Friday, March 24, 2017

WHY GORSUCH IS A NEO-CON FASCIST, NOT REALLY A CONSERVATIVE, AND WHY HE IS DANGEROUS FOR THE SUPREME COURT

Steve Pieczenik: Neo Cons Want To Destroy America/Gorsuch Is Dangerous And Can't Be Trusted 

 Published on Mar 23, 2017

Dr. Steve Pieczenik explains how the Neo-Cons are attempting to destroy America as well as what he thinks about Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.
GORSUCH IS "MORALLY COMPROMISED"

 

NEW YORK CITY'S ULTRA LEFT MAYOR DE BLASIO: NO "ICE" AGENTS IN CITY SCHOOLS WITHOUT WARRANTS

 NEW YORK COMMUNIST MAYOR DICTATES ULTIMATUM TO FEDS, DEFIES TRUMP
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NEW YORK CITY'S ULTRA LEFT MAYOR DE BLASIO: 
NO "ICE" AGENTS IN CITY SCHOOLS 
WITHOUT WARRANTS 
BY WARREN MASS
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
Speaking at a press conference held outside the Old New York County New York’s Courthouse (aka “Tweed Courthouse”) on March 21, Mayor Bill de Blasio (shown) announced that it is his new policy that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers will not be allowed into any city school unless they provide a warrant.  De Blasio was joined in making the announcement by the head of the New York City Department of Education, Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña.
In announcing the new policy, De Blasio told those gathered:
We are reinforcing the fact that a school is a safe and protected location. We will not allow ICE agents to threaten that protection, disrupt classes or take any action that would be detrimental to our students....
We want to be very clear to parents that we’re not allowing ICE agents in the building, because I think parents are so afraid right now. They’re worried that an agent could literally come into the building and single out their child. I know it sounds outlandish, but we’re seeing things that we have not seen before and there’s a tremendous amount of fear out there.... We have to be ready for anything.
The mayor did not explain why someone in a public school who was not in violation of our nation’s immigration laws had any reason to fear ICE officers. But then again, perhaps it is his intention to protect those who are in this country illegally.
The New York Daily News cited a statement from city officials that ICE agents will be kept outside school buildings while school safety officers and the principal summon NYPD officials and city Department of Education attorneys for assistance.
Though De Blasio alluded to the Trump administration’s planned stricter enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws as the motivation from his city’s new policy, he admitted that there have been no instances of ICE agents attempting to detain students or their parents at city schools. The mayor maintained that the guidelines were needed in case ICE agents attempt to enter schools.
Though De Blasio’s statement make it sound as though ICE is readying for an all-out assault on illegal alien hiding among the school population, the ICE spokeswoman in New York’s field office, Rachael Yong Yow, said schools are considered a “sensitive location,” along with churches and hospital centers, where agents are required to get prior approval from a supervisor before picking someone up for repatriation. 
De Blasio’s announcement of the new policy came during a program that was part of the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ “Cities’ Day of Immigration Action.” The New York event featured — in addition to De Blasio and Fariña — Speaker of the New York City Council Melissa Mark-Viverito, and the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Nisha Agarwal.
A March 21 Breitbart report quoted Mark-Viverito description of the new guidelines as a reflection of the “city’s values of fairness and justice,” and her branding of the Trump administration’s immigration policies as “racist.”
“This guideline states clearly and unambiguously ICE can’t come in without a warrant signed by a judge, period,” Mark-Viverito said. “We support restricting ICE’s access to schools, students, and student records — because classrooms should be safe spaces to learn in. Policies like this not only reflect the city’s values of fairness and justice but they also underscore the importance of ensuring that our schools remain safe spaces for our children.”
Mark-Viverito continued:
This talk from this administration, that they’re only focused on those that are hurting our communities is not true — it’s a lie, it’s a dragnet approach, a racist policy that is being implemented by this administration and is focused in particular on communities of color.
Mark-Viverito’s reference to “communities of color” can be exposed as just so much politicking if we consider the makeup of the 8th City Council District, which she represents. Much of the population of that district, which includes East Harlem and the South Bronx, is made up of African American and Puerto Rican residents. Mark-Viverito, herself, was born in Puerto Rico. Since Puerto Rico is U.S. territory, all Puerto Ricans, as well as all African Americans, are U.S. citizens who have nothing to fear from immigration authorities. They are native born Americans who have just as much right to live in the United States as people whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower.
In view of this, Mark-Viverito’s playing of the race card by trying to portray the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration as an assault on “communities of color” simply does not hold any water.
This latest policy regarding ICE and New York’s public school is not the first time that de Blasio has gone head-to-head with the Trump administration. During a Washington Square Park news conference following Trump’s January 25 executive order on border security and immigration enforcement improvements, Bill de Blasio vowed to resist the administration’s proposed block of federal grants to sanctuary cities that harbor illegal aliens and refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities.
“The executive order does not change who we are or how we go about doing our work,” de Blasio said at a the news conference.
“We’re going to defend all of our people, regardless of where they come from and regardless of their documentation status.” 
Which is a euphemism for regardless of whether they are in this country legally or illegally. 
De Blasio went on to say:
We will not deport law-abiding New Yorkers, we will not tear families apart, we will not leave children without their parents, we will not take breadwinners away from families who have no one else. And we’re not going to undermine the hard-won trust that has developed between our police and their communities. 
Perhaps someone should inform De Blasio that someone who has broken our immigration laws cannot be “law-abiding.”
When De Blasio firs ran for mayor in 2013, The New American published an article revealing his pro-communist background. The article noted:
On the same day that President Obama announced his endorsement (September 23), the New York Times published an extensive investigation of de Blasio’s radical Marxist background, focusing particularly on his devotion to the Marxist-Leninist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. De Blasio also has been a big supporter of Cuba’s communist dictator Fidel Castro and Zimbabwe’s murderous kleptocrat Robert Mugabe. He also expressed his support for “democratic socialism.” 
Part of an online sketch on De Blasio notes that shortly after completing graduate school at Columbia in 1987, he was hired to work as a political organizer by the Quixote Center in Maryland. In 1988, de Blasio traveled with the Quixote Center to Nicaragua for 10 days to help distribute food and medicine during the Nicaraguan Revolution. He was an ardent supporter of the ruling socialist government, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which was at that time opposed by the Reagan administration.
The Quixote Center was known for its support of the goals of the Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the 1980s. The Center raised more than $100 million in “humanitarian aid” for the Nicaraguan government. It critics accused the Center of following a Marxist agenda and the U.S. Department of the Treasury investigated allegations that the Quixote Center had smuggled guns to Nicaragua.
The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) overthrew Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza, America’s most important ally in Central America, in 1979 and established a revolutionary Marxist government in its place.
Upon assuming office in 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan condemned the FSLN for joining with Cuba in supporting “Marxist” revolutionary movements in other Latin American countries such as El Salvador.
Like many American leftists, De Blasio was clearly on the wrong side of the conflict in Nicaragua when he joined the Quixote Center in supporting the Sandinistas.

