Free Republic

Unfortunately for America the Islamic dominance in sections of Michigan is growing stronger, and stronger. Will the Islamic influence there get as bad as it is in the UK? Time will tell... NOV. 4, 2009 Muslims given strong role in Hamtramck BY NIRAJ WARIKOO FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER After Tuesday's election, Muslims are to make up half of the city council members in Hamtramck, a percentage believed by advocates to be the highest Muslim representation in a municipality in the United States.

The Left is not the decrier of theocracy and the champion of strict separation of church and state that it claims to be. Democrats seem perfectly willing to accede to an Islamic brand of theocracy if it strengthens the Left's hold on America. Alarmingly, the Democrats also seem to think they can keep Islamic extremism under their control, using only so much of it as is necessary to further their own agenda. This naiveté portends disastrous consequences for freedom in America. We must act now before the religion that gave us the 9/11 hijackers makes the Whitehouse Muslim. Or has...

Sources at the Iranian opposition said that the spiritual leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has died. The Iranian police have increased their activities in the streets of Teheran recently. For the time being, it is known that Khamenei lost consciousness on Monday afternoon and was hospitalized. Only his son and personal therapist have the right to visit Ayatollah at hospital. Khamenei reportedly lapsed into coma, although spokespeople for the Iranian opposition say that the spiritual leader has passed away. The Iranian administration has not commented the situation yet. Several western publications said that the information...

The Iranian regime is increasingly unstable and its collapse has become a real possibility. Economic and international pressure, fractures in the regime, and the increasing hostility of the majority of the population to the government are factors that could prove fatal to the theocracy. As the Iranian government’s pillars continue to shake, a new generation of leaders is poised to fill the gap and take the country in a more positive direction. Let us take a closer look at this new generation of leaders to gauge what may ensue if the tyrannical theocracy falls. The most talked about leader is...

The Left loves to talk about Sarah Palin's church, but not so much about its burning. And please don't mention to them that before he became president, Barack Obama sat in a church for 20 years while one of his mentors, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, preached Marxist Liberation Theology. As with all things, libs want to have it both ways. Like many other leftist hate sites, Planet of the Chimps 2 mocks Palin and Wasilla Assembly of God, a church she no longer attends: "One of the musical directors at the church, Adele Morgan, who has known Ms. Palin since the...

"The quickest way to end a war is to lose it". - George Orwell Monoculture is a term that has been freighted with a lot of baggage, mostly negative. The origin of this compound word is usually traced to agriculture where it is used to describe a farm or a farming community that relies on a single crop. Tobacco, cotton, sugar, and now corn, are examples. The advantages of monoculture farming are obvious; seed, soil, water and equipment requirements are uniform. Yet standardization has a down side. Uniformity makes crops vulnerable to a single pathogen or pest; and the soil,...

The pivotal foreign policy event so far in the Obama presidency was not this week's summit with Russia. It was instead that rarest of all events: Barack Obama's silence. When the people of Iran filled the streets of their country demanding a fair election, the U.S. clutched for a week. Uncertain of whether U.S. interests lay with the nuke-building ayatollahs or the democracy-seeking population, the Obama team essentially mumbled sweet nothings through the first days of the most extraordinary world event in this young presidency's term. That moment of hesitation, when a genuine and strategically useful democratic moment needed support,...

It is not a secret that Iran’s Mullahs are engaged in developing a nuclear program to prolong their unwanted existence long enough to get their hands on the bomb so that they would feel invincible and continue their control over the armless Iranian people and ultimately export their version of Shi’a Islam and terrorism around the globe. It is not a secret that the Islamic Republic has supplied their mercenaries in Iraq with armor-piercing projectiles for killing and maiming the coalition forces in Iraq. They have killed by proxy, using roadside-planted bombs, that has taken the lives of nearly 200...

