THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
150 FOREIGNERS ALLOWED TO SKIP CUSTOMS AT JFK AIRPORT
Horrible timing for the TSA to "slip up"
Published on Dec 9, 2015
Although the nation is on tenterhooks following the terrorist attacks in Paris earlier this month, 150 passengers arriving at Kennedy Airport from Mexico on Friday were able to leave the airport without going through customs, the New York Daily News reports
A U.S. taxpayer-funded aid organization has awarded $100,000 to an Islamic charity that has been banned in some countries for providing assistance to Hamas and other terrorism-linked organizations, according to grant information.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, also known as USAID, has pledged a federal grant of $100,000 for the charity Islamic Relief Worldwide, which has been repeatedly linked to the financing of terrorism.
Under USAID’s Foreign Assistance for Programs Overseas, Islamic Relief will be given $100,000 in 2016 for various foreign projects, according to grant information.
The award has generated controversy among critics of Islamic Relief’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and the terror group Hamas.
Both Israel and the United Arab Emirates have banned the Islamic charity since 2014 following investigations that determined that the organization was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and entities providing support to Hamas, according to reports.
Islamic Relief has also been caught in a financial relationship with al Qaeda and other radicalized individuals.
The charity’s “accounts show that it has partnered with a number of organizations linked to terrorism and that some of charity’s trustees are personally affiliated with extreme Islamist groups that have connections to terror,” according to research conducted by Samuel Westrop, a terrorism analyst, and published by the Gatestone Institute.
Israeli authorities determined in 2006 that the charity was providing material support to Hamas.
“The IRW provides support and assistance to Hamas’s infrastructure. The IRW’s activities in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip are carried out by social welfare organizations controlled and staffed by Hamas operatives,” according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “The intensive activities of these associations are designed to further Hamas’s ideology among the Palestinian population.”
Israeli authorities arrested the charity’s Gaza coordinator, Ayaz Ali, in 2006 due to his work on Hamas’s behalf.
“Incriminating files were found on Ali’s computer, including documents that attested to the organization’s ties with illegal Hamas funds abroad (in the UK and in Saudi Arabia) and in Nablus,”according to Israel’s foreign affairs ministry. “Also found were photographs of swastikas superimposed on IDF symbols, of senior Nazi German officials, of Osama Bin Laden, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as well as many photographs of Hamas military activities.
A review of Islamic Relief’s accounts have shown that it donated thousands of dollars to a charity founded by a leading al Qaeda terrorist, according to Westrop’s research.
Islamic Relief Worldwide was co-founded by a Muslim Brotherhood-linked individual who formerly worked for the Clinton Foundation. That individual, Gehad el-Haddad, was arrested by Egyptian authorities in 2013 and sentenced to serve five years for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.
American law enforcement officials also have expressed concerns about the organization’s ties to Hamas.
“We know that these Muslim leaders and groups are continuing to raise money for Hamas and other terrorist organizations,” one U.S. law enforcement official told Patrick Poole, a terrorism analyst, in 2011. “Ten years ago we shut down the Holy Land Foundation. It was the right thing to do. Then the money started going to KindHearts. We shut them down too.”
“Now the money is going through groups like Islamic Relief and Viva Palestina,” the official said. “Until we act decisively to cut off the financial pipeline to these terrorist groups by putting more of these people in prison, they are going to continue to raise money that will go into the hands of killers.”
While the charity attempted to perform an internal audit in 2014 in a bid to clear its tainted name, experts have cast doubt on the integrity of the investigation.
“The information provided by [Islamic Relief] on its internal investigation is insufficient to assess the veracity of its claims,” NGO Monitor, a watchdog group, wrote in a 2015 analysis. “NGO Monitor recommends that a fully independent, transparent, and comprehensive audit of IRW’s international activities and funding mechanisms be undertaken immediately.”
