Obama Syndicate Plans Imminent Takeover of USA by Islam and Globalists

"Caliphate Conference" Seeks to Islamize Europe, U.S.

Why is Obama in Bed with the Muslim Brotherhood?

CFP: Obama Syndicate Plans Imminent Takeover of USA by Islam and Globalists

While Congress ignores it (or secretly supports it), the US courts continue to fall one by one towards accepting and utilizing Shari’a law in place of US law and the wholly-owned-by-the-totalitarian-Left-and/or-the-Saudis (same thing) media continue their mindless and largely irrelevant programming (to continue the mesmerization of the American people) Obama is openly supporting and assisting the Islamist takeover of the USA. I have been writing about this since prior to the Obama syndicate’s usurpation of the White House. However, it’s comforting to know that my more well-known brethren have at last gotten the message and are now, also, writing about it. In the end, we are all in this together!

Recently, Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Soeren Kern wrote in his article “Caliphate Conference” Seeks to Islamize Europe, U.S.”: “The explicit aim of the Istanbul Process—currently backed by the Obama administration—is to make it an international crime to criticize Islam. A Muslim fundamentalist group is organizing a conference focused on turning Austria and other European countries into Islamic states.

“The “Caliphate Conference 2012” will be held on March 10 in the Austrian town of Vösendorf, situated just south of Vienna. The main theme of the event will be “The Caliphate: The State Model of the Future.”

“The conference is being organized by Hizb ut-Tahrir [Party of Liberation], a pan-Islamic extremist group that seeks to establish a global Islamic state, or caliphate, ruled by Islamic Sharia law.”

Shortly thereafter, WND published the article “Planning for Islamic Caliphate Begins” in which it exposes a December 2011 Islamist Conference held in Washington D.C.—also with support from Obama—at which Sec. of State Hillary Clinton spoke in favor of the Islamists’ plans to stop anti-Islam speech in the USA. The “Istanbul Process” (also SURPRISE—SURPRISE is supported by the U.N.) would deny anti-Islamic speech, only, and if any anti-Muslim/Islam speech leads to said Muslims rioting and pillaging (which is what they do on a regular basis, anyway) the speaker would be held liable, jailed or worse.

The above is happening now. Source it for yourselves or take a look at the references below. This would also be an excellent campaign strategy for Obama…jailing anyone who has spoken out against the Satanic Islamic cult. That’s most—if not all—of we Constitutionalists.

So, we have a dictatorial group now ruling—not governing—us which has destroyed our jobs and is in the process of destroying the employers who provide those jobs. It is, also, gutting our US Treasury, taking our money and spending it on the globalists, Islam and whatever other groups wanting and working with Obama to destroy what used to be our country. This same Obama syndicate has ordered military drills (aka “urban warfare”) in many of our cities including, but not limited to, Los Angeles, Miami, Boston and Little Rock, has ensured that gasoline and energy prices are reaching unprecedented highs (how better to immobilize a population?), is beginning its takeover of raising our children (did you see the articles about the Obama Food Police checking 4-6 year olds lunches) and Michele Obama has even limited how large candy bars are allowed to be. And, there’s always ObamaCare—which is much…much more than healthcare—looming darkly over us. So many more tyrannical dictates have been commanded by Obama that it would take several books to include them all.

How much more will it take, America, for us to rise up against this massive onslaught? Are we doomed to slavery, poverty and early death at the hands of the most corrupt and evil oppressors in human history or will we actually get off our collective derrieres and fight them? By the way, there is no time left. Decisions must be now or never and may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob be with us.

“And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”—Gen 16:12

“And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over”—Daniel 11:40

- Sher Zieve Sunday, February 26, 2012 – Canada Free Press – h/t to John

Planning for the Caliphate to Begin

A senior fellow for a Madrid-based think tank is alerting freedom-loving people about a caliphate-planning conference being held by Muslims soon, a move he said was given a boost of support by the Obama administration recently when it allowed a three-day “Istanbul Process” conference in Washington.

That event, writes Soeren Kern, Senior Fellow for European Politics at Madrid’s Grupo de Estudio, “gave the [Organization of Islamic Cooperation] the political legitimacy it has been seeking to globalize its initiative to ban criticism of Islam.”

The coming event, Caliphate Conference 2012,  http://www.kalifatskonferenz.info/index.html  is being organized by Hizb ut-Tahrir, which Kern describes as a “pan-Islamic extremist group that seeks to establish a global Islamic state, or caliphate, ruled by Islamic Shariah law.”

The 57-member OIC has been proposing a special international law that would make it criminal to speak ill of Muhammad or his followers for years, but it never was successful under its earlier plans that were portrayed as a ban on the “defamation of religions.” Actually, support for the idea had started waning.

But then it proposed Resolution 16/18, a plan for countries to “combat” things like “intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of … religion and belief.” The idea was adopted in the U.N. General Assembly just a few weeks ago and Kern’s analysis notes that it would be largely ineffectual as long as the West doesn’t jump behind it.

That is why it was a “diplomatic coup,” according to Kern, when Obama held the three-day conference in Washington, [url http://www.uspolicy.be/headline/clinton-istanbul-process-freedom-religion-belief ]where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton committed to the key principal Muslims have been seeking for years: holding people responsible when “free speech” … “results in sectarian clashes.”

The critical question that has been among the reasons the so-called “anti-defamation” plans previously have failed is that such limits suggest, even require, that the blame be placed on the person making a statement if the situation is that someone else reacts to it violently.

Free speech advocates are worried over her comment that, “It’s one thing if people are just disagreeing. That is fair game. That’s free speech. But if it results in sectarian clashes, if it results in the destruction or the defacement or the vandalization of religious sites, if it even results in imprisonment or death, then government must held those – hold those who are responsible accountable.”

In Western civilization, the standard for responsibility would be to hold those accountable who do violence, not those who make statements that those who do violence blame for their actions.

The U.N. strategy, proposed by Pakistan “on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference,” again creates an open door to blame someone for making a statement about Islam to which Muslims would react violently, by raising concerns about “incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”

Further, it “condemns any advocacy of religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”

Repeated concerns have been raised by such statements, as they open the door for attacks on people making statements about their own beliefs, which someone else would choose to decry as “hatred.”

In fact, the resolution calls for “measures to criminalize” some related behaviors.

Sharona Schwartz at at the Blaze noted that the German-language promotion video for the conference [ url: http://news.yahoo.com/global-caliphate-conference-planned-austria-next-month-221814658.html  ] starts:.” “The relentless decline of capitalism has begun. The time has come to fight against poverty. Time to obliterate the injustices. Time for the correct system

Which is identified as Islam.

In a report published by the Stonegate Institute, [url: http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2866/caliphate-conference ]Kern said the “explicit aim” of the Istanbul Process is to make it a crime to criticize Islam.

He writes, “According to Steven Emerson, a leading authority on Islamic extremist networks, Hizb ut-Tahrir is emulating the three-stage process by which Muslims established the first Islamic caliphate after the death of the Islamic Prophet, Mohammed, in the year 632.

“During the first stage, Hizb ut-Tahrir builds a party by cultivating a small number of supporters to engage in recruitment and propaganda. In the second stage (which Hizb ut-Tahrir is now entering in Europe and the United States), the group educates Muslims in order to recruit a larger group of people to join Hizb ut-Tahrir and support its revolution. Finally, having won the support of Muslims, Hizb ut-Tahrir moves to establish a Shariah-ruled Islamic government.”

He notes the OIC just two weeks ago sponsored a symposium in Brussels to talk about “anti-Islamophobia.”

“Resolution 16/18, which was adopted at HRC headquarters in Geneva in March 2011, is widely viewed as a significant step forward in OIC efforts to advance the international legal concept of defaming Islam,” he reports.

He cited the report from the International Islamic News Agency, which stated, “The phenomenon of Islamophobia is found in the West in general, but is growing in European countries in particular, in a manner different from that in the U.S., which had contributed to drafting Resolution 16/18. The new European position represents the beginning of the shift from its previous reserve over the years over the attempts by the OIC to counter ‘defamation of religions’ in the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations.”

