences. Words really do have meaning. The fools in the Blue States are learning these truths the hard way.

The Hope and Change crowd is getting some change, but not the kind they thought they were getting when they closed their ears and eyes and voted for a charlatan they knew nothing about.

The costs of ObamaCare,  that many of us warned about, are already being felt in several states that voted for Barack Obama and the best part is the first victims out of the shoot are the unionized public employees.

In Iowa state employees using Blue Cross/Blue Shield are paying up to 11.2 percent more in premiums for the same or less health care thanks to the provisions of ObamaCare. The State of Iowa will pay an additional $17 million to cover its employee’s medical insurance as well.

In Washington State, another Obama stronghold, unionized State employees will have to ante up increased healthcare insurance premiums.  Starting January 1st some will be paying 50 percent more for what they had before ObamaCare.

Read more.

Much has been said about the first-ever report on U.S. human rights to the UN Human Rights Council, which the Obama administration released to the public this week. Most commentators have focused on how our least patriotic president apologized for America’s shortcomings. But there is a more important [...]

Read More and Comment: Obama's UN Apology is a Blueprint for Socialism]]> Ben Johnson, Floyd Reports

Much has been said about the first-ever report on U.S. human rights to the UN Human Rights Council, which the Obama administration released to the public this week. Most commentators have focused on how our least patriotic president apologized for America’s shortcomings. But there is a more important facet to the report: it establishes a host of new socialist “rights” the administration hopes globalist bureaucrats will help enforce.

Ditching the Constitution: Obama’s shift away from our Constitution and God-given liberty is startling. The 26-page report uses the word “progress” 18 times. After mentioning  “the original flaw” of the U.S. Constitution, he makes this pivot: “Our commitment to the rights protected in our Constitution is matched by a parallel commitment to foster a society characterized by shared prosperity.” In other words, our desire to maintain the barriers our Founding Fathers wisely established in our form of government is equal to our commitment to “spread the wealth around.”

Obama affirms that he accepts “all kinds of obligations – both positive and negative – that governments have with regard to their citizens.” The reference to “positive obligations” is significant to Obama’s view of the Constitution and its “flaw.” In a 2001 interview with Chicago’s public radio station WBEZ-FM, he complained:

[A]t least as it’s been interpreted…the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

He groused the Supreme Court only offered “formal rights” — for instance, after desegregation, “I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order, and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be O.K.” A government pursuing “positive” obligations means the government has to provide everyone a certain amount of money, wealth, or status by redistributing other people’s money. Maggie Gallagher in her column today notes that the report treats ObamaCare as a basic human right. The rest of the report lists a host of other, unheard of “rights.”

Card check: a Fundamental Human Right. Obama goes on to say freedom of organization “protects workers and their right to organize.” But some labor organizers have spoken about “the challenges they face in organizing effectively” – like the fact that no one outside the federal government wants to join a union. “Currently there are several bills in Congress that seek to strengthen workers’ rights – assuring that workers can continue to associate freely.” This is a reference to card check, the system of forming unions that does away with a private ballot and leaves employees vulnerable to intimidation.

Voting six times, a UN Right. The document recounts the history of minority and women voting, claiming there is an ongoing problem (even though the most recent racial voting incident featured Black Panthers threatening to club whitey.) It continues, “The Department [of Justice] recently obtained consent decrees against some jurisdictions” to make sure minorities are not unfairly excluded. One of those decrees was against Port Chester, New York, “designed to cure vote dilution for Hispanic voters.” Port Chester’s had never elected an Hispanic politician, and its population was 46 percent Hispanic; however, in the words of the New York Times, “many are not citizens.” Although these non-citizens are not entitled to any representation, the DoJ forced a remedy: allowing Hispanic residents of Port Chester to vote six times. It did the trick; the village elected its first Hispanic — coincidentally, a Democrat.

Bilingual Ballots and Registering Democratic Voters. The report trumpets securing “meaningful access to the franchise for non-English speaking citizens” (and, undoubtedly, non-citizens, convicts, the mentally insane, and the deceased). Obama believes those who cannot read the English language should vote for the nation’s representatives — in higher numbers than they are now. The document reaffirms America’s commitment “to increase historically low [voter] registration rates of minorities and persons with disabilities.”