Kyle Shideler, director of the Center for Security Policy’s Threat Information Office, expressed shock that the U.S. government would be funding such a controversial organization, particularly in light of recent efforts to boost the fight against international terror organizations.
“The fact that the U.S. government would provide funding to an organization which two of our allies view as a terrorism finance entity is obviously highly problematic both for our domestic security, but also for foreign relations,” said Shideler, who has written extensively about the charity.
“Both Israel and the UAE consider IRW a threat to their security. And we’re funding them. The fact that this administration is aware of the role IRW plays, and yet sees fit not only to associate with, but actually funds them should be an outrage.”
The grant is particularly troubling given that Congress as Congress seeks to label the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, Shideler said.
“Given that there’s currently a bill before Congress to designate the Muslim Brotherhood, and Congress is currently in discussion over an Omnibus spending bill, it would seem to me that now would be an opportune time to call for a total defunding of organizations linked to terror finance or Muslim Brotherhood activity,” Shideler said. “One would think such a move wouldn’t be necessary, but unfortunately it appears that this administration will continue to do so unless restrained by Congress.”
USAID did not respond to a request for more information about the grant.
ATTACKS AGAINST FIRST AND SECOND AMENDMENTS INCREASE
Huffington Post Demands Government Seize All Firearms
Published on Dec 9, 2015
A George Washington University professor suffering from the liberal disease hoplophobia—the irrational and paranoid fear of guns—is calling for total disarmament in the United States. http://www.infowars.com/huffington-po...
With Monday’s refusal by the Supreme Court to hear on appeal Friedman v. City of Highland Park, Illinois, the Second Amendment has, by default, suffered a grievous blow.
After the New Town, Connecticut, shooting, the Highland Park city council, following a contentious public debate, enacted a law banning possession of semi-automatic “assault rifles” similar to the one used at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It also banned possession of “high-capacity” magazines (those containing more than 10 rounds). Law-abiding citizens owning them were instantly — and now, apparently permanently — turned into criminals unless they could get rid of the now-illegal items within 60 days, as they would face either fines or jail.
Appeals by Dr. Arie Friedman and the National Rifle Association (NRA), along with those of 24 states’ attorneys general, were turned back to lower courts despite cogent arguments that those lower courts were making new law in contravention of the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court’s rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller andMcDonald v. Chicago.
This rejection opens the door to anti-gunners across the land to push for more local infringements, believing that they can now make those infringements with impunity. The liberal Los Angeles Times rejoiced:
The court’s decision was not a formal ruling — the justices simply decided not to consider an appeal by gun-rights advocates. But it strongly suggests [that] the majority of the court does not see the Second Amendment as protecting a right to own or carry powerful weapons in public.
Adam Winkler, a law professor at UCLA, concurred, stating, "The court’s decision will encourage gun control advocates to push more cities and states to enact assault weapons bans."
Even worse, the rejection may reflect a change in the Supreme Court’s attitude toward the Second Amendment itself. Said Winkler:
The justices appear anything but eager to enter into the Second Amendment fray again. Perhaps … some of the justices are viewing gun control through the lens of the recent mass shootings.
Translation: Some of those voting for Heller and McDonald may be having second thoughts.
It takes four justices to decide to hear such an appeal; however, after six separate informal conversations about Friedman, only two could be found: Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. In an almost unprecedented move, Thomas wrote a scathing dissent to the court’s majority in which Scalia joined, outlining not only how lower courts had stretched the Supreme Court’s rulings in Heller and McDonald to fit their preconceptions, but that this rejection was just one of many since 2010, the last time the court even considered the issue.
When the Seventh Circuit court upheld the ban, said Thomas, it “adopted a new test for gauging the constitutionality of bans on firearms.” The test asked whether the weapons banned were common at the time of ratification (no), or have some reasonable relationship to the efficiency of a well-regulated militia (no), or whether law-abiding citizens had others means for defending themselves even without the now-banned weapons (yes). Therefore, wrote the lower court, the Highland Park ban didn’t infringe on the Second Amendment.