WND previously has written about the Islamic-led Defamation of Religions proposal in the United Nations. It was “nothing more than an effort to achieve special protections for Islam – a move to stifle religious speech,” according to an analysis by Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice.

According to the Human Rights First organization, the plan simply violates fundamental freedom of expression norms.

Tad Stahnke, of Human Rights First said the concept is “unfortunate for both individuals at risk whose rights will surely be violated under the guise of prohibiting ‘defamation of religions,’ as well as for the standards of international norms on freedom of expression.”

The issue also has been addressed by Carl Moeller, chief of Open Doors USA, in an interview with WND at the time, because of the pending threat to the freedoms in America.

“This is a battle for our basic freedoms,” he warned.

“This [U.N. idea] is Orwellian in its deviousness,” he said. “To use language like the anti-defamation of a religion. It sounds like doublespeak worthy of Orwell’s “1984” because of what it really does.”

He said Muslim nations would use it as an endorsement of their attacks on Christians for statements as simple as their belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ, which Muslims consider an affront.

Worse would be the “chilling” effect on language that the U.N. plan would create worldwide, he said.

“This would be a huge blessing to those who would silence dissidents in their countries, Islamic regimes,” he said. “This stands as a monument to the gullibility of the masses in the United States and other places who don’t see this for what it is.”

-----------------------------

[url: http://news.yahoo.com/global-caliphate-conference-planned-austria-next-month-221814658.html ]

Global Caliphate Conference Planned for Austria Next Month

By Sharona Schwartz | The Blaze – Tue, Feb 21, 2012

Caliphate-Conference-Austria

“The relentless decline of Capitalism has begun. The time has come to fight against poverty. Time to obliterate the injustices. Time for the correct system.”

So declares a video promoting the global "Caliphate Conference 2012" next month in Austria, suggesting the “correct system” is an international Islamic-based one replacing capitalism, which the video blames for catastrophe, civil war, and never-ending poverty.

Organized by the fundamentalist Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, the conference will take place on March 10th south of Vienna.

Soeren Kern of the Stonegate Institute reports:

The main theme of the event will be "The Caliphate: The State Model of the Future."

The conference is being organized by Hizb ut-Tahrir [Party of Liberation], a pan-Islamic extremist group that seeks to establish a global Islamic state, or caliphate, ruled by Islamic Sharia law.

Hizb ut-Tahrir -- which is banned in many countries, including Germany, but is free to operate in Austria -- is virulently opposed to Western capitalism and democracy and seeks to extend the future caliphate to Europe and the United States.

According to a promotional video (in German) for the conference, "the Islamic Caliphate is the only social and political system that has the right solutions to the political, social and economic problems of humanity."

Here is the video with English subtitles which was posted on the Media Research Center’s website:

Kern writes that a similar conference scheduled for March 4th in Belgium was cancelled after local opposition. The Blaze reported on the caliphate conference in the Netherlands last year, and a similarly-themed conference took place in Chicago in June 2010.

Hizb ut-Tahrir defines its goals as bringing Sharia into all aspects of civil life and restoring the caliphate to its primal position over all other nations. >From its website:

Its aim is to resume the Islamic way of life and to convey the Islamic Call to the world. This objective means bringing the Muslims back to living an Islamic way of life in Dar al-Islam (the domain of Islam) and in an Islamic society such that all of life's affairs in society are administered according to the Shari'ah rules, and the viewpoint in it is the Halal (lawful) and the Haram (prohibited) under the shade of the Islamic State, which is the Khilafah (Caliphate) State. The Party, as well, aims at the correct revival of the Islamic Ummah through enlightened thought.

It also strives to bring her back to her previous might and glory such that she wrests the reins of initiative away from other states and nations, and returns to her rightful place as the first state in the world, as she was in the past, when she governs the world according to the laws of Islam.

Caliphate-Conference-Flag

To get a better sense of the group behind the conference, “leaflets” posted on Hizb ut-Tahrir's website  advocate a violent struggle against Israel over Gaza:

Lifting the siege of Gaza will never happen through condemnation or Hajj to the UN

It can only ever happen through mobilization of the armies that surround the Jewish entity, as a bracelet encircles a wrist

And a call for military action to conquer Al-Quds, Arabic for Jerusalem:

Al-Quds cannot be liberated by resorting to protests and sit-in… it can only be restored by mobilizing armed forces to eliminate the Jewish entity!

Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton on the sidelines of last year’s CPAC conference told a Salon reporter:

“There are leaders in that part of the world who do – like Osama bin Laden - talk about the restoration of the caliphate and I am very disturbed by that because that kind of radical ideology I think threatens moderate Muslim and Arabic regimes that are important to American national security interests.” [O'D NOTE:  There is NO SUCH THING as a  "moderate" Muslim or Arabic/Muslim regime!!! They ALL are hiding their CONTEMPT & HATE for we "Crusaders" behind a false smile of "friendship, awaiting the moment when they can stab us in the back!!!]

Kern of the Stonegate Institute suggests that the fact that the conference is taking place openly indicates Hizb ut-Tahrir aims to enhance its recruiting efforts among Europe’s Muslim population.

--------------------------

[url: http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2866/caliphate-conference ]

"Caliphate Conference" Seeks to Islamize Europe, U.S.

by Soeren Kern
February 21, 2012 at 5:00 am

The explicit aim of the Istanbul Process -- currently backed by the Obama administration -- is to make it an international crime to criticize Islam.

A Muslim fundamentalist group is organizing a conference focused on turning Austria and other European countries into Islamic states.

The "Caliphate Conference 2012" will be held on March 10 in the Austrian town of Vösendorf, situated just south of Vienna. The main theme of the event will be "The Caliphate: The State Model of the Future."

The conference is being organized by Hizb ut-Tahrir [Party of Liberation], a pan-Islamic extremist group that seeks to establish a global Islamic state, or caliphate, ruled by Islamic Sharia law.

Hizb ut-Tahrir -- which is banned in many countries, including Germany, but is free to operate in Austria -- is virulently opposed to Western capitalism and democracy and seeks to extend the future caliphate to Europe and the United States.

According to a promotional video (in German) for the conference, "the Islamic Caliphate is the only social and political system that has the right solutions to the political, social and economic problems of humanity."

Hizb ut-Tahrir has been banned from holding a similar conference in Belgium that had been scheduled for March 4. The group also organized a Caliphate Conference in Amsterdam last July, 2011, and well as a year earlier in Chicago in June, 2010.

Analysts say the open nature of the conference in Vienna indicates that Hizb ut-Tahrir is enhancing its recruiting efforts among European Muslims.

According to Steven Emerson, a leading authority on Islamic extremist networks, Hizb ut-Tahrir is emulating the three-stage process by which Muslims established the first Islamic caliphate after the death of the Islamic Prophet, Mohammed, in the year 632.

During the first stage, Hizb ut-Tahrir builds a party by cultivating a small number of supporters to engage in recruitment and propaganda. In the second stage (which Hizb ut-Tahrir is now entering in Europe and the United States), the group educates Muslims in order to recruit a larger group of people to join Hizb ut-Tahrir and support its revolution. Finally, having won the support of Muslims, Hizb ut-Tahrir moves to establish a Sharia-ruled Islamic government.

While Muslims are busy working to Islamize the West from within, they simultaneously insist that Westerners should not be allowed to criticize these efforts.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a group of 57 Muslim countries that purports to be the collective voice of the Muslim world, sponsored an anti-Islamophobia symposium in Brussels on February 15 and 16, 2012.

The first-of-its-kind event was entitled "Smearing Islam and Muslims in the Media," and was "aimed at establishing information mechanisms to face up to the slanderous campaigns against Islam in the media."

The workshop was part of the so-called Istanbul Process, an aggressive effort by Muslim countries to make it an international crime to criticize Islam.

The explicit aim of the Istanbul Process is to enshrine in international law a global ban on all critical scrutiny of Islam and Islamic Sharia law.

Based in Saudi Arabia, the OIC has long pressed the European Union and the United States to impose limits on free speech and expression about Islam.

