Forbes posted an article prior to the election by Merrill Matthews about the “Obama Recession” that will occur now that Obama has won re-election and his tax increases will be implemented.  You can read the article below:

The Coming ‘Obama Recession’ Of 2013

FDR Memorial 2nd Term 1937-1941 (Photo credit: krossbow)

After campaigning hard for his new soak-the-rich tax increases, President Obama—er, I mean President Franklin D. Roosevelt—won reelection in 1936.  A solid Democratic Congress dutifully passed the tax hikes, which quickly led to what’s known as the “Roosevelt recession” of 1937.  If President Obama wins his reelection bid and gets his tax increases implemented, we will get the “Obama recession” of 2013.

The last recession has been officially over for more than three years, though it certainly doesn’t seem that way to millions of struggling and unemployed Americans; and the country is perilously close to falling back into another.

While the president boasts of steady, albeit slow, economic growth:

• The economy only added 96,000 jobs in August, down from 141,000 in July and a January-March average of 226,000 a month;

• Applications for unemployment benefits rose from 367,000 in August to 382,000 (though economists think some of that increase was due to Hurricane Isaac);

• Manufacturing declined for the third month in a row in August;

• And U.S. rail traffic, a leading economic indicator, was down 3.4 percent from the same period in 2011.

The economy is staggering under the load of Obama’s policies, making it increasingly likely we will soon slip into a double-dip recession.

The Federal Reserve Bank is so concerned that it jumped back into the economy with its third quantitative easing (QE3).  Indeed, the recent housing-market uptick may be a result of the Fed’s easy-money policies—which, ironically, arguably led to the housing bubble that initiated the 2007 recession.

But the Fed’s efforts to flood the economy with money—$2.3 trillion since 2008—won’t save us from another recession, and may actually exacerbate the problem, if companies and entrepreneurs refuse to invest in new opportunities, equipment and people.  That’s what happened in 1937 with Roosevelt’s reelection, and it will happen again if Obama is reelected.

There are at least three reasons why an Obama victory will almost surely lead to a recession in 2013:

(1) Obama’s version of the “Wealth Tax.”  As part of his reelection ploy, FDR proposed what he dubbed a “Wealth Tax.” As he explained to Congress in June 1935, “Our revenue laws have operated in many ways to the unfair advantage of the few, and they have done little to prevent the unjust concentration of wealth and economic power. … Social unrest and a deepening sense of unfairness are dangers to our national life which we must minimize by rigorous methods.”  [See here.]

Similarly, Obama wants to impose a number of new taxes on those he considers wealthy—individuals making more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000.  Take the dividends tax, for example, which currently sits at 15 percent.  The president’s proposal will nearly triple that tax, to 43.4 percent, at a time when the Fed’s low-interest rate policy has driven investors toward dividend-paying stocks in the hope of getting some return on their money.  Think a tripling of the dividend tax, and a 33 percent increase of the capital gains tax from 15 percent to 20 percent, just might have detrimental impact on investing?

(2) The certainty of uncertainty.  The uncertainties created by the explosion of regulations, taxes and mandates (e.g., most employers must provide health insurance) will encourage businesses to remain hunkered down and sitting on their cash, unsure what challenges and costs they face when hiring and expanding.

But it’s not because employers are greedy or evil, which was the constant message emerging from speakers at the Democratic convention.  They are doing exactly what most families do in times of uncertainty.  If you know your job is shaky, or that you may see your income decline, you will likely postpone major or unnecessary purchases until the situation is clearer or more stable.  Obama’s policies have created massive uncertainties among employers—and employees, for that matter—who will sit on their hands, and cash, a little longer if he is reelected.

And note that this uncertainty discussion doesn’t include the additional uncertainty created by other factors, such as what Congress will do to address the government’s debt limit coming around year’s end.  It was this very battle that tanked the stock market in August of 2011 and led to a downgrading of the country’s credit rating.  Could the economy stand a similar downturn without turning negative?

(3) The government-spending binge. FDR ran up government spending from 6 percent to 9 percent of the economy, while Obama increased it from about 20 percent of GDP under George W. Bush to nearly 25 percent. [See this graph.]

To sustain that level of spending the government must dramatically increase the tax burden and/or borrow like a drunken liberal.  The president has done both—$5 trillion worth of new debt—and will do a lot more.  Both actions suck capital from markets and the private sector that is needed to boost real economic growth.

But that isn’t the worst of it.  Obama says he wants to “invest” in the U.S., by which he means confiscating trillions of dollars from the private sector to squander on “investments” the administration thinks are beneficial—especially to his political future.  Economists refer to this practice as “mal-investment,” because the government handouts are based on political motives rather than the profit motive.  It is a sign of the unusual times we live in when so many Americans think that buying votes with their own money is morally and economically superior to making a buck the old-fashioned way—by earning it.

FDR undertook all three approaches and it resulted in the Roosevelt recession of 1937.  If Obama is reelected and follows the same path, which is what he promises to do, it will lead to the Obama recession of 2013.

Would a Mitt Romney victory in November avoid a recession?  It’s hard to say, since too much economic damage may have already been done.  In fact, we could slip back into recession before inauguration day.

But if a President-elect Romney were to make it clear that he would cut government spending immediately, not raise taxes and curb or eliminate the Obama regulation-palooza, companies would begin to invest the trillions of dollars they are currently holding—because that’s what companies do when it makes business sense to do so.

While it might not be enough to save us from a recession, it would be minor compared to the economic hit we’ll take if a reelected Obama is able to get his agenda passed.

The blog RomanticPoet recently featured a blogpost on the Democratic Party and the fact that much of their policy is dicated by labor unions and radical think tanks.  You can read the post below:

Socialists Outline Democrat’s Agenda for Next Two Years

November 29, 2012

Contrary to popular opinion, the US Democratic Party does not set much of its own policy.

Democrat policy is actually dictate by the labor unions, and radical think tanks such as the Center for American Progress, and the Institute for Policy Studies.

The unions are dominated by the US’s largest Marxist organization Democratic Socialists of America – which also works closely with the C.A.P. and I.P.S.

So by a process of osmosis and deliberate orchestration, D.S.A., and their friends in the Communist Party USA, effectively dictate Democrat policy at state and national level.

On November 16, the Democratic Socialists of America National Political Committee released After the Election: Keep Fighting, a blueprint for DSA action and priorities for the first segment of Obama’s second term.

It is basically a guide to action for long time DSA ally Barack Obama, and the Democratic Party, over the next two years.

Diverting money from the military to social spending will be a huge part of the agenda. After all, a strong US military is the major block to world revolution.

The push will be towards universal socialist healthcare, and an economy wrecking Financial Transactions Tax.

Ending poverty through massive re-distribution  will be a big focus…capitalizing on the 50th anniversary of DSA founder Michael Harrington‘s famous book “The Other America” which helped to launch Lyndon Johnson’s catastrophic, and completely counter productive  “War on Poverty” in the mid 1960s.

Students will be manipulated with promises of loan forgiveness. there will be huge push for immigration reform. DSA leader Eliseo Medina, a leader of the movement, has openly boasted that this will mean eight million more Democrat Party votes.

The Right, backed by a toxic flow of big money into politics and shameless efforts at voter suppression, tried to turn the 2012 election into a mandate for a regressive political agenda. The Republicans intended to overturn the modest gains of the president’s first term and roll back progressive reforms dating back to the New Deal…

Taken as a whole, the results were a narrow but decisive victory for progressives that more than exceeded expectations, demonstrating just how out of touch the Republicans are. Progressive voters and their organizations can be justly proud of their role in achieving this result.

