Sharia in the UK: Sharia divorces could be allowed under British law after legal ruling

by Robert
February 2, 2013

This article (uk telegraph) is almost completely unhelpful in explaining exactly what Sharia divorce is. It does say that "men have the right of unilateral divorce under classical Sharia" and that a Sunni Muslim divorce is effective when the man tells his wife that he is divorcing her," but otherwise the only information it provides is this: "A marriage can be terminated by the husband in the talaq process, or by the wife seeking divorce through khul'."
That's just nomenclature. The Telegraph doesn't explain that while talaq is unilateral and all a man has to do is tell his wife that she is divorced, khul is much more complicated. The woman initiates the process but must obtain her husband's consent for the divorce, return the dowry, and go through a waiting period before marrying again. So essentially she has no rights if her husband does not agree to the divorce, and can emerge from the process penniless after she has provided compensation to her husband.
If a Muslim man is unhappy with any of his wives, however, he is free to divorce them simply by saying the triple talaq -- “I divorce you” or “you are divorced.” Recent fatwas from Islamic authorities have allowed for this pronouncement of divorce to be made via cellphone or Skype. Since men can obtain divorces so easily, they often divorce capriciously.
In Islamic law, if a man says talaq to his wife three times, even jokingly or in a fit of temper, they must separate, and cannot reconcile until she marries another man, consummates that marriage, and is divorced by him. This bizarre law is based on the Qur’an: “A divorce is only permissible twice: after that, the parties should either hold together on equitable terms, or separate with kindness....So if a husband divorces his wife (irrevocably), he cannot, after that, re-marry her until after she has married another husband and he has divorced her” (2:229-230).
This has given rise to the phenomenon of “temporary husbands.” After a husband has divorced his wife in a fit of pique, these men who will “marry” the hapless divorcee for one night in order to allow her to return to her husband and family.
Is Britain going to legalize all of this?
"Sharia divorces could be allowed after legal ruling," by Richard Alleyne in the Telegraph, February 1:

Divorces settled by religious courts including Sharia are a step closer to being allowed under British law after a landmark legal decision. The prospect came after a couple had their divorce settlement under Beth Din, or Jewish law, referred to by the High Court.
According to the Times, it is the first time in British legal history where an English family judge has agreed to refer a divorce dispute to a religious court.
Experts said that the judgment could have far-reaching consequences and clear the way for other couples to seek a divorce in a religious court, including Sharia.
The decision was welcomed by the Muslim Council of Britain.
A spokesman told the Times: "If it leads to the eventual acceptance of Sharia court divorces, then Muslims will be very encouraged."
Lawyers said it was significant that Mr Justice Baker cited the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and his talk on Sharia in 2008 in his ruling.
During the lecture, Dr Williams said that "citizenship in a secular society should not necessitate the abandoning of religious discipline".
The latest case involved a couple of observant orthodox Jews in their 20s....
The Muslim laws governing divorce vary substantially between states and cultures. Men have the right of unilateral divorce under classical Sharia.
A marriage can be terminated by the husband in the talaq process, or by the wife seeking divorce through khul'.
A Sunni Muslim divorce is effective when the man tells his wife that he is divorcing her.

American tyranny? Reality and fantasy

By: Nick Rizzuto
1/31/2013

Whenever gun control advocates have gone on the offensive, gun owners find themselves in the position of having to explain why they need their firearms. They find themselves in this position especially frequently in the debate over so-called assault weapons. In the minds of gun-control proponents, “acceptable” uses of firearms (hunting, self-defense, target shooting) rarely justify 100 round drum magazines and collapsible stocks; ergo there’s no good reason to have them. When confronted with this question, conservatives and libertarians will commonly reply with the argument that an armed citizenry is the most effective defense against tyranny.