But the OIC has now redoubled its efforts and is engaged in a determined diplomatic offensive to persuade Western democracies to implement United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) Resolution 16/18, which calls on all countries to combat "intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of … religion and belief." (Analysis of the OIC's war on free speech can be found here and here.) http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/islamic_world_tells_clinton_defamation_of_islam_must_be prevente 

http://articles.latimes.com/print/2011/dec/12/opinion/la-oe-turley-blasphemy-20111210 ]

Resolution 16/18, which was adopted at HRC headquarters in Geneva in March 2011, is widely viewed as a significant step forward in OIC efforts to advance the international legal concept of defaming Islam.

However, the HRC resolution -- as well as the OIC-sponsored Resolution 66/167, which was quietly approved by the 193-member UN General Assembly on December 19, 2011 -- remains ineffectual as long as it lacks strong support in the West.

The OIC therefore scored a diplomatic coup when the Obama Administration agreed to host a three-day Istanbul Process conference in Washington, DC on December 12-14, 2011. In doing so, the United States gave the OIC the political legitimacy it has been seeking to globalize its initiative to ban criticism of Islam.

Following the Obama Administration's lead, the European Union now wants to get in on the action by hosting the next Istanbul Process summit.

Up until now, the European Union has kept the OIC initiative at arms-length. But Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary-General of the OIC, says the EU's recent offer to host the meeting represents a "qualitative shift in action against the phenomenon of Islamophobia," according to the International Islamic News Agency (IINA), the OIC's official news and propaganda organ.

According to the IINA, "The phenomenon of Islamophobia is found in the West in general, but is growing in European countries in particular, in a manner different from that in the US, which had contributed to drafting Resolution 16/18. The new European position represents the beginning of the shift from its previous reserve over the years over the attempts by the OIC to counter 'defamation of religions' in the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations."

The IINA report continues: "Officials in the Cultural Affairs Department of the OIC said that the European Union's offer to host the third meeting (the first was in Istanbul in July, and the second in Washington, DC last December) is considered a promising new possibility of solving this problem. The 'Istanbul Process' will have an added momentum by holding the meeting in Europe, which is more affected by the phenomenon of Islamophobia and hostility towards Islam."

According to the OIC, the anti-Islamophobia workshop in February was of "particular importance" as it was held only weeks before the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva from February 27 to March 23, during which time Resolution 16/18 will come to a second vote.

In September 2011, an OIC organ called the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (IESCO), organized a seminar in Brussels on "how to deal with stereotypical images of Islam in European television programs."

The seminar was designed to help European journalists "identify characteristics of stereotypes about Islam in European television programs, highlight the dangers of defamation of religions, and clarify the distinction between freedom of expression and the right to cultural difference, the commitment to the Islamic cultural identity and the struggle against racism and hatred."

In her latest book titled "Europe, Globalization, and the Coming of the Universal Caliphate," Bat Ye'or, a leading scholar on Islam in the West, writes that the OIC is essentially a "would-be universal caliphate" which exercises significant power through the European Union, the United Nations and other international organizations.

Ye'or describes an OIC strategy manual, "Strategy of Islamic Cultural Action in the West," in which the OIC asserts that "Muslim immigrant communities in Europe are part of the Islamic nation." The document goes on to recommend "a series of steps to prevent the integration and assimilation of Muslims into European culture."

According to Ye'or, "The caliphate is alive and growing within Europe…It has advanced through the denial of dangers and the obfuscating of history. It has moved forward on gilded carpets in the corridors of dialogue, the network of the Alliances and partnerships, in the corruption of its leaders, intellectuals and NGOs, particularly at the United Nations."

Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

h/t to John Rolls, Anglo & Warbird at Sovereignty in Colorado and AJ

Related:

“Caliphate Conference” Seeks to Islamize Europe, U.S.:

Clinton at Istanbul Process for Freedom of Religion, Belief

Sharia Awareness Action Network

http://shariafreeusa.com/

“A Coalition of Citizens who through strategic action will prevent the implementation of Sharia Law in America”

Hedge Broker Goes Galt: Ann Barnhardt Shuts Down Firm With Chilling Letter

This is an absolute must-read.

If you haven't yet read this letter, due to the recommendation of Rush Limbaugh yesterday, you really need to. This lady, Ann Barnhardt, tells it like it is.

She speaks without fear, holding to the truth, in a manner that would shock most in the business world. Needless to say, she's a Bible-believing Christian. She simply doesn't care about the consequences of telling the truth, and letting the chips fall where they may. This lady rocks!

Here's the story, from The Blaze:

Posted on November 18, 2011 at 8:45am by Jonathon M. Seidl
Ann Barnhardt describes herself as a an “an old-school commercial hedge broker specializing in CATTLE and GRAIN.” And she just shut down her business by delivering a passionate and chilling open letter posted on her website.
“I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets – because they are not,” she writes. And then she unloads:

Everything changed just a few short weeks ago. A firm, led by a crony of the Obama regime, stole all of the non-margined cash held by customers of his firm. Let’s not sugar-coat this or make this crime seem “complex” and “abstract” by drowning ourselves in six-dollar words and uber-technical jargon. Jon Corzine STOLE the customer cash at MF Global. Knowing Jon Corzine, and knowing the abject lawlessness and contempt for humanity of the Marxist Obama regime and its cronies, this is not really a surprise. What was a surprise was the reaction of the exchanges and regulators. Their reaction has been to take a bad situation and make it orders of magnitude worse. Specifically, they froze customers out of their accounts WHILE THE MARKETS CONTINUED TO TRADE, refusing to even allow them to liquidate. This is unfathomable. The risk exposure precedent that has been set is completely intolerable and has destroyed the entire industry paradigm. No informed person can continue to engage these markets, and no moral person can continue to broker or facilitate customer engagement in what is now a massive game of Russian Roulette. [Emphasis added]

The letter caught the attention of Rush Limbaugh on Thursday.

“The letter from the hedge fund guy sounds particularly filled with vitriol, but he’s right about something,” Limbaugh said after reading an excerpt. “Corzine was that firm, and the customers’ money is gone, and it’s like $600 million of it, and it’s gone, and they’re trying to get it back, it’s a miniature Madoff in that sense. And somebody did steal that money. Somebody at that firm, which is now bankrupt and 1,100 people or thereabouts have been laid off, somebody stole the clients’ money. It is a big deal to a lot of people.”
We’ve included the entire letter (originally presented in two parts) below (courtesy of Zero Hedge):

BCM Has Ceased Operations (source)
Posted by Ann Barnhardt – November 17, AD 2011 10:27 AM MST

Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt Capital Management,

It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. After six years of operating as an independent introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere spectator.

The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly simple: I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets – because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients, but for every futures and options account in the United States. The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global collapse. Given this sad reality, I could not in good conscience take one more step as a commodity broker, soliciting trades that I knew were unsafe or holding funds that I knew to be in jeopardy.

The futures markets are very highly-leveraged and thus require an exceptionally firm base upon which to function. That base was the sacrosanct segregation of customer funds from clearing firm capital, with additional emergency financial backing provided by the exchanges themselves. Up until a few weeks ago, that base existed, and had worked flawlessly. Firms came and went, with some imploding in spectacular fashion. Whenever a firm failure happened, the customer funds were intact and the exchanges would step in to backstop everything and keep customers 100% liquid – even as their clearing firm collapsed and was quickly replaced by another firm within the system.

Everything changed just a few short weeks ago. A firm, led by a crony of the Obama regime, stole all of the non-margined cash held by customers of his firm. Let’s not sugar-coat this or make this crime seem “complex” and “abstract” by drowning ourselves in six-dollar words and uber-technical jargon. Jon Corzine STOLE the customer cash at MF Global. Knowing Jon Corzine, and knowing the abject lawlessness and contempt for humanity of the Marxist Obama regime and its cronies, this is not really a surprise. What was a surprise was the reaction of the exchanges and regulators. Their reaction has been to take a bad situation and make it orders of magnitude worse. Specifically, they froze customers out of their accounts WHILE THE MARKETS CONTINUED TO TRADE, refusing to even allow them to liquidate. This is unfathomable. The risk exposure precedent that has been set is completely intolerable and has destroyed the entire industry paradigm. No informed person can continue to engage these markets, and no moral person can continue to broker or facilitate customer engagement in what is now a massive game of Russian Roulette.

