“Coordinated” attacks: Don’t call them terrorism

Despite increased evidence of terrorism, political correctness still reigns supreme

Over the weekend mayhem erupted in several unrelated locations. A bomb placed in a construction dumpster in New York City’s Chelsea district Saturday night injured 29 people, blowing out windows and causing numerous evacuations of nearby buildings. Though NYC’s leftist Mayor Bill de Blasio conceded the explosion was an “intentional act,’’ he waffled on any connection to terrorism until his appearance this morning on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”  It’s certainly leaning more in the direction that this was a specific act of terror.

“A specific act of terror?”

Three hours after the blast, a second device was found four blocks away, a pressure cooker that investigators also identified as a bomb. Pressure cookers were used by the Boston Marathon bombers, killing three people and injuring at least 264 others — many seriously — on April 15, 2013. A pressure cooker device was also used in a failed jihadist plot to attack New York’s Times Square in 2010.

Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, a naturalized citizen from Afghanistan, sought in connection with this NYC bombing is thought to be part of a terror cell. He was captured this morning following a shootout with police, after being identified by his cell phone left at the at the site of the unexploded pressure cooker.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo noted that the explosion hadn’t been linked to an international terrorist group, but rightly concluded, “A bomb going off is generically a terrorist activity.” Cuomo missed the point that terrorism doesn’t have to  have international roots. Homegrown terrorism is a reality.

Barack Obama, who referred to the Fort Hood massacre as “workplace violence,” has remained mute. In 2010, Nidal Hasan, a devout Muslim U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, slaughtered 14 people (one an unborn child) and wounded 30 on the Texas Army base, as he shouted “Allahu Akhbar!” (Allah is greater!)

For unadulterated foolishness, this takes the cake:  Saturday evening police responded to calls of multiple shootings and stabbing victims inside s mega-complex shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota. This BNO news coverage should be in the running for the Politically Correct Award of the Year for reporting, “It was not immediately clear whether the stabbings were linked to terrorism.”  This followed St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson saying, “The individual made some references to Allah and we have confirmed that he asked at least one person if they were Muslim before he assaulted them.”

An explosion shook the Elizabeth, New Jersey train station early Monday, where local and federal authorities were investigating a suspicious package. The blast went off as a bomb robot was examining a device inside a backpack under the train tracks around 12:40 a.m. Information was still sketchy in this NJ.com 1:20 AM report.

Micah Halpern, writing for the Observer cogently sums the reluctance to call terrorism by its rightful name in this commentary, “Explosive Language: Call the New York Bombing Terrorism Already.”

Along with calling terrorism by its rightful name, we finally need to shut down immigration from terror sponsoring nations. Obama is flooding the U.S. with hundred of thousands of unable to be vetted “refugees,“ and Hillary Clinton has pledged to continue this self destructive lunacy.

Political correctness be damned.

 

Is anti-Christian bigot Martin Castro Hillary’s speechwriter?

Today we share some disturbing words from Gary Bauer writing about Christian intolerance.

Actually, Bauer was quoting Martin Castro, who claims that “the phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.”‘

You read that right.

And who is Martin Castro? None other than the chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He heads the government agency charged with protecting our rights, yet Castro  glibly equates the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty to bigotry.

“In our nation’s past religion has been used to justify slavery and later, Jim Crow laws,” Castro said. “We now see ‘religious liberty’ arguments sneaking their way back into our political and constitutional discourse — just like the concept of ‘state rights’ — in an effort to undermine the rights of some Americans.

This twisted thinking came just days before the September 11 memorial ceremony where Americans remembered the nearly 3,000 lives taken by 19 far more tolerant al-Qaida terrorists — all claiming allegiance to Allah — who commandeered commercial airliners to carry out their murderous deeds.

And within the same time frame, Democrat presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, speaking at an LGBT fundraiser in NYC, referred to Donald Trump supporters using nearly identical harsh terms, declaring, “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables… the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”

As Hillary’s political prospects plunge, are her skittish speechwriters helping themselves to Martin Castro’s reprehensible prose, or has the anti-Christian bigot taken a side job with Hillary Clinton’s sinking campaign?

AZ Republic peddles the fraud of moral relativism

In what is clearly not a coincidence, the Arizona Republic runs two articles a single day apart. Each deals with faith.  Article One, titled, “The Many Faces of One Faith,“ is three pages in length. The faith in question is Islam. The oversized quote accompanying the report is attributed to Hani Rahal, identified as Leader of Al-Mahdi Benevolent Foundation. His quote? “Many Americans are afraid of the unknown, they don’t know what Islam is.”

