Friday, April 21, 2017






Networks ‘Aiding and Abetting' Violent Torture of Women by Refusing to Cover It

On Tuesday, Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell slammed the networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) for ignoring a horrific form of violent torture of females making its way into the United States.

The Big Three networks have refused to cover the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) charges announced last Thursday against Dr. Jumana Nagarwala for performing female genital mutilation (FGM) on girls between the ages of 6 and 8.

Bozell, joined by Act for America Chairman Brigitte Gabriel, issued a statement condemning the media’s hypocrisy for claiming to support feminism while ignoring “an extremely brutal practice of violence against women”:

“The media’s moral compass is hopelessly broken. We have the first case of the brutal practice of FGM in the United States, and the networks are AWOL. You would think an extremely brutal practice of violence against women would make TV headlines here at home, but you would be wrong.

“Where is the outrage? The hypocrisy is staggering. The networks, which have for years championed the causes of left-wing feminists and women's rights, are conspicuously silent on this case and their silence is deafening. This is real exploitation of young girls and the usual suspects who ought to care have little to say about this form of torture making its way to America.”
If the networks won’t tell the American people about cases of FGM, then they are complicit in this violent, physical abuse of women, Bozell and Gabriel warn:

“This practice is illegal and immoral. The networks have an ethical responsibility to report that it’s happening here at home. If they don't, they are guilty of aiding and abetting violence against women out of a politically correct fueled fear of offending Muslims.”

SOURCE





Once Again, CAIR Shows That Islamism and Civil Rights Don't Mix

While CAIR-Georgia official Asma Elhuni was protesting the anti-union policies of a Georgia auto plant in February 2017, CAIR's national office was vigorously resisting the right of its own workers to unionize.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has been claiming for years to be not merely the nation's preeminent Muslim civil rights group, but a defender of the civil rights of all Americans.

In addition to denouncing alleged acts of "Islamophobia," representatives of the organization have been quick to condemn acts of antisemitism, police shootings of African Americans, anti-LGBTQ violence, and so forth, while expressing solidarity with every "progressive" cause under the sun.

But peer beneath CAIR's carefully-crafted press releases and publicity stunts and it's clear that the group's reactionary Islamist roots are as strong as ever.

Last week came a striking demonstration that CAIR's support for workers' rights is just a ruse. The group had been seeking for some time to block the Service Employees International Union from organizing the staff at its national office, claiming that it is a religious organization and therefore exempt from the National Labor Relations Act. The National Labor Relations Board rejected that argument in an April 7 ruling.

Beneath its carefully-crafted press releases, CAIR's reactionary Islamist roots are as strong as ever.

Contrast this with the high-profile appearance just weeks earlier of a CAIR representative alongside auto workers in Marietta, GA, protesting the anti-union policies of a Nissan plant.

The same hypocrisy was on display in the wake of the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, FL, last year by a radical Islamist, when CAIR leaders across the country condemned anti-LGBTQ bigotry. The media fawned over a statement from the head of CAIR's Florida chapter, Hassan Shibly, declaring his "overwhelming love and support and unity" for the LGBTQ community.

But CAIR, with it's strong connections to the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, whose hatred of homosexuals is quite explicit, has a long history of promoting homophobia.

Indeed, Shibly himself decried homosexuality as "evil" and a "quick way to earn God's wrath" in a 2009 Facebook essay on gay marriage. While CAIR officials have avoided such statements since Orlando, the organization continues to host radical Islamist speakers notorious for gay-bashing at its events.

For example, the radical cleric Siraj Wahhaj, a former member of CAIR's advisory board, remains one of the organization's most frequent speakers. Wahhaj has preached that homosexuality is "a disease of this [American] society" and reminded his congregants, "[You know what the punishment is, if a man is found with another man? The Prophet Mohammad said the one who does it and the one to whom it is done to, kill them both."