At this point, only the short-term future of Iran's clerical regime remains in doubt. The current protests could be repressed, but the unelected institutions of priestly rule have been fatally undermined. Though each aspect of the Islamic Republic has its own dynamic, this is not a regime that can last many more years. When it comes to repression, Iran has a spectrum of security instruments that can be used...The national police can take care of routine crowd control; riot-police units can beat some demonstrators in order to discourage others; the much more brutal, underclass Basij militiamen enjoy striking and shooting...

Just saw it on Fox News in a discussion about the role of camera pens in the Iran protests.

Where is President Barack Obama? The whole world wonders. As people who yearn to free themselves from the yoke of oppression look to our president for guidance, the purported leader of the free world dithers on Iran. As the great and historically unprecedented upheaval continues, one of the greatest orators of our time, has become a sideshow, his response to the crisis reduced to issuing tepid, cautious, lawyerly equivocations. On Iran, Barack Obama is held captive to his firmly held conviction in the post-modernist concept of moral equivalence. The doctrine of moral equivalence was not only a pivotal and indispensable...

In describing Islam, many political commentators use words like radical, political, extremist or militant as qualifying adjectives or they use the words Islamism or Islamo-fascism in order to specify their cirticism of the political side of Islam and to carefully exhibit no hostility toward Islam as a religion. This approach caters to the prevailing political orthodoxy by implying that there is an overwhelming majority of Muslims devoted to the good religious Islam with only a small subset of extremists fighting for the bad political Islam, which Muslims themselves don’t necessarily endorse. We call this the “two Islams formula.” Politicians love...

Funny to return from Lebanon, Syria and Turkey - where women go unveiled - and return to Britain, the land of the full hijab. I see more women with their faces covered in Tower Hamlets than I did in Damascus. I used to think that covering the whole face except for the eyes was the normal Islamic custom (in a week in Afghanistan I hardly saw a woman's face) and so was surprised to find that even in Syria, the most culturally conservative of the Middle Eastern countries I've just visited, not a tenth of the women seem to cover...

President Barack Obama who conesses to have Muslims relatives and who comes from a Muslim father has numerous times; both verbally and in writing painted Muslims with a kind and appreciative brush. He has described Muslims as nice, talented, civil and agreeable people. His resolve and decision to utter his full name with the middle name Hussein during the oath taking ceremony as president speaks for his conviction and strength of character. Perhaps he has a laudable fondness for the Muslims whom he thinks were as peace living, law abiding and hardworking people within the United States as other were....

Here is complete video of President Obama today addressing the Turkish Parliament - the Grand National Assembly. Obama used this speech to urge closer times between the United States and the Muslim world. He did so by declaring that the U.S. "is not and never will be at war with Islam" . . . . . Obama is underestimating the number of Muslims in the world who do identify with the ideology of Al-Qaeda. If there were only a few extremists in Islam, they would not have the power and ability that they have. He is right that many Muslims...

JEDDAH – Women’s coffee shops are no longer just meeting places for friends or refuges for a moment’s escape from the daily routine. Instead, according to some, they have become the haunts of university students and schoolgirls playing truant to indulge themselves in smoking shisha pipes and cigarettes, with women using the locations as impromptu job agencies, and matchmakers seeking willing bribes. Behind the walls of women’s coffee shops, some say, all sorts of things go on. Salwan Abdullah, a 24-year-old university student, recalls the first time she was invited by a student friend to go to an all-female coffee...

8 "Freedom." Unfortunately, "freedom," as expressed in American foreign policy, does not always seek to engage how the local community and culture understands it. Absent such an understanding, freedom can imply an unbound licentiousness. The balance between the freedom to something (liberty) and the freedom from something (security) is best understood in a conversation with the local context and, in particular, with the Muslims who live there. "Freedom" is best framed in the context of how they understand such things as peace, justice, honor, mercy, and compassion. 9. "Religious Freedom." Sadly, this term too often conveys the perception that American...