Gay Marriage and Gays in the Military. The “LGBT” community made up this report’s preferred victim group, saying its “experience of discrimination illustrates the continuing debate among citizens about how we can build a far more fair society.” Obama enthused that Congress passed the Hate Crimes law that pastors fear will silence their ability to preach traditional Christian values. He highlights the Supreme Court decision overturning state anti-sodomy laws in 2003, and his decision to extend some benefits to the same-sex partners of certain federal employees. Then he looks to the future:

President Obama is committed to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” statute…The President [sic.] has also supported passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act…Debate continues over equal rights to marriage for LGBT Americans at the federal and state levels

The reference to “equal rights” is important language in a “human rights” document aimed at curbing discrimination. The document states “At this point” Obama merely “supports repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.” But its inclusion marks gay marriage as a “human right” in the eyes of the United Nations.

Equality of Outcome. The discussion of “discrimination” focuses on the fact that minority groups have not attained as much as white Americans. This, Obama insists, must stem from bigotry. “We are not satisfied that whites are twice as likely as Native Americans to have a college degree. The United States continues to address such disparities by working to ensure that equal opportunity is not only guaranteed in law but experienced in fact by all Americans.” What he promises is not “equality of opportunity” but equality of outcome — that every ethnic group, and every person, has the “right” to an equal amount of wealth. Every American — smart or dumb, ambitious or lazy, gifted or talentless — will receive the same result as everyone else.

The name for that system is socialism, and Obama regards it as a basic human right.

Feminism. Obama points to his passage of the Fair Pay Act and support for the “Paycheck Fairness Act.” He also claims, “Our recent health care reform bill also lowers costs and offers greater choices for women.”

Affirmative Action. Obama pledges racial redistribution of wealth through reverse discrimination. He promises enhanced Affirmative Action programs “in the workplace when [minorities] are underrepresented.” But he does not confine this to employment. The section on American public education begins: “The United States is committed to providing equal educational opportunities to all children, regardless of their individual circumstances, race, national origin, ethnicity, gender [sic.] or disability.” Yet it makes clear that Obama foresees a world in which all education is administered according to race and sex.  It “promotes educational equity for women” – who are vastly overrepresented on college campuses – “and students of color,” as well as seeking to “strengthen historically Black [sic.] colleges and universities.” And he vows federal, state, and local governments will move heaven and earth to “address the factors that contribute to the education ‘achievement gap’…particularly African American and Hispanic children.” Latinos in particular “find linguistic discrimination a barrier to full participation.” This means they have a right to taxpayer-funded bilingual education. Obama is very concerned about discrimination “in the areas of capital punishment, juvenile justice, racial profiling, and racial disparities in sentencing.”

Universal Preschool. The document states the Dept. of Education will “provide low-income students and students of color with increased access to early learning and education” — that is, taxpayer-funded daycare. In fact, this has already begun. The report notes that stimulus funds “are being used to promote high-quality early childhood education.”

The Right to Illegal Immigration. As I reported yesterday, the human rights report singles out Arizona’s immigration law as a violation of illegal aliens’ rights.

“Freedom from Want.” The report undergirds its commitment to socialism by citing FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech. One of the new freedoms he sought was “freedom from want.” This “right” is listed under the section, “A commitment to foster a society where citizens are empowered to exercise their rights” — making clear Obama’s commitment to “positive obligations” and the federal government’s need to redistribute wealth.

So far, this is the standard, far-Left platform — although expressed more honestly than he ever manages in front of an American audience. The significance of ensconcing all these new “rights” in this UN document is that it creates international legal precedent. In the inaugural report before the UN Human Rights Council, the United States has declared it supports all these as the basic entitlements of every citizen. As the Human Rights Council process continues, a “troika” of three nations will review our report, other international reports, and the testimony of NGOs, then make a series of recommendations to implement these goals. Every four years, the council will grade our “progress.” And this world body reserves the right to “decide on the measures it would need to take in case of persistent non-cooperation.”

