From YouTube:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by SDAMatt2a on Jan 13, 2012

Muslim groups claimed a win in Oklahoma on Tuesday after a federal appeals court upheld a block on a proposed constitutional amendment to ban Sharia law in the state’s courtrooms.

In November, 70 percent of Oklahoma voters approved an amendment that would ban state judges from considering Sharia law in their decisions, the Associated Press reports.

But the appeals court said the ban discriminates against Islam, as Sharia law is the only law mentioned in the proposed amendment.

The appeals court also noted that no example could be found in which Sharia law was used or cited in a U.S. court case.

“It’s just fear-mongering; it’s nothing,” Saleem Quraishi, president of the American Muslim Association of Oklahoma City, told CNN. “What’s Sharia law have to do with Oklahoma?”

Turns out, it has a lot more to do with the whole country. The debate over whether to consider Sharia law in U.S. courts has been ongoing for years and is growing louder.

On one side, the neoconservative Center for Security Policy argues that Sharia law is in conflict with American state law. In a report published last June, the center examined 50 cases that it said involved Muslim Americans and conflicts between Islamic and state laws.

“These families came to America for freedom from the discriminatory and cruel laws of Sharia,” the report’s summary reads. “When our courts then apply Sharia law… and deny them equal protection, they are betraying the principles on which America was founded.”

In February, several Tennessee lawmakers sought to take the fight a step further, introducing a bill would make it a felony to follow Sharia law, punishable by 15 years in jail.

On the other side of the debate, there are those who say that international law like Sharia can have an assisting role in U.S. courts.

During her 2010 confirmation hearings, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said she would be willing to consider international law when hearing cases before the court.

Several Islamic law experts who have started a blog, Sharia Index, similarly believe Islamic law should have place a place in U.S. court.

In its mission statement, Sharia Index argues that because we live in a “global village,” in which marriages and commercial transactions are crossing borders, so too must U.S. courts interpret and apply international law — including Islamic law.

“Sharia can be relevant in various circumstances,” Sharia Index writes, “everything from the recognition of foreign divorces and custody decrees to the validity of marriages, [or] the terms of an Islamic finance deal.”

The Oklahoma case goes back to federal court in Oklahoma City to determine the amendment’s constitutionality, where Tuesday’s judgment could be reversed.

UPDATE: Fox News: Virginia Attorney General Backs Off Call to Change Ballot Rules Before Primary

I say he is WRONG. When the law was intended to subvert our Constitutional rights, respecting the “rule of law” is simply fatuous. This law was put into place to help the GOP establishment, i.e., Romney, who has vastly more money than anybody else. Though that was not the intention, it also helped Ron Paul, who has all the Paulbots to do whatever needs to be done.

The way that the law was interpreted is also very questionable.

If Virginians were made of the same stuff they were made of in 1776, every lamppost would have its politician. Instead, it’s a mere suburb of Mordor on the Potomac. For shame.

Fox News has the story:

Virginia AG Intervenes in GOP Ballot Dispute as Blocked Candidates Join Suit

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is intervening in his state’s presidential primary dispute and plans to file emergency legislation to address the inability of most Republican presidential candidates to get their name on the ballot, Fox News has learned.

Meanwhile, four GOP candidates on Saturday joined fellow candidate Rick Perry’s lawsuit against the state, urging the Board of Elections to either allow them on the ballot or at least refrain from taking any action until a Jan. 13 court hearing.

Only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul qualified for the Virginia primary, a contest with 49 delegates up for grabs. Perry and the four candidates joining the lawsuit — Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman — did not.

The failure of other candidates to qualify led to complaints that the 10,000-signature requirement is too stringent.

Cuccinelli, who is a Republican, shared the concerns and plans to take them to the legislature while the candidates work through the courts.

“Recent events have underscored that our system is deficient,” he said in a statement Saturday. “Virginia owes her citizens a better process. We can do it in time for the March primary if we resolve to do so quickly.”

Cuccinelli’s proposal is expected to state that if the Virginia Board of Elections certifies that a candidate is receiving federal matching funds, or has qualified to receive them, that candidate will upon request be automatically added to the ballot.

Two former Democratic attorneys general are backing the move, along with a former Democratic state party chairman and a former Republican state party chairman.

Former state Attorney General Tony Troy called the Virginia process a “legal and constitutional embarrassment.” Fellow former top Virginia prosecutor Steve Rosenthal said: “This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. If it takes emergency legislation, then we need to do it.”
[...]
More here.

Here’s my earlier take on the Virginia GOP ballot debacle.

Every House Republican voted against it, as did all but three Senate Republicans – and for good reason.

Human Events has the story.

Gates of Vienna: Federal Government vs. American Sovereignty

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio talks about the Obama administration’s recent success in shutting down even the most vestigial enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video:

Not everyone illegally crossing the Arizona border is Mexican. The “Other than Mexicans” (OTMs) include Muslims from all over the world, some with known terrorist connections. Once again, the Obama Administration is doing all it can to provide cover for allowing jihadis unrestricted entry to the US.

When even San Francisco has had enough of Occupy, we should be able to stick a fork in it and call it done:

Police clear Occupy encampment in San Francisco

More than 100 police officers gave protesters at the Occupy encampment in San Francisco five minutes to gather belongings before authorities took down about 100 tents and arrested 70 people as the camp was dismantled in an overnight raid.

A few officers remained at daybreak Wednesday as trash crews raked up paper and plastic bottles, removed chairs and other belongings that accumulated at the camp over the past two months and pressure-washed the sidewalks.

Dozens of police cars, fire engines and ambulances surrounded the campsite at Justin Herman Plaza and blocked off the area during the raid, which began shortly after 1 a.m.

Police did not immediately release how many people were in the plaza at the time, but campers put the estimate at 150.

“Most of the protesters went peacefully,” but one officer received minor injuries when two people threw a chair that cracked his face shield, said officer Albie Esparza. They were arrested on suspicion of felony assault. Dozens of others were arrested for illegal lodging in the plaza and failure to disperse. In all, 70 people were taken into custody.