The recession gripping the nation has taken less of a toll on American Muslims who follow age-old Islamic laws against paying – or charging – interest. They've also been shielded by socially responsible retirement plans because Shariah– Islamic law – forbids investments in banks and mortgages as well as tobacco, alcohol, gambling, pornography or weapons. "If everybody was Shariah-compliant, there would be no recession," said Farouk Fakira, a Yemeni immigrant who moderated a discussion on Islamic finance at Sacramento's Masjid Annur last week.

JUDGES should interpret the Constitution according to other nations' legal "norms." Sharia law could apply to disputes in US courts. The United States constitutes an "axis of disobedience" along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq. Those are the views of the man on track to become one of the US government's top lawyers: Harold Koh.

CHICAGO — In a bid to get more Muslim Americans working in the Obama administration, a book with resumes of 45 of the nation's most qualified — Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and public servants, all carefully vetted — has been submitted to the White House. The effort, driven by community leaders and others, including U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., was bumped up two weeks because White House officials heard about the venture, said J. Saleh Williams, program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, who sifted through more than 300 names. "It was mostly under the radar," Williams...

AL ARABIYA: Mr. President, thank you for this opportunity, we really appreciate it. PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you so much. AL ARABIYA: Sir, you just met with your personal envoy to the Middle East, Senator Mitchell. Obviously, his first task is to consolidate the cease-fire. But beyond that you've been saying that you want to pursue actively and aggressively peacemaking between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Tell us a little bit about how do you see your personal role, because, you know, if the President of the United States is not involved, nothing happens – as the history of peacemaking shows....

If you want to know why I'm optimistic that home builders will eventually find sources of capital to replace bank financing for site acquisition and development of future projects, check this out... The Middle East's wealthiest private investors may seek to take advantage of collapsing real estate markets in the West by increasing their investments in the U.S. and U.K., according to research done recently by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch. Such investors now control about $1,700 billion in assets, a figure the researchers say will rise to $3,400 billion by 2012. "Our clients are asking us about U.S. distressed real...

After airing an interview clip of Sarah Palin telling Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that she was looking for guidance from God about running for national office again, an appalled Chris Matthews called it "troubling," when he let loose this rant on Tuesday's "Hardball": Is, is this commentary about theocracy and going to God for approval? We've been through that with President Bush who said he, "didn't take advice from his father, he got it from another father." And we've been through this sort of Joan of Arc period. Are we gonna get another piece of this where God's leading...

GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) - Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov opened one of Europe's biggest mosques in the rebuilt capital of the southern Russian region Friday, saying it was proof Russian rule and Islam can go together. The mosque, named "The Heart of Chechnya" and constructed by Turkish builders, can host up to 10,000 worshippers. Its minarets rise as high as 62 m (200 ft) and the complex extends over 14 hectares (35 acres), including a vast garden. "With the start of the Chechen war, the enemies of Islam and foes of Russia alleged that Russia wages war against Islam and the...

Muslims should take advantage of the global financial crisis to build an economic system compatible with Islamic principles, influential Sunni cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi said on Sunday. "The collapse of the capitalist system based on usury and paper and not on goods traded on the market is proof that it is in crisis and shows that Islamic economic philosophy is holding up," said the Egyptian-born, Qatar-based cleric. "The Western system has collapsed and we have a complete economic philosophy as well as spiritual strength," he said at Sunday's opening of a conference on Jerusalem. "All riches are ours... the Islamic...

THE HAGUE, 01/10/08 - The Dutch embassy in London has sponsored an Islamic festival. Other countries including the US also did so, Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen says in a letter to parliament. The Party for Freedom (PVV) wanted to know whether it was true that the Dutch embassy in London sponsored the UK Ramadan festival. The minister acknowledges that indeed 15,000 euros has been donated to the festival from the Public Diplomacy Projects budget. Verhagen has no objection to the subsidy. He rejects a PVV call to ensure that such subsidies never occur any more in future. "The request for...