Related articles:
DHS Issues Report Listing Jurisdictions Failing to Cooperate With ICE Detainers
Law Enforcement and Illegal Aliens Both Anxious About Status of Trump Deportation Actions
Number of Former Sanctuary Cities Reversing Policy
Trump Signs Executive Orders to Build Border Wall and Strengthen Immigration Enforcement
California Advances Bills to Become Sanctuary State
San Francisco Sues Trump to Stop Executive Order About Sanctuary Cities
 Illegal Alien Sues San Francisco for Violating Sanctuary City Law
NYC Mayor Candidate De Blasio Takes Flak Over Pro-communist Background

COMPANIES THAT MIGHT BUILD TRUMP'S WALL THREATENED BY CALIFORNIA POLITICIANS

COMPANIES THAT MIGHT BUILD TRUMP'S WALL THREATENED BY CALIFORNIA POLITICIANS 
BY STEVE BYAS
 
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
“The state’s contracting and investment practices should reflect the values of our state,” California state Representative Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) declared in explaining her co-authorship of Assembly Bill 946, designed to punish any construction company that participates in the building of a wall between Mexico and the United States, as envisioned by President Donald Trump.
“It’s clear the people of California don’t want to invest in the hateful values that the Trump wall represents,” Fletcher added.
Fletcher’s bill would dictate that the state’s two large pension systems — the California Public Employee Retirement System and the California State Teachers Retirement System — liquidate in companies that help build the wall. The total investment of the two retirement funds is $312 billion and $202 billion, respectively.
The bill was introduced after the U.S. Customs and Border Protection asked for design proposals for the anticipated 2,000-mile-long wall.