Richard Kriedler with Occupy S.F. said some protesters were also injured, but he didn’t have the details…

More here.

The Commies are still trying to turn the situation around:

Communists Work on a New, Improved, Pro-Obama ‘Occupy’ Movement

While withering under the combined effects of cold weather, public disgust,  and the tiniest hint of  a backbone by some public authorities, the Occupy Wall Street Movement will not be allowed to die.

That is,  if one of the movement’s strongest pillars, the Communist Party USA, has its way.

What will change though, if the Communist succeed in dominating the movement they have so thoroughly infiltrated, will be a new, more disciplined, less anarchic – even electorally focused “Occupy” movement.

In a  report to the National Committee of the Communist Party USA, which met in New York City, Nov. 12-13, 2011, Party National chairman Sam Webb,  laid out his analysis of  the current political climate, and the role of the “Occupy” movement and the Communist Party in moving the “progressive” movement forward…

If there is a divergence between the occupiers and labor’s leadership, it lies in the attitudes towards the 2012 elections. Labor sees the defeat of the Republican Party – the party of rightwing extremism – as the critical terrain on which the class struggle will be fought.

Many of the occupiers, on the other hand, are suspicious of the political process, and see no value in participating in electoral and legislative politics.

What is needed is a friendly dialogue about the place of electoral politics in the larger scheme of things.

By “labor”, Sam Webb mean’s labor’s true champion – the Communist Party. By “friendly dialog” Sam Webb means strictly imposing the Communist Party line on the less disciplined elements of the “Occupy” movement.

Comrade Webb goes on to say how, and by who, this crucial task should be carried out – labor, “people of color” and the young…

Sam Webb seldom issues a statement without some thoughts on how to get “Party “friend’” Barack Obama re-elected to the White house in 2012…

Certainly comrade Webb is terrified of the consequences for his side, if the GOP regains power in America…

Sam Webb’s words should be taken seriously.Though his Party is only an few thousand strong , its influence is felt from the White House on to down to thousands  of precinct committees, labor halls, churches  and “community groups” in nearly every major city in the USA. Further, the help given to the party in terms of guidance (and probably money) from its allies in China, Cuba, Venezuela and even Russia should not be discounted.

“Occupy” will fade away over winter, but will not be allowed to die. It will re – emerge in the Spring, stronger, more disciplined and even more militant. It will be purged to some degree of its anarchist leadership and will become more of an appendage of the labor movement, and by extension, the Communist Party, its allies in Democratic Socialists of America and the Obama Administration.

Much more here.

Can we survive even one term of a president who is both communist and pro-Muslim? Have we survived thus far? The jury is still out on that one. But if anything can help to see us through, it will be public exposure of all of the evil people and organizations that have been backing Obama.

Speaking of which, it’s long past time for a flat-out ban on public employee unions at any level of government.

SEIU Sends #OccupyCongress to Invade the Hill

Sources on Capitol Hill tell Big Government that SEIU has organized a major effort to ‘Take Back the Capitol’ this week with a collective of community, labor and Occupy groups that are dedicated to “show Congress what democracy looks like, shine a light on corporate greed and the human suffering it has caused, and demand justice for the 99%.”

According to Congressional sources, Occupy protestors have been visiting one Congressional office after another and demanding to speak with representatives while loitering in their waiting rooms and chanting. ‘Trackers’ are also being spotted roaming the hills of various Congressional buildings.

Joanna Burgos, Deputy Communications Director for the National Republican Congressional Committee described the trackers as, “people with cameras who are trying to track a member or politician on a certain issue. Its just part of the videos you see used all the time. I think their goal is to get them to say something on camera or say something. They tape a lot of their protests and put them on YouTube.”

Some of those videos have already been posted at a site for Think Progress, which describes itself as nonpartisan organization, but was voted the “Best Liberal Blog,” in the 2006 Weblog Awards.

One Think Progress piece posted at 1:57 pm today featured video of protestors occupying U.S. Representative Joe Walsh’s (R-IL) office, reporting that, “These protesters asked to meet with the congressman. The Chief of Staff, Justin Roth, said that Walsh was busy and could only meet with them later but offered to meet with the protesters himself. ‘“I think we’ll stay,”’ said one protester. Roth shrugged and the protesters sat down and decided to occupy the office until Walsh arrives.”
[...]
According to a PDF of an online itinerary, SEIU has established a weekly schedule for the protestors, having them “set up camp” on Monday, “take back the House,” on Tuesday on Capitol Hill, “make Wall Street pay,” Wednesday, which entails protesting corporate offices in downtown Washington, D.C., and Thursday, “a call for Justice for the 99%” which will involve a vigil being held to extend unemployment insurance compensation benefits.

One Congressional staffer on the U.S House side told Big Government that some of the protestors were moving from office to office chanting, and others “were just chilling.”

More here.

Considering that the Democrats in Congress are already a wholly-owned subsidiary of the SEIU, the labor goons simply want to remind their representatives who’s boss.

‘Trespassers’: Occupy Wall St. Protesters Begin Taking Over Foreclosed Homes

…Seattle has become a leader in the anti-foreclosure movement as protesters took over a formerly boarded-up duplex last month. They painted the bare wood sidings with green, black and red paint, and strung up a banner that says “Occupy Everything – No Banks No Landlords.”

While arrests have already been made in a couple of squatting cases in Seattle and Portland, it remains to be seen how authorities will react to this latest tactic.

In Portland, police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said he’s aware that the movement called for people to occupy foreclosed homes, but said it’s difficult to distinguish between the people who would squat in homes as a political statement and those that do it for shelter.

“The vacant property issue is of concern in cities nationwide,” Simpson said. “We’ll treat them all as trespassers.”