A GRIEVING family from Sheffield have been told they can't bury their stepfather on a Saturday - because he was not Muslim. Retired steel erector Harold "Charlie" Lemaire, from Woodseats, died last week aged 75 from pneumonia. His stepdaughter Jean Maltby, from Greenhill, wanted the funeral to be held this Saturday so family who live outside the city - including her brother Stephen, now living in Dorset, and relatives from the Isle of Man - could attend. But when her funeral director called City Road Cemetery to arrange a memorial service in the chapel followed by burial, he was told...

Cologne bracing for anti-mosque demo 18/09/2008 00:00 Officials expect 1,500 right-wingers from around Europe to attend – plus 40,000 leftist opponents. Cologne, Germany -- An anti-mosque demonstration on Friday in Germany is likely to attract 1,500 right-wingers from around Europe, according to an organizer, Markus Beisicht as fears grew of violent clashes. Riot police throughout North-Rhine Westphalia state have been put on standby to separate the right-wingers from up to 40,000 opponents. The two groups are at odds over the start of building work for Cologne's grand mosque. The right-wing Pro Cologne group rejects the house of worship for the...

WASHINGTON -- There are reasons to question the choice of the commander of the Alaska National Guard as a prospective commander in chief (though there were equally serious reasons to doubt the military qualifications of another backwoods candidate, Abraham Lincoln, who served for a few months as private and captain in the Black Hawk War). But instead of engaging this issue, liberals have been drawn, helpless and mesmerized -- like beetles to the vivid, blue paradise of the bug zapper -- toward criticizing Sarah Palin's religion. Palin's former Pentecostal church is called a "shout-and-holler tabernacle." Reporters press Palin's former pastor...

 Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid Slams Beijing Olympics: Nothing Makes Satan Happier Than The 'Bikini' Olympics Sheikh Muhammad Al-Munajid is a well-known Saudi Islamic lecturer and author. He frequently appears on Saudi TV channels and is known for issuing controversial fatwas. He previously worked in Washington, D.C. at the Saudi Embassy Islamic Affairs Department but was stripped of his diplomatic credentials. [1] In an August 10, 2008 interview with Al-Majd TV, Al-Munajid was highly critical of the Beijing Olympics, which he called the "bikini Olympics," referring to them as "satanic." Al-Munajid is known for his criticism of other sporting events....

Observe that the Lutherans cite government as “an important catalyst in God’s work.” In fact, their agenda implies that government is virtually God’s only instrument. The Lutherans want government to abolish poverty, prohibit war, cleanse the environment, engineer egalitarian justice globally, and seemingly usher in The Millennium through additional regulation and taxation. If government can achieve so much, who needs God, much less the church?

Officials of the declining 4.9 million Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have revealed what God’s priorities are in the U.S. presidential campaign. And remarkably, the divine priorities was very akin to the Democratic Party’s priorities, if not further to the left. Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, with three other ELCA officials generously wrote both presidential candidates a public letter with the divine guidance. Although famed Protestant Reformer Martin Luther championed the Bible as God’s exclusive revelation, modern ELCA activists have located more useful counsel in the secular welfare state and environmental agenda. “The Scriptures are clear about God's concern for...

Exclusive: Islamism and the So-called ‘Muslim Voting Bloc’: Shades of Theocracy M. Zuhdi Jasser July 4, 2008 The modus operandi for the political empowerment of Islamists in America is in full public display during every election cycle. The sad part is few realize how central "Islamic politics" is to the driving force of transnational Islamism and its threat to American security. The incessant attempts by American Islamist groups (like the MAS, CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, ICNA to name a few) to collectivize Muslims in the body politic - from voter registrations to their ideological grievance mill - point to their goals....