I have learned over the last week that MF Global is almost certainly the mere tip of the iceberg. There is massive industry-wide exposure to European sovereign junk debt. While other firms may not be as heavily leveraged as Corzine had MFG leveraged, and it is now thought that MFG’s leverage may have been in excess of 100:1, they are still suicidally leveraged and will likely stand massive, unmeetable collateral calls in the coming days and weeks as Europe inevitably collapses. I now suspect that the reason the Chicago Mercantile Exchange did not immediately step in to backstop the MFG implosion was because they knew and know that if they backstopped MFG, they would then be expected to backstop all of the other firms in the system when the failures began to cascade – and there simply isn’t that much money in the entire system. In short, the problem is a SYSTEMIC problem, not merely isolated to one firm.

Perhaps the most ominous dynamic that I have yet heard of in regards to this mess is that of the risk of potential CLAWBACK actions. For those who do not know, “clawback” is the process by which a bankruptcy trustee is legally permitted to re-seize assets that left a bankrupt entity in the time period immediately preceding the entity’s collapse. So, using the MF Global customers as an example, any funds that were withdrawn from MFG accounts in the run-up to the collapse, either because of suspicions the customer may have had about MFG from, say, watching the company’s bond yields rise sharply, or from purely organic day-to-day withdrawls, the bankruptcy trustee COULD initiate action to “clawback” those funds. As a hedge broker, this makes my blood run cold. Generally, as the markets move in favor of a hedge position and equity builds in a client’s account, that excess equity is sent back to the customer who then uses that equity to offset cash market transactions OR to pay down a revolving line of credit. Even the possibility that a customer could be penalized and additionally raped AGAIN via a clawback action after already having their customer funds stolen is simply villainous. While there has been no open indication of clawback actions being initiated by the MF Global trustee, I have been told that it is a possibility.

And so, to the very unpleasant crux of the matter. The futures and options markets are no longer viable. It is my recommendation that ALL customers withdraw from all of the markets as soon as possible so that they have the best chance of protecting themselves and their equity. The system is no longer functioning with integrity and is suicidally risk-laden. The rule of law is non-existent, instead replaced with godless, criminal political cronyism.

Remember, derivatives contracts are NOT NECESSARY in the commodities markets. The cash commodity itself is the underlying reality and is not dependent on the futures or options markets. Many people seem to have gotten that backwards over the past decades. From Abel the animal husbandman up until the year 1964, there were no cattle futures contracts at all, and no options contracts until 1984, and yet the cash cattle markets got along just fine.

Finally, I will not, under any circumstance, consider reforming and re-opening Barnhardt Capital Management, or any other iteration of a brokerage business, until Barack Obama has been removed from office AND the government of the United States has been sufficiently reformed and repopulated so as to engender my total and complete confidence in the government, its adherence to and enforcement of the rule of law, and in its competent and just regulatory oversight of any commodities markets that may reform. So long as the government remains criminal, it would serve no purpose whatsoever to attempt to rebuild the futures industry or my firm, because in a lawless environment, the same thievery and fraud would simply happen again, and the criminals would go unpunished, sheltered by the criminal oligarchy.

To my clients, who literally TO THE MAN agreed with my assessment of the situation, and were relieved to be exiting the markets, and many whom I now suspect stayed in the markets as long as they did only out of personal loyalty to me, I can only say thank you for the honor and pleasure of serving you over these last years, with some of my clients having been with me for over twelve years. I will continue to blog at Barnhardt.biz, which will be subtly re-skinned soon, and will continue my cattle marketing consultation business. I will still be here in the office, answering my phones, with the same phone numbers. Alas, my retirement came a few years earlier than I had anticipated, but there was no possible way to continue given the inevitability of the collapse of the global financial markets, the overthrow of our government, and the resulting collapse in the rule of law.

As for me, I can only echo the words of David:

“This is the Lord’s doing; and it is wonderful in our eyes.”
With Best Regards-  Ann Barnhardt

“I am going to head out of town for a few days, but will be checking email and messages,” Barnhardt wrote, after describing her letter as “going Galt” — a reference to Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”
“Thanks to one and all for the kind support and prayers. Please be assured of mine in return, for all of us.”
Read more about MF Global here and here.
UPDATE:
It turns out Barnhardt has a history of being quite outspoken. She regularly posts videos to a YouTube channel and has a history of making controversial statements about Islam. She’s also come under fire for her thoughts on the bin Laden raid.

Despite some of her baggage, though, she is grabbing headlines. Besides catching the attention of Zero Hedge and Limbaugh, her story was also featured in an article on Bloomberg Business Week’s website today.

Could it be that despite her past, her present story is still compelling?
(H/T: Andrea Shea King)
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And if you think that was bold, just watch her video clip where she dares to criticize Islam, in very candid terms (she's not happy about the pro-Islamic propaganda in the media, and she goes after Islam itself, for being a TOTALITARIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM, not a religion, and she goes after Mohammed's sexual perversions [CONTENT WARNING: Graphic Descriptions of Mohammed's Sexual Perversion]), so don't watch it if you're uncomfortable with harsh criticism, including criticism of sexual perversion.

While I don't agree with every word she says in the video (and elsewhere; I disagree with many, but not all, of her thoughts on the Bin Laden Raid in Pakistan, for example), she is largely correct. And it's definitely worth a watch, unless you're defensive of Islam, or you don't wish to watch criticism of sexual perversion, or you're a Muslim (In the last instance, you'll be quite upset), you'll definitely have your eyes opened if you haven't studied the Qu'ran. This is as politically incorrect as it gets. If you don't want to see hardcore (yet factual) criticism of Islam, DO NOT WATCH THIS. Ann pulls no punches. She simply speaks without fear, questioning with boldness (this is part 1 of 4, so if you liked it, go to her YouTube channel and watch the rest):

Video: Ann Barnhardt "Islamic Sexuality: A Survey of Evil" Part 1 of 4

Don’t know who Galt is?  If not you need to read: Atlas Shrugged or better yet get Ayn Rand’s Box Set including Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead

Also check out Schweizer’s and Abramhoff’s new books:  Throw Them All Out and Capitol Punishment

In Islamic Countries, Every Christian is a Hostage

by SHEIKYERMAMI on MAY 3, 2011

In Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq or wherever  pockets of Christians remain after centuries of oppression, exploitation and genocide, the few who remain are easy targets when the ummah calls for blood:

Archbishop emeritus of Lahore: Christians an “easy target” for revenge attacks after bin Laden’s death

Any excuse will do when it comes to Islamic supremacist persecution of Christians in Pakistan. “Christians are an “easy target” for reprisal after Bin Laden’s death, says Mgr Saldanha,” from AsiaNews, May 2

Pakistan: Muslims attack Christian homes, torch churches

Will the Islamophobia never end? “Punjab: Muslim extremists attack, forcing Christian families to flee,” by Jibran Khan for AsiaNews, May 2

Raymond Ibrahim: Islam’s Christian scapegoats

“Muslims avenge themselves on the ‘strong infidel’ (the ‘Christian’ West) by attacking the ‘weak infidel’ (Christian minorities living under Islam).”

“Islam’s Christian Scapegoats,” by Raymond Ibrahim in FrontPageMagazine.com (via RaymondIbrahim.com), April 29:

Hamas Eulogizes bin Laden, Condemns US ‘Crime’…

While most of the free world praised the United States for having rid it of arch-terrorist Bin Laden, the Hamas organization — which has recently all but merged with Fatah, headed by Mahmoud Abbas — condemned the act.

Jerusalem: Palestinians Riot Over Death of Bin Laden…

Islamic Jihad leader: “Al-Qaeda is not a person, it is an institution”

A useful reminder amid the euphoria and declarations that the jihad is over.“Bin Laden death will not affect al-Qaeda: Egypt Jihad leader,”from AFP, May 3.

