Islam in America?

Barack Obama, during his Cairo speech, said: "I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America's history." AN AMERICAN CITIZEN'S RESPONSE: Dear Mr. Obama: Were those Muslims that were in America when the Pilgrims first landed? Funny, I thought they were Native American Indians. Were those Muslims that celebrated the first Thanksgiving day? Sorry again, those were think so. Did Muslims fight for this country's freedom from England ? No. Did Muslims fight during the CivilPilgrims and Native American Indians. Can you show me one Muslim signature on the United States Constitution? Declaration of Independence ? Bill of Rights? Didn't  War to free the slaves in America? No, they did not. In fact, Muslims to this day are still the largest traffickers in human slavery. Your own half-brother, a devout Muslim, still advocates slavery himself, even though Muslims of Arabic descent refer to black Muslims as "pug nosed slaves." Says a lot of what the Muslim world really thinks of your family's "rich Islamic heritage," doesn't it Mr. Obama? Where were Muslims during the Civil Rights era of this country? Not present. There are no pictures or media accounts of Muslims walking side by side with Martin Luther King, Jr. or helping to advance the cause of Civil Rights. Where were Muslims during this country's Woman's Suffrage era? Again, not present. In fact, devout Muslims demand that women are subservient to men in the Islamic culture. So much so, that often they are beaten for not wearing the 'hajib' or for talking to a man who is not a direct family member or their husband. Yep, the Muslims are all for women's rights, aren't they? Where were Muslims during World War II? They were aligned with Adolf Hitler. The Muslim grand mufti himself met with Adolf Hitler, reviewed the troops and accepted support from the Nazi's in killing Jews. Finally, Mr. Obama, where were Muslims on Sept. 11th, 2001? If they weren't flying planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people on our own soil, they were rejoicing in the Middle East. No one can dispute the pictures shown from all parts of the Muslim world celebrating on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and other cable news networks that day. Strangely, the very "moderate" Muslims who's asses you bent over backwards to kiss in Cairo, Egypt on June 4th were stone cold silent post 9-11. To many Americans, their silence has meant approval for the acts of that day. And THAT, Mr. Obama, is the "rich heritage" Muslims have here in America. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to mention the Barbary Pirates. They were Muslim. And now we can add November 5, 2009 - the slaughter of American soldiers at Fort Hood by a Muslim major who is a doctor and a psychiatrist who was supposed to be counseling soldiers returning from battle in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Billy Graham Gives Election Advice

“The legacy we leave behind for our children, grandchildren, and this great nation is crucial. As I approach my 94th birthday, I realize this could be my last.

I believe it is vitally important that we cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel. I urge you to vote for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. Vote for biblical values this November 6th, and pray with me that America will remain one nation under God.”

-- Billy Graham

We've Heard it All Before

2nd Debate Immigration & Dream Act Question

The 800 pound gorilla that both candidates ignored is the effect of population growth on the quality of life and standard of living.  They both take the approach that more immigrants is better.  It isn't.  We need to reduce the total legal immigrants admitted to no more than 250,00 per year focused entirely on those with the entrepreneurial and other skills or advanced education in physical science, engineering, medicine, biological sciences and mathematics who are most likely to help us remain competitive in the global marketplace.  Foreign students who earn a PhD in any of the above areas should be fast tracked to citizenship if they so desire.  Domestic students who have demonstrated the ability to succeed at that level should be given a full scholarship for as long as they maintain a high level of performance in graduate school.  Students in other academic disciplines like the Social Scineces, Law, etc. should not be eligible.

Every adult applicant must be considered on this or her own merits and should receive no special consideration just because they happen to have a close relative in this country.  This does not apply to the offspring and spouses of permanent residents and citizenss,

Migrant farm workers may be admitted on a temporary basis but children born of these workers and children born of illegal aiens,temporary visa holders will not  be considered  unther the jurisdiction of the U.S. and would therefore be inelligible for birthright citizenship.

The DREAM Act should be vetoed and replaced with a bill that:  requires a minimum of 4 years of honorable military service, peovides for a regular audit of applications and applicants, and imposes a severe penalty on anyone who submits a fraudulent application up to and including immediate and permanent deportation.  The Act should be applicable only for a limited window and then permanently expire.

Illegal aliens holding jobs will be identified through mandatory E-verfication of their work status.  Those who enter the U.S. illegally or who remain present illegally subsequent to the passage of the bill shall be guilty of a felony and be treated accordingly.  Other changes in the enforcement of the immigration laws should be heavily based on the confidential input of border patrol agents regarding the tools, regulation and instruction changes needed to enable them to close the  borde to illegal aliens.