The challenges are many, and the best way not to lose heart is to address them sequentially. First, we must resist the immediate blackmail of the “Fiscal Cliff,” that illegitimate offspring of the “Deficit Crisis” mania that paralyzed Washington in Obama’s first term. DSA will work together in local coalitions with the many organizations of the Coalition on Human Needs to defend the interests of the working poor and most vulnerable members of society.

DSA will also advance sensible demands that may not be those of all coalition members. Cutting military budgets and recognizing that military projects are ineffective at generating jobs are essential to right the economy. Medicare is best fixed by expanding it to cover all, young and old. A financial transactions tax would go a long way toward reducing the deficit

In 2013, DSA will help mobilize for an August March on Washington for Democracy and Equality, making use of its 50th Anniversary Other America materials in its preparation. We also support the call of Cornel West and Tavis Smiley for a White House Conference on ending poverty.

And, we will organize for the YDS campaign for Affordable and Accessible Higher Education and to support the Student Loan Forgiveness Act.

Since the election results firmly placed immigration reform on the national agenda, DSA reaffirms its support for comprehensive reform that welcomes and eases the path for millions of new citizens and we will actively take parts in campaigns to achieve it.

DSA cannot try to do everything that should be done, but should strive to do a few things well. Part of our internal political education program, using GET UP (Grassroots Economics Training for Understanding and Power) materials, is to bring together our analytic and organizing skills so that we can better set and carry out our local and chapter priorities.

DSA is determined to use the breathing space won in the election campaign to refocus our resolve and strengthen our work for real social justice.

Until conservatives and Republicans realize that they opposing a Marxist dominated party, they are destined to a series of defeats on the way to political oblivion.

This is no longer the party of Truman, or Kennedy, but the party of Marx, Lenin, Alinsky and Gramsci.

The old rules of fair play no longer apply. The modern Dems will lie, cheat, steal elections, and viciously demonize their opposition at every opportunity.

Republicans are no longer fighting old line Democrats. They are effectively battling D.S.A, the Communist Party, and the labor unions. The Democrats are simply a front for the Marxists.

These people play dirty, and they play for keeps.

The Left’s National Vote Fraud Strategy Exposed

This report reveals the Left’s vote fraud strategy for the 2012 elections. Like a KGB operation, it is thorough, multi-faceted and redundant. It has overt and covert, illegal and legal elements, the latter of which are designed, at least in part, to facilitate illegal activities later. It is a deliberate, premeditated, comprehensive plan to win the 2012 presidential election at all costs, and is in keeping with the organizational methods, associations and ethics of the Community-Organizer-in-Chief, Barack Obama.

The Left seeks fundamental structural change to our entire form of government. In keeping with their amoral, means-justifies-ends philosophy, they will register any voters, dead or alive, legal or illegal, who will then vote as many times as possible, in order to establish a “permanent progressive majority.” As two New York Democrats recently caught in a vote fraud scandal told police, “voter fraud is an accepted way of winning elections…”

Low income individuals are the perfect dupes for this strategy. An expanding welfare state makes them increasingly dependent on government benefits, a development that guarantees their vote for liberal-left candidates. At the same time, people with marginal attachment to society may be less inclined to report illegal activity at the polls—or actually participate. The “victim” narrative promoted in popular culture and press may even encourage such behavior. Meanwhile, a growing tax burden and public debt suck private enterprise dry—pushing ever more people onto the dole.

Politicians of both parties are not above engaging in vote fraud. But this kind of corruption is relegated to individual campaigns or areas where corrupt political establishments have been able to develop unchallenged. It is not a systematic component of overall national strategy, as it is with the Left.

This strategy has been under development for decades. They have constructed an entire industry devoted to this task and pursue a multifaceted strategy to accomplish it:

1. Swamp election officials with overwhelming numbers of registrations at the last possible minute, a huge proportion of which are deliberately fraudulent, in order to create systematic chaos. This accomplishes numerous goals:

• Makes verification of registrations difficult, given the small size and limited budgets of state and local election offices.
• Provides multiple opportunities for vote fraud.
• Throws the entire voting process into question, providing pretext for lawsuits where concessions may be obtained from election officials.
• When election officials challenge registrations, they are accused of “voter suppression.” This in turn serves complementary goals:
• Charge of “voter suppression” reinforces the Left’s narrative about America as an oppressive, “racist” country.
• Publicity and lawsuits intimidate election officials, who settle on terms favorable to the Left.

2. Activists sue state authorities for “voter suppression,” creating further chaos and pressuring them to become de facto taxpayer-funded voter registration operations;

3. Eric Holder’s Justice Department tacitly supports voter intimidation tactics, sues states and backs private lawsuits, and resists reform as “voter suppression.”

4. Leftist echo chamber discredits allegations of vote fraud, supports “suppression” theme, and promotes advantageous legislation.

The ultimate goal is a systematized, taxpayer-funded voting machinery that will guarantee maximum participation from the Left’s voting demographic while undermining the ability to manage elections and prevent fraud.

The ACORN Swamping Method

Key to understanding the Left’s vote-fraud strategy is the community organizing group ACORN. ACORN has become synonymous with corruption, complicity in the subprime mortgage crisis and especially vote fraud.

ACORN and its voter registration arm, Project Vote, hire marginal and unskilled workers at very low rates and use incentive bonuses or quotas to encourage them to collect as many voter registrations as possible. The resulting flood of registrations are fraught with duplicates, errors and omissions, and a large number are overtly fraudulent, including names like “Donald Duck,” “Mickey Mouse,” “Tony Romo” of the Dallas Cowboys, etc.[2] According to Matthew Vadum, the senior editor at Capital Research Center, a total of 400,000 bogus ACORN registrations were thrown out in 2008 alone.

ACORN was supposedly disbanded in 2010 but resurrected itself under a slew of new names. Former ACORN President Bertha Lewis bragged that they created “…18 bulletproof community-organizing Frankensteins…” These are reproduced in the table below. Most of these groups occupy former ACORN offices, many with the same staff.

ACORN is directly connected to Obama and the Democratic Party. Counsel to The Advance Group, a strategic planning company, is Michael Gaspard, Patrick Gaspard’s brother. Patrick is currently the DNC’s executive director and President Obama’s former political director. He has worked for ACORN, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Working Families Party, a descendant of the ACORN-founded New Party which Barack Obama joined in 1996. Obama has bragged of “fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career.”

ACORN’s former deputy regional director, Amy Busefink was convicted in 2010 of vote fraud stemming from a 2008 Nevada case. Judicial Watch found that, “while under criminal indictment in Nevada… [Busefink] managed an online program for Project Vote’s 2010 Colorado campaign, the ultimate goal of which is to allow people without a driver’s license or state identification to register to vote online.” Busefink is now national field director for Project Vote.

 
Barack Obama established his organizing bona fides with Project Vote in 1992, when he registered 150,000 Illinois voters.

Zach Polett (courtesy Anita MonCrief)

Project Vote was created and run for years by Zach Polett, who bragged that he trained Barack Obama in 1992 and said of Obama, “ACORN produces leaders.” Polett is listed in Manta.com as president of Voting for America, one of Project Vote’s former names, although his name is not on Project Vote’s website. Calls to that listing roll into a voice mail identifying the organizations as “CSI.” Polett’s extension is #3. CSI is the acronym for Citizens Services Inc., another supposedly defunct ACORN group that was used to hide over $800,000 paid by candidate Obama to ACORN in 2008.

This kind of duplicitous activity reflects a deliberate methodology. ACORN is a criminal organization.