They’re wrong. I’ll explain why later.
Not surprisingly, the appeal to future tyranny rarely wins over the anti-gun crowd. For many of them, the image of the state has been thoroughly scrubbed, sterilized, and disinfected. The image appears to be so pristine that they find the idea that the state could pose an existential threat to its own people to be laughable on its face. Therefore, even considering the idea that the U.S. government could become tyrannical must be a sign of paranoia, or a childish fantasy.
Take Jon Stewart. In a recent tirade against gun control opponents Stewart referred to the idea of American tyranny as the fear of “imaginary Hitler”. His comment might have been good for a cheap laugh from his audience, but in reality it goes to the heart of a serious question: do most Americans even know what a tyranny is?
The tyrants of the 20^th century produced such a vast ocean of blood that it should be unthinkable that anyone –even a cheap clown like Stewart– could insist that a government that is a threat to its own people is “imaginary”. But somehow, less than a century after the fall of the real Hitler, we’ve managed to achieve the unthinkable.
The reason for our nation’s quick turnaround from witnessing unimaginable horror to blissful ignorance is surprisingly simple: the men and governments we most often associate with tyranny have become caricatures in our collective consciousness. In absence of their exaggerated features most people can’t even imagine what tyranny looks like.
There’s tyranny afoot you say? Where are the jackboots? Where are the book burnings? Where are the grandiose parades and foreboding pep-rallies?
Every American from the ages of 8-80 can identify a Nazi symbol or draw a squiggle under the nose of a portrait of a politician they don’t like. But ask even an educated person about the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (the Nazi law which dismissed all non-Aryans from the civil service) and they’re likely to draw a blank.
The association of these accoutrements with tyranny is so powerful that many Americans have come to confuse them with tyranny itself. It has lulled us into the belief that tyranny is something obvious and immediately recognizable. In other words, we think we’ll be alarmed by the synchronized footfalls of jackboots, the lights from the bonfires, and the rants of some charismatic speaker. In this respect, Jon Stewart was right: it’s a complete fantasy.
What many have lost sight of is the fact that jackboots, book burnings, and emotionally charged rallies were just one particular way in which tyranny was manifested. These were the specific means by which it was maintained. By the time these things appeared on the scene, it was arguably too late for Germany. Its nascent republic was doomed.
But if these things will not portend the coming of tyrannical government, what does? What is the first ingredient a budding tyranny, be it German, Russian, or American needs to facilitate its aims? A society that is utterly willing to acquiesce.
Governments start down the road of tyranny aided by the willful acquiescence of many of those they come to rule. Rarely does it push its way in by brute force. Rather, it comes to the party with an invitation in its hand.  It shows up at the doorstep as your benefactor, not as a lawless thug.
This brings us to why conservatives and libertarians are wrong about an armed citizenry.
If we are to truly understand the nature of tyranny, we must acknowledge that the first and most effective defense against it is to not acquiesce to it in the first place. The only time that an armed citizenry becomes necessary is if that first defense should fail; which history shows it all too often does.
That’s the reality.

US Senate Shoots Down Bid to Halt Sales of F-16s, Tanks to Egypt

By Patrick Goodenough

January 31, 2013


(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Senate Thursday defeated an amendment that aimed to prevent the Obama administration from transferring F-16 fighter aircraft and Abrams tanks to an Egypt in disarray.
A vote to block the measure proposed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) – an amendment to the debt limit bill – passed by a 79–19 vote.
In a strongly worded floor statement, Paul questioned the wisdom of providing the sophisticated weaponry at a time when “many see Egypt descending into chaos.”
He based his argument on the Egyptian government’s conduct, President Mohammed Morsi’s expressed radical views, and the possibility that the weapons could be used in a future conflict against Israel.
“I think this is particularly unwise since Egypt is currently governed by a religious zealot, a religious zealot who said recently that Jews were ‘bloodsuckers’ and ‘descendants of apes and pigs,’” he said. “This doesn’t sound like the kind of stable personality that we would be sending our most sophisticated weapons to.”
It was also foolish, Paul contended, to send weapons to “both sides of an arms race.”
“We send 20 F-16s to Egypt – which already has 240 F-16s,” he said. “What does Israel feel? They’ve got to have two for every one Egypt has. It escalates an arms race, it makes it more difficult for Israel to defend herself.
“Today we have a chance to stop this folly,” he concluded, urging colleagues to support the amendment.
Egypt has received a total of 240 F-16 Fighting Falcons since a first order in 1980, the year after the Egypt-Israel peace agreement was signed.
The 20 F-16s referred to by Paul were pledged in December 2009, when President Hosni Mubarak was still in power. Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract to build 16 F-16Cs and four F-16Ds. The first four planes were delivered last week, according to Fox News. (Lockheed Martin on Thursday referred queries to the U.S. Air Force, whose comment is awaited.)
In November 2011, General Dynamics Land Systems announced it had won a $395 million contract to produce 125 M1A1 Abrams tank kits for Egypt, with deliveries due to begin in July 2013.