My Answers to some of the 2nd Debate Questions

Women's Pay Differential is due to many factors.  Seniority may play a big role in thoswe jobs that are unionized.  If a woman chooses to take off 10-15 years to raise a family, she may lose that amount of time in a seniority system.  Moreover, the knowledge needed for everily job changes over time, if the woman has not kept up to date in her field or in her job, she should not be paid the same as a man who has been at work continuously and maintianed his skills and knowledge.  A woman who decides to become a secretary late in life and is never able to master the ability to type fast and  accurately.  Many public employment jobs are based on a merit siystem suich as only the top three scorers on an examination can be considered.  This make sure that the best qualified applicants are the ones who get hired and avoids, to some extent, political, gender and race considerations.  Generally, I would propose a system in which the variables related to the quality or potential qaulity of work without regard to gender are related to the appropriate pay for each position.  Thus, in the case of a university, variables like number of peer-judged publications, number of prublished articles cited in other articles by different authors, seniority, rank, student evaluations, awards and honors.  This may or may not close the gap between male and female pay for those in the same  type of job but it will help to explain why such a gap may exist.

The myth of Obama as state Senate reformer

Chapter VII

The myth of Obama as state Senate reformer

September 19, 2012 | 11:51 pm | Modified: September 20, 2012 at 12:01 am

66Comments

Former Illinois state Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, a maverick Republican and reformer, said Obama never fought corruption, by Republicans or by Democrats: "He never wanted to upset the apple cart with the Chicago machine."

Shortly after Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, Prairie State Blue, a liberal blog, attributed his victory to the fact that Illinois' deeply entrenched government corruption had forced "political reformers" in the state legislature like Obama "to network outside the traditional political circles."

The claim illustrated Obama's success throughout his career at presenting himself as an outsider and reformer even as he became a skillful operator inside one of the nation's most corrupt political systems.

Earlier this year, a study by the Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs pointed to the convictions in recent years of four governors, two congressmen, a state treasurer, an attorney general and 11 state legislators.

"The two worst crime zones in Illinois are the governor's mansion in Springfield and the City Council Chambers in Chicago," said study author Dick Simpson.

It was into such an environment that Obama stepped when he was first elected in 1996 as an Illinois state senator.

Former Illinois Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, a maverick Republican and reformer, told The Washington Examiner that Obama never fought corruption, even when it was being done by Republicans.

"I've never seen him fight corruption. He never wanted to upset the apple cart with the Chicago machine," Fitzgerald said.

After serving with Obama for two years in the Illinois Senate, Fitzgerald defeated Sen. Carol Moseley Braun in 1998 and served one term in the U.S. Senate. His family has been in Illinois banking for several generations.

In Springfield, Fitzgerald was a leader of a reform-minded state legislative caucus known as the "Fab Five." The group's members were Republicans who had been elected in 1992. They fought the establishments in both major parties while seeking to increase openness and transparency in government.

Fab Fiver Steve Rauschenberger told the Examiner that he and his reformist colleagues were taken aback when Obama rejected the group's informal invitations to join them.

"When Barack first arrived, there was a lot of hope that maybe he was the intellectual bridge, the pragmatic Democrat from Chicago who was not part of the machine that we could perhaps talk to about broad-based consensus policies to change public policy that wasn't working," he said.

"He appeared to be interested for a good 90 days," Rauschenberger said. "In March or April of that year, though, he had made it pretty clear he wasn't interested in risk-taking or challenging institutions or challenging the Chicago machine's lock on a lot of the mechanics of government in Cook County in Chicago."

An Examiner review of Fab Five initiatives from 1995 to 2000 identified 22 proposals, including sweeping government procurement reforms like requiring open, competitive bidding for state contracts. Obama missed votes on several of the proposals, and those he supported were approved unanimously.

"He was nowhere to be found on reform," Fab Fiver Chris Lauzen told the Examiner. "I reached out to Barack. My wife and I took Barack and Michelle to dinner."

Lauzen said Obama "was not on the playing field. In my opinion, Barack Obama was a product and beneficiary of how politics are practiced in Illinois. It would be impossible to call him a reformer."

State Sen. Dave Syverson, another Fab Fiver, said, "I don't recall any cases when he was overtly standing up to the machine at all."

Some of Obama's reluctance about the Fab Five may have stemmed from his occasional golf outings and lunches with the state's top gambling lobbyist, Alfred G. Ronan.

Ronan was well-known in Illinois political circles for passing out cash contributions to supporters off the floor of the legislative chambers. Obama himself took $10,500 from Ronan and changed his position on a gambling bill afterward, according to the Los Angeles Times. Ronan told the Times that Obama always paid his own way on the outings.

There was also the regular Wednesday night poker game organized by Democratic state Sen. Terry Link. Obama and three other state Senate Democrats in Springfield were regular attendees, along with several lobbyists, Link said.

"It started out with five of us, then it escalated where there were a couple of lobbyists that were friends of us that we brought in," Link told the Examiner.

"Barack was not of the machine, but he was adjacent to it," said Cynthia Canary, former director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, the largest statewide reform organization.

Paul Green, director of the Institute for Politics at Chicago's Roosevelt University and a popular WGN radio host, noted David Axelrod, Obama's campaign strategist, originated from Mayor Richard M. Daley's camp.

"You see his main adviser, David Axelrod, who also was Daley's chief adviser and ran his campaigns. So it was very much that Obama's people were in the Daley camp."