The Cloward Piven Strategy

ACORN is the face of vote fraud, but its intellectual foundation is the Cloward Piven Strategy. Sociology professors Richard Cloward (Columbia University) and Frances Fox Piven (CUNY) were founding members of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Cloward died in 2001 but Piven lives on.

Richard Cloward

In 1966 Cloward and Piven penned an article for The Nation magazine titled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty.” They posited that if the poor were organized into street armies to demand all welfare benefits available to them, they could overwhelm and crash the system.

It became known as the “Cloward-Piven Strategy,” and is credited with expanding welfare rolls 151 percent between 1965 and 1974 and bringing New York City to the brink of bankruptcy in 1975.

The Issue is Never the Issue

The Left’s solution to everything is socialism, although they are usually careful not to name it, instead identifying issues that seemingly only their policies can redress. But “the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution” as David Horowitz has explained. The “issues” are mere distractions.

Cloward and Piven initially claimed to be agitating for a “guaranteed national income.” Such a policy is plainly unsustainable; however, it would institutionalize their strategy, creating an enormous, permanent drag on the whole economy precipitating an even larger crash later on. Cloward and Piven’s true goal was to find any instrument to institutionalize their orchestrated anarchy, and poor people were the tool.

Wade Rathke, a veteran of those early efforts, was mentored by Cloward and Piven. Rathke and other radicals created a new organization, ACORN,and sought ways to further extend the Strategy.

White House ACORN photo: Bill Clinton center; Wade Rathke third to his left; Zach Polett in lower left-hand corner. Courtesy Anita MonCrief

With passage of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, ACORN and other activist groups got in the housing business. They began pushing banks to offer high-risk mortgage loans to low/no income borrowers. The Clinton administration aggressively ramped up the effort. To encourage lenders and investors, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac underwrote the risk. Since its passage, CRA lending has exceeded $6 trillion.[ii] The mortgage crisis was Cloward-Piven on steroids.[2]

Meanwhile, Cloward and Piven had not been idle. In 1982 they created the Human Service Employees Registration and Voter Education Fund (Human SERVE) to build political momentum for a law that would turn state motor vehicle and welfare agencies into low-income voter registration offices.

National Voter Registration Act

Motor Voter Signing Ceremony – Cloward in light grey suit, Piven in green. Source: the White House

Throughout the 1980s, Human SERVE field-tested legal and political strategies to promote this plan. The fruits of its labor were finally realized with “Motor Voter,” the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), signed into law with Cloward and Piven standing directly behind President Clinton.

The NVRA requires motor vehicle, military recruiting, public assistance and other state and local offices to offer voter-registration services.

The NVRA has become a beacon for vote fraud. Its minimal verification requirements opened the door to ACORN-style massive voter registration fraud, and in the confusion provide blanket opportunities for vote fraud.

Voter ID laws have become critically important. According to a Pew report, approximately 24 million or 12.5 percent of voter registrations nationally are either invalid or inaccurate, including about 1.8 million deceased individuals, and 2.75 million with multiple-state registrations.

And while the NRVA has provisions for purging the rolls in Section 8, they require a complex, process spanning multiple election cycles. In some cases, the NRVA replaced better mechanisms already in use. Many states have simply not followed these procedures with any regularity. The Left ignores all this, focusing on enforcing NRVA’s Section 7.

Section 7 Lawsuits

While capitalizing on the vote fraud swamping strategy enabled by the NVRA, ACORN, Project Vote and others sue states that don’t aggressively execute the voter registration activities required by Section 7 of the law. The narrative is always “voter suppression,” and settlements have forced state agencies to become de facto low income voter registration drives.

Not only must states develop, maintain and execute plans for assuring comprehensive registration, they are forced to report regularly to ACORN lawyers. A 2009 settlement between ACORN and Missouri’s Department of Social Services is illustrative. DSS must:

• Create an NVRA State Coordinator position
• Designate an NVRA Site Coordinator for Family Support Division offices
• Keep detailed records of client visits and registration activities
• Immediately send a letter offering registration to any individual who “may not have been given the opportunity to register…”
• Report detailed compliance data to plaintiff lawyers every month.
• State coordinator’s performance measured by NVRA compliance
• ACORN will receive $450,000 in settlement.

In these settlements, ACORN effectively assumes an executive role over state agencies. Notably, there is no corollary requirement to ascertain the legality of registrations or to clean up the rolls.

Project Vote has taken recent actions against Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, and New Mexico. They just announced their intention to sue Pennsylvania.

Project Vote formed agreements with Colorado in 2008 and 2010. According to Judicial Watch, after Project Vote’s involvement “the percentage of invalid voter registration forms from Colorado public assistance agencies was four times the national average.”

Though largely unnoticed until now, this litigation tactic has been used since the 1980s, when Human SERVE’s legal allies sued state authorities for settlements creating localized versions of Motor Voter.

While capitalizing on the vote swamping strategy enabled by Motor Voter, ACORN and Project Vote picked up the torch for SERVE, which closed its doors in 2000. Frances Fox Piven serves today on Project Vote’s Board of Directors. Significantly, President Obama has named the voter registration initiative of his reelection effort “Project Vote.”

Piven also has many other connections to Obama.  She was a founding member of Progressives for Obama. Her Democratic Socialists of America bragged that it was responsible for the success of Obama’s “ground game” in 2008. Piven was one of 130 founding members of the radical left Campaign for America’s Future. Many CAF members also sit on the board of the Apollo Alliance, the executor of Obama’s “Green” jobs initiative.

DOJ and ACORN Team Up for 2012

Judicial Watch obtained several documents showing coordination between DOJ, Project Vote and the White House.[i] In one email, Project Vote demanded action on NVRA cases. Less than a month later, DOJ sued Rhode Island for NVRA noncompliance. Similarly, DOJ’s Louisiana NVRA suit followed Project Vote’s by a few months. Project Vote is promoting prospective employees for DOJ’s Voting Rights section.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

The VRA outlawed poll taxes and literacy tests for voting. Section 5 requires certain states and other political subdivisions to obtain “preclearance,” or permission, from either DOJ or the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, on any change affecting voting. Currently, preclearance states covered in whole or in part include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia. Set in 1982 to expire in 2007, Congress extended the VRA for another 25 years in 2006.

The VRA has come into sharp focus this year as the Holder administration has used VRA preclearance requirements to stall or prevent voter ID laws from being enacted. Non-preclearance states have faced stiff court challenges from other leftist groups.

Alabama – Alabama’s new photo ID law has a 2014 effective date. Alabama has not yet applied for pre-clearance.

Arizona – 9^th Circuit upheld ID requirement of new law; struck requirement that voter prove citizenship.

Mississippi – A Voter ID amendment was approved by voters with a 62 percent margin in 2011. A bill to implement the amendment passed April 10, 2012. Requires preclearance. No word yet from Justice.

South Carolina – DOJ denied pre-clearance for new ID law in December 2011. State filed for reconsideration.

Texas – DOJ denied pre-clearance for new ID law. Texas filed suit with three-judge panel seeking pre-clearance; DOJ asked court to postpone trial.

Wisconsin – State judge ruled Wisconsin’s voter ID law unconstitutional (read the opinion). State will appeal.

The Wisconsin case is an example of independent groups working to sabotage reform efforts. In a suit brought by the League of Women Voters, the NAACP and others, the judge found ID laws “unconstitutional to the extent they serve as a condition for voting at the polls.” This was a bizarre ruling. Wisconsin’s Constitution clearly allows mechanisms to establish voter eligibility.