Thomas wrote that such a three-pronged test was irrelevant in determining Second Amendment infringements: “Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures and (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad.”
Thomas added:
Because the Second Amendment confers rights upon individual citizens — not state governments — it was doubly wrong for the Seventh Circuit to delegate to States and localities the power to decide which firearms people may possess.
It should be noted here, for the record, that the Second Amendment does no such thing: It does not "confer" rights but instead guarantees rights conferred by God Himself to all people. Having said that, the point of Thomas is well made: Lower courts, no matter how grand the argument or superficially attractive the language, may not infringe on precious rights guaranteed under the Constitution. Thomas said that by avoiding the opportunity to clarify the point in Friedman, the court is denigrating the importance of the Second Amendment:
If a broad ban on firearms can be upheld based on conjecture that the public might feel safer [one of the specious arguments used by the Seventh Circuit], (while being no safer at all), then the Second Amendment guarantees nothing….
There is no basis for a different result when our Second Amendment precedents are at stake. I would grant certiorari to prevent the Seventh Circuit from relegating the Second Amendment to a second-class right.
In the meantime, the bunch from the Brady Center are rejoicing. Said Dan Gross, its president:
By rejecting this case, the Supreme Court sided with a community that has taken action to protect itself from the type of violence we’ve seen in San Bernardino, on college campuses and in movie theaters.
Chuck Michel, a Long Beach lawyer and president of the California Rifle & Pistol Association, takes the proper view of the long war against the Second Amendment:
It’s only a matter of time before the Supreme Court takes a case, sets things straight, and properly subjects this and similar unconstitutional laws to renewed challenge.
Despite not enforcing immigration laws to keep ISIS out of the U.S., President Obama is exploiting the recent San Bernardino shooting to attack the Second Amendment, but here’s 10 reasons why gun control won’t work as leftists intended.
1) California has many of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, yet those laws did absolutely nothing to stop the San Bernardino shooting.
“In California, all firearms sales, transfers, including private transactions and sales at gun shows, must go through a California licensed firearms dealer,” Deseret News reported. “California also has no provision in its state constitution that explicitly guarantees an individual the right to keep and bear arms.”
2) Paris, France, also has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world, but those laws also did nothing to stop the Nov. 13 ISIS attacks.
The only people who are actually stopping the Mexican cartels are private citizens who are openly defying Mexico’s gun laws to form self-defense militias.
“All this crime, all these drug cartels… what the government hasn’t done in all these years, we’ve done in less than 15 days,” one militiaman told reporters.
4) President Obama has been arming and funding ISIS-linked Syrian rebels for quite some time. In fact, Obama approved the re-arming of the “moderate” rebels on Oct. 1, the same day he called for gun control in response to the Umpqua Community College shooting.
“The Free Syrian Army and the Syrian National Council, the vaunted bulwarks of the moderate opposition, only really exist in hotel lobbies and the minds of Western diplomats,” journalist Ben Reynolds wrote. “There is simply no real separation between ‘moderate’ rebel groups and hardline Salafists allied with al-Qaeda.”
And a study conducted by the London-based Conflict Armament Research revealed how Kurdish forces captured M16 assault rifles from ISIS that were marked “property of the U.S. government.”
“The study noted that the arms, funneled through Saudi channels, were originally given to the so-called moderate anti-government militants in Syria, including the Free Syrian Army, which is documented to be infiltrated at the highest levels by ISIS,” Steve Watsonreported. “The West has pumped weapons into the region either directly or through Saudi, Qatari, Jordanian, or Turkish proxies since at least 2011.”
5) Doesn’t seem weird to you that the most vocal gun control advocates are ultra-rich politicians like Michael Bloomberg who spend their entires lives pursuing power and control?
Why do you want to give your rights away to politicians, even if you’re not using them?
Would you similarly censor your free speech because a politician you don’t like, whether Republican or Democrat, wants you to do so?