A month after Daley's patronage chief was indicted for rigging city jobs and promotions, Axelrod defended patronage in a 2005 Chicago Tribune op-ed. He argued that to satisfy constituent needs, politicians are often forced to "use the influence they have to meet those needs, including sometimes the exchange of favors -- consideration for jobs being just one."

Fitzgerald said Obama never confronted Daley. "He never took on Mayor Daley, even when clearly city hall was out of bounds. He never fought corruption in Cook County government."

Canary said Obama's endorsement of Rod Blagojevich and other Daley allies worried her.

"Obama has made a number of endorsements, not just the Blagojevich one -- he gave a number for the Chicago City Council that were complete whack jobs. I have never understood it or why he felt he needed to it," she said.

Some have noted that Obama helped write a 1997 legislative gift ban. The bipartisan effort included 23 exemptions.

Green pointed out that the gift ban didn't stop corruption. "In 1998, George Ryan was governor; now he's in prison. After him, Rod Blagojevich went to prison, so clearly it didn't have any impact."

•  

The Poor People Obama Left Behind

Chapter VI

The poor people Obama left behind

September 19, 2012 | 11:51 pm | Modified: September 20, 2012 at 12:01 am

99Comments

A man moves furniture at the Altgeld Gardens housing project Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008, on Chicago's South Side. where Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., used to work as a community organizer. (AP Photo)

Four years after Barack Obama's historic election as president, little seems to have changed for the African-American communities on Chicago's South Side.

The lack of change -- or the sense that these neighborhoods are getting worse -- is eroding the president's standing among African-Americans in his hometown.

In 2011, Chicago suffered the third-highest black jobless rate among the nation's major metropolitan areas, at 19 percent, according to the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

Chicago still lacks enough affordable housing. Not only did the city demolish 25,000 public housing units in the previous decade, it also experienced more than 80,000 foreclosures, mainly in low-income neighborhoods.

Chicago "black nationalist" Eddie Read contends Obama has never fought for the black community. "I would not honestly tag Obama as a fighter for black people, black agenda or black issues," Read told The Washington Examiner.

After Obama's election, Read said, "I hoped that it would change."

But four years later, as he looks around Chicago's neighborhoods, he said things haven't improved under Obama.

"I don't see where the quality of life or the quality has changed," he said, "except that it's worse."

Dr. Conrad Worrill is an African-American educator, activist and former radio talk show host on Chicago's African-American-oriented station WVON. He told the Examiner that Obama was an inspirational speaker who moved people. But in the end, he became just another Chicago politician.

"His rise in politics, his trajectory in politics has led him to make adjustments in his political decision-making. And that's the case with many politicians. So he's no different from many others in that regard. He's a politician," Worrill said.

Cheryl Johnson and her mother, Hazel, lived in the economically deprived Altgeld Gardens housing project when young Obama was a community organizer there. Her late mother also was an organizer at the housing complex and often welcomed Obama into her kitchen.

"He's everybody's president," Cheryl Johnson told the Examiner, saying she is proud she knows him. But has he made a difference? "We, as poor people, don't feel it and don't see it," she said. Read believes Obama's problem is that he does not understand the unique needs of Chicago blacks.

"Obama came through Chicago through Saul Alinsky organizing," he said. "The Alinsky piece seemed to have had an agenda about what it thought was in the best interest of black folks, from the white liberal perspective."

Obama instead allied himself with Chicago's MacArthur Foundation, local housing nonprofits and real estate developers. Valerie Jarrett and Allison Davis, Martin Nesbitt and Tony Rezko -- all Obama friends -- were at the epicenter of that powerful coalition.

Obama's low-income-housing campaign still resonates among Chicago's poor today. Deborah Taylor, a public housing tenant in the Kenwood section of Chicago, also told the Examiner things are as bad as ever for poor tenants.

"The residents at the end of the day still suffer here," she said. "A lot of times a lot of people start out idealistically thinking they are helping," Taylor said.

"I don't think any of them are in favor of the tenants," she said. "Everybody's in it for the money. It's all about profit now. So the residents lose, lose, lose."

D'Anna Carter, a neighborhood activist in Chicago's Woodlawn section, singled out the Habitat Co., which was run by Jarrett, now Obama's closest White House adviser.

"They were never interested in poor people," she told the Examiner. "They would sell poor people a bill of goods," she said bitterly in an interview.

Wardell Lavender has been a Woodlawn resident since 1951. His was the first black family to move into the neighborhood. He also blames Habitat.

"Habitat was bad landlords at the time. They didn't care too much about the blacks," he told the Examiner.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the enticement to the poor to buy condos they could not afford caused widespread losses in Chicago.

Foreclosures fell hard on Chicago's poor residents. The Urban Institute reported in May 2009 that most were displaced or homeless, credit ratings were damaged and violence increased as empty units remained vacant.

Worrill said he still supports Obama but adds that the lack of progress in Chicago's black community is palpable.

"He has been supported, but the position he's in now, he's in a heck of a predicament."