That means if future administrations object to the plan the UN draws up in cooperation with the most anti-American administration in history, they could conceivably be deemed guilty of “persistent non-cooperation.” If their lack of cooperation were sufficiently strong — and we were sufficiently weak — it could impose this agenda on the American people against their will. At a minimum, Obama has reduced our standing in the eyes of the world if we reject any piece of his far-Left agenda. This report guarantees we will endure decades of international propaganda that the United States is “not meeting its human rights commitments to the United Nations” — putting us on the same level as China, North Korea, or Iran.

The Obama administration has made its campaign platform the internationally recognized standard of conduct for future generations, all without winning a single vote for much of it.

The State Department is maintaining a “counter-misinformation” page on an America.gov blog that attempts to “debunk a conspiracy theory” that President Obama was not born in the United States, as if the topic were equivalent to believing space aliens visit Earth in flying saucers.

However, in the attempt to [...]

Read More and Comment: State Dept. Confirms Obama's Dual Citizenship]]> Jerome Corsi, WorldNetDaily

The State Department is maintaining a “counter-misinformation” page on an America.gov blog that attempts to “debunk a conspiracy theory” that President Obama was not born in the United States, as if the topic were equivalent to believing space aliens visit Earth in flying saucers.

However, in the attempt to debunk the Obama birth-certificate controversy, the State Department author confirmed Obama was a dual citizen of the U.K. and the U.S. from 1961 to 1963 and a dual citizen of Kenya and the U.S. from 1963 to 1982, because his father was a Kenyan citizen when Obama was born in 1961.

In a number of court cases challenging Obama’s eligibility, dual citizenship has been raised as a factor that could compromise his “natural born” status under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution. The cases argue dual citizenship would make Obama ineligible even if documentary evidence were shown the public, such as the hospital-issued long-form birth certificate that indicates the place of his birth and the name of the attending physician.

The entry “The Obama Birth Controversy” was written by Todd Leventhal, identified as the chief of the Counter-Misinformation Team for the U.S. Department of State. The office appears to have been established “to provide information about false and misleading stories in the Middle East,” as described in a biography of Leventhal published on the U.S. Public Diplomacy website.

Read more.

Although a large majority of Americans support enforcing immigration law, the Obama administration has undertaken a series of steps to impose amnesty upon the country by fiat. Administration officials are largely ignoring the law, forbidding local officers from keeping their communities safe, and preparing a federally imposed plan [...]

Read More and Comment: Obama's Latest Stealth Amnesty]]> Ben Johnson, Floyd Reports

Although a large majority of Americans support enforcing immigration law, the Obama administration has undertaken a series of steps to impose amnesty upon the country by fiat. Administration officials are largely ignoring the law, forbidding local officers from keeping their communities safe, and preparing a federally imposed plan of amnesty without a single representative voting on it – all to secure a loyal Democratic voting bloc.

Part of Barack Obama’s plan to “fundamentally transform” the American electorate is to admit as many illegal aliens as possible, and then grant them amnesty. Since Arizona passed S.B. 1070 to enforce federal immigration law against the president’s targeted demographic, the Obama administration has sued the state and legally harassed Sheriff Joe Arpaio for “racially profiling” illegal aliens on the Mexican border. The bill requires the illegals be stopped for some other violation, such as a traffic violation.

Not surprisingly, a new draft memo has appeared instructing all law enforcement – including any “state, local, or tribal officer” – that no one “should not issue detainers against an alien charged only with a traffic-related misdemeanor.” These stops often net one or more illegal immigrants. Now, the policeman can only arrest a suspect if he commits some other crime – like, perhaps, killing him. That’s what happened to Deputy Frank Fabiano Jr. of Kenosha County, Wisconsin, during a routine traffic stop in 2007. His murderer, Ezeiquel Lopez-Quintero, was an illegal with four prior arrests. The federal statute would gut the popular Arizona law and any similar bill passed by another state.