A F-16 Fighting Falcon in flight. (Photo: Lockheed Martin)

Restrictions waived
Rejecting Paul’s amendment, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) characterized it as simplistic, short-sighted and potentially harmful to U.S. interests.
“Would that this amendment was as simple as the junior senator from Kentucky described it,” he told senators after Paul had spoken. “His amendment would hinder our military assistance program, licenses for commercial sales of all major military equipment, including aircraft, ships, tanks, armor, parts and so on.
“It would mean a loss of thousands of American jobs. We’d incur more than two billion dollars in contract-termination penalties for U.S. taxpayers,” Leahy said.
“But we’d also put at risk our access to the Suez Canal, the over flight by the U.S. Air Force over Egyptian territory, cooperation in the Sinai, Gaza, Syria, our emphasis and our ability to keep the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement going.
“Do I have problems with the way the Morsi government is going? Certainly,” he said. “But removing our ability to be involved, with keeping that peace agreement and our ability to influence those – this is not the way to do it.”
In a written statement – provided by the senator’s office – Leahy added that U.S. law “already conditions U.S. military aid on Egypt’s adherence to its peace treaty with Israel, and on protecting fundamental human rights and due process of law. That is current law, and it needs to be faithfully applied.”
The law he referred is an amendment authored by Leahy himself.
But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last March announced the administration would waive the restrictions. The State Department said “Egypt has made significant progress toward democracy in the last 15 months” while acknowledging that its “transition to democracy is not yet complete, and more work remains to protect universal rights and freedoms.”
At the time Leahy criticized the decision.
“Waiving the new conditions on democracy and human rights is regrettable, and handing over the entire $1.3 billion at once to the Egyptian military compounds the mistake by dissipating our future leverage,” he said in a statement.
“Using this waiver authority, at this time, sends a contradictory message,” Leahy said. “The Egyptian military should be defending fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, not harassing and arresting those who are working for democracy.”
Instability
At the time of that waiver decision and Leahy’s response, the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential flag bearer had yet to take office, and Egypt’s new constitution was still being drafted.
Instability in Egypt has worsened significantly since then, with society deeply polarized since the controversial Islamist constitution was introduced, following a low-turnout referendum.
In recent days scores of Egyptians have been killed in violent protests, mostly in provinces adjoining the Suez Canal, with police accused of employing Mubarak-era tactics in quelling the unrest. Egypt’s army chief warned that the growing political crisis could lead to the state’s collapse.
Morsi’s opponents accuse him and his Muslim Brotherhood of betraying the spirit of a revolution many hoped would usher in democracy, rather than an increasingly Islamist state; the Brotherhood says its rivals are trying to topple an elected president.
Thursday’s vote to table Paul’s amendment passed by a vote of 29-19. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), due to be sworn in as secretary of state on Friday, did not vote.
The no votes all came from Republicans: Sens. John Boozeman (Ark.), Dan Coats (Ind.), John Cornyn (Tex.), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Deb Fischer (Nebr.), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Dean Heller (Nev.), Mike Lee (Utah), Jerry Moran (Kans.), Rand Paul (Ky.), James Risch (Idaho), Pat Roberts (Kans.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Richard Shelby (Ala.), John Thune, (S.D.) and David Vitter (La.).