Despite the Left’s best efforts, voter ID laws have been proposed this year in 32 states.

A Personal Testimony

J. Christian Adams is a former DOJ election lawyer who worked on the Philadelphia Black Panther voter intimidation case. He resigned in protest of Eric Holder’s race-based application of the law. According to Adams’ new book, Injustice, Eric Holder became directly involved in the Black Panther case. Mr. Adams agreed to be interviewed for this report. Some highlights:

• DOJ is engaged in a massive campaign to force states to… become aggressive voter registration offices…
• DOJ announced they would not enforce Section 8 because it won’t increase turnout.
• States are infested with dead voters on the rolls.
• Investigations into eight states with widespread voter roll problems… were spiked
• Because of Motor Voter, voter rolls in many states seeing influx of illegal aliens.
• Data show that illegal aliens are participating in American elections.
• DOJ is using [VRA] Sec. 5 to stop voter integrity initiatives.
• Every one of Holder’s 113 new attorney hires is a far-left radical.

Famed civil rights attorney Bartle Bull was a poll watcher at that Philadelphia location when the Black Panthers appeared. He testified in the case, calling it “the most blatant form of voter intimidation” he had ever seen.

ACORN’s swamping method is now being replicated all over the country, especially in swing states or those with critical elections like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s recall vote. Even local communities are affected. For example, the Wake County (Raleigh/Durham) registrar described a swamping effort conducted by North Carolina’s Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).

While these organizations are nominally independent, closer inspection often reveals interlocking directorates and/or shared staff. Many are supported directly or indirectly by George Soros foundations. The chart below, compiled by North Carolina Civitas Institute, includes many organizations that worked with ACORN there.

North Carolina Left/Liberal Organizations

A Textbook Case: Houston Votes

In July 2010, a newly-formed voter registration group named Houston Votes (HV) announced it intended to register 100,000 Houston, Texas area voters in a few months. Catherine Engelbrecht, Leader of True the Vote (TTV) and King Street Patriots (KSP), was skeptical. Her group checked about 1,000 HV registrations. The number of erroneous registrations submitted by HV and Democracia—a group targeting unregistered Hispanics—was, she said, “off the charts.”

They brought their results to Harris County Registrar, Leo Vasquez, who reviewed HV registrations. He found that of 25,640 submitted, only 7,193 were “apparently new voters.” On August 24, Vasquez held an unprecedented press conference, announcing:

Evidence shows that the Houston Votes and Texans Together organization is conspiring in a pattern of falsification of government documents, suborning of perjury and a deliberate effort to over-burden our processing system with thousands of duplicate and incomplete voter registration applications.

He raised concerns that HV was, like ACORN, paying employees based on the number of applications they turned in, and cited specific examples of problematic registrations:

3,531   No match for SSN or driver’s license number

1,597   Multiple apps for the same person

1,014   Pre-existing voters

1,030   Incomplete apps

25        Non-citizens

325      Minors

129      Ineligible felons

1,133   No ID

1,323   Filed past deadline

Three days later, a massive warehouse fire destroyed Harris County’s 10,000 voting machines. The fire’s timing bred suspicions, fed almost exclusively by the Left, which sought through innuendo to implicate KSP. A Huffington Post headline two days later was typical: “Possible Arson and the Right’s Texas Voter Suppression Effort.” This theme was repeated ad nauseam in the liberal media echo chamber. The Houston Fire Department later cited “an unspecified electrical short” as the cause, an explanation that satisfied no one.[iv]

Maria Isabel, One of Houston Votes’ “non-partisan” Leaders

HV held a press conference the day of the fire, calling Vasquez’s allegations “reckless and false” and “an apparently coordinated, partisan effort to suppress voter registration and to intimidate citizens into not voting…” They demanded the Justice Department investigate.

HV dismissed mistakes with the familiar ACORN refrain, blaming a few low-level employees who were fired when errors were discovered. However, Vasquez specifically cited 180 erroneous registrations turned in by Directors Sean Caddle and Neil Hudelson—more errors than usually submitted in total by traditional voter registration drives.

HV boasted their group was “non-partisan” but an attentive blogger quickly proved otherwise. One of the people training volunteers for Houston Votes was Maria Isabel, an Obama operative made famous by the photo of her office sporting a poster of Che Guevara.

BarackObama.com advertised HV’s “volunteer” deputy training. Participating groups included, Atascocita Texas for Obama, Houston For Obama, Houston Obama Leadership Team, Houston Women For Obama, and other similar groups.

HV Directors Hudelson and Caddle were quickly discovered to be long-time Democratic activists. At last notice they had returned to Caddle’s home state of New Jersey, working for Democratic Jersey City Council-at-Large candidate Sue Mack. She lost.

A little more digging revealed Houston Votes to be part of America Votes, a Soros-funded organization tied to ACORN, SEIU, and a universe of other leftwing groups.

America Votes specifically targeted Texas in its 2010 Redistricting Control Project. With 38 electoral votes, Texas is only exceeded by California’s 55. Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in Texas, not coincidentally home to the second largest illegal immigrant population in the U.S.

One quarter of Texans reside in the Houston metropolitan region and there are 25 state house seats in Harris County. Prior to the 2010 elections, Republicans held a slim majority of three seats in the Texas House. Winning in Houston had the potential to flip the House, giving Democrats control over redistricting. They wanted to “turn Texas blue.”

The Advisory Board of HV’s parent organization, Texans Together Education Fund, included a number of prominent left-wing Democrats. One was Grande Dame of Texas politics, Sissy Farenthold, who worked with the radical left Institute for Policy Studies in the 1980s. Another was Democrat Kristi Thibaut, a state legislator trying to hold her District 133 seat. She had worked for ACORN and was under investigation by the Texas Ethics Commission. Yet another was Sue Schechter, running for Harris County Clerk. Not only was HV extremely partisan, but plainly the Texas arm of Soros’s project.

America Votes failed in 2010. Republican control of the Texas state house increased by 44 seats in a nationwide sweep that brought Republican control to statehouses not seen since 1928. America Votes is targeting Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2012.

But the Left still wasn’t finished in Texas. The Texas Democratic Party sued the Harris County Registrar’s office, the Registrar and other employees.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee illegally campaigning at Houston poll during early voting in 2010. Credit: Warner Todd Huston

Harris County had settled another suit with the Democrats in 2008 stemming from 67,554 rejected applications, mostly submitted by ACORN. Democrats had charged “voter suppression” then too, over registrations rejected for incomplete or inaccurate information—the kind ACORN excels at.

Below is a note from Mark Dorf, a local entrepreneur, who was discussing the situation in Israel:

Dear Friends,

When is enough, enough! How many rockets need to land in Israel before the world community makes any reference to this travesty? Rockets have been raining down upon Israel for a long time now without a peep from the media pointing the finger at Hamas. Injuries are taking place while homes have sustained direct hits. Schools are being suspended in certain areas where residents proximity is close to Gaza.

While the Iron Dome continues to prove its effectiveness by intercepting rockets intent on killing Israeli’s, the reality of living in a city targeted by rockets from Gaza remain surreal and disturbing.

As most of us live in a safe environment, it’s hard to imagine hearing sirens at all times, whether walking down the street, driving, or dropping children off at school. Many Israeli’s living under such difficult conditions suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

This makes me angry. I know it makes Arsen Ostrovsky, an international human rights lawyer living in Israel angry too. In a piece he penned recently in the Huffington Post titled, My Country Is Under Attack. Do You Care?, Ostrovsky’s words detail what Israeli’s are dealing with. He writes;

“I’m angry. As most Americans were waking up Wednesday morning, and those in Europe and elsewhere were going about their daily routines, here in Israel, over one million people were running for cover from a hail of rockets being rained down by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza. In the space of 24 hours, 80 rockets were fired, more than three rockets per hour. One million Israelis is roughly 13% of the population, which compares to about 40 million Americans.