If such cases make it to court, Obama simply drops them. The Department of Homeland Security made headlines just today when word leaked the agency was systematically dismissing “thousands” of deportation cases pending against illegal immigrants nationwide – 2,500 in Houston alone. Last week, John Morton wrote a memo that could let off as many as 17,000 illegals who are related to American citizens.

Also today, DHS gave the word that Secretary Janet Napolitano is likely to ignore a congressionally mandated program to assure legal immigrants do not overstay their visas by fingerprinting them as they leave. Some 40-45 percent of all illegal immigrants – that is, 6-10 million people – have entered the country this way.

These stealth amnesty measures for traffic violators and visa-holders should ring an eerie echo for all Americans. Six of the 9/11 hijackers overstayed their visas, and two were stopped for a non-violent traffic arrest.

Although some of the hijackers arrived on student visas, the Obama administration has also exempted all otherwise-law abiding illegals of college age. The New York Times reported that the government has stopped deporting young illegals earlier this month – an exemption that applies to 726,000 people. Why? Tuscon’s KGUN-TV reports the case of Marlen Moreno, a woman brought to America illegally as a young girl who was about to be deported. Instead, Napolitano allowed her to stay an extra year:

The reason: If passed, she would be eligible for the DREAM act.

The DREAM Act allows illegals who complete two years of college or receive an honorable discharge to receive amnesty. Although the bill has not passed, and admitting thousands of poorly educated young people into underfunded colleges would have disastrous effects on higher education, Obama is keeping these illegals on hand in case the Democratic majority rams it through during a lame duck session.

Amnesty may come even if Congress does nothing. In June, the Center for Immigration Studies obtained a memo from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that threatened to impose amnesty by fiat. It discussed “meaningful immigration reform absent legislative action” by “issuing new guidance and regulations, exercising discretion with regard to parole-in-place, deferred action” and “process improvements.” Although Obama administration officials insist the memo was merely a “draft” that somehow got put together – a creative, amnesty-granting snafu – former Bush administration officials who were part of behind-the-scenes talks vouch that the fascist plan is on the table.

It is no wonder the ICE union passed a vote of no confidence against John Morton, who is in charge of (non-)enforcement. Obama appointed Harold Hurtt head of ICE’s “state and local coordination” office, although Hurtt is an advocate of sanctuary cities and an opponent of local immigration enforcement.

Obama is stalling immigration’s enforcement and prevention machinery in hopes of legalizing the alien population and turning them into loyal Democratic voters.

Although 68 percent of Americans support building a border fence, the federal government has built only half of the 700-mile fence authorized in 2006 – at least, only half is an actual fence. An additional 300 miles of “fence” stop automobiles but not humans. Some of the fence is “wildlife friendly” – allowing animals and humans to cross. One such stretch borders the farm of Robert Krentz, who was allegedly murdered by an illegal alien in March.

Some of his defenders point to the fact that fines on employers are up – a welcome development – tripling to $3 million. However, Fox News found “arrests and deportations of illegals taken into custody at work sites plummeted by more than 80 percent from the last year of the Bush administration.” Coincidentally, this strategy raises much-needed funds for Obama’s Big Government schemes while leaving illegal immigrants free to wait for amnesty.

Despite media reports of record-breaking enforcement, experts find deportations have fallen for the first time since 2002.

Pretenses of “cracking down on the border” are Obama’s way of quelling unrest so he can pass “Comprehensive Immigration Reform.” President George W. Bush did the same thing the last two years of his presidency. In fact, the Secure Communities program responsible for the majority of Obama’s deportations this year began in 2007 under Bush.

ICE is ignoring the will of the people because 67 percent of Hispanics voted for Barack Obama in 2008. So did 79 percent of Hispanic youth – the beneficiaries of the DREAM Act. If they were citizens, their sheer numbers would swallow up many bastions of traditional conservatism, and their voting patterns would ensure a left-wing majority for decades to come. No wonder the Center for Immigration Studies is hosting a conference asking, “Can Conservatism Survive Mass Immigration?”

The better question is, Can America survive Obama?