Agenda 21: Fascism's new face

by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
30th January, 2013

SYDNEY, Australia – Bush fires! Must be global warming. Record Queensland floods! Global warming. Highest temperature ever recorded in Sydney! Global warming. Record snowfall right across the Northern Hemisphere! Global warming.
Er, just a few problems with that. The bush fires in Australia, and California, and Cyprus, and Russia, are natural events (except the ones started by arsonists or zitty teenagers carelessly discarding beer-bottles in the sun).
There were more, and worse, floods in Queensland in the 40 years before 1900 than in the 112 years since.
The recent record high temperature of 45.8 C in Sydney was recorded on a thermometer that stands just 10 yards from an asphalt pavement, surrounded by tall city blocks shimmering in the heat their air-conditioners push out.
The previous record temperature in what is now Sydney, 42.8 C, was set in 1790. Watkins Tench, a Marine officer accompanying the first convict settlers, correctly hung the thermometer well above the ground at Rose Hill, out of direct sunlight and in a rural area.
Not so the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, which has its Sydney monitoring station in a city of 4.6 million people, compared with the 1,715 settlers in Tench’s time.
As for record snow cover, even the U.N.’s profiteering climate panel has had to admit that warmer weather ought to mean less snow. Not that that has stopped the usual suspects from saying the opposite.
Oh, and there’s been no global warming for 16 years (Monckton to the U.N. climate conference in Doha), 18 years (Hadley Center’s data, version 4), 19 years (version 3), or even 23 years (RSS satellite temperature record).
Yet Tim Flannery, the vastly overpaid chief Klimate Khaos Kommissar of Australia (180,000 Gillard roubles a year for just three days a week making stuff up), seriously expects us to blame recent extreme weather on global warming that has been predicted but has not happened yet. Hold the front page. Flannelly has invented time travel. Tomorrow’s imagined warming caused yesterday’s bad weather. Yeah, right.
It was Flattery who, a couple of years ago, said the Murray-Darling river system, the largest usable water resource this end of Australia, would never flow again. Since then, so much rain has fallen that every reservoir seems full to bursting. We had six inches last night alone.
It was Flappery who admitted, in response to a question I had suggested to his interviewer, that even if Australia’s hated “carbon tax” were to succeed as fully as its half-baked inventors had intended it would reduce global warming by less than a thousandth of a Celsius degree (actually, more like a twenty-thousandth). And all this at a cost of $150 billion and counting, over just 10 years – plus $1.8 million for Flazza, of course. Ka-CHING!
Black Jesus, in his inaugural address in Washington, said (again) that he was going to Save The Planet from all those bush fires. Yea, verily. Just like that. The thousands of gormless, swooning teenagers on the National Mall screeched their excitement, and added to non-existent sea-level rise by wetting themselves.
Now hear this, BJ. The Planet was triumphantly Saved 2,000 years ago (by the real Jesus, who, unlike you, had a genuine Nazarene birth certificate entered in the census record). So it doesn’t need Saving again. Global warming had stopped more than a decade before you first took office.
Why, then, are the Messianic Marxists and Pharaonic Fascists and teetotal totalitarians like Obama and Prime Minister Julia Gillard so mesmerized by the now-collapsed “global warming” scare? Because it allows them to bring back absolute, centralized control of everyone’s lives, down to the last poison-filled light bulb.
In Australia, the cost of energy and of much else has already skyrocketed as a result of the carbon tax. But get this. Because I am writing this column from Sydney, I could be fined $1.1 million for exercising my right of free speech and pointing this fact out.
And that would be just about the only revenue the Gillard Politburo would get from the carbon tax this year. It is not bringing in as much as Kommissar Flaggery-Pokery would have liked. Originally, he was going to charge $23 for the right to emit a ton of carbon dioxide. But the EU’s rigged carbon-trading market – even though it was rigged – had collapsed three times, so Australia’s proposed “price on carbon” was thrice the collapsed “price” on the EU’s fraud-ridden carbon “exchanges.”
So Gillard rigged Sydney’s carbon market by tying it to the EU “market” “price.” And that was a mistake. For this week the EU’s rigged “market” has collapsed again – even though it’s rigged. The bureaucrats can’t even rig a market. Rights to emit a ton of carbon dioxide have been trading this week for as little as $3 each.
The carbon-trading scam was devised purely to buy the support of absolute bankers and fat financiers – at great expense to the rest of us, of course. But the scare is now over. So the emphasis has switched to Agenda 21, a 40-chapter U.N. program to introduce fascism worldwide in the guise of environmental regulation.
I shall have more to say about the gruesome, furtive rise of the New Fascism in the coming weeks, after I have visited several farms in South Australia whose owners have been bullied and fined and imprisoned in the name of complying with environmental regulation.
Just one story as a taster. A few years ago the crazed eco-fascists fined a resident of the State of Victoria $100,000 – a flagrantly disproportionate sum – for clearing brushwood from his house to prevent bush fires from destroying it. Six months later, a bush fire wiped out the entire village where he lived, except for his own house, because he had cleared the brushwood.
Don’t expect any common sense from Fattery-Headery or his ilk. Foresight, though, is another matter. He can tell you that tomorrow’s global warming will have caused yesterday’s bush fires. Yea, verily. It is even so.