In Seattle, protesters took over a boarded-up warehouse slated for demolition last weekend. In an announcement, the protesters said they planned to make the warehouse into a community center, and hosted a party the night they opened the building. Police moved in soon after, arresting 16 people in the process of clearing it out…

While the banking industry should never have made loans to people who couldn’t afford houses, they did so only at the behest of Barack Hussein Obama, ACORN, and Barney Frank. In other words, the very same lefty agitators and organizers who are promoting and supporting Occupy are the ones who caused the real estate collapse to begin with.

‘Occupation’ Is Not ‘Speech’: #OccupyBoston, #OccupyDenver Lose in Court

Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Frances McIntyre, who was prematurely panned for granting Occupy Boston a temporary reprieve (and for being a Mitt Romney appointee), delivered an elegant decision against the protestors today:

Plaintiffs claim that their occupation of the site and the community they have established thereon are protected by the First Amendment. They seek a preliminary injunction against their removal by the defendants.

But the injunction is denied because, while Occupy Boston protesters may be exercising their expressive rights during the protest, they have no privilege under the First Amendment to seize and hold the land on which they sit…[T]his court seriously doubts that the First Amendment permits the plaintiffs to seize and hold a public forum to the exclusion of others. (1, 15)

Judge McIntyre noted that “the setting up of tents, sleeping, and governance” on a public square is “expressive conduct,” albeit subject to local regulations that have a merely “incidental” impact on free speech, and which are consistent with established time, place, and manner restrictions on the First Amendment. However, the fact that protesters sought to “Occupy” that public square crossed the line from speech into land seizure.

(Time to rename that movement, perhaps?)

Meanwhile, in Denver, a federal judge ruled against Occupy Denver’s request for a restraining order to stop city policy from ticketing them, ahead of a lawsuit to decide the substance of their claim.

The Denver Post reports that U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn (a George W. Bush appointee) ruled that Occupy Denver had failed to show evidence that the police were acting in retaliation to the protestors’ opinions.
[...]
(Time to try a different legal strategy, perhaps?)

Uh, no. Time to pack up and go home while you still can. The American public has a long fuse, but that fuse has burned far enough.

Camping without permission on property not one’s own, along with littering, urinating, and defecating whenever and wherever one pleases, have nothing to do with Constitutionally-protected freedoms of speech and peaceable assembly. Government officials far too often tolerate unlawful and harmful activities that are entitled to no Constitutional protection, while making inroads upon conservative and counterjihad political speech or Judaeo-Christian religious expression. Those officials who fail in their duty to defend our society under the rule of law will find themselves voted out.

PJM Exclusive: New Law Cuts Ties Between FBI and Terror-Tied Groups

Obama undoubtedly signed this into law by accident, given the fact that neither diligence nor reading comprehension are his long suit. Be that as it may, the law should inhibit the ongoing campaign of Muslim pressure groups to indoctrinate FBI personnel with their politically correct and pro-Muslim agenda.

When Barack Obama signed the continuing resolution this past weekend averting another potential government shutdown, it’s doubtful that he was aware that tucked into the bill, which funds several federal agencies through the fiscal year and extends the continuing resolution for the rest of the government until December 16, is a provision that may dramatically impact what Islamic groups and leaders the FBI and other law enforcement agencies can continue to work with.

Under Division B, Title II of the bill, under the Federal Bureau of Investigation-Salaries and Expenses section, is the following provision:

Liaison partnerships- The conferees support the FBI’s policy prohibiting any formal non-investigative cooperation with unindicted co-conspirators in terrorism cases. The conferees expect the FBI to insist on full compliance with this policy by FBI field offices and to report to the Committees on Appropriations regarding any violation of the policy.

The most obvious group that this will impact is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was named unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case — the largest terrorism-finance trial in American history. During the trial, FBI Dallas Agent Lara Burns testified that CAIR was a front for the terrorist group Hamas.

Read it all.

Winds of Jihad: Ron Paul stuck on stoopid

Ron Paul (and his indoctrinated supporters) got their wrongheaded views on Islam and counterterrorism from jihadi mole Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad. I, for one, am tired of Paul and the Paulbots slandering the entire counterjihad with “Islamophobia” whenever we work to educate the public about the true nature of the threat we are all facing.

Crazy uncle Ron Paul is a moron. He not only runs with enemy propaganda, he literally hijacks the Arab agenda. Ron Paul is a simpleton and a tool.

Here’s where it comes from, the roots of Ron Paul’s views are becoming clearer:

Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad is a Muslim academic infil-traitor who served formerly as a Ron Paul adviser in 2008, and perhaps later:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imad-ad-Dean_Ahmad
• http://www.minaret.org/index.html

Among other articles rationalizing Islam, Dr. Ahmad has written about the US actions which he claims caused al-Qaeda’s aggression towards the US.

Ron Paul: “Flawed” U.S. policies caused 9/11

Here he goes again. Ron Paul and Barack Obama agree that jihad terrorism is our fault, caused by our actions, and capable of being ended by something that we do. It never occurs to either of them how ethnocentric and condescending this is: they both assume that Muslims are just passive reactors to American enormities, not people who might be able to think for themselves and hate us for reasons of their own that are independent of what we do or don’t do — such as the doctrine of jihad.

Read it all.

Jihadi Hackers

This blogger got some unwelcome Thanksgiving visits from a turkey Turk.

The other day I had gotten on one of my hosted web sites, one that I gave my eldest brother, and noticed some extra “junk” items in the menu that I know that I or my brother didn’t create. This particular site is one of my two German language sites which gets a fair amount of traffic from Europe. I decided to investigate the trash put on the site. I found out first I couldn’t log on to the site anymore with my current credentials, at least through WordPress login.

I gave up after a few attempts and decided to get into the server and see what I can do.

I immediately went into the file system and checked for any changes and found a lot of new content that was put there in the past few weeks. Checking the security logs I found out right away that the intrusions came from Turkey.