Other news:

Just a few Musel-boyz looking for a job:

UK: Five Misunderstanders of Islam arrested under terror laws near nuclear plant

Brandnew Islam discovered:

Iowa Muslims pretend that Osama bin Laden was the only Muslim committing violence in the name of Islam

I’m so glad they don’t blame da Jooozzz:

Islamic supremacist organization says U.S. worse terrorists than bin Laden

‘Closure’ not yet:

Bin Laden dead, jihadists give up — no, wait…

Paki’s are shocked to find out Binnie was living among them:

“It has caused some shock for Pakistanis to learn that he was in such a central place.”

Sharia Creeping Into America

Moving to Montana Soon?

Nigerian Election Horror

Charred Christian Corpses Cover Roads After Muslims Riot About Elections in Nigeria

Moving to Montana Soon…?

Moving to Montana Soon…?

by SHEIKYERMAMI on APRIL 30, 2011

You might not meet a dental floss tycoon, but a bunch of far left loons who are eagerly peddling sharia.

One could get the idea that Montana is one of the states that is somehow targeted by the soldiers of Allah. But not to worry, go back to sleep, kafir. Negative thoughts are ‘counterproductive’. This is all  about  ”removing misunderstandings and hatred”, nothing to do with stoning of women, chopping off limbs on opposite sides or killing  homosexuals. Nothing but ‘myths’ concocted by greasy Islamophobes to give Islam a bad name. Right?

Check this out:

State Dept imports devout Muslim to teach Montana kids Arabic, Islam (Creeping Sharia)

Taxation for Islamization in Montana. Where else in the U.S. are imported, devout Muslims indoctrinating our kids under the guise of Arabic language skills? via Missoula teacher seeks to dispel Muslim myths | NewsOK.com.

Mother Jones: Anti-Sharia Bill Sponsors Are Kind of Clueless

Well, yes. They are indeed ‘kind of clueless’, but that can be changed. Clueless is not hopeless, like the retarded cult-(ure) of Islam.

But  don’t you fret, Montana: all misunderstandings and myths about Islam will be removed, shortly:

University of Montana to Teach Islamic Law Next Semester…

By Erin Cole

Earlier this semester, Jeff Renz, a law professor at The University of Montana, appeared on a conservative radio show to discuss the myths and realities of Islamic law. Accompanying him to Missoula’s KVGO studio were UM professor Mehrdad Kia and Robert Seidenschwarz, president of theWorld Affairs Council of Montana. (WTF is the “World Affairs Council of Montana.?”

According to Renz, the talk stirred up a fair amount of debate.

Nothing but myths:

“It was an interesting conversation,” he said. “A lot of the myths were repeated and we talked about those as well as a lot of the accuracies that are negative.”

The appearance was a launching pad for Renz, who plans to expand the conversation this fall semester by teaching an Islamic law class at UM.

This development adds UM to the growing number of American universities offering classes on Islamic law, ranging from the University of Minnesota to Yale. Islamic law, also known as Shariah law, guides the daily behavior and actions of Muslims while influencing the legal code of Islamic countries.

The three-credit class, ANTY 491, will meet three times a week and is open to UM undergraduate, graduate and law students. Renz said the course will examine the development of Islam along with the four principles of Islamic jurisprudence and will address the challenges of applying Sharia law in the 21st century.

Renz said Shariah law is not monolithic and that legal codes vary from one Muslim country to another and are often intertwined with tribal law.

“The most important thing they’ll learn is that what people perceive to be Islamic law is really local and national law rationalized, and falsely rationalized, by reference to the Quran,” he said.

Renz said that Shariah law’s core values are dignity, equality and justice, principles that were overshadowed in the midst of Islamic imperialism and European colonialism. Today, Renz said that Shariah law is in “enormous ferment” with regards to women’s and human rights and that he wants to explore both the negative and positive aspects.

Renz developed an interest in the subject due to his travels throughout Central Asia. After years spent studying books and journals on the topic, last fall he attended a week-long Islamic law and human rights conference in Salzburg, Austria. The conference solidified past talks with UM’s Central and Southwest Asian Studies Center about creating the class.

“Somewhere along the way we said we had to do it,” Renz said. “Once the decision was made to do it, things moved fast.”

Seidenschwarz, who participated with Renz on the radio show, said he’s glad UM would offer the course.

“I would greatly encourage anyone to take this class,” he said. “There’s so much misunderstanding and misinformation about what it is and there’s no uniformity in the Islamic world on interpretation.”

He said that many fears revolve around the question of whether Shariah law will either supplement or subordinate the current U.S. legal system.

Despite experiencing “not a peep” of backlash, Renz contends that there might be some disapproval of the class, and he does expect there will be controversy in the classroom.

erin.cole@umontana.edu

Related:

• Alaska seeks to bar foreign law from courts « Creeping Sharia
• UK: Muslim students challenge interest on tuition fees – Jihad Watch
• “This case will proceed under Ecclesiastical Islamic Law” – Topix
• Radical Muslim activity in the U.S. – Jihad Watch

North Carolina considering bill to ban Sharia

It is good to see that there are a growing number of such bills all over the country. They will always be challenged by claims that they infringe upon Muslims’ religious liberties. But they wouldn’t exist at all, of course, were it not for the political and authoritarian aspects of Sharia. Backers of such bills need to familiarize themselves with those aspects and be ready to answer those challenges. “Bill would ban courts from using ‘foreign law,’” by Michael Biesecker for the News & Observer, April 29

 

Think This Won’t Affect You???:   

Pennsylvania court accommodates Islamic sharia law

“Dhimmitude” on Page 107 of ObamaCare Bill – What Does It Mean?

Cleric:  Jihad Coming to Heart of America

 

Anti-Terry Jones Riot in Dearborn, MI; MSM Bias on Display (Update: Instalink!)

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Update: Instalink! Thanks. Also via Gateway Pundit, we get this video of the scene.

Video: Dearborn Michigan  Protest Gets Out of Hand

It doesn’t show you what Jones is saying or doing, though.

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So yesterday Terry Jones held his protest, but at City Hall.  And well… let’s read how the New York Times covers it:

Michigan: Koran-Burning Pastor Draws a Boisterous Crowd

Tensions flared Friday as Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose burning of a Koran sparked violence in Afghanistan, demonstrated Friday on the steps of City Hall in Dearborn, home to one of the largest Muslim communities in the nation. In rambling remarks over three hours, he mostly spoke against what he called “extremist Muslim influences” in the United States. Dearborn police made three arrests for misdemeanors. The department estimated the crowd at 700 people. Mr. Jones’s comments were often drowned out by the horns of passing cars and the boos and chants of protesters, some of whom carried signs saying, “Terrorist Go Home” and “Leave Us Alone.”

You got that?  They were boisterous.  And only three arrested.  Move along, nothing to see here…

Except it wasn’t really that.  It was a riot of about fifty people.  Of course the local papers, such as the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press couldn’t very well ignore it.  So in their news pages they editorialize that all of this is his fault.

So this is how the Detroit News covers it:

Florida pastor’s rally ends after brief fracas

Quran-burning Pastor Terry Jones had his say in Dearborn. Few appeared to hear him.

Thunderous boos from a crowd of about 700 protesters drowned out much of his speech Friday afternoon at Dearborn City Hall. The 90-minute event momentarily erupted into chaos when Jones and several dozen of his supporters approached a metal barricade around City Hall and engaged his opponents.

A crowd of at least 50 people surged across Michigan Avenue, breaking a barricade, throwing water bottles and shoes. Riot police restored order within minutes and took at least two people into custody.

Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly Jr. said Jones is partly to blame. “Even though we said, ‘Please don’t go to the barricades,’ he just ignored it,” O’Reilly said. “My assessment is this is a man without character.”

Funny, I feel the same way about you, Mayor.

Jones said he approached the barricade to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with opponents, but witnesses said the pastor appeared to egg them on, opening his palms in a provocative manner.