Is Fox News really different?

by Joseph Farah
30th January, 2013

For many Americans, Fox News is their “alternative” choice for news.
They’ve made it the No. 1 cable news network, largely because they believe its “fair and balanced” promotional slogan.
Many even believe Fox leans to the right and provides news they can’t get anywhere else.
But is Fox really different from the rest of the media? Or has it been successful merely at positioning itself as different?
Would it surprise you to know that individuals at News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, gave nearly six times as much money to Barack Obama than Mitt Romney in the 2011-2012 election cycle?
Would it surprise you to know that individuals at News Corp. gave more to Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., than to Mitt Romney?
Would it surprise you to know that individuals at News Corp. gave more to Ben Cardin, Democrat from Maryland, than to Mitt Romney?
Would it surprise you to know that News Corp. gave more than twice as much to Democratic candidates in 2012 than to Republicans?
Would it surprise you that this pattern was about the same in 2010 and 2008?
Would it surprise you to know that News Corp. gave far more money to Democrats running for both the House and Senate in 2012 than to Republicans?
Do the owners and top managers of Fox News and News Corp. not have the right to support any candidates they want to support?
Of course they do.
But the American people have a right to know where the hearts and minds and pocketbooks of their trusted news sources really are – especially when it comes to politics.
Fox News has certainly learned there is a vast public audience whose values and worldviews are unserved by the major media. That’s the secret to its success.
There’s no question other media are even more skewed to the left than is News Corp. CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS are even more in the tank for so-called “progressive” politics. Nevertheless, I’m sure it will be shocking to many Americans just how supportive of the political status quo and the Democratic Party agenda News Corp. truly is.
News Corp. donated more money to Obama than to any other American politician. But this wasn’t a new development in 2011 and 2012. In fact, Rupert Murdoch’s company has been donating more to Democrats since 1989.
CNN, languishing in the cable ratings wars against Fox, has even reported on this fact – presumably hoping it might turn off some Fox News viewers with the truth about political donations.
The CNN report makes the point: Fox News offers viewpoints from many Republicans and conservatives – because it knows those views resonate with the public and helps bolster the network’s “fair and balanced” marketing ploy. But the Bible tells us in Luke 12:34: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Where do you think Fox News’ heart is?
I’m not demeaning everyone at Fox. It is clearly better than CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS. There are some great people who work there.
There are good people who work at every news agency. But when you consider the bias of the Big Media in the U.S. and around the world, don’t be fooled by slogans designed to tickle your ears. Don’t be fooled by clever marketing gimmicks.
One of America’s biggest problems is control of the news and the flow of information by a state-influenced, if not a state-controlled, media.
Constantly I am asked by WND viewers: “Why doesn’t Fox News cover this story?” They ask, “Where’s the rest of the media on that story?”
Now, as the late and incomparably independent Paul Harvey would say, you know the rest of the story.

Senator Introduces 17% Flat Tax Bill To Reduce Tax Returns 'To The Size Of A Postcard'

By Craig Bannister
January 29, 2013

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) today introduced a bill to replace the tax code with a 17% flat tax that would reduce tax returns to "the size of a postcard."
Shelby's Simplified, Manageable And Responsible Tax (SMART) Act establishes a flat tax rate of 17 percent on all income (personal and business).
It also repeals estate taxes, gift taxes, and the Alternative Minimum Tax (ATM).
The only exemptions would be personal exemptions of:

• $14,070 for a single person;
• $17,970 for a head of household;
• $28,140 for a married couple filing jointly; and
• $6,070 for each dependent

These allowances would also be indexed to the consumer price index in order to prevent inflation from raising Americans' tax burden.  To prevent the double-taxation of income, earnings from savings would not be included as taxable income, resulting in an immediate tax cut for virtually all taxpayers.
"With the SMART Act in place, taxpayers would file a return the size of a postcard," Shelby's office says.
"There would be no more long hours spent poring over convoluted IRS forms and no more fees paid for professional tax assistance."
I wonder what H&R Block and TurboTax would think of that.

[ed. When governments reduce taxation regulations (short of repealling them altogether) a country thrives...]