Although CAIR officials nowadays speak of women's rights, the mainstay of the organization's "civil rights" work is funding lawsuits under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and other statutes to ostensibly protect the "right" of Muslim women to wear face-concealing religious garb in any and all circumstances, from police booking photos and airline security checkpoints to any number of jobs and professions that require dress codes.

"To be shown without a headscarf, it's almost like being shown naked," CAIR national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told the Washington Post last year.

CAIR claims it works to protect the rights of women, but it's really about protecting the "right" of men to oppress women. Islamists want to create a social environment in which no American Muslim woman will ever have legitimate cause to take off her hijab without the permission of her husband or male relatives.

Islamic extremists prosper in the West because they've learned to exploit its rhetoric and democratic processes.

Again, CAIR's choice of speakers at its events reveals the duplicity of the Islamist organization's message. One cleric promoted by CAIR, Abdul Nasir Jangda, has justified the possession of female sex slaves, and advocated marital rape as a "divinely given right."

The mainstream media rarely challenges CAIR representatives who appear on TV claiming to support lofty ideals that conflict squarely with the extremism they preach within the Muslim-American community.

Deceit lies at the heart of lawful Islamism. Extremists that prosper in the West do so because they have learned to exploit its rhetoric and democratic processes. But it cannot be long before that hypocrisy is laid bare – perhaps it will be the next time a CAIR official expresses solidarity with a labor union.

SOURCE





Religious Discrimination Case Goes to SCOTUS: Will Religious Nonprofits Be Treated Fairly?

Playgrounds are for children who exhaust every drop of available energy earnestly traversing the monkey bars, unabashedly whirling round the merry-go-round, and bravely scaling its framework (both on structures intended for climbing, as well as those that are simply conformable to it).

Playgrounds are also for parents and caregivers who release their charges to a world of sensory engagement, while themselves enjoying perhaps a moment of somewhat-solitary reflection or the rare opportunity to converse—even momentarily—with another adult.

Playgrounds are for the elderly men and women who shuffle down to a neighborhood park to sit on a bench and listen to the melodic sounds of children’s laughter. (Incidentally, there are even playgrounds designed for the seniors themselves.)

And aside from these practical benefits of playgrounds, they function as a sort of social hub, a physical connecting point where diverse members of the community come together. In The New Yorker, Emily Raboteau describes it this way:

In the playgrounds with my kids ... I talk with people I would otherwise never have spoken to. A Hasidic mother of six, a decade younger than I am. A teen-age mom a decade younger than her. A Trinidadian nanny with a talent for Sudoku puzzles. An out-of-work opera singer, father to twins. A foster parent peddling The Watchtower.

Playgrounds are for the community and, in a very real sense, they build community.

From community playground to High Court petitioner

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide what to do about a small playground at a small church in a small Missouri city. The case itself is anything but small; one New York Times reporter referred to Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer as “the term’s remaining marquee case,” and its implications could reverberate throughout the country.

Trinity Lutheran Church is going before the Supreme Court for one reason: It wants Missouri to play fair on the playground. Missouri is going before the Supreme Court for one reason: Its problematic implementation of the Missouri Scrap Tire Grant Program.

Initially, the state’s intentions—by all indications—were commendable. As I’ve written previously, Missouri officials instituted the scrap tire program to increase playground safety. It is an admirable goal—emergency departments treat more than 200,000 children for playground-related injuries every year, and 20,000 of those children suffer traumatic brain injuries. Through the program, the state reimbursed grant recipients for rubberized surface material they purchased for the playgrounds. In addition to making playgrounds safer for children, the program benefited the environment because the surface material is manufactured from recycled tires, thereby reducing the number of tires in landfills. Thus, state officials devised a way to simultaneously enrich its communities, protect its children, and protect the environment. Everyone wins, or so it seemed.

What made Missouri’s efforts to better its communities so counterproductive, however, was its unwillingness to treat all playgrounds—and therefore all community members—equally. Specifically, the state excluded playgrounds at religious nonprofits from the program. As a result, Trinity Lutheran’s preschool, called The Learning Center, was denied one of the 14 grants awarded in the year it applied, even though its application was ranked fifth out of the 44 applications received that year.