Next step was to see what damage to the WordPress core was done. I started by re-configuring my wp-config.php so that all older cookies were dead. The Turkish invasion was DAILY. I went into the SQL database and purged all Turkish content. I replace the WP prefix on the SQL tables to something else to thwart future hackers in a SQL injection hacking attempt.

The hackers inserted an HTML file on my site which I saved IF you want to see it below. If you don’t want to visit their moslem jihad propaganda the screenshot below will give you an idea. Follow my advice below IF you want to see their site or visit it on a public, library computer.

More here.

Click here to read the full story from St. Petersburg Times.

Thanks to Fox News:

A Florida appeals court has rejected a request to block a Hillsborough judge from upholding Islamic law in a case involving the former trustees of a local Tampa mosque that has garnered the national spotlight.

The state’s 2nd District Court of Appeal on Friday denied without comment a petition filed by the mosque, known as the Islamic Education Center of Tampa, which is challenging Hillsborough Circuit Judge Richard Nielsen’s ruling in March that he intended to cite “ecclesiastical Islamic law” in the case, the St. Petersburg Times reported.

The former trustees have been suing the mosque because they claim they were unfairly removed as trustees. Nielsen said in March that based on testimony, “under ecclesiastical law” and pursuant to the Koran, “Islamic brothers should attempt to resolve a dispute among themselves.”

The two parties reportedly agreed ahead of time to use an imam and Islamic Law to resolve any potential differences through arbitration. So Nielsen only referenced Islamic law in deciding whether the two parties could resolve their differences through arbitration. He ruled they could.

The arbitrator ruled in favor of the former trustees, an outcome that would give them control of $2.2 million in mosque funds if the decision is upheld, the newspaper reported.

But mosque officials say the arbitration never happened, and they dispute the meaning of the appeals court ruling. Mosque attorney Paul Thanasides told the newspaper that an appeals court decision without a written opinion means the court wasn’t addressing the merits of the case.

But Lee Segal, a lawyer representing the trustees, told the newspaper that the ruling was a “big time” win for his clients and vindication for Nielsen.

From the Associated Press article:

Gay judge, Vaughn Walker, strikes down a bill passed by a majority of California voters that upheld a ban on gay marriage.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Proponents of California’s same-sex marriage ban filed a motion Monday seeking to vacate the historic ruling that overturned Proposition 8 because the federal judge who wrote it is in a long-term relationship with another man.

Lawyers for the ban’s backers said that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker should have removed himself from the case, or at least disclosed his relationship status, to avoid a real or perceived conflict of interest.

“Only if Chief Judge Walker had unequivocally disavowed any interest in marrying his partner could the parties and the public be confident that he did not have a direct personal interest in the outcome of the case,” attorneys for the coalition of religious and conservative groups that put Proposition 8 on the November 2008 ballot wrote.

They are now asking the judge who inherited the case when Walker retired at the end of February to toss out Walker’s August 2010 decision. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals already is reviewing its legal merits at the request of the voter-approved measure’s sponsors.

Walker has said that he did not consider his sexual orientation to be any more a reason for recusal than another judge’s race or gender normally would be. A spokeswoman said Monday that the judge wouldn’t comment on the motion.

American Foundation for Equal Rights President Chad Griffin, whose group has funded the legal effort to strike down Proposition 8, scoffed at the notion that the judge’s personal life could imperil his ruling.

There is a legal condition known as “similarly situated” that helps establish when certain parties share common circumstances that might indicate the presence of a conflict of interest. How Judge Walker’s long standing homosexual relationship does not make him “similarly situated” defies all reason. Only his recent retirement should provide him with any opportunity to escape judicial censure for such an obvious violation of ethics.

Where are the gays who think that such a blatant conflict of interest should be scrutinized for judicial misconduct? It is remarkable how the Left continues to selectively demand legal action only in cases that challenge their own agenda.

American gays are doing their cause tremendous harm by not monitoring their own ranks for violations of ethics. In recent years my own support for gay rights has undergone some serious recalibration due to this exact sort of activism.

There are numerous parallels with respect to this issue. American Blacks seem to have no problem with the so-called “reverse” racism ― in reality, just plain old racism ― of Affirmative Action, despite how it clouds the record of true achievers within the Black community.

American Muslims have no problem with undermining Freedom of Speech even as they use that Constitutional right to protest any censorship of their support for terrorism and terrorist organizations like Hamas.

Nor do American gays have the common sense to raise any hue and cry over blatant cases of dubious ethics, such as the case of efforts being made by Pauline Moreno and Debra Lobel to have their 11-year-old adopted son undergo sex change surgery.

Again, the parallels are as disturbing as they are numerous. How do gays think that they can remain silent over such egregious parental misconduct and still retain the trust or respect of heterosexual America?

One may as well ask how it is that American Muslims can hope for any respect or trust while they, too, remain largely silent over the more than 17,000 fatal terrorist attacks since the 9-11 atrocity.

As a Spanish journalist once said:

“AFTER A WHILE, TO REMAIN SILENT IS NO LONGER JUST CONSENT. TO REMAIN SILENT IS TO LIE.”

To the tune of ten million dollars, no less. The suit is frivolous, but it still must be defended, at considerable expense.

The story is on Republican Riot, Julia Gorin’s blog.

By Sparta

I stand with this brave woman. I hope others do. God bless her! There should be more like her.

They want to be called “Gay.” Unfortunately, they have taken a once beautiful word and corrupted it.

Homosexuals have won the right to corrupt our children in our schools. They have won the right to corrupt our military. I wonder what parents now say to their children when they see two “Gay” officers dancing on the floor of the officer’s club making out since they have no shame? Gov. Jerry Brown of California has just signed a bill for their public schools to give lessons about Gays and Lesbians in their social studies. See:
California Gay History Law: Jerry Brown Signs Landmark Bill

I once saw a video of a Gay Parade (Gay Pride) in San Francisco. Thoroughly sickening, and Nancy Pelosi has lead this “Gay Pride” parade. See: Gay Pride and Bare Asses

A word of warning. It may prove offensive to some – but it is factual.