(full title) The GOP Mark On This Beast Gross Animal Abuse; PETA Notified; I Am Not A Republican!; And Am Having No July 4th Party… The email message begins with an insulting slander — a strange way to solicit a donation. It is from Sue Gazdo, Director, RNC Membership Services, Republican National Committee. She even ends it “Sincerely� which, I fear, she, alas, is. The insulting, slanderous greeting? The email begins with these words: “Dear Republican.� Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Say what?! But, I am not a Republican! I am a recovering Republican - meaning not that I am a Republican who’s “recovering�...

Iran is a threat that can't be overlooked George Jonas , Canwest News Service June 9, 2008 For the benefit of those who missed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 2005 threat to wipe out Israel, he repeated it last week. Israel, he said, "will soon disappear off the geographical scene." The occasion was the 19th anniversary of the death of theocratic Iran's founder, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Whatever one thinks of the sentiment, the sentence is bizarre. Threatening to wipe a country off the map is like threatening to slay all men and women and let dogs lick their blood. It's...

The messianic Obama mag cover is becoming funny. How many more can you all add?

There's an impression that Muslims suffer disproportionately from the rule of dictators, tyrants, unelected presidents, kings, emirs, and various other strongmen - and it's accurate. A careful analysis by Frederic L. Pryor of Swarthmore College in the Middle East Quarterly ("Are Muslim Countries Less Democratic?") concludes that "In all but the poorest countries, Islam is associated with fewer political rights." The fact that majority-Muslim countries are less democratic makes it tempting to conclude that the religion of Islam, their common factor, is itself incompatible with democracy. I disagree with that conclusion. Today's Muslim predicament, rather, reflects historical circumstances more than...

Recently I spent several days in Ubud, Bali, attending a conference on the theme of "Islam in Multicultural Asia" organized by the New York-based Asia Society. Bali is a lush tropical island of immense beauty at the centre of the Indonesian archipelago, and its people are mostly Hindu in a country with the world's largest Muslim population. The setting for a conference on Islam in Indonesia was a bold idea. Islam in Asia...is distinctly different... to the Middle Eastern version of Islam with which the West is mostly acquainted and predominantly concerned since 9/11. Americans supporting Democrats who have persuaded...

Barack Obama's first vocational choice was to help people in a poor African-American community. Later, he joined a church founded on black liberation theology. This combination could result in an Obama presidency that embodies something new in American history -- a Neoliberal Theocracy. When we in the West hear the word theocracy, we think of mullahs, fatwas, and human pronouncements issued with the presumptuous authority of divine edicts. But not all theocracies are so dictatorially dogmatic. They range from the theocratic-lite nature of the United Kingdom's monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, to the industrial-strength theocracy of...

People mocked Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney for their religious backgrounds often during the presidential campaigns, but at least they never claimed to be on a mission to save the souls of Americans through government action. Oh, people accused them of wanting to do so -- to impose Southern Baptist or Mormon theology on an America that wants relentless secularism, but in point of fact both men gave stirring speeches on how their faith informs them personally but not their governance. One campaign really has explicitly claimed to be on such a mission, however. Michelle Obama gave a speech at...

ROMA, February 6, 2008 – In the two days before this Ash Wednesday, the first meetings were held in Rome in preparation for the scheduled visit to the Vatican of a representative group of the 138 Muslim scholars who in October of 2007 addressed to the pope and to the heads of the other Christian confessions a letter with an offer of dialogue entitled "A Common Word Between Us and You." The meetings will be held at the pontifical council for interreligious dialogue, and will be presided over by cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran. The schedule arranges for the Muslim representatives...

BAGHDAD January 22, 2008 at 9:33 AM EST Associated Press — Iraq's parliament has passed a law to change the country's Saddam Hussein-era flag. The decision meets the demands of Iraq's Kurdish minority, who suffered greatly under Saddam and threatened not to fly the banner during a pan-Arab meeting in the Kurdish-run north next month. The measure, which expires in a year, was approved by show of hands, with 110 of 165 legislators present voting in favour. Among other things, it will remove the flag's three stars, said to be representative of Saddam's Baath party. The words “Allahu Akbar,” or...