I’m angry that in 2012, over 600 rockets have already been fired from Gaza with no end in sight. I’m angry that the world only notices when Israel undertakes its (sovereign) right to defend its citizens. Can you imagine if even one rocket was fired on Washington, London, Paris or Moscow?

I’m angry that newspapers like the New York Times lead their stories about the rocket attacks with such headlines as “Four Palestinian Militants Killed in Israeli Airstrikes,” and not “Palestinian Terrorists Rain Down 80 Rockets Against One Million Israelis.” I’m angry that there is someone out there who does not know me and has never met me, yet still wants to kill me – for no other reason than my being Israeli. “

So, when Israel reaches the point, it’s had enough, they will put a stop to Hamas firing their cylinders of death at Israel and the world will be in an uproar of how Israel is responding with disproportionate response and how there is too much loss of life of Palestinians.

Recently, however the IDF has captured something Hamas has tried to avoid and play down. Hamas fired another 20 rockets into Israel but this time they actually distributed films showing rockets being launched from the heart of populated areas using civilians as shields, just as Israel has claimed all these years. So far the Israeli response has been restrained – targeting crews that are launching rockets. But this could change if the rocket fire persists AND this time we can show the world in detail the cowardly methods Hamas employs. Click here and see the video footage Hamas Grows Bold in Gaza

Of course the UN fails to condemn the culprit as HAMAS has not launched 600 rocket attacks on innocent Israeli’s. Last year HAMAS reigned down upon Israel 680 rockets. At their current pace this year they will exceed that number by the end of the year. From the UN’s post, you would think that all is quite on the Gaza front.

In the face of this most recent bombing of Israel, neither the European Union (EU) nor the United Nations (UN) has issued any statements resembling a condemnation. In fact, the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, who recently criticized Israel for building apartments in Jerusalem, was deafeningly silent.

Fortunately, casualties thus far have been limited, but I would surmise a lot has to do with the millions of dollars Israel spends on bomb shelters and their missile defense system to protect its citizens. These bombings are an act of war on the part of HAMAS. I find it quite amazing that Israel has not stepped up its counter strikes against HAMAS. It certainly would be appropriate, even necessary. Any other country would not sit idly by without doing something.

Think about it. Recently, in response to the Syrian shelling of a border town in Turkey, Turkey responded by shelling Syrian military targets over a two-day period. And just today I read that Turkey is putting former Israeli military chiefs on trial in absentia for the incident that happened last year on the Mavi Marmara. Is this incredulous!

This is the nonsense that Israel deals with consistently. This kind of worldwide pressure Israel faces, I feel has made them skittish to respond on provocations unless they are catastrophic. This is surely the double standard Israel unfortunately has to deal with.

An Enemy of Our State
Many of you have heard about The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). They make the news often usually with a frivolous lawsuit or trying to spread propaganda about how moderate and a champion of peace their organization is.

The first time I was made aware of this organization was by a presentation from Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project (http://www.investigativeproject.org/) over a decade ago. After reading and immersing myself in more information about this nefarious organization I have felt that our government needs to debunk this group and show America its true colors. Unfortunately, to date, that hasn’t happened.

Another great organization, Citizens for National Security (www.CFNS.US) has also been investigating this group. I am dearly hoping that the time will come sooner than later that we purge this organization from our homeland. Dr. Bill Sexton, the Chairman at CFNS, in a recent newsletter spells out some interesting insights I want to share with you.
Directly from Dr. Sexton, the following is a good outline about an organization I encourage you to familiarize yourself with;
• The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was founded in June 1994 by Omar Ahmad, Nihad Awad, and Rafeeq Jaber, who, at the time, were officers of the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), a U.S.-based Muslim organization which was founded by senior Hamas operative Moussa Abu Marzook. CAIR is headquartered on Capitol Hill in DC, and purports to be America’s largest Muslim civil rights organization. It positions itself as mainstream and moderate, claiming to seek nothing more than equality, civil rights and full societal participation for Muslims.

• But CAIR’s reality is far from this false image it tries to project. In fact, CAIR is a seditious and subversive organization, operating within the United States and Canada as a direct operational extension of the radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood (MB). In July 1994, there was a meeting identifying CAIR as one of four organizations of the MB’s Palestine Committee.

• CAIR’s success in intentionally misrepresenting itself to the American political elite is a classic example of an expertly executed campaign of Denial and Deception. CAIR has always been, and still remains, deeply associated with numerous terrorist organizations and sponsors, including Hamas. It is itself an instrumental facet of the radical and violent Islamist movement.

• What CAIR’s work throughout the United States primarily entails is lobbying against radio, television and print media journalists who dare to produce anything about Islam that is at variance with their fundamental agenda. CAIR demands special preferences for Muslims and the prioritization of Islamic practices over American law and tradition. When its demands are not met, CAIR maliciously accuses its targets of “Islamophobia” and bigotry. Individuals, corporations, and even government agencies often capitulate to CAIR’s demands because failure to do so may result in the loss of reputations, jobs or profits.

• One of CAIR’s main objectives is to shut down any person or company that is perceived to have a negative view of Islam, speaks out against Islamic terrorism, or reveals the truth about CAIR. Rather than arguing its positions in the free marketplace of ideas, CAIR regularly engages in strong-arm tactics to stifle free speech on any Islam-related subjects. These tactics typically include frivolous lawsuits, threats of lawsuits, boycott campaigns, pressuring companies to withdraw products whose emblems resemble a symbol in Islam, pressuring radio and TV stations to fire hosts who speak out on the subject of radical Islam, pressuring for the removal of anti-Islamist billboards, and pressuring campuses to refuse guest speakers on Middle East topics unfavorable to Islam.

• In addition to silencing corporations on anything Islam-related, CAIR has also labored to Islamize the workplace. A favorite CAIR tactic is to file EEOC complaints. Though some of the complaints that CAIR files might consist of legitimate cases of discrimination, much more often CAIR demands preferential treatment for Muslims and the prioritizing of Islamic practices above workplace profits, efficiency, and procedures. It is notable that virtually all of CAIR’s EEOC cases settle out of court and do not go to litigation.

• CAIR was founded, in part, by money donated to it by the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), another U.S.-based Muslim group. When HLF was indicted and tried in Texas, CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator. During the trial, CAIR consistently refused to explain its connection to Hamas. Ultimately, this trial became the largest involving terrorism financing in the history of the United States, and resulted in numerous convictions.

• Several Jihadists affiliated with CAIR have been arrested in part for implementing military training within the United States in support of international terrorism. It is fascinating to note that many of the larger Islamic Centers in the United States have indoor firing ranges; and, one of the flagship Muslim Brotherhood organizations in America, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), has a very large indoor shooting range in the basement of its headquarters.

• In 2009, CAIR solicited funds from Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Because Gaddafi did not provide the money, CAIR claims that it did nothing wrong. However, a former member of CAIR’s Board of Directors, Abdurahman Alamoudi, was arrested by British customs officials in September 2003 at Heathrow Airport as he was returning from Libya with $340,000 in cash given to him by Gaddafi to finance a plot involving two U.K.-based al-Qaeda operatives intending to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince (later King) Abdullah.