Let’s not forget that Nancy Pelosi had promised to lead the most ethical Congress ever! LOL!!!!

Not only are we to accept their perverse way of achieving sexual satisfaction, we are to celebrate it.

Just as they do not want our morals imposed upon their lives, we should not have their immorality imposed upon us.

I realize that even by writing my thoughts down, by being out spoken, it could be very dangerous to me, just as it is dangerous when I write in support of my Serbian brothers and sisters.

As someone close to me once said, “The way this country is going, God is going to owe an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah!”

New York town clerk quits over gay marriage licenses

HUDSON, New York (Reuters) – A town clerk in western New York has resigned to avoid being forced to sign marriage licenses for gay and lesbian couples, citing religious objections to same-sex marriage.

Laura Fotusky, the town clerk in Barker, New York, said in her resignation letter that she will step down on July 21, three days before New York becomes the sixth and largest state to allow gay nuptials.

Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the same sex marriage law last month after the bill narrowly passed the Republican-led state Senate. Its approval in New York is seen as a catalyst for gay marriage elsewhere as well as helping push the issue to the forefront nationally ahead of the 2012 elections.

Much of the debate in New York focused on the scope of protections for those opposed to same-sex marriage. The new law exempts religious groups from performing same-sex marriages but does not extend those protections to individuals, including government employees.

Fotusky was not immediately available for comment, but in her letter, dated July 11, she said she believes the Bible takes precedence over man-made laws.

“The Bible clearly teaches that God created marriage between male and female as a divine gift that preserves families and cultures. Since I love and follow Him, I cannot put my signature on something that is against God,” she wrote.

“I would be compromising my moral conscience if I participated in the licensing procedure,” she wrote.
[…]
Cuomo, who had made the legalization of same-sex marriage a top priority this year, told reporters on Tuesday that he agreed with Fotusky’s decision to resign because government workers have a responsibility to enforce the law.

“When you enforce the laws of the state, you don’t get to pick and choose the laws,” Cuomo said.
[…]
More here.

The Obama Administration is attacking not only Boeing, but also the State of South Carolina and the US Constitution.

Real Clear Politics: The Newest Labor War: Union, Feds Attack Boeing

(h/t: vagabond trader)

April 22, 2011
By Tom Bevan

Welcome to South Carolina, the newest front in America’s organized labor wars.

On Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Boeing, seeking to prevent the aircraft manufacturer from opening a second production facility in Charleston, South Carolina for its new 787 Dreamliner.

The NLRB alleges that Boeing violated the law, opening the non-unionized South Carolina plant in retaliation against union workers for past strikes at its facility in Everett, Washington and also as part of an effort to discourage future strikes. The NLRB wants an administrative court to force Boeing to relocate its second production line back to a unionized plant in Washington.

Needless to say, with labor controversy still roiling some states across the country, particularly in Wisconsin, news of the story rang out like a shot at Fort Sumter.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint denounced the move as “nothing more than a political favor for the unions who are supporting President Obama’s reelection campaign.” DeMint vowed to “use every tool at my disposal to stop the president from carrying out this malicious act.”

His GOP colleague in the Senate, Lindsey Graham, called the NLRB’s complaint “one of the worst cases of unelected bureaucrats doing the bidding of special interest groups that I’ve ever seen.”

On the other side, the International Association of Machinists District 571, which filed the grievance in March of last year, predictably hailed the filing as “a victory for all American workers.”

At issue is not whether companies can retaliate against union workers – they can’t – but whether they have the right to open new facilities (or relocate old ones) where they choose based on a variety of business factors, including the consideration of potential labor strikes in the future.

The IAM has had a collective bargaining agreement with Boeing since 1975, and in that time has led five strikes in the Seattle plants, two of them in the past six years. Boeing CEO Jim MnNerney has been open about his desire for “dual sourcing” capabilities so that the company can meet its obligations with “strikes happening every three to four years in Puget Sound.”

The union contends that the opening of the new non-union facility in South Carolina amounts to intimidation, and that its workers will now be forced to either to accept employment concessions or face the prospect of seeing more and more production migrate from Everett to Charleston. Acting NLRB General Counsel Lafe Solomon fully embraced with the union’s novel legal theory, and stated in his Wednesday order that he will seek an order requiring Boeing to build the second 787 Dreamliner assembly line in Washington.

In response to the uproar Thursday spokeswoman Nancy Cleeland responded in an e-mail: “As Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon made clear in his statement yesterday, this is about the law. The right to strike is guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act, and employers must stay within the law in making their business decisions.”

Boeing’s lawyers slammed that claim as “legally frivolous” and said the NLRB’s effort to restrict the company’s business represents a “radical departure” from precedent. They were quick to point out two 1965 Supreme Court cases affirming employers’ right to consider potential strikes in making business decisions, and they refuted the union’s claims of intimidation by pointing out that in the eighteen months since the announcement of the South Carolina plant, Boeing has added more than 2,000 union jobs in the Puget Sound area.

The NLRB’s complaint is controversial because of its conspicuousness – labor experts can’t seem to recall any similar complaints or comparable court cases – and also because of the board’s inherently political nature. With Democrats taking control of the five-member board in 2008, the New York Times described the move against Boeing as “the strongest signal yet of the new pro-labor orientation of the National Labor Relations Board under President Obama.”
[...]
Unlike Wisconsin, however, the battle in South Carolina is unions and the federal government pitted against private business and “right to work” states. At stake is whether unions have the power to effectively veto companies’ decisions about where they choose to do business.

Also unlike Wisconsin, South Carolina is a critical – some would even argue determinative – early primary state in the Republican presidential nominating process, which is just getting under way. Some, but not all, of the prospective Republican presidential hopefuls are scheduled be in South Carolina in less than two weeks for the first televised debate of the primary season, hosted by Fox News.