The Newtown heckle hoax (+video)

By: John Hayward
1/29/2013

The Internet was afire on Tuesday with outrage over a gun nut who dared to “heckle” the father of a Sandy Hook Elementary shooting victim, shouting him down with a “Second Amendment shall not be infringed!” chant while he was trying to speak.  What a great story to feed the righteous arrogance of the anti-gun crowd! Except it didn’t happen.  It’s a hoax, or at the very least a heavily massaged story, based on a doctored video clip.  Twitchy busted the propagandists by running the full, unedited video… which makes it painfully clear that the people in the audience who said “Second Amendment!” were responding to a direct question from the Newtown father, Neil Heslin.
The exchange is very easy to follow.  Heslin says, “I ask if there’s anybody in this room that can give me one reason or challenge this question: why anybody in this room needs to have one of these assault-style weapons or military weapons or high-capacity clips.”  Then he sits there for a few moments, looking at the audience and waiting for a response.  
When he doesn’t get one, he declares, “Not one person can answer that question.”  He says this in a way clearly meant to convey triumph that nobody responded to him.
Then, and only then, does someone call out, “The Second Amendment shall not be infringed!”  Several others are heard raising similar objections at the same moment.  The officials conducting the hearing promptly told whoever this was to pipe down.  They did not reprimand Heslin for breaking format to provoke the audience.
Interestingly, Heslin turns to the people who shouted about the Second Amendment and says, “Oh, right,” in a way that doesn’t sound sarcastic or dismissive.  After order is restored, he says, “Anyway, we’re all entitled to our own opinion, and I respect their opinions and their thoughts… but, I wish they’d respect mine and give it a little bit of thought, and realize that it could have been their child that was in school that day.”  He does not behave as if he’s been heckled or insulted. No one makes any further effort to interfere with the rest of his remarks.
It all happens 15 minutes into the full, unedited video:




There have been a few game attempts to ignore the obvious and claim the special edit doesn’t change the nature of what transpired.  That’s ludicrous.  The segment removed from the video circulated by MSNBC, among other sources, was carefully and deliberately excised to wipe out the inconvenient moment when Heslin specifically asked for a response… and then proved it wasn’t rhetorical by using the resulting silence as “proof” that his argument was correct.  The person, or persons, who shouted about the Second Amendment didn’t say a word until Heslin essentially taunted them for remaining silent.  I don’t know that he realized he was doing that; he’s a grieving father who probably doesn’t have much public debating experience.  Having watched the clip a couple of times, I think he was honestly waiting for someone in the audience to answer him.
Obviously the people trying to pump this into an outrageous story with doctored video aren’t interested in fair, reasoned debate: they want to score points, and if they feel any vestigial remorse that they must lie to do it, they reassure themselves that the absolute righteousness of their position justifies all necessary slander.  Only one side is supposed to talk during our “national conversation on gun control.”  Emotional appeals are supposed to sweep away both logic and inconvenient individual rights.  It’s considered rude to note that what Heslin did is profoundly dishonest and unfair.  But I guess when you disagree with the righteous, you don’t get to complain about rigged debate rules and kangaroo courts of opinion.

Biggest Threat to Our Freedom is an Uninformed Population (video)

NRA Publishes List of Gun Control Advocates

By Erin Haust 

Jan 09, 2013 

 

Unions, celebrities, advocacy groups, writers and newspapers all made the list. After the Journal News published the names and addresses of more than 33,000 legal handgun permit holders, making families, homes and neighborhoods vulnerable to theft and assault, the National Rifle Association decided to hit back. If the intent of the newspaper was to shame those with gun permits living in their community, the NRA has upped the game by publishing the names of gun control advocates all over the country. Many of the names on the list are companies, organizations and individuals that are guarded by armed security. (Click the link above)

 

[ed. How many of these organizations are paid for by George Soros?...]

Court says Obama exceeded authority in making appointments

By Robert Barnes and Steven Mufson,
January 25, 2013

President Obama exceeded his constitutional authority by making appointments when the Senate was on a break last year, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The court’s broad ruling would sharply limit the power that presidents throughout history have used to make recess appointments in the face of Senate opposition and inaction.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit flatly rejected the Obama administration’s rationale for appointing three members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) while the Senate was on a holiday break.