• CAIR also refuses to condemn Islamic extremism or Islamic terrorism, but makes only vague and general statements against “religious extremism” or “terrorism.” A study of Islamic ideology will reveal that such utterances mean nothing in Islam, and this is undoubtedly how it avoids specific condemnations.

• In June 2011, “CAIR Action Network” – the successor to the original CAIR lobbying organization – lost its 501(c)(3) federal tax-exempt status for failure to file its 990 forms for three years. CAIR also had a separate corporation, named “CAIR Foundation,” which was also a 501(c)(3). This entity also lost its tax-exempt status.

• Unfortunately, none of this has slowed CAIR’s progress!

Waste Not Want Not
I thought I would close on a more uplifting note. I recently read that Israel has announced plans to build the largest recycling plant in the Middle East, producing “green” electricity from the 1,000 tons of waste it will take in each day, reported in Maariv recently. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons. The plant is expected to begin operating in 2016. Each day, the plant will handle double the amount of daily waste produced in Tel Aviv. The Environmental Protection Ministry declares the plant to be the largest such recycling facility in the Middle East.

The facility is another step toward the implementation of the government’s policy to promote renewable energy production.

Does this tiny country simply amaze you with the brain trust it has. As the saying goes, Israeli’s might not have the oil, but they certainly have the “sechel.”

I thank you for taking the time to read this email. I welcome any thoughts, comments and suggestions.

Wishing you peace, blessings and safety.

Below is a YouTube video that was created to describe Obama’s tenure as president:

Below is a Youtube video called “Still Thinking about voting for Obama” that is pretty powerful:

The following is an article from Reuters (that was also posted on Drudge.com) that talk’s about the White House’s level of Knowledge about the attacks on the US Embassy in Libya:

White House told of militant claim two hours after Libya attack: emails

(Reuters) – Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show.

The emails, obtained by Reuters from government sources not connected with U.S. spy agencies or the State Department and who requested anonymity, specifically mention that the Libyan group called Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for the attacks.

The brief emails also show how U.S. diplomats described the attack, even as it was still under way, to Washington.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Benghazi assault, which President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials ultimately acknowledged was a “terrorist” attack carried out by militants with suspected links to al Qaeda affiliates or sympathizers.

Administration spokesmen, including White House spokesman Jay Carney, citing an unclassified assessment prepared by the CIA, maintained for days that the attacks likely were a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim film.

While officials did mention the possible involvement of “extremists,” they did not lay blame on any specific militant groups or possible links to al Qaeda or its affiliates until intelligence officials publicly alleged that on September 28.

There were indications that extremists with possible al Qaeda connections were involved, but also evidence that the attacks could have erupted spontaneously, they said, adding that government experts wanted to be cautious about pointing fingers prematurely.

U.S. intelligence officials have emphasized since shortly after the attack that early intelligence reporting about the attack was mixed.

Spokesmen for the White House and State Department had no immediate response to requests for comments on the emails.

MISSIVES FROM LIBYA

The records obtained by Reuters consist of three emails dispatched by the State Department’s Operations Center to multiple government offices, including addresses at the White House, Pentagon, intelligence community and FBI, on the afternoon of September 11.

The first email, timed at 4:05 p.m. Washington time – or 10:05 p.m. Benghazi time, 20-30 minutes after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission allegedly began – carried the subject line “U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack” and the notation “SBU”, meaning “Sensitive But Unclassified.”

The text said the State Department’s regional security office had reported that the diplomatic mission in Benghazi was “under attack. Embassy in Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well.”

The message continued: “Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four … personnel are in the compound safe haven. The 17th of February militia is providing security support.”

A second email, headed “Update 1: U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi” and timed 4:54 p.m. Washington time, said that the Embassy in Tripoli had reported that “the firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi had stopped and the compound had been cleared.” It said a “response team” was at the site attempting to locate missing personnel.

A third email, also marked SBU and sent at 6:07 p.m. Washington time, carried the subject line: “Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack.”

The message reported: “Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli.”

While some information identifying recipients of this message was redacted from copies of the messages obtained by Reuters, a government source said that one of the addresses to which the message was sent was the White House Situation Room, the president’s secure command post.

Other addressees included intelligence and military units as well as one used by the FBI command center, the source said.

It was not known what other messages were received by agencies in Washington from Libya that day about who might have been behind the attacks.

Intelligence experts caution that initial reports from the scene of any attack or disaster are often inaccurate.

By the morning of September 12, the day after the Benghazi attack, Reuters reported that there were indications that members of both Ansar al-Sharia, a militia based in the Benghazi area, and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African affiliate of al Qaeda’s faltering central command, may have been involved in organizing the attacks.

One U.S. intelligence official said that during the first classified briefing about Benghazi given to members of Congress, officials “carefully laid out the full range of sparsely available information, relying on the best analysis available at the time.”

The official added, however, that the initial analysis of the attack that was presented to legislators was mixed.

“Briefers said extremists were involved in attacks that appeared spontaneous, there may have been a variety of motivating factors, and possible links to groups such as (al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Sharia) were being looked at closely,” the official said.

The following is a recent article written by Steve Emerson from The Investigative Project on Terrorism:

A year-long investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has found that scores of known radical Islamists made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, meeting with top administration officials.

Court documents and other records have identified many of these visitors as belonging to groups serving as fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and other Islamic militant organizations.

The IPT made the discovery combing through millions of White House visitor log entries. IPT compared the visitors’ names with lists of known radical Islamists. Among the visitors were officials representing groups which have:

• Been designated by the Department of Justice as unindicted co-conspirators in terrorist trials; Extolled Islamic terrorist groups including Hamas and Hizballah;
• Obstructed terrorist investigations by instructing their followers not to cooperate with law enforcement;
• Promoted the incendiary conspiratorial allegation that the United States is engaged in a “war against Islam”— a leading tool in recruiting Muslims to carry out acts of terror;
• Repeatedly claimed that many of the Islamic terrorists convicted since 9-11 were framed by the U.S government as part of an anti-Muslim profiling campaign.

Individuals from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) visited the White House at least 20 times starting in 2009. In 2008, CAIR was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist money laundering case in U.S. history – the trial of the Holy Land Foundation in which five HLF officials were convicted of funneling money to Hamas.

U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis later ruled that, “The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the association” of CAIR to Hamas, upholding their designations as unindicted co-conspirators. In 2008, the FBI formally ended all contact with CAIR because of its ties to Hamas.

In January 2004, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR’s Los Angeles office, publicly defended Palestinian terror attacks in comments before Muslim students at the University of California – Los Angeles, saying that terrorists were exercising their “legitimate right” to defend themselves against Israeli occupation.

Ayloush, who was a delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., casts the United States as controlled by Israeli interests. At a 2008 CAIR banquet in San Diego, he imagined “an America that respects and humanizes religion. It’s an America that is free to act on its values and not on the interests of any foreign lobby.” In 2004, he said that the war on terror had become a “war on Muslims.” Ayloush attended at least two White House meetings.

The logs show Ayloush met with Paul Monteiro, associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement on July 8, 2011 and Amanda Brown, assistant to the White House director of political affairs Patrick Gaspard, on June 6, 2009.

According to reliable sources, Monteiro was White House liaison for secret contacts with CAIR, especially with Ayloush. IPT has learned that the White House logs curiously have omitted Ayloush’s three meetings with two other senior White House officials.

Louay Safi, formerly executive director of the Islamic Society of North America, visited the White House twice – meeting in intimate settings with Paul Monteiro on June 29, 2011 and July 8, 2011.