The subject of the NLRB’s complaint will surely arise. This issue might even prompt candidates who hadn’t figured on attending the South Carolina debate to tinker with their schedules. And because of South Carolina and Wisconsin, the war between the federal government and unions versus states and the private sector is sure to be a defining issue of next year’s presidential race.

Tom Bevan is the co-founder and Executive Editor of RealClearPolitics. Email: tom@realclearpolitics.com

Read it all.

This evil attempt to impose tyranny on Boeing and on the State of South Carolina is nothing more than liberal fascism combined with institutionalized union thuggery. Whether or not the NLRB ultimately succeeds, the very fact that they even attempted such an infringement will encourage our few remaining US-based manufacturers to move their entire operations overseas. Once outside of the jurisdiction of the US federal government, their companies will no longer be subjected to the malicious whims and depredations of American democracy – and yes, I do mean mob rule in every sense of that word. The US was founded as a republic, not a democracy, with the powers of the federal government strictly limited to those provided in the US Constitution. Evidently, the Constitution in general, and the Tenth Amendment in particular, has gone by the wayside.

Chile is looking better and better! (See 2.0: The Blogmocracy: Chile Says No to Collective Bargaining.) Unlike the US, the nation and people of Chile love and respect liberty.

If at first you don’t secede, try, try again!

As for South Carolina and the other States of the American South, I would suggest that it is long past time to consider secession once again. The outcome will be very different this time around. It is painfully obvious that the US federal government is bankrupting itself through egregious fiscal irresponsibility and is destroying American society in every possible way. The federal government is not sustainable and a collapse and breakup cannot now be avoided. The time has come for each liberty-loving State to assert its rights.

Originally published on 2.0: The Blogmocracy

Just. Plain. Wrong.

I would be the first to admit that, both now and in the past, I’ve had mixed feelings about Joe Arpaio, the high-profile sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona.

Be that as it may, this lawsuit is just plain wrong. It is a federal government attack, not only on the sheriff himself, but also on the state and people of Arizona.

F wrote:

FNC just had breaking news that the Justice Department is suing AZ Sheriff Arpaio in a civil rights case.

Fox News: Justice Dept. Sues Arizona Sheriff in Civil Rights Probe

Published September 02, 2010 | Associated Press

The U.S. Justice Department sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday, saying the Arizona lawman refused for more than a year to turn over records in an investigation into allegations his department discriminates against Hispanics.

The lawsuit calls Arpaio and his office’s defiance “unprecedented,” and said the federal government has been trying since March 2009 to get officials to comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and having English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against people with limited English skills.

Arpaio had been given until Aug. 17 to hand over documents it first asked for 15 months ago.

Arpaio’s attorney, Robert Driscoll, declined immediate comment on the lawsuit, saying he had just received it and hadn’t yet conferred with his client.

Arpaio’s office had said it has fully cooperated in the jail inquiry but won’t hand over additional documents into the examination of the alleged unconstitutional searches because federal authorities haven’t said exactly what they were investigating.

It’s the latest action against Arizona by the federal government, which earlier sued the state to stop its strict new immigration law that requires police officers to question people about their immigration status.

“The actions of the sheriff’s office are unprecedented,” said Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the department’s civil rights division. “It is unfortunate that the department was forced to resort to litigation to gain access to public documents and facilities.”

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix and names Arpaio, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and the county.

Arizona’s new law — most of which a federal judge has put on hold — mirrors many of the policies Arpaio has put into place in the greater Phoenix area, where he set up a hot line for the public to report immigration violations, conducts crime and immigration sweeps in heavily Latino neighborhoods and frequently raids workplaces for people in the U.S. illegally.

Arpaio believes the inquiry is focused on his immigration sweeps, patrols where deputies flood an area of a city — in some cases heavily Latino areas — to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders.
…

The sheriff’s office has said half of the 1,032 people arrested in the sweeps have been illegal immigrants.

Last year, the federal government stripped Arpaio of his special power to enforce federal immigration law. The sheriff continued his sweeps through the enforcement of state immigration laws.
…

In a separate investigation, a federal grand jury in Phoenix is examining allegations that Arpaio has abused his powers with actions such as intimidating county workers by showing up at their homes at nights and on weekends.

Read it all.

But wait, there’s more…

Obama Justice Dept. Files Another Lawsuit Against Arizona Authorities

August, 31, 2010 — nicedeb

…This time, the lawsuit is against Phoenix area Maricopa Community Colleges for (if you can believe this) requiring noncitizens to provide their green cards before they could be hired for jobs.

No I’m not making this up.

This is from The Washington Post, okay?

The Justice Department filed another lawsuit against immigration practices by Arizona authorities, saying Monday that a network of community colleges acted illegally in requiring noncitizens to provide their green cards before they could be hired for jobs.

The suit against the Phoenix area Maricopa Community Colleges was filed less than two months after the Justice Department sued Arizona and Gov. Jan Brewer (R) over the state’s new immigration law. It also comes as the department is investigating Joe Arpaio, the sheriff in Maricopa County, who is known for tough immigration enforcement.

In Monday’s lawsuit, Justice officials said the colleges discriminated against nearly 250 noncitizen job applicants by mandating that they fill out more documents than required by law to prove their eligibility to work. That violated the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, the department said.

The law’s anti-discrimination provision “makes it unlawful to treat authorized workers differently during the hiring process based on their citizenship status,” said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

He said the government “is acting now to remedy this pattern or practice of discrimination.”

***

The government is asking a judge within the Justice Department unit to order the Maricopa colleges to pay a civil penalty of $1,100 for each of the 247 non-U.S.-citizen job applicants it says were required to produce the additional documents. It says the colleges ended the practice in January.

As Doug Ross notes, this lawsuit will intimidate employers into more permissive hiring practices:

A quarter of a million dollar fine will definitely have employers thinking twice about checking job candidates’ bonafides. And that is the intent.

And it’s but one step among many.

Keep reading. Among other things, the Justice Dept is investigating Joe Arpaio for enforcing immigration laws.