Opening palms is provocative?  Opening palms is a peaceful gesture.  This is what this site says on the subject of hands and body language:

There are 2 basic rules you have to remember when looking at hand gestures: Open palms (when you can see the palms of someone’s hands) suggests openness, honesty, and a liking, whilst closed palms(when you can see the back of someone’s hands) suggests that they may be hiding something, are closed to your ideas, or are feeling like they are in authority.

And it’s something I have heard over and over again.  It is believed that by opening your palm, the cave man parts of our brains recognize that this means you are disarmed and that creates greater ease.  It is downright bizarre to tell us that opening your palms is an aggressive gesture.

And of course Mayor O’Reilly  continues to be a tool:

“This is not man of great depth,” O’Reilly said. “We saw the extent of his knowledge today. If he comes back and gets coverage by the media, then shame on the media.”

Hey, Mayor O, maybe the media won’t cover it if (1) city hall stops trampling on his speech rights, (2) everyone stops pretending he is responsible when radical Muslims react violently and (3) when radical Muslims stop reacting violently.  Seriously, what do you think would have happened to him if the police weren’t there?

And here’s the Detroit Free Press’ coverage of it.

Tempers flare at Pastor Terry Jones’ Dearborn rally

Don’t you love these headlines?  “Tempers flare”?  “Fracas”?  They never mention who precisely was being violent, and they don’t correctly label the violence.  Shouldn’t the headline be more like this:“Radical Muslims Riot at Terry Jones Protest”?  I mean feel free to argue that should be tweaked a little, but isn’t that closer to the mark?

And here’s what they say about it:

Jones repeatedly provoked the crowd and insulted them. At one point, he ignored police requests by ambling down to the front of police barricades while taunting his opponents.

Angered, some of those protesters stormed past their police barricades and marched across Michigan Avenue as they hurled bottles and shoes at Jones’ supporters across from them. One woman spit in Jones’ direction.

Notice, of course the contrast.  When a Tea Partier was falsely accused of spitting at a black congressman, this was taken as proof that the entire Tea Party were bigots.  But when these people spit and riot, it’s Jones that is tarred.

The young crowd then pushed down a security fence that separated them from Jones’ supporters and surged forward, their faces tight with anger. For a moment, it appeared a major clash was about to break out.

But Arab-American leaders and police pushed back the angry group as dozens of police officers in full riot gear marched out in single file to separate the two sides. At least two were arrested. Dearborn Mayor John O’Reilly Jr. said afterward that Jones was responsible for creating the disturbance by ignoring city requests not to approach the barricade.

“He refused to comply,” O’Reilly said. “He was asked, ‘Please don’t come to the barricade.’ He just ignored us. … His goal was to start trouble. … That shows his character.”

Yeah, just like those evil black people who sat at lunch counters to protest segregation.  Didn’t they know that by just sitting where they were not supposed to they were provoking violence?

And of course I am being facetious.  Yes, those civil rights protesters did know.  It was a sign of their courage that they knew and they went anyway.  And yes, they did intend to provoke violence, to show the world that just sitting at a lunch counter could get those hateful, ignorant idiots to attack them.  Yes, it was provocative, but only because the segregationists were easily provoked—unreasonably easily provoked.  And we all understand that in that context.  And none of us blame those civil rights protesters for the violence that did break out in those sorts of things.

But why don’t we apply those principles to acts like this?

Oh, right because they don’t like his point of view.  And I will be first to admit that if this is true…

Jones launched an attack on Obama, questioning the president’s speech in Cairo, Egypt, in which he said Islam was part of the American story.

“Islam has never been part of the American story,” Jones said.

…that Jones is a bigot.  I am reluctant to believe it because the media has been so shameful during this entire episode, but if he said it, that is a bigoted thing to say.  But the fact remains that they are just words.  And it doesn’t justify a riot.  And it certainly doesn’t exactly prove him wrong when he says that Islam is a violent religion.  Indeed, seriously, someone with moderate PR skills really needs to talk to these protesters…

The crowd grew as they spoke, with more Muslims appearing as the rally took place. Some waved shoes, an Arab symbol of disrespect. Others held up Qurans. American, Palestinian and Lebanese flags also were waved. More than 600 counter-protesters appeared to assemble.

Um, guys, if you want Americans to get on your side, don’t protest a man claiming that you are not part of the American story by waiving flags for Palestine and Lebanon.  Consider that a free tip.

And of course they remind us of the injustice last week:

Jones’ rally at City Hall came a week after he failed to get permission to protest at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, the largest mosque in metro Detroit.

On April 22, a jury said Jones was likely to breach the peace if he carried out a rally there. Jones and Sapp were briefly jailed and then released after posting a $1 bond each. They were banned from the mosque and adjacent property for three years.

Well in fact, Jones did not once breach the peace.  The protesters did.  So they will be lifting that order any minute now, right?  No, of course not.  And it is a travesty that it remains in place.

All this city has done is make this man, who apparently is an anti-Muslim bigot, into a free speech martyr and put a state endorsement on the idea that Muslims can’t be expected to control themselves.  Would it be too much to ask the media to treat these guys as badly as Tea Partiers, or conversely, to treat Tea Partiers as good as rioting radical Muslims?

Hat Tip: The American Thinker, who has more (American!) thoughts.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

Go Here to View: Comments (148)

Amazing Piece On Shariah Law in America - MUST SEE!

Townhall Magazine has an incredibly informative article on Shariah Law in America in their April, 2011 Issue. It is the best single article I have ever seen on the subject, and I've seen a few. It's not a two-minute read, so make sure you have more than a couple of minutes before you begin reading this.

The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of America has no idea how bad it's getting, and we MUST educate ourselves to the point where we can extemporaneously discuss these issues in a manner which indicates our level of understanding. Obviously, the first step in effectively convincing our fellow Americans of the threats we face is to know the subject matter of the various threats. This is simply the best single article dealing with Shariah in America that I have come across. It's no wonder that The Blaze copied & pasted the whole thing into a story; it's that good!

Don't forget to share this discussion thread with everybody in your email list(s), both private and activist (including tea party, 9.12 Project, and other pro-freedom groups)!
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SHARIAH LAW ON AMERICA’S SHORES: TOWNHALL MAGAZINE EXAMINES ‘TERROR...

Posted on March 24, 2011 at 6:32pm by Meredith Jessup
The impending threat of radical Islam is not one that stops at America’s borders. A detailed new analysis featured in the April issue of Townhall Magazine, posted here as an online exclusive for Blaze readers, examines how Muslim radicals are aggressively using liberal courts, American businesses and outspoken activists inside our own country to implement Islamic Shariah law — an uncompromising religious code that runs counter to freedoms preserved in the American Constitution.
——————-

Amazing Piece On Shariah Law in America - MUST SEE!
The Shariah Threat
by Kathy Jessup

A judge refuses a protection order for a woman raped by her Muslim husband, ruling the man’s abuse is allowed under Shariah law.

A cartoonist is in hiding after a tongue-in-cheek “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” promotion earned her a fatwa death order for violating a Shariah edict banning drawing the Muslim prophet’s image.

A Shariah-compliant investment fund is camouflaged as a charity and funnels more than $12 million to finance Hamas suicide bombers.

Not exactly shocking in some Muslim countries where strict adherence to centuries-old rules, based on Islamic teachings, shines a spotlight on stonings and beheadings.
But these occurred recently in the United States.

Now “honor killings,” publicly funded accommodations for Islamic prayer and billions in Wall Street investments linked to potentially dangerous terror activities are raising political and constitutional questions in America.

Can or should Shariah law co-exist with the Judeo-Christian foundations of U.S. jurisprudence and the Constitution? Will imposition of Islamic-based edicts, enabled by so-called religious tolerance and political correctness, open the door to radical forms of the religion in Western democracies?

A growing number of states are drafting constitutional amendments to prohibit state judges from applying Islamic or international law in deciding cases. But even the 70 percent of voters who passed Oklahoma’s measure in November hasn’t settled the issue for Sooners.