Law enforcement first noticed Safi in 1995 when his voice was captured in an FBI wiretap of now-convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian. At the time of his conversation with Al-Arian, Safi served as executive director of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, an organization listed in law-enforcement and in internal Muslim Brotherhood documents as one of the movement’s top front groups in North America.

Safi also wrote for the Middle East Affairs Journal, produced by the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). That group was established by Hamas deputy political leader Mousa Abu Marzook and part of the Hamas-support network called the “Palestine Committee.”

Safi has repeatedly expressed understanding for the underlying causes that provoke terrorism: “Terrorism cannot be fought by…ignoring its root causes. The first step…is to examine the conditions that give rise to the anger, frustration, and desperation that fuel all terrorist acts.” He also called Palestinian terrorists “freedom” fighters.

Esam Omeish, former head of the Muslim Brotherhood-created Muslim American Society, visited the White House three times.

In 2000, Omeish personally hired the late terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki to be the imam of Falls Church, VA, Dar al-Hijrah mosque. According to IPT analysis, more terrorists have been linked to Dar al-Hijrah since 9/11 than to any other mosque in America.

Omeish publicly mourned the Israeli airstrike that killed Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin at an April 10, 2004, MAS conference.

According to video captured by IPT, Omeish went a step further at the December 22, 2000, Jerusalem Day rally in Washington’s Lafayette Park, praising Palestinian terror groups, saying they had learned “the jihad way” to “liberate” Palestine.

In a sermon at Dar al-Hijrah in 2009, Omeish called for “an American Islamic movement that transforms our status, that impacts our society, and that brings forth the change that we want to see.”

Last month, Omeish attended a reception for Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi during Morsi’s United Nations visit. Morsi is a longtime Egyptian Brotherhood leader. Omeish posted a picture of the event on his Facebook page and noted: “His Excellency provided great insights and we share important perspectives.”

Mohamed Elibiary, appointed to the Homeland Security Advisory Council in October 2010, spoke at a December 2004 seminar in honor of Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, titled: “A Tribute to the Great Islamic Visionary.”

Elibiary condemned the convictions of the defendants in the Hamas money-laundering trial as a “loss for America” and dismissed the prosecution as “a political trial trying to achieve a government policy.” He also opposed the targeting of American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, saying it wouldn’t be “worth the ramifications of having to chase his ghost as a martyr for the next half century.”

Interestingly, the Obama administration’s enthusiastic support for gay rights did not prevent it from inviting Islamists who support laws overseas giving gays the death penalty.

In a June 21, 2001 article in The San Francisco Chronicle, Muzammil Siddiqi, the former head of Islamic Society of North America, said he “supported laws in countries where homosexuality is punishable by death.” Siddiqi met with Monteiro on June 8, 2010.

Despite the President’s public proclamations that he is standing strong against terrorism, the White House logs demonstrate that he has legitimized the very same groups that espouse radical Islamic terrorism.

MPAC’s Influence on Policy

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has secured the closest working relationship with the Obama White House despite a record of anti-Semitism, whitewashing the terrorist threat and hostility toward law enforcement. Fifteen MPAC officials have been welcomed by the White House. Executive Director Salam al-Marayati enjoyed at least six White House visits between September 2009 and July 2011, mostly involving meetings with Monteiro. Alejandro Beutel, who was MPAC’s government liaison until July 2012, had 10 White House visits between July 2010 and May 2012.

MPAC’s Washington director Haris Tarin made 24 trips to the White House between December 2009 and March 2012. Those meetings often were intimate in nature, involving a handful of people at most.

Edina Lekovic, an MPAC spokeswoman, visited the White House twice in July 2010. As a UCLA student, Lekovic served as an editor of a Muslim magazine called Al-Talib, which in 1999 ran an editorial calling Osama bin Laden “a great mujahid” and saying when bin Laden is called a terrorist, “we should defend our brother and refer to him as a freedom fighter, someone who has forsaken wealth and power to fight in Allah’s cause and speak out against oppressors. We take these stances only to please Allah.” That issue identified Lekovic as a managing editor.

Like CAIR, MPAC also has pushed that “war on Islam” message. MPAC defended Hizballah’s 1983 attack on a U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon which killed 241 Americans and questioned U.S.-terror designations for Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

But the White House turned to MPAC officials as it prepared two papers on combatting what it calls violent extremism in America.

On July 18, 2011, White House Senior Director for Global Engagement QuintanWiktorowicz hosted four MPAC officials for a private meeting. Two weeks later, the White House issued “Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States,” a counter-terrorism initiative which made no mention of radical Islam or jihad waged by its followers. Rather, it named only al-Qaida as the enemy and included a vow to counter al-Qaida’s narrative that America is at war with Islam.

That focus fits neatly with MPAC’s agenda. It has lobbied for years to strip references to Islam from national security dialogue, even though terrorists from al-Qaida to Hamas use Quranic doctrine to justify their bloody campaigns.

And it marks the culmination of a dream described by MPAC founder Salam al-Marayati in a 2005 speech: “Counter-terrorism and counter-violence should be defined by us,” he said. “We should define how an effective counter-terrorism policy should be pursued in this country. So, number one, we reject any effort, notion, suggestion that Muslims should start spying on one another … That is why we are saying have them [law enforcement] come in community forums, in open-dialogues, so they come through the front door and you prevent them having to come from the back door.”

Wiktorowicz, a member of President Obama’s National Security Council who authored a 2005 ebook on radical Islam, was a receptive host for MPAC government and policy analyst Alejandro Beutel, Washington, D.C. office director Haris Tarin, policy analyst Hoda Elshishtawy and Shammas Malik, an MPAC intern, White House logs show.

MPAC didn’t tout the July 18 meeting publicly but quickly praised the White House initiative. It “echoes MPAC’s long-standing position of emphasizing community-based solutions in addressing violent extremism,” the organization said in an August 3, 2011 news release.

Days before the meeting, President Obama called Tarin personally to commend his work with the Muslim American community and the nation.

MPAC repaid the courtesy a month later by issuing a paper blasting the American opposition to a Palestinian scheme to get United Nations recognition of statehood without pursuing it through peace talks.

The MPAC report questions the Obama administration’s integrity by suggesting that the “U.S. is so out of step with global public opinion” on this issue because it is unduly influenced by “domestic political consequences” and campaign concerns, an allusion to the perceived political power of the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S., which MPAC often invokes.

Despite MPAC’s strident public opposition to U.S. policy, Wiktorowicz again hosted Beutel, Tarin, and Elshishtawy on November 4, 2011 – just a month before a follow-up counter-terrorism document was released.

Access Didn’t Moderate MPAC

In March 2011, Beutel took to Press TV, an English-language broadcast outlet controlled by the Iranian government, to criticize congressional hearings on radicalization within the Muslim American community:

It spoke to a lot of the feelings that I think many Muslim Americans have with respect to their position here in America post-9/11. We are loyal citizens to this nation and we are trying to do everything we can to keep it safe and secure. And yet even when we’re doing the right things and in many cases, laying our lives down on the line for our nation, we still get stigmatized sometimes.

Most recently, Beutel co-authored an op-ed with Tarin, in which the two MPAC officials criticized NYPD surveillance of Muslim student groups across the Northeast: “The NYPD’s surveillance of an entire community based on their faith — with no evidence of criminal activity — is a blow [to] democracy and an ineffective and counterproductive offense to its mandate to ‘protect and serve.'”

In September 2010, Beutel criticized FBI raids in Chicago and Minneapolis targeting supporters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), both U.S.-designated terrorist organizations. Beutel argued that “[t]he FBI cannot continue to tell the American people that harassing anti-war activists falls under the rubric of counterterrorism and a fight against al-Qaeda … They have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The FBI is undermining the trust that has been built between communities and law enforcement.”