Chief Judge David B. Sentelle sharply criticized the administration’s interpretation of when recess appointments may be made, saying it would give the president “free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction.” He added, “This cannot be the law.”
The issue seems certain to end up before the Supreme Court, which ultimately could clarify a president’s authority to fill his administration and appoint federal judges when a minority of the Senate blocks consideration of his choices.
Although recess appointments have been made throughout the nation’s history, they have been more commonly made by modern presidents who face partisan opposition that has made it hard for nominees to even receive a vote in the Senate.
Additionally, Friday’s decision casts doubt on hundreds of decisions the NLRB has made in the past year, ranging from enforcement of collective-bargaining agreements to rulings on the rights of workers to use social media.
The ruling also raises questions about the recess appointment of former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to head the fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and about the actions taken by the agency during his tenure, including major new rules governing the mortgage industry. Obama named Cordray at the same time as the NLRB nominees, and his appointment is the subject of a separate lawsuit in D.C. federal court.
The White House criticized the court ruling. “The decision is novel and unprecedented, and it contradicts 150 years of practice by Democratic and Republican administrations,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Friday. “We respectfully but strongly disagree with the ruling.”
Presidents from both parties have made hundreds of recess appointments when the Senate has failed to act on nominations. Ronald Reagan holds the record with 243. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, made 105, and it was during his term that Senate Democrats began holding pro-forma sessions, some lasting less than a minute, when the Senate went on break. They contended that that kept the Senate in session and did not allow Bush to make recess appointments.
Republicans took up the practice when Obama was elected. But Obama decided to challenge it in January 2012, when the Senate was on a 20-day holiday but holding pro-forma sessions every three business days to block presidential action.
Obama moved ahead with the nomination of Cordray, who many Republicans considered overly antagonistic toward business, and three NLRB members — Sharon Block, Terence F. Flynn and Richard F. Griffin Jr.
At the time, the NLRB had only two members and was thus unable to take any official action. Some Republicans were worried that the board under Obama would be too pro-union.

Obama said he had the authority under the Constitution’s recess appointments clause, which grants power for such appointments “during the Recess of the Senate,” when senators are unavailable to provide their advice and consent.
Sentelle, joined by Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson and Thomas B. Griffith, said that the Constitution’s reference to “the Recess” means that appointments are allowed only during the recess between sessions of the Senate, not when the Senate is simply on a break. It was not up to the president to decide what constitutes a recess, Sentelle said.
The ruling noted that another federal appeals court has read the Constitution differently, which adds to the likelihood the Supreme Court will have to settle the issue.
Sentelle and Henderson went where apparently no other court has gone. They said that the president has the authority to make appointments only to vacancies that arise during a recess, which would drastically limit a president’s ability to make use of the recess appointment power.
A senior administration official who was granted anonymity to discuss White House legal strategy said it was unlikely that the White House would ask the full D.C. Circuit court to take up the case. The official said it might be better to wait for other courts around the country to rule on similar cases and then seek Supreme Court review.
Senate Republicans said the decision was a victory for the separation of powers.
“Today’s ruling reaffirms that the Constitution is above political party or agenda, despite what the Obama administration seems to think,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah).
Some Democrats said the ruling will encourage Senate Republicans to block Obama’s nominees by refusing to allow them to come to a vote.
“Today’s circuit court decision is not only a radical departure from precedent, it ignores the fact that President Obama had no choice but to act,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Harkin said that “throughout his presidency, Republicans have employed unprecedented partisan delay tactics and filibusters” to block Obama’s nominees.
The case was brought by Noel Canning, a company in Washington state that challenged an NLRB ruling by saying the three Obama board members were not properly appointed. The court’s ruling on Noel’s behalf leaves hundreds of decisions in which the three members have participated open to court challenge. Block and Griffin continue to serve. Flynn resigned last year.
NLRB Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce said the board, which now has only three members, will continue with business as usual.
“It should be noted that this order applies to only one specific case, Noel Canning, and that similar questions have been raised in more than a dozen cases pending in other courts of appeals,” Pearce said in a statement on the board’s Web site.
But labor unions were alarmed. “Chaos” is the way Pamela Allen, legal director of National Nurses United, described the effect of the court ruling. She said, “It’s a field day for the employers. This decision will be appealed, but to a [Supreme] Court that hasn’t always been friendly to labor over the years.”
Allen said that hundreds of NLRB rulings might be contested by employers. One example, she said, was a recent ruling to force a rural California hospital to award back pay to union activists and to accept a vote by its nurses to let the union bargain on their behalf.
Charles I. Cohen, a former NLRB member and senior counsel in the labor and employment practice of the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, said the result of the court ruling was “a cloud” over the NLRB that would “present a quandary for employers about how to comply with the law.”
The work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could also be in jeopardy because the law requires the agency to have a director in place before it can exercise its power to write regulations and enforce them.
In the past three weeks alone, the bureau has issued seven rules changing the way that homeowners interact with the mortgage industry by limiting upfront fees, providing free appraisals and curtailing harmful practices such as interest-only payments, among other things.
“There will be lots of lawsuits, lots of uncertainty about what the rules of the road are, and lots of taxpayer money wasted on things that potentially turn out to be invalid,” said Andrew J. Pincus, an attorney who represents the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Cordray’s recess appointment expires at the end of this year. Obama renominated him on Thursday, but GOP leaders have said they continue to oppose him.