The state constitution prohibits aid to religion, and officials apparently concluded that reimbursing religious nonprofits for rubber playground surfaces was the functional equivalent of funding a fervent altar call or financing a university student’s pursuit of a devotional theology degree. Most of the kids on the jungle gym could easily recognize the difference between a rubber landing and a heavenly rising, but unfortunately, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit agreed with Missouri. And now the Supreme Court is set to decide whether Missouri’s state establishment clause forbids it from offering neutrally available public benefits—which include benefits like police and fire services—to religious groups.

Discrimination against religious nonprofits hurts the community

Even if the heavy-handed discrimination Missouri displayed toward religion and religious entities was justified (and it most certainly was not), the facts demonstrate that by its actions the state was punishing all community members, not just religious ones.

First, while The Learning Center is a program of the church, it overwhelmingly serves community members who are not church members. Indeed, more than 90 percent of the children enrolled at the preschool do not attend Trinity Lutheran, but they are equally disadvantaged by the state’s exclusion of religious nonprofits.

Second, The Learning Center has an “open gate” policy, which means the playground is available for use by an even broader cross section of the community after hours and on weekends. Those community members, however, are prevented from enjoying the safe surface present at many other community playgrounds, simply because the community playground they bring their children to is located at a religious nonprofit.

Third, discrimination against religious nonprofits is, in and of itself, bad for the community. More than half of the 20 largest charities in the country were founded on religious principles, and by religious organizations or individuals, and those charities provide vital services to the community. Punishing these nonprofits, or depriving them of an equal playing field when it comes to neutrally available public benefits, effectively punishes the communities they serve.

Missouri officials should have embraced a spirit of fair play and enabled playgrounds to bring the community together. Here’s hoping the Supreme Court shows everyone the beauty of the playground.

SOURCE






Landmark case tests pre-nup law in Australia

Feminist-inspired divorce laws are already a large deterrent to marriage.  Living together is now roughly as common as marriage. The ladies complain that their man "won't commit".  He would be most unwise to do so given the legal hazards. If pre-nups are invalidated, that will be a further deterrent

A widow who claims she was made to sign a prenup under "duress" has gone to the High Court over the $11 million estate left behind by her property developer ex-husband.

The woman, a foreigner who cannot be named for legal reasons, received legal advice before her wedding in 2007 that the agreement was "no good" but signed it anyway, The Australian reports. She also signed a second agreement after the wedding against further advice she received.

The High Court agreed to hear the case last month.

The judgment could affect the strength of prenuptial agreements in Australia, as well as what constitutes as "duress".

Four days before her wedding, the widow had been told she must sign the agreement "or the wedding is off", her barrister Matthew Foley has told the court. Her lawyers will also argue she had no bargaining power at this point, given she had "no job, no home, no visa, her parents brought out from (their country)."

According to The Australian, the widow began her fight for the two agreements to be nullified a year after separating from her husband in 2011. He died in 2014 but his two adult children are now continuing the legal fight as the estate's trustees.

Lawyer representing the two children Robert Lethbridge told the court the woman "got the bargain that she indeed wanted".

The couple reportedly met through an online dating website in 2006, when she was 36 and living in her home country overseas and he was a 67-year-old father of three. He was then worth more than $18 million.

They began living together in Australia a year later but six months after she arrived she was asked to sign the agreement. Receiving independent advice, she was told she would be entitled to only $50,000 if they broke up after three years or nothing if they broke up earlier. 

In 2015, Brisbane's Federal Circuit Court ruled that both agreements were signed under duress, citing the woman's lack of financial equality and visa status.

However, this was overturned by the Family Court last year, which found there was no duress given she had received her own legal advice but "went ahead regardless".

The High Court has now been asked to determine principles surrounding such agreements in the appeal by the widow.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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