The bill’s co-author, Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), another Democrat member of the Assembly (the lower house in the California Legislature), argued, “Californians build bridges, not walls. This is a wall of shame and we don’t want any part of it. Immigrant stories are the history of America, and this is a nightmare.”
Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella) is the third author of the bill.
Both retirement systems are presently in financial difficulty. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System has performed particularly poorly the past two years, earning a dismal 2.4 percent in 2014-15, and an even worse 0.6 percent in the last fiscal year. This has contributed to the ballooning fiscal problems of the nation’s largest pension system, leaving it with about $100 billion in unfunded liabilities.
The teachers’ retirement system is not much better. It earned a return of 4.8 percent in 2014-15, then fell off to only 1.4 percent in 2015-16. This has left it with unfunded liabilities of more than $70 billion.
Open borders advocates are active not only at the state capitol, but in many of the liberal cities of the state as well. Two San Francisco city supervisors are pushing a proposal to cut off investments in construction businesses that even bid for a federal contract to participate in the building of the wall. Hillary Ronen defended the proposal put forward by herself and fellow City Supervisor Aaron Peskin in a tweet, stating that her bill was not just some “symbolic protest.” She asserted that the proposed ordinance reflected San Francisco’s “deepest values.”
New York state legislator Nily Rozic has introduced a similar measure for the Empire State, and this is an effort that is expected to spread to other liberal-dominated states and municipalities.
It is too early to know whether many, if any, construction firms will choose to give up the chance for a lucrative government contract to build the wall, fearing divestiture legislation and ordinances. A French construction firm, Vinci, has already announced it is not interested in joining in the wall’s construction. Vinci CEO Xavier Huillard told French television that this is not intended as a “value judgment on the United States,” insisting that “we prefer not to touch this wall.”
If the city of San Francisco does pass an ordinance to divest from any company that either bids to help or actually builds the proposed wall, then it would indicate that the city’s political leaders are strongly committed to the concept of open borders. It was in San Francisco that an illegal alien murdered Kate Steinle near the San Francisco Pier. Her family sued the former sheriff of San Francisco, arguing that he failed to follow laws that would have kept her killer locked up. Yet, the open borders agenda is so popular with the left-wing California establishment that it continues unabated.
The San Diego Union-Tribune questioned the wisdom of using investment policies “for political posturing.” In an editorial, it argued that “the agencies should focus on strong returns, not virtue-signaling.”
But it appears that the authors of the divestment legislation care more about the maintenance of open borders than they do about either protecting American citizens and legal residents from criminals, or making sure California’s state employees and public school teachers enjoy well-funded retirement programs.

IS TURKEY LOST TO THE WEST?

 ERDOGAN ACCUSES EUROPE OF THE FASCISM 
HE HIMSELF PRACTICES; PROMOTES FLOODING OF EUROPE WITH JIHADISTS UNDER CALIPHATE
UNHINGED AND/OR UMMOORED?
 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
IS TURKEY LOST TO THE WEST? 
 BY PAT BUCHANAN
 Pat Buchanan
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
USA –  -(Ammoland.com)- Not long ago, a democratizing Turkey, with the second-largest army in NATO, appeared on track to join the European Union.
That's not likely now, or perhaps ever.
Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared Angela Merkel's Germany to Hitler's, said the Netherlands was full of “Nazi remnants” and “fascists,” and suggested the Dutch ambassador go home.
What precipitated Erdogan's outbursts?

City officials in Germany refused to let him campaign in Turkish immigrant communities on behalf of an April 16 referendum proposal to augment his powers.

When the Netherlands denied Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu landing rights, he exploded, saying: “The Netherlands … are reminiscent of the Europe of World War II. The same racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, anti-Semitism.”
When Turkey's family and social policies minister, Betul Sayan Kaya, drove from Germany to Rotterdam to campaign, Dutch police blocked her from entering the Turkish consulate and escorted her back to Germany.
Liberal Europeans see Erdogan's referendum as a power grab by an unpredictable and volatile ruler who has fired 100,000 civil servants and jailed 40,000 Turks after last summer's attempted coup, and is converting his country into a dictatorship.
This crisis was tailor-made for Geert Wilders, the anti-EU, anti-Muslim Dutch nationalist who is on the ballot in Wednesday's Dutch general election.
Claiming credit for the tough stance of conservative Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Wilders tweeted: “I am telling all Turks in the Netherlands that agree with Erdogan: GO to Turkey and NEVER come back!”
“Wilders is a racist, fascist Nazi,” replied Cavusoglu.
Wilders had been fading from his front-runner position, but this episode may have brought him back. While no major Dutch party would join a government led by Wilders, if he runs first in the election March 15 2017, the shock to Europe would be tremendous.
Rutte, however, who dominated the media through the weekend confrontation with the Turks, could be the beneficiary, as a resurgent nationalism pulls all parties toward the right.