6) A nationwide gun confiscation program would never work because there are over 350 million firearms in the U.S. alone.
“With so many guns in the nation, no amount of restrictions will ever prevent someone from obtaining a firearm if they want one badly enough,” Lawrence Meyers of TownHall.com pointed out. “Restrictions only harm law-abiding individuals, depriving them of any ability to defend themselves.”
“Criminals don’t obey laws, and neither do terrorists.”
7) Even if a gun confiscation program was attempted, not only would it violate the Second Amendment, but also the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
8) Guns are used exponentially more often to stop crime than to kill; each year firearms prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes in the U.S., usually without a shot being fired, meaning that guns are used over 300 times more often to save innocent lives, given the 8,124 murders committed with firearms in 2014.
9) Out of 11,961 murders performed within the U.S. in 2014, 660 were committed unarmed, 1,567 were committed with knives and only 248 murders were known to have been committed using rifles of any type, including single-shot long arms and “assault rifles” routinely demonized by gun control groups.
Granted, the FBI did list 2,052 murders under “unknown firearm type,” but given the percentages of the known firearm categories, it is unlikely that more than four percent of the “unknown firearms” were in fact rifles, and less than that were semi-automatics.
10) It’s estimated that someone in Chicago is shot every 2.8 hours, despite the city’s strict gun laws.
“Chicago ranks as one of the most regulated cities in the nation for gun control,” the Daily Caller’s Mike Piccione wrote. “Concealed carry is almost nonexistent [and to even] purchase a gun or ammunition requires a Firearm Owners Identification card in the entire state of Illinois, and additionally, a Chicago Firearm Permit – which is required to possess a firearm in Chicago.”
“Not only are the people heavily regulated in Chicago, but guns are also heavily regulated.”
Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, has backed a “hate-speech spell-checker” that would nudge ordinary web users away from unwelcome forms of expression on social media.
Writing in the New York Times, Schmidt said that it was important to use the web’s power of connectivity to “bring out the best in people.” While he acknowledged the positives of the Internet, such as its role as a platform for the “raw reality of oppressed people and their real needs,” he added that the web is “also allowing some of our worst traits – such as envy, oppression, and hate – to come into full view as well.”
Now, Schmidt wants tech companies to make it harder to express those traits: “We should make it easier to see the news from another country’s point of view, and understand the global consciousness free from filter or bias. We should build tools to de-escalate tensions on social media — sort of like spell-checkers, but for hate and harassment.”
Schmidt did not go into specifics of what such spell-checking technology would look like, but as head of Google — and, by extension, YouTube — Schmidt has more power than any individual, save perhaps Mark Zuckerberg, to enact his vision of a new Internet.
It’s also unclear what Schmidt means by “hate and harassment.” The former CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo, once expressed surprise at the number of people who came to him with complaints of “harassment” on the platform that were in fact mere political disagreements.
But others, especially feminists, have been doggedly attempting to expand the definition of “online harassment” for some time. Notable examples include the arrest and trial of Toronto artist Gregory Alan Elliott for disagreeing with feminists on the internet, and the push by feminists at the U.N. to make “cyber violence” a major political issue.
Schmidt also took the opportunity to address a major issue for web companies: how to deal with the presence of Islamic State supporters on their platforms. Here, Schmidt took an approach that is likely to please groups like Anonymous, who would like to see the Islamic State chased off the internet:
“We should target social accounts for terrorist groups like the Islamic State, and remove videos before they spread, or help those countering terrorist messages to find their voice,” he wrote. According to Schmidt, if tech companies do not take action, the web would become a tool for “empowering the wrong people.”
It’s a far more aggressive approach than some tech companies, who would prefer their services, like Swiss banks, to remain neutral towards the kinds of users who utilize their platforms. Network security company CloudFlare, for example, is resolute in its commitment to provide their services to any website owner — even those who support the Islamic State.