When the director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) challenged the amendment in court, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction, ruling the amendment could be interpreted to single out Shariah law and discredit Islam, violating the First Amendment.

WHAT IS SHARIAH LAW?

Shariah (meaning “path” in Arabic) codifies the words, practices and teaching of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, serving as a guide/law for everything from Muslims’ family and religious practices to financial transactions.

Several hundred years after the death of Mohammed, the prophet’s model living practices were assembled into the hadith, initially melding Islam and local customs. Various hadiths eventually developed into four schools of Sunni thought and one that guides Shiites. Each differs in the degree they draw from the Koran, Islamic thought and community practices.
Shariah identifies five hadd offenses, serious charges resolved by an Islamic judge. They are unlawful sexual intercourse (adultery or sex outside marriage), falsely accusing unlawful sexual intercourse, consuming wine (sometimes all alcohol), theft and highway robbery.

Punishments ordered for hadd crimes by conservative Shariah schools—stonings, executions, amputations and beatings—shock Western sensibilities. However, Ali Mazrui, of the Institute for Global Cultural Studies, says less severe penalties are more typically imposed.

Still, Islam has not uniformly banned so-called “honor killings,” genital mutilation, pre-teen marriages, polygamy, and divorce and inheritance rules that undercut the standing of women. Testimony from non-Muslims and even Muslim women is given less weight than that of Muslim men.

The size of a country’s Islamic population and its level of religious orthodoxy typically influence the degree to which Shariah law is inculcated in national legal codes.

Conservative Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen and Iran declare Islam the official religion and Shariah the source of law. In more secular Muslim countries where Islamists are the minority, Shariah has gradually gained legal legitimacy through local customs. Other countries, including Turkey and Azerbaijan, enforce separation of state and religion, sometimes resulting in political clashes.

Some countries operate a dual system where Shariah is applied to family law, while secular statutes govern criminal cases. For example, Britain introduced Shariah tribunals in 2008 that apply Islamic law to inheritance, marriage and divorce disputes where the parties all agree to the jurisdiction.

SHARIAH AND THE UNITED STATES
In 2009, Dalia Mogahed, an Obama administration adviser on Muslim affairs, told a British television audience that the West misunderstands Shariah law, calling its perceptions of Islamic tenants “oversimplified.”

But deaths, abuse and threats involving Muslim women in the United States and Canada have put a Western face on facets of Shariah that had been cloaked in long-standing Middle East practices.

Pakistani-born Muzzammil Hassan was convicted in February for beheading his wife inside the Buffalo, N.Y., television studio the couple had created to promote Islamic cultural understanding. Jurors didn’t buy Hassan’s story that he suffered spousal abuse and killed his wife in self-defense. Hassan had been served with divorce papers the week before, and his children testified he had been the abuser in the couple’s relationship.

In 2008, a New Jersey judge ruled Shariah permitted a Moroccan man to rape his Muslim wife, despite state law making it a crime. The New Jersey Appeals Court overturned that decision and remanded the case, finally allowing the woman to get a restraining order against her husband while she sought a divorce. The appeals court decision said neither Shariah law, giving a husband physical authority over his wife, nor Muslim beliefs on the role of women provided the man an exemption from criminal intent under U.S. statutes.

“[T]he [trial] judge determined to except defendant from the operation of the State’s statutes as a result of his religious beliefs,” the appeals judges wrote. “In doing so, the judge was mistaken.”

Irfan Aleem went to a Pakistani embassy and performed talaq in 2007, exercising Shariah provisions that he said allowed him to divorce his wife Farah by proclaiming his intention three times. Although married several decades earlier in Pakistan, the couple had lived in Maryland for 20 years. Irfan said Shariah allowed Farah no claim on a lucrative pension he would receive from his job with the World Bank.

Maryland judges didn’t agree, ruling the Shariah practices were “contrary to public policy of this state.” The decision set aside the divorce Irfan had quickly proclaimed and afforded Farah a right to claim marital property in a Maryland divorce.

The deaths of at least 10 women in the United States and Canada have been linked to so-called Islamic “honor killings” in the last seven years.

In 2004, a 14-year-old girl who had been raped in Newfoundland was strangled by her father and brother to “restore the family honor.” A 20-year-old daughter of Afghan parents was shot dead in 2006, allegedly because she had moved in with her fiancé before their wedding. The killer was her brother.

In Ontario, a 16-year-old was stabbed to death in 2007 by her father while her mother held her down. The teenager had reportedly fought with her parents over wearing a hijib, a Muslim head covering. In another Canadian case, three teenage girls were drowned in their father’s car in 2009. Also found dead was their father’s first wife, who relatives say he never divorced. The father, his current wife and the girls’ 18-year-old brother were all charged with first-degree murder. Relatives told the media the killings were precipitated by one daughter’s dating decisions.

A Muslim father in Texas shot his two teenage daughters, Amina and Sarah Said, to death in January 2008. The murders allegedly were prompted by the girls having “unsanctioned boyfriends.” Later that year, a Pakistani man beat his 25-year-old daughter to death in Atlanta, reportedly because she opposed her arranged marriage.

Rifqa Bary, an Ohio teenager, made headlines in 2009 when she fled to Florida and foster care, saying she feared she would be the victim of a Muslim “honor killing” for her decision to convert to Christianity. She continued her religious choice a year later when she turned 18.

In a situation much like the 2008 Muslim assassination order against Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris went into hiding at the FBI’s recommendation last spring after her “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” hit Facebook. A Seattle newspaper said Norris is “essentially wiping away her identity” in reaction to a fatwa urging her killing issued by Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical Muslim cleric connected to the Fort Hood killings, the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing over Detroit and the failed Times Square bombing.

And in February, radical Muslims announced plans to take their demand for American Shariah to the White House, calling for thousands of Islamists to rally on Pennsylvania Avenue March 3. But just hours before the rally was scheduled to begin, its organizer, British Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary, called it off, alleging the cause had been “distorted by the media.”

Choudary said the demonstration was merely “postponed until we gather even more Muslims;” no new rally date was announced.

In an online video statement, Choudary said Muslims are obligated to implement Shariah law “immediately, wherever we are in the world,” and he said America can reverse “poverty, child abuse, rape, robberies, theft, crime and anarchy-type scenarios” only after the United States embraces the Islamic code for living. In the meantime, Choudary predicted “the dollar will soon lose its status.”

“We believe the whole of the world must be under Shariah,” Choudary said. “America is not blessed by God. The American dream has become a nightmare.”

Other elements of America’s Shariah debate are more nuanced. Some, like CBSNews.com’s political reporter Brian Montopoli, believe Shariah fears are “overblown at best,” and Jeffry Goldberg, The Atlantic’s national correspondent, said, “A Martian takeover of New Jersey is more likely than the imposition of a caliphate, or of Muslim law, on America.”

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for CAIR, says the enjoined Oklahoma amendment is “an indication of growing anti-Muslim sentiment.” Hooper said CAIR has “not found any conflict between what a Muslim needs to do to practice their faith and the Constitution or any other American laws. We are, in fact, relying on the Constitution as our last line of defense.”

But conservative Jewish blogger Pamela Geller delivers an aggressive “creeping Shariah” warning: “It’s a drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. [In] the mosqueing of the workplace where you’re imposing prayer times on union contracts, non-Muslim workers have to lengthen their day. It’s wrong.”

Consider the political reaction Americans would have seen if these Muslim accommodations had instead been made for Christians:

The Christian Science Monitor reported a California elementary school made accommodations when it absorbed Muslim students from a shuttered charter school, including revising its instructional schedule to add a 15-minute “recess” after lunch to allow Muslim students to pray in a separate room. The school district’s attorney defended it, saying “the Muslim faith requires specificity of prayer obligations … that most other religions do not,” a claim questioned by even some Muslims. Pork also was removed from school-lunch menus, according to media reports.

In Massachusetts, where a firehouse was ordered to take down a “Merry Christmas” greeting, public middle school students took a “cultural diversity” field trip to a local mosque, where the boys participated in Islamic prayers while girls were excluded.
These public school incidents are not isolated instances.