All Europe now seems to be piling on the Turks. Danes, Swedes and Swiss are taking Europe's side against Erdogan.

Marine Le Pen
Marine Le Pen
Marine Le Pen, leader of the populist National Front in France, called on the socialist regime to deny Turkish leaders permission to campaign in Turkish communities. She was echoed by conservative party candidate Francois Fillon, whose once-bright hopes for the presidency all but collapsed after it was learned his wife and children had held do-nothing jobs on the government payroll.
On April 23 2017 comes the first round of the French elections. And one outcome appears predictable. Neither of the major parties — the socialists of President Francois Hollande or the Republicans of ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy –– may make it into the May 7 finals.
Le Pen, the anti-EU populist who would lift sanctions on Putin's Russia, is running even with 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron, a socialist running as the independent leader of a new movement.
Should Le Pen run first in April, the shock to Europe would be far greater than when her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, made the finals in 2002.
At the end of 2017, neither Wilders nor Le Pen is likely to be in power, but the forces driving their candidacies are growing stronger.

Foremost among these is the gnawing ethnonational fear across Europe that the migration from the South — Maghreb, the Middle East and the sub-Sahara — is unstoppable and will eventually swamp the countries, cultures and civilization of Europe and the West.

The ugly and brutal diplomatic confrontation with Turkey may make things worse, as the Turks, after generous payments from Germany, have kept Syrian civil war refugees from crossing its borders into Europe. Should Ankara open the gates, a new immigration crisis could engulf Europe this spring and summer.
Other ethnonational crises are brewing in a familiar place, the Balkans, among the successor states born of the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia.
In Bosnia, secessionists seek to pull the Serb Republic away from Sarajevo toward Belgrade. The Albanian minority in Macedonia is denouncing political discrimination. The Serbs left behind after Kosovo broke loose in 1999, thanks to 78 days of U.S. bombing of Serbia, have never been reconciled to their fate.
Montenegro has charged Russia with backing an attempted coup late last year to prevent the tiny nation from joining NATO.
The Financial Times sees Vladimir Putin's hand in what is going on in the Western Balkans, where World War I was ignited with the June 1914 assassination of the Austrian archduke in Sarajevo.

The upshot of all this:

Turkey, a powerful and reliable ally of the U.S. through the Cold War, appears to be coming unmoored from Europe and the West, and is becoming increasingly sectarian, autocratic and nationalistic.
While anti-immigrant and anti-EU parties across Europe may not take power anywhere in 2017, theirs is now a permanent and growing presence, leeching away support from centrist parties left and right.
With Russia's deepening ties to populist and nationalist parties across Europe, from Paris to Istanbul, Vlad is back in the game.


THERESA MAY'S DEEP DENIAL: LONDON JIHAD ATTACK NOT ISLAMIC, BUT "ISLAMIC TERRORISM...A PERVERSION OF A GREAT FAITH"

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THERESA MAY'S DEEP DENIAL: LONDON JIHAD ATTACK NOT ISLAMIC, BUT "ISLAMIC TERRORISM...A PERVERSION OF A GREAT FAITH" 
BY ROBERT SPENCER
 