In fact, in recent years Americans have come to know what certain adherents of Islam tell us and show us it is.  No rational observer believes all Muslims follow such beliefs, though this National Review report, Obama’s Bad Math on Islamic Terrorism, is rife with disturbing polling data and specifics that give rise to suspicions. It also makes the point that Muslims are no more fundamentally bad than Christians or Jews. But it is not true, as Barack Obama has said, “99.9 percent of Muslims” reject Islamic terrorism. Obama’s 99.9 percent figure is demonstrably false. Pew Research has polled the issue extensively. In surveys of the Muslim populations of nine majority-Muslim countries, an average of 57 percent have an unfavorable view of al-Qaeda, not 99.9 percent. Thirteen percent have a favorable view of al-Qaeda, not 0.1 percent. 

Article Two in the Sunday edition uses an almost 90-year-old Holocaust survivor to make the point that she was hated merely for who she was. The horrors she endured have no relationship to mainstream American Muslims, though that is the point attempting to be made. The Nazis rounded up 6-million Jews and millions of others and sent them to death camps where they were starved and subjected to unspeakable atrocities, then gassed or put into ovens. American Muslims, described as being about 70 percent Democrat, live ordinary lives here. There are no parallels to 1930’s and 40’s Europe.

The elderly Holocaust victim was led down the Primrose Path by columnist Karina Bland, who specializes in midlife travails and was clearly over her head in making this moral equivalency on behalf of introducing individual Valley Muslims and their faith.

The differences are stark. European Jews did not commit heinous crimes in the name of God. They did not behead, bomb, drive massive trucks through crowds engaged in outdoor festivities with their children. They did not butcher or strap on suicide vests to randomly slaughter wedding attendees, shoppers or diners. They did not commandeer commercial airliners and fly them into skyscrapers. They did not hand out candy to their children as they celebrated wholesale slaughters, accompanied by joyful shouts of “Allahu Akbar!” which translates to “Allah is greater!”  — meaning Allah Is Greater Than Your God or Government. Robert Spencer of “Jihad Watch” provides a more complete explanation.

Islam is fundamentally different than the religions of Christianity or Judaism. Islam, the fastest growing worldwide, demands strict adherence to its precepts, which are often incompatible with our Constitutionally granted freedoms, since it seeks dominance. Tom Trinko at “American Thinker” provides an in-depth analysis in his column, Islam: Not Just a Religion.  For the Arizona Republic to use an elderly victim to try to convince us otherwise is reprehensible but understandable, as Obama opens America’s  floodgates to hundreds of thousands of unable to be vetted Muslim “refugees.”

More savagery in France: Religion of Peace update

The latest news on the terrorist attack that ripped through a massive crowd of Bastille Day celebrants Thursday in Nice, France identifies the murderer as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian-born resident of Nice who had dual French-Tunisian nationality.  Though not on an official French watch list, he was known to police in connection with crimes such as theft and violence.

The death toll has risen to at least eighty-four, including children and infants. Two U.S. citizens — a Texas father and his 11-year old son — Sean and Brodie Copeland are among the dead.  Fifty-two people of the 202 injured, remain in critical condition. Among the victims were families spending time in the resort town to enjoy the fireworks and food along the beach on the national holiday synonymous with liberty.

French President Francois Hollande had no trouble referring to the evil as a “terrorist act.”

A bit of background on the murderer’s homeland. Tunisia’s Constitution stipulates that Islam is the official state religion. The president of Tunisia must be Muslim.

The French newspaper Nice Matin reported that weapons and fake grenades were found inside the oversized truck used to carry out the massacre by intentionally careening into the crowd for a mile and a half, while shots rang out from the truck cab. The Islamic terrorist driver was killed by French authorities. 

The Sun, a UK newspaper, has more coverage of the carnage, including photos and videos.

ISIS is reported  to be celebrating the death and destruction that is the hallmark of the Islamic State. 

There is a religious component to terrorism

Though we’ve repeatedly been advised that Islam is a “religion of peace,” facts to the contrary place that claim on shaky ground.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has given a lukewarm endorsement to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, has stated that refugees entering the U.S. —  significant numbers of whom support some form of terrorism —- should face a “robust security test” but that there should be no religious test. That creates a warm and fuzzy sound bite, but flies in the face of rational thinking amid the horrific acts of violence, here and abroad, committed by radical Muslim adherents. 

When terrorism is a major component of a specific religion, then a security test becomes a religious test. Islamic terrorism is a religious phenomenon. Quranic instruction is to make Islam supreme over all religions. This is the core idea of the battle cry, “Allahu Akbar!”