“Starting about two years ago, school attorneys have been asking more and more questions about accommodations for Muslim students,” said Lisa Soronen, senior staff attorney for the National School Boards Association.

Four Christian evangelists attending a July Muslim cultural festival in Dearborn, Mich., were arrested for “disorderly conduct to ensure they did not provoke violence from others attending,” according to a Detroit media report. The four said they were attempting to engage in a dialogue about faith. Shariah law prohibits Christians from engaging Muslims about Christianity.

The University of Michigan-Dearborn, where about 10 percent of students are Muslim, spent $25,000 to install two foot-washing stations on campus to accommodate ablutions before Islamic daily prayers. The university said it is one of about 18 U.S. higher education institutions providing the unusual facilities, calling its decision “a reflection of our values of respect, tolerance, and safe accommodation of student needs.”

The Michigan Civil Liberties Union mounted no challenge, saying the foot baths have “no [religious] symbolic value.”

“They’re in a regular restroom and could be just as useful to a janitor filling up buckets, or someone coming off the basketball court as to Muslim students,” said Kary Moss, MCLU director.

Thomas More Law Center, a conservative, public-interest law firm headquartered in Michigan, is challenging the constitutionality of federal bailout money to investment firm AIG, claiming AIG’s involvement in Shariah-compliant financing violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. A federal district judge in Michigan ruled that despite the fact the bailout gave the federal government an 80 percent ownership in AIG, there was no evidence the government’s money had funded “religious indoctrination.” And if there were evidence, the court said the $153 million of federal bailout money used to support Shariah compliance was an insignificant portion of the total $47.5 billion the government provided AIG.

That ruling is being appealed.

THE POWER OF MONEY

Conservative author Dick Morris says airplanes may have taken down the Twin Towers, but he predicts Shariah-compliant investing of billions in Western financial markets has the potential to “hijack our institutions, our social policies and ultimately our values in the name of Islamic rule.”

Huge oil profits and unease with their own Middle Eastern financial institutions brought Islamic investors to Wall Street in the 1990s in search of special funds that would meet Shariah restrictions. But it was complicated turf for bankers who knew investing but not Shariah.

Enter Sheikh Muhammad Taqi Usmani, a former Pakistani Shariah Appellate Court justice, hired by Dow Jones in 1999 to help establish a process that could attract trillions of investment dollars, generating handsome commissions and agency earnings.

In just a decade, most major U.S. and European investment firms have retained Shariah advisors and paid them millions. Those advisors assure Muslim investors their gains are not connected to interest charges, pork farming, alcohol, pornography or Western defense industries—all activities prohibited by Shariah.

But are those adviser fees—paid to highly placed Muslims—or the billions of dollars in “donations” financial institutions must contribute to specified Islamic “charities” in exchange for an investment’s Shariah stamp of approval actually bankrolling deadly extremist activities? Morris followed the money in his 2009 book “Catastrophe,” reporting that the U.S. government shut down at least three of the largest charities for financing terrorism.

In a 2008 article titled “Jihad Comes to Wall Street,” Alex Alexiev, vice president for research at the Center for Security Policy, called Shariah-compliant investing “an essential part of radical Islam’s efforts to insinuate itself into Western societies in order to destroy them from within.”

It’s also been a bumpy road for some of those hired consultants. Dow Jones severed ties with Usmani after the Center for Security Policy detailed some of Usmani’s writings, including one that urged Muslims living in the West to “conduct violent Jihad against the infidels at every opportunity.”

The CSP identified another paid Shariah investment advisor, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to Morris, Shariah-compliant funds must donate a small percentage of annual earnings to Islamic charities designated by the advisory boards. Those amounts are not inconsequential. For example, a typical 2.5 percent contribution can amount to billions of dollars.

And if a Shariah-compliant fund is found to have earnings from an outlawed investment activity, the advisors can “purify” those gains by donating more to the approved charities. Morris calls some of the charities “thinly veiled fronts for terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Is the lure of trillions of dollars from Muslim portfolios strong enough to open civil law to expanding Shariah influences?

Consider Great Britain where, just a few years ago, then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he wanted London to become the world’s Islamic-finance capital. Britain’s most senior judge subsequently proclaimed the country’s Muslims can use “Islamic legal principles” as long as the punishments and divorce rulings comply with English law.

According to Morris, that’s already made U.K. Muslims eligible for extra benefits if they have more than one wife, even though polygamy—allowed under Shariah law—is illegal in Britain.

TOLERANCE: AN ASSET OR A WEDGE?

Janet Levy, a prolific writer on Islam and national security, asks why Islam “is sacred, supreme and beyond reproach” in the United States, while other religions are “freely criticized, lampooned in cartoons and denigrated in artwork?” She concludes America is already embracing de facto Shariah law.

“Our uniquely American virtues of tolerance and freedom have worked against us to produce intolerance and oppression,” Levy says. “This has led to the stealthy introduction of Shariah law and a climate in which criticisms of Mohammed and Islam are no longer possible without serious repercussions.”

Are political correctness and moves to cool the osmosis of the American melting pot fundamentally changing us? Is the arena of ideas—where Americans have historically tested competing beliefs—being shut down so as not to offend?

Recall 1960 when Americans considered it fair game to question Democrat John F. Kennedy about whether he would look first to his Catholicism or to the Constitution in making presidential decisions. Former Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith has come under scrutiny during his political campaigns, sans shouts of profiling.

European nations that have led the West’s embrace of Shariah law have recently begun to retreat from their policies of “multiculturalism,” suggesting failure to maintain a single national identity has actually cultivated Islamic extremism in countries like Britain.
In a February speech at the Munich Security Conference, British Prime Minister David Cameron argued European “multiculturalism has been a failure” that’s fostered Islamic extremism, adding that the West has been “cautious, frankly even fearful” of standing up to it.

“We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values,” Cameron said. “This hands-off tolerance has only served to reinforce the sense that not enough is shared. … What we see—and what we see in so many European countries—is a process of radicalization.”

Something also gets jumbled in the translation when East/West cultures talk about democracy and its relationship with religion.

In 2008 polling conducted by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes, 82 percent of Egyptians said a democratic political system should govern their nation. At the same time, 73 percent said they supported stronger application of Islamic law in Egypt.

Of those, 68 percent said Egypt’s government should apply Shariah law to regulate moral behavior; 64 percent supported using traditional punishments like stoning for adulterers; 62 percent want the government to police women’s dress; and 59 percent said Shariah rules should be used to provide for Egypt’s poor.

So what does this all mean for Shariah in America?

The U.S. Constitution does not assign superiority to a particular religion. However, the idea that liberty is man’s God-given—not government-granted—right is a Judeo-Christian principle. America is exceptional because the people—regardless of how or whether they embrace God—allow government limited power.

America does not vest all authority in a theocratic government, where law and even daily life is dictated by a single religious code. But that does not mean the United States is Islamophobic, says New Jersey blogger George Berkin.

“[S]upporting the [Oklahoma amendment] does not make one anti-Islamic. But not being anti-Islamic does not mean that we should not insist that American legal principles—not foreign ones—apply here.”

Kathy Jessup is an award-winning, veteran journalist in Michigan whose writing career has focused on government, politics and criminal justice.
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Author’s note: Special thanks to Townhall Magazine for providing The Blaze with this exclusive online content.

(Full disclosure: Kathy Jessup, the magazine article’s author, is related to The Blaze assistant editor Meredith Jessup.)

h/t to Jared Law for re-post at the 9/12 Project: 

• Posted by Jared Law on March 25, 2011 at 1:01pm in Principles, Ideology, & Religion
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• Is this what you want for your country?  For your mothers, daughters, sisters and wives?  The time is now to stand up.  We are already too far down the road!
• Islam is not a religion! it is a way of life which controls thought, behavior, law, and every aspect of life for those who live under it.  You cannot have Shariah Law practiced and lived simultaneously within a Republic, with a belief in freedom, along side free market Capitalism, or any other religion. You cannot allow Shariah Law to exist alongside the U.S. Constitution.