Up is down, black is white, night is day…I’m not sure how much more of this the country can take….

Read it all.

And more…

As nicedeb also reminds us:

And, of course, they’re suing the State of AZ for enforcing immigration laws with SB1070.

Last week, the Obama State Dept handed in its first ever report to the UN Human rights council, and besides being sickeningly self-congratulatory about it’s own wonderful accomplishments in the area of human rights, it singled out the State of AZ’s new immigration law as a human rights deficiency “that is being addressed in a court action.”

In response, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer rightly blasted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration for succumbing to “internationalism run amok.”

An AZ Sheriff recently opined, “Our own government has become our enemy”.

It sure looks that way.

Read the rest.

Also see:

• Sheriff Joe Arpaio defends immigration law
• Beware of Indirect Immigration Policy-Making

Originally published at 2.0: The Blogmocracy.

Fair and balanced? Really?

Anybody who has been following my blog posts and comments, either on 1389 Blog, on 2.0: The Blogmocracy, or anywhere else, is probably aware of my dislike for the Fox News “fair and balanced” slogan. There is no middle ground between good and evil. There is no compromise between truth and falsehood. I am uninterested in “fair and balanced” reporting. As I’ve mentioned before, the devil already has plenty enough spokesmen, and spokeswomen too. What I want instead is the whole truth and nothing but. That is what I endeavor to provide in all of my blog posts and comments.

And yes, I have previously voiced my own complaints about Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. Just for starters, a significant percentage of those who are arrested in any jurisdiction are actually innocent. The U.S. Constitution states that anyone accused of a crime is to be considered innocent until proven guilty. It is bad enough to be wrongfully arrested – and yes, that inevitably happens some of the time in every jurisdiction – without also being subjected to rough and physically uncomfortable treatment. Those who are past middle age and/or already suffering from various physical infirmities have reason to fear permanent bodily harm or death if detained in a hot desert “tent city” facility.

Update, thanks to lobo91 at 2.0: The Blogmocracy:

Evidently, only sentenced inmates are being held in the tent city; pre-trial detainees are held in the regular jail.

From their website:

The Tents Jail was begun in 1993 when Sheriff Joe Arpaio was able to obtain some surplus military tents. These tents were set up in an area adjacent to one of the existing Maricopa County Jails in Phoenix, Arizona. Sheriff Arpaio had previously decided that he would not release any inmates due to jail overcrowding, and housing sentenced inmates in the tents seemed a good solution.

Despite my prior misgivings, there is something important that Sheriff Joe Arpaio is doing right.

Immigration enforcement and Obozo’s stealth amnesty program

With the recent federal lawsuit against the State of Arizona for empowering their local and state law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law, it has become painfully clear that the Obama administration wants an unrestricted flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S. The main reason for this is that the Obama regime sees them as an easily controlled and intimidated future voting bloc who will reliably support the leftist Democrat agenda. Naturally, the ICE employees who are charged with enforcing US immigration laws are disgusted with this.

Border agents vote ‘no confidence’ in ICE leadership (h/t doriangrey)

In an unprecedented move within Homeland Security special agents recently gave ICE leadership a “non confidence” vote.

The Center For Immigration Studies reported:

In an unprecedented move within the Department of Homeland Security, the special agents responsible for enforcing our nation’s immigration laws issued an exhaustive, scathing letter simply titled “VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE IN ICE DIRECTOR JOHN MORTON AND ODPP ASSISTANT DIRECTOR PHYLLIS COVEN” on June 11, 2010. The letter, acquired through sources, provides a litany of examples of how ICE’s mission is being skewed towards supporting an unflinching goal of amnesty by refusing to allow agents to do their job; allowing criminal aliens to roam free; depleting resources for key enforcement initiatives that preceded this administration; and misrepresenting facts and programs, demeaning the extent of the criminal alien problem and geared to support amnesty.

Read the rest.

What is Sheriff Joe Arpaio doing right?

Arpaio Responsible For 25% Of All U.S. Deportees Since 2007

Without the benefit of their state’s strict new immigration law, officers from a single Arizona county helped deport more than 26,000 immigrants from the U.S. through a federal-local partnership program that has been roundly criticized as fraught with problems.

Statistics obtained by The Associated Press show that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office was responsible for deportations or forced departure of 26,146 immigrants since 2007.

That’s about a quarter of the national total of 115,841 sent out of the U.S. by officers in 64 law enforcement agencies deputized to help enforce immigration laws, some since 2006, under the so-called 287(g) program.

The tens of thousands of immigrant arrests show local officials already have a significant amount of authority to enforce immigration laws and help remove illegal immigrants from the country.

But with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio the top law officer among all those deputized, questions remain about what’s in store when Arizona gives more officers the power to enforce immigration laws. The federal government already is under fire for doing a poor job of keeping watch on local officers enforcing immigration laws and ensuring safeguards for protecting civil rights are in place.

…

Joanne Lin, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said it is alarming that one Arizona county is responsible for a disproportionate share of deportations.

The Los Angeles County’s Sheriff’s Office, a distant second to Maricopa, helped find 13,784 immigrants who were later deported or left the country. The Sheriff’s Office’s agreement with the federal government allows it to check its jails for deportable immigrants, but not to enforce immigration laws during street patrols. A renewal of the agreement is under negotiation.

An estimated 10.8 million people, about 26 percent of the state’s population, are living illegally in California, compared with 460,000, about 12 percent, in Arizona.

“These statistics bear out that you have rogue sheriffs in certain counties that are bent on targeting immigrants,” Lin said.

Read the rest.

No, Ms. Lin, what’s alarming is that other sheriffs in other counties are FAILING to do their jobs in targeting those immigrants (some legal, but most not) who have brought about a major crime wave involving not only smuggling of human beings and other contraband, but also gang warfare, widespread property damage, rape, and just about everything else in the criminal code.