If the objective is to screen out Muslim terrorists, this is only accomplished by screening for a particular religious belief. Otherwise, we are engaging in dangerous self-delusion. We currently have no handle on who is entering our country.

This 2015 Pew Research survey on Muslims and Islam is not as benign as it initially appears. Younger and with higher fertility rates fueling Muslim population growth, Islam is the  fastest-growing religious group in the world and is expected to surpass the number of Christians worldwide by the end of this century. But it is the graph showing the support for making Sharia the official law of the country in which they live that should alarm.

Here in Phoenix we are fortunate to have Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a moderate Muslim physician and frequent Fox News contributor, who sheds light on the crisis as it relates to Europe and the United States. He is the founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

 

Americans becoming more wary

Confidence in many established institutions dropping like a rock

Trust in banks, organized religion, news media, and congress fell significantly during the past decade, according to this recent Gallup survey.

The report reveals Americans clearly lack confidence in the institutions that affect their daily lives: the schools responsible for educating the nation’s children; the houses of worship that are expected to provide spiritual guidance; the banks that are supposed to protect Americans’ earnings; the U.S. Congress elected to represent the nation’s interests; the news media that claims it exists to keep them informed and the judiciary which is supposed to render unbiased decisions. The U.S. military remains held in high regard as does law enforcement and big business.

 The nearly across-the-board decline in trustworthiness of these previously solidly respected institutions has given rise to an increasingly jaundiced view, culminating in higher levels of distrust.

Seeing Red AZ is conducting our own poll, with this two-pronged question: Where has your level of confidence fallen most significantly, and why? We’re also interested in our reader’s solutions.

Romney turns on Trump

Is religion the back story?

In 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney happily accepted Donald Trump’s endorsement. Romney, in fact, described himself as  “delighted,” “honored” and “pleased,” calling the occasion “one of the things you just can’t imagine happening in your life.” An effusive Romney added, “Donald Trump has shown an extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works,” citing Trump’s record as a job creator. He concluded, “it means a great deal to me to have the endorsement of Mr. Trump.” 

Trump was a generous donor to Mitt Romney’s campaign.

How the beneficiary of Trump’s generosity has turned in just four short years! Now with Trump the Republican presidential nominee, Romney appears on CNN — liberalism’s media heartland — to tell “Situation Room” host Wolf Blitzer that Trump’s election could legitimize racism and misogyny, ushering in a change in the moral fabric of American society, and bizarrely declaring “I don’t want to see trickle-down racism.”

Romney who now refers to Trump as “a phony, and a fraud,” and sounds as through he shares a brain with the marginal Jeff Flake, says “I don’t intend on supporting either of the major party candidates at this point. I’m certainly going to be hoping that we find someone who I have confidence in who becomes the nominee,” Romney stated. “I see way too much demagoguery and populism on both sides of the aisle and I only hope and aspire we’ll see more greatness.”

Just days ago, Flake used indistinguishable language, claiming discomfort with Trump saying, “at this point” and “I hope to be able to support the nominee. I certainly can’t right now.”

Both Romney and Flake are foolishly hoping for a “brokered” convention — a rare political aberration forcing the nomination fight beyond the first ballot — that will throw the Republican Party into chaos from which recovery would be unlikely.

Does this vicious Republicrat,  censured by elected Republican officials in his home state who Romney has endorsed for reelection exemplify his idea of “greatness”? This is the befuddled John McCain introducing Mitt Romney and mistakenly calling him “President Obama.”

Romney’s change of heart on Trump appears to hinge in large part on Trump’s popular pledge to build a wall along the southern border of the US. Both Romney and Flake are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. More than 1.3 million Mormons live in Mexico, up from 240,000 in the 1980s, according to the LDS Newsroom page. Largely due to successful proselytizing efforts, church leaders have supported more open borders and acceptance of illegals into the United States. The church has focused missionary efforts on Latinos and Utah is now considered a sanctuary state for illegals. Mitt Romney’s father, George, was born on a polygamous compound in Mexico, where his American parents moved to escape persecution for their beliefs, returning to the U.S. when he was five, fleeing the Mexican Revolution.

There appears to be a schism with church teachings on the issue of illegals in the U.S. as exemplified in these two views: Civil Society: The Art of Human Connection — which advocates on behalf of welcoming all regardless of their status, and the LDS Church’s Doctrines and Covenants 58.21 which counsels adherence to the laws of the land.

Looking at the broader base, this Rasmussen Reports survey indicates as far as American voters are concerned — and not just Republicans — Donald Trump has a winning formula for fighting illegal immigration.