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
How is “Islamist terrorism” a “perversion of a great faith”? The learned imam Theresa May did not bother to explain. For her and her ilk, it is self-evident.
Yet one might get the impression that violence against unbelievers is not at all a perversion of Islam from the authoritative sources in Sunni Islam, the schools of Sunni jurisprudence (madhahib):
Shafi’i school: A Shafi’i manual of Islamic law that was certified in 1991 by the clerics at Al-Azhar University, one of the leading authorities in the Islamic world, as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy, stipulates about jihad that “the caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians…until they become Muslim or pay the non-Muslim poll tax.” It adds a comment by Sheikh Nuh Ali Salman, a Jordanian expert on Islamic jurisprudence: the caliph wages this war only “provided that he has first invited [Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians] to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)…while remaining in their ancestral religions.” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.8).
Of course, there is no caliph today, unless one believes the claims of the Islamic State, and hence the oft-repeated claim that Osama et al are waging jihad illegitimately, as no state authority has authorized their jihad. But they explain their actions in terms of defensive jihad, which needs no state authority to call it, and becomes “obligatory for everyone” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.3) if a Muslim land is attacked. The end of the defensive jihad, however, is not peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims as equals: ‘Umdat al-Salik specifies that the warfare against non-Muslims must continue until “the final descent of Jesus.” After that, “nothing but Islam will be accepted from them, for taking the poll tax is only effective until Jesus’ descent” (o9.8).
Hanafi school: A Hanafi manual of Islamic law repeats the same injunctions. It insists that people must be called to embrace Islam before being fought, “because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith.” It emphasizes that jihad must not be waged for economic gain, but solely for religious reasons: from the call to Islam “the people will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war.”
However, “if the infidels, upon receiving the call, neither consent to it nor agree to pay capitation tax [jizya], it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do.” (Al-Hidayah, II.140)
Maliki school: Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a pioneering historian and philosopher, was also a Maliki legal theorist. In his renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he notes that “in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power politics,” because Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.”
Hanbali school: The great medieval theorist of what is commonly known today as radical or fundamentalist Islam, Ibn Taymiyya (Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, 1263-1328), was a Hanbali jurist. He directed that “since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.”
This is also taught by modern-day scholars of Islam. Majid Khadduri was an Iraqi scholar of Islamic law of international renown. In his book War and Peace in the Law of Islam, which was published in 1955 and remains one of the most lucid and illuminating works on the subject, Khadduri says this about jihad:
The state which is regarded as the instrument for universalizing a certain religion must perforce be an ever expanding state. The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God’s law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world….The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state. (P. 51)
Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Shari’ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad. In his 1994 book The Methodology of Ijtihad, he quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn Rushd: “Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of the Book…is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah.” Nyazee concludes: “This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised only after subjugation” of non-Muslims.
All this makes it clear that there is abundant reason to believe that violence against unbelievers is not a perversion of Islam. It would be illuminating if Theresa May or someone around her produced some quotations from Muslim authorities she considers “authentic,” and explained why the authorities I’ve quoted above and others like them are inauthentic. While in reality there is no single Muslim authority who can proclaim what is “authentic” Islam, and thus it would be prudent not to make sweeping statements about what “authentic Islam” actually is, clearly there are many Muslims who believe that violence against unbelievers is not a perversion of Islam.
One might also get the impression that violence against unbelievers is not a perversion of Islam from these Qur’an verses:
2:191-193: “And kill them wherever you come upon them, and expel them from where they expelled you; persecution is worse than slaughter. But fight them not by the Holy Mosque until they should fight you there; then, if they fight you, kill them — such is the recompense of unbelievers, but if they give over, surely Allah is All-forgiving, All-compassionate. Fight them, till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah’s; then if they give over, there shall be no enmity save for evildoers.”
4:34: “Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that Allah has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for Allah’s guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them; Allah is All-high, All-great.”
4:89: “They wish that you should disbelieve as they disbelieve, and then you would be equal; therefore take not to yourselves friends of them, until they emigrate in the way of Allah; then, if they turn their backs, take them, and kill them wherever you find them; take not to yourselves any one of them as friend or helper.”
5:33: “This is the recompense of those who fight against Allah and His Messenger, and hasten about the earth, to do corruption there: they shall be slaughtered, or crucified, or their hands and feet shall alternately be struck off; or they shall be banished from the land. That is a degradation for them in this world; and in the world to come awaits them a mighty chastisement.”