Danielle Douglas, Scott Wilson and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Attack on family in Compton latest incident in wave of anti-black violence

By Sam Quinones, Richard Winton and Joe Mozingo

January 25, 2013

A Latino gang is intimidating blacks into leaving the city that was once an African American enclave. It's part of a violent trend seen in other parts of the L.A. area.

The trouble began soon after they arrived. The black family—a mother, three teenage children and a 10-year-old boy—moved into a little yellow home in Compton over Christmas vacation.
When a friend came to visit, four men in a black SUV pulled up and called him a "nigger," saying black people were barred from the neighborhood, according to Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies. They jumped out, drew a gun on him and beat him with metal pipes.
It was just the beginning of what detectives said was a campaign by a Latino street gang to force an African American family to leave.
The attacks on the family are the latest in a series of violent incidents in which Latino gangs targeted blacks in parts of greater Los Angeles over the last decade.
Compton, with a population of about 97,000, was predominantly black for many years. It is now 65% Latino and 33% black, according to the 2010 U.S. census. But it's not only historically black areas that have been targeted.
Federal authorities have alleged in several indictments in the last decade that the Mexican Mafia prison gang has ordered street gangs under its control to attack African Americans. Leaders of the Azusa 13 gang were sentenced to lengthy prison terms earlier this month for leading a policy of attacking African American residents and expelling them from the town.
Similar attacks have taken place in Harbor Gateway, Highland Park, Pacoima, San Bernardino, Canoga Park and Wilmington, among other places. In the Compton case, sheriff's officials say the gang appears to have been acting on its own initiative.
Sheriff's detectives said Friday they had arrested Jeffrey Aguilar, 19, of Gardena and Efren Marquez, 21, of Rialto, both alleged members of the Compton Varrio 155 gang, and are continuing to look for more assailants.
"This family has no gang ties whatsoever," Sheriff's Lt. Richard Westin said. "They are complete innocent victims here."
The 19-year-old family friend managed to break free that first day and run into the house, where the children were the only ones at home.
The attackers left, but a half-hour later a crowd of as many as 20 people stood on the lawn yelling threats and epithets. A beer bottle crashed through the living room window as the youngsters watched in horror.
"They were scared if they called the sheriff they'd be killed," Westin said. "So they called their mom, who called the Sheriff's Department."
The gang members were gone by the time deputies arrived, but they kept coming back, almost daily, driving by slowly until they got someone's attention, then yelling racial insults and telling them to leave. The mother sent the children to live with relatives and is now packing up to leave herself.
"This gang has always made it clear they have a racial hatred for black people," said Westin, who has worked in the area for more than two decades. "They justify in their own sick minds because of their rivalry with the Compton black gangs. They repeatedly used racial epithets, they use racial hatred graffiti and they tag up the black church a lot."
At the home on 153rd Street on Friday, the rain-drenched street was empty and quiet. But the gang's presence was clear.
Its tags marked several long walls, stop signs, curbs and school crossing signs — often with the nicknames of individual gang members included.
Crews remove the graffiti almost every morning.
Down the street, the Greater Holy Faith Missionary Baptist Church — a remnant from the time when Compton was almost all black — is often tagged, most recently, just below the cross.
Neighbors say its pastors come on Sundays and no longer live in the area.

[ed. Trouble in the multicultural paradise...this is only going to get worse.]