Other Islamists Who Enjoyed Access

White House logs show Islamists visiting the White House who may have lower profiles, but who also defended terrorists and terrorist groups, and repeatedly castigated law enforcement, especially in counter-terror sting operations. Among them:

• Farhana Khera– executive director of Muslim Advocates and the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML). She casts FBI counter-terror stings as “entrapment.” Following arrests in late 2010, she told USA Today, “But for the government’s role in these cases the suspects may have been left with their own bravado. Law enforcement resources need to be focused on actual threats.” Khera also has compromised FBI operations and coached mosque personnel on how to evade FBI surveillance. “In one case, the FBI even wanted to build a gym to attract young Muslims to work out and ‘discuss jihad,” Khera once wrote. In July 2010 Khera told delegates at an Islamic Society of North American convention: “Sometimes [Muslim] community members don’t even think of themselves as a[n] [FBI] source. They might just think [to] themselves, ‘Well, I have a good relationship with the head of the FBI office. He comes by my office from time to time and we have tea, or we go to lunch, and he just talks to me about the community.’ But what may seem like an innocuous set of conversations in the FBI’s mind they may be thinking of you as an informant, as a source. And the repercussions and the harm that that can cause can be pretty serious.” Khera shows up three times in the White House visitor logs, most recently in August 2011.
• Hisham al-Talib–A founder and current VP of Finance for Herndon, VA-based, International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), an organization the FBI believes has housed key Muslim Brotherhood leaders in the United States since the late 1980s. Al-Talib was among seven people to meet March 30, 2012 with Joshua DuBois, White House executive director of the Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. A 1987 FBI investigative report, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, cited a source whose name was redacted but who has private communication with IIIT leaders. Their conversations show the IIIT leaders “…are implementing Phase I of the overall six phase IKWAN [Brotherhood] plan to institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.” The source said that IIIT leaders were working “to peacefully get inside the United States Government and also American universities” ultimately to help overthrow non-Islamic governments. Just four years later, the IIIT acknowledged funding WISE, a Tampa think-tank that housed four members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s governing board (Sami al-Arian, Ramadan Shallah, Basheer Nafi and Mazen al-Najjar). WISE had a cooperative agreement to work with University of South Florida faculty. In a November 1992 letter to al-Arian, IIIT President Taha Jaber al-Awani explained the intimate relationship between the Tampa and Virginia operations. “And I would like to affirm these feelings to you directly on my behalf and on the behalf of all my brothers [naming IIIT officials including al-Talib] … “that when we make a commitment to you or try to offer, we do it for you as a group, regardless of the party or façade you use the donation for … [W]e consider you as a group … a part of us and an extension of us. Also, we are part of you and an extension of you,” al-Awani wrote. “[O]ur relationship, in addition to being a brotherhood of faith and Islam, is an ideological and cultural concordance with mutual objectives.” The letter named the IIIT officials who shared this view, including al-Talib.
• Imam Talib El-Hajj Abdur Rashid–religious and spiritual leader of Harlem’s Mosque of the Islamic Brotherhood. Rashid rationalized Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s stance on destroying Israel, saying it merely is a “sentiment born of the legitimate anger, frustration, and bitterness that is felt in many [parts of the Muslim World” because of Israel’s “ongoing injustice toward the Palestinian people.” He also serves on the National Committee to Free Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin. Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rapp Brown, was convicted of killing a Georgia police officer in 2002.White House logs place Rashid in two meetings during 2010 including a July 13 event with President Obama.
• Hatem Abudayyeh – executive director of the Chicago-based Arab American Action Network, founded by Rashid Khalidi, a friend of President Obama. Abudayyeh has been under criminal investigation at least since September 2010, when FBI agents raided his home and office in connection with a terror-support probe. In a 2006 interview, Abudayyeh blasted Israel’s “military killing machine” after Israel retaliated for a cross-border Hizballah attack that killed five people and led to the kidnapping of two soldiers. “The U.S. and Israel will continue to describe Hamas, Hezbollah and the other Palestinian and Lebanese resistance organizations as ‘terrorists,'” he said,”but the real terrorists are the governments and military forces of the U.S. and Israel.” He visited the White House in April 2010.

Outreach to minority communities can foster a feeling of inclusiveness. However, President Obama opening the White House to radical Islamists compromises American security in at least two ways. First, it legitimizes groups and individuals whose track records beg skepticism and scrutiny. Second, White House visitor logs show that top U.S. policy-makers are soliciting and receiving advice from people who, at best, view the war on terrorism as an unchecked war on Muslims. These persons’ perspectives and preferred policies handcuff law enforcement and weaken our resolve when it comes to confronting terrorism.

Humorous take on Obama:

Michael wrote: “This poor man took over the worst economy since Noah’s Ark. He decided to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into renewable energy at the same time technology exploded on fracking and oil shale, giving us limitless cheap domestic energy. It’s taking longer than he thought to kill coal, oil and natural gas. He decided to shrink the military at the same time the middle east is is exploding into anarchy. It’s taking longer than he expected for his allies in the muslim brotherhood to stamp out the freedom loving trouble makers. He just needs 4 more years to eliminate fossil fuels and help the muslim world unite into that long sought caliphate. You can knit pick over details but I think we should give this guy 4 or 8 or as many more years as he thinks he needs to fundamentally transform this nation into what ever type of government his communist heart desires. Only a racist could refuse him the dreams from his father.”

On Sunday, a website called “The Lid” posted an article about how we had the opportunity to stem the attack of the American Embassy in Libya, but did nothing.  Below is the article from The Lid, including a video:

We Could Have Helped Americans In Benghazi-Obama Did NOTHING

According to former CIA commander Gary Burnsten who was interviewed for the CBS story, we did absolutely to help stem the attack,  but we could have:

“There isn’t a plan for every single engagement. Sometimes you have to be able to make adjustments.” Burnsten said. “They made zero adjustments in this.” Instead, he said, “They stood, and they watched, and our people died.”

Why was nothing done? CBS reported that our planes were an hour away, one of which the Spectre AC130 Gunships which were made for air to ground assaults.

If someone thought the attack on our mission was serious enough to give the orders to send an unarmed drone in the final hours of the attack, it seems to me the administration knew it wasn’t just a spontaneous protest over a video. Or if someone was just sending the drone over Benghazi for the hell of it (a doubtful scenario) wouldn’t the video sent back show that it was something more dangerous than a spontaneous protest over a video.

According to CBS News, during the attack Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had his people look “at available options, and the ones we exercised had our military forces arrive in less than 24 hours, well ahead of timelines laid out in established policies.”

If the Defense department was preparing options to defend our personnel in Benghazi, are we really supposed to believe that the President was not notified what was going on and how serious immediately during the attack?

More likely the President was paralyzed because this attack challenged his claim that al Qaeda is on the run.

1. Why was the embassy’s request for additional security rejected?
2. Now that we know it was possible, why wasn’t any action taken during the attack to protect Ambassador Stevens and the other Americans?
3. As it was clear that the Obama administration knew as it happened that the attack in Benghazi was an act of terror, why did the president continue with the cock and bull story that it was a spontaneous attack coming out of a protest over an Anti-Muslim you tube video?

Most probably we will not discover the real story of what happened in Benghazi on 9/11/12 until after the election (and only if Romney wins).

The only provable part of the story is that this commander-in-chief has been lying to Americans about the Benghazi terrorist attack.  Voters should be asking themselves whether or not they want a POTUS who is not straight with the people.  I for one answer that question with a resolute no!