Demonstrating the extent to which he sees himself as "defender of faith", the Prince of Wales wrote to Mahathir Mohamad, the former prime minister of Malaysia, saying that he was "determined to continue the battle to spread the message that proper fundamentalism is in the best interest of the future of our world." Charles told Mahathir, who later claimed that Jews "rule the world by proxy", he understood the "frustrations" Muslims experience "as a result of apparent Western misunderstanding and misrepresentation. I have, for a long time, despaired of the ignorant and thoroughly evil 'role' of the tabloid media in...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — An outspoken Saudi blogger is being held for “purposes of interrogation,” the Saudi Interior Ministry confirmed Tuesday. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, an Interior Ministry spokesman reached by telephone, said the blogger, Fouah al-Farhan, was “being questioned about specific violations of nonsecurity laws.” Mr. Farhan’s blog, which discusses social issues, had become one of the most widely read in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Farhan, 32, of Jidda, was arrested Dec. 10 at his office, local news sources reported. Two weeks before his arrest, he wrote a letter to friends warning them that it was imminent. “I was told that...

Last week, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote a column titled "Secular Europe's Merits," in which he explained why he prefers the secularism of Europe to the religiosity of America. To his credit (other New York Times columnists do not generally agree to debate anything they write -- Paul Krugman, for example, has refused to discuss his new book on liberalism with me), Cohen agreed to come on my show, and proved to be a charming guest. A distinguished foreign correspondent for Reuters and the International Herald Tribune, Cohen nevertheless betrayed what I believe is endemic to those who...

NOT ALL OF Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's encounters in New York during his recent trip were testy. The Shiite theocrat had what the New York Times called a "warm, even friendly exchange" with 150 church officials at the United Methodist Women's Church Center for the United Nations. One sponsor, the Mennonite Central Committee, called the gathering a "time of dialogue and prayerful reflection among the children of Abraham." A Mennonite official further explained that "mutual respect and graciousness in this conversation blunts the demonization which is part of the current rhetoric of both governments." The meeting is the third between...

Cairo, Egypt (AHN) - An Egyptian court has sentenced a woman to three years in prison because her father converted to Islam briefly 45 years ago. Under Egyptian law, religion is passed to children from the father. Shadia Nagui Ibrahim, 47, a Christian, was charged with fraud for putting Christianity as her religion on her marriage certificate, even though she was unaware that her father's conversion in 1962 had made her officially Muslim. According to reports, Ibrahim's father left home in 1962 when the woman was only two years-old and converted to Islam. However, only a few years later he...

The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam   By Robert Spencer and Phyllis Chesler FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, October 05, 2007 The booklet that you are about to read details some of the principal ways in which women suffer in the Islamic world – often with religious and cultural sanction. Many of these crimes against women, such as wife-beating, are ordained by the Qur’an itself; others, such as female genital mutilation and honor killing, are praised by Islamic clerics and hallowed by Islamic culture. That feminists in the West remain silent about this deeply ingrained and institutionalized mistreatment of women,...

Religious conservatives are at odds over which of the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination should get their backing. Many of the top leaders on the religious right privately say it's impossible to name a top-tier, declared Republican hopeful who can pass the "straight face" test as someone social conservatives can honestly say they would trust if elected. Catholics and Protestant evangelicals on the right account for about a third of the Republican Party's electoral coalition, and it's difficult for a Republican to win without them. "The problem is that there isn't someone seen as a titular head of the...

We are engaged in a war that is not only defining our times, it is determining our destiny. I'm not talking about the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, or even the broader war on terror – those are offshoots of the real war. I'm talking about the culture war. The culture war is a struggle between secular socialism and free market traditionalism, and the outcome of this struggle will ultimately determine whether or not the jihadists will pick up the pieces to convert America and Canada into a North American caliphate.