Here’s another Arizona sheriff with the right idea

Arizona Sheriff: ‘Our Own Government Has Become Our Enemy’

(CNSNews.com) – Pinal County (Ariz.) Sheriff Paul Babeu is hopping mad at the federal government.

Babeu told CNSNews.com that rather than help law enforcement in Arizona stop the hundreds of thousands of people who come into the United States illegally, the federal government is targeting the state and its law enforcement personnel.

“What’s very troubling is the fact that at a time when we in law enforcement and our state need help from the federal government, instead of sending help they put up billboard-size signs warning our citizens to stay out of the desert in my county because of dangerous drug and human smuggling and weapons and bandits and all these other things and then, behind that, they drag us into court with the ACLU,” Babeu said.

The sheriff was referring to the law suits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Department of Justice challenging the state’s new immigration law.

“So who has partnered with the ACLU?” Babeu said in a telephone interview with CNSNews.com. “It’s the president and (Attorney General) Eric Holder himself. And that’s simply outrageous.”

Read the rest.

And your government bureaucrats are at work, with hilarious results:

Evidently, Sal the cat got on the jury duty roster after his humans, Anna and Guy Esposito, identified Sal as their pet on the long-form 2010 Census report.

See the whole story, with comments, here at Purry Duty.

More feline fun:

Click here to view the embedded video.

From GraphJam.com:

Originally published on 2.0: The Blogmocracy

Originally published on 2.0: The Blogmocracy

In Fundamentally Transforming the United States, Phyllis Schlafly explains how the Democrat party voter base is founded upon those who get (or hope to get) their livelihood from the federal government. It goes much further than Chicago-machine patronage politics writ large; the federal government is deliberately destroying the family structure so as to make people more dependent on the federal government and the Democrat party. Unmarried mothers are a key part of Obama’s voter base. Thus, it is in his interests to discourage men and women from getting and staying married.

How do the Democrats go about attacking the family structure? The attacks go much further than promoting gay marriage and abortion on demand, or free condoms and salacious “sex education” in the public schools. Detrimental as those things are, at least they are visible. It’s the progressives’ stealth jihad against the family that I’m talking about here.

Check out this hidden zinger in Obamacare:

Marriage Penalty in Health Care

A huge marriage penalty is hidden in Obama’s Health Control Law. This law is another federal program providing financial incentives to subsidize marriage avoidance and illegitimate offspring.

Even though all evidence shows that marriage is the best remedy for poverty, lack of health care, domestic violence, child abuse, and school dropouts, federal welfare programs continue to discriminate against marriage and instead give taxpayer handouts to those who reject marriage. This isn’t any accident; it is a central part of the Democrats’ political strategy that produced 70% of unmarried women voting for Obama for President in 2008.

Here is the approximate cost in the Health Control Law for an unmarried couple who each earn $25,000 a year (total: $50,000). When they both buy health insurance (which will be mandatory), the combined premiums they pay will be capped at $3,076 a year. But if the couple gets married and has the same combined income of $50,000, they will pay annual premiums up to a cap of $5,160 a year. That means they have to fork over a marriage penalty of $2,084.

The marriage penalty is the result of the fact that government subsidies for buying health insurance are pegged to the federal poverty guidelines. Couples that remain unmarried are rewarded with a separate health care subsidy for each income.

When the Wall Street Journal reporter quizzed the Democratic authors of the health care bill, they made it clear that this differential was deliberate. The staffer justified the discriminatory treatment because “you have to decide what your goals are.” Indeed, the Democrats have decided what their goals are. They know that 70% of unmarried women voted for Obama in 2008, and the Democrats plan to reward this group with health insurance subsidies.

The House staffer told the Wall Street Journal reporter that the Democrats can’t make the subsidies neutral towards marriage because that would give a traditional one-breadwinner married couple a more generous subsidy than a single parent at the same income level. Horrors! The Democrats certainly are not going to allow traditional marriage to be preferred over couples who just shack up!

Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously and accurately explained the disastrous results of welfare back in 1965. The welfare system created a matriarchy with millions of children lacking their father in the home. It’s no wonder illegitimate birthrates are soaring and unmarried mothers now give birth to 4 out of every 10 babies born in the United States.

Means-tested welfare programs already cost taxpayers close to $1 trillion a year (even more than national defense!), and Obamacare is projected to add another $2.5 trillion after all its provisions take effect. There’s no end in sight to the increasing costs of these entitlements. In one year, the Obama Administration will spend more taxpayers’ money on spreading the wealth to non-taxpayers than George W. Bush spent on the entire Iraq war.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a liberal firm that consults for clients such as Bill Clinton and John Kerry, admitted: “Unmarried women represent one of the most reliable Democratic cohorts in the electorate . . . leading the charge for fundamental change in health care.”

It used to be that a husband was responsible for the financial support of his wife and children, but the feminists’ agenda calls for replacing husbands with Big Brother Government. The feminists call their movement “women’s liberation,” and Obamacare is one more way to help them achieve their goal.

Feminists keep tightening their control over the social policies of the Democratic Party, and Obamacare will be his third payoff to the feminists. The first bill Obama signed as President, the Lilly Ledbetter Act, enables women to sue employers years many years after any alleged workplace discrimination (when no one is still alive to defend against allegations), and the second payoff was getting Obama to give the majority of taxpayer-paid Stimulus jobs to women even though men have suffered the big majority of job losses.

Read it all.

The scavenger hunt is on

I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant nor a “policy wonk” (whatever that is supposed to be). Sorting through the huge pile of paperwork that makes up the Obamacare bill, or for that matter, the recent financial regulatory bill, and piecing together the hidden “zingers” that are poised to harm each sector of our economy and society, is beyond my capabilities. This is not a one-person job. I would like to urge everyone who is able to do so, to help complete this task by researching how those bills will affect their community and their sector of the economy, and submit that information to 2.0: The Blogmocracy.

The scavenger hunt is on, and the only prize is preserving your freedom.