8:12: “When thy Lord was revealing to the angels, ‘I am with you; so confirm the believers. I shall cast into the unbelievers’ hearts terror; so smite above the necks, and smite every finger of them!”
8:39: “Fight them, till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah’s entirely; then if they give over, surely Allah sees the things they do.”
8:60: “Make ready for them whatever force and strings of horses you can, to strike terror thereby into the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others besides them that you know not; Allah knows them. And whatsoever you expend in the way of Allah shall be repaid you in full; you will not be wronged.”
9:5: “Then, when the sacred months are over, kill the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, and perform the prayer, and pay the alms, then let them go their way; Allah is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.”
9:29: “Fight those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, and do not practice the religion of truth, even if they are of the People of the Book — until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.”
9:111: “Allah has bought from the believers their selves and their possessions against the gift of Paradise; they fight in the way of Allah; they kill, and are killed; that is a promise binding upon Allah in the Torah, and the Gospel, and the Koran; and who fulfils his covenant truer than Allah? So rejoice in the bargain you have made with Him; that is the mighty triumph.”
9:123: “O believers, fight the unbelievers who are near to you; and let them find in you a harshness; and know that Allah is with the godfearing.”
47:4: “When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks, then, when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds; then set them free, either by grace or ransom, till the war lays down its loads. So it shall be; and if Allah had willed, He would have avenged Himself upon them; but that He may try some of you by means of others. And those who are slain in the way of Allah, He will not send their works astray.”
There are some tolerant verses in the Qur’an as well — see, for example, sura 109. But then in Islamic tradition there are authorities who say that violent passages take precedence over these verses. Muhammad’s earliest biographer, an eighth-century Muslim named Ibn Ishaq, explains the progression of Qur’anic revelation about warfare. First, he explains, Allah allowed Muslims to wage defensive warfare. But that was not Allah’s last word on the circumstances in which Muslims should fight. Ibn Ishaq explains offensive jihad by invoking a Qur’anic verse: “Then God sent down to him: ‘Fight them so that there be no more seduction,’ i.e. until no believer is seduced from his religion. ‘And the religion is God’s’, i.e. Until God alone is worshipped.”
The Qur’an verse Ibn Ishaq quotes here (2:193) commands much more than defensive warfare: Muslims must fight until “the religion is God’s” — that is, until Allah alone is worshipped. Ibn Ishaq gives no hint that that command died with the seventh century.
The great medieval scholar Ibn Qayyim (1292-1350) also outlines the stages of the Muhammad’s prophetic career: “For thirteen years after the beginning of his Messengership, he called people to God through preaching, without fighting or Jizyah, and was commanded to restrain himself and to practice patience and forbearance. Then he was commanded to migrate, and later permission was given to fight. Then he was commanded to fight those who fought him, and to restrain himself from those who did not make war with him. Later he was commanded to fight the polytheists until God’s religion was fully established.”
In other words, he initially could fight only defensively — only “those who fought him” — but later he could fight the polytheists until Islam was “fully established.” He could fight them even if they didn’t fight him first, and solely because they were not Muslim.
Nor do all contemporary Islamic thinkers believe that that command is a relic of history. According to a 20th century Chief Justice of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Humaid, “at first ‘the fighting’ was forbidden, then it was permitted and after that it was made obligatory.” He also distinguishes two groups Muslims must fight: “(1) against them who start ‘the fighting’ against you (Muslims) . . . (2) and against all those who worship others along with Allah . . . as mentioned in Surat Al-Baqarah (II), Al-Imran (III) and At-Taubah (IX) . . . and other Surahs (Chapters of the Qur’an).” (The Roman numerals after the names of the chapters of the Qur’an are the numbers of the suras: Sheikh Abdullah is referring to Qur’anic verses such as 2:216, 3:157-158, 9:5, and 9:29.)
Here again, obviously there is a widespread understanding of the Qur’an within Islamic tradition that sees it, and Islam, as mandating violence against unbelievers. And we see Muslims who clearly understand their religion as mandating violence against unbelievers acting upon that understanding around the world today. So will Theresa May defend her claim? Of course not.

“Islamic State claims responsibility for London car, knife attack that left four dead,” by Jill Lawless, Associated Press, March 23, 2017:
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Thursday for an attack by a man who plowed an SUV into pedestrians on a crowded London bridge and then stabbed a police officer to death on the grounds of Britain’s Parliament.
The attacker was born in Britain and known to authorities who had once investigated him for links to religious extremism, British Prime Minister Theresa May said Thursday in a sweeping speech in which she also encouraged Britons to go about their lives.
The Islamic State group said through its Aamaq News Agency that the attacker was a soldier of the Islamic State who “carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting citizens of the coalition” of countries fighting IS in Syria and Iraq. In addition to the police officer and the attacker, who was shot by police, two people died on Westminster Bridge and at least 30 others were injured, seven critically.
British officials did not release the attacker’s identity or confirm a link with the Islamic State group, though May did say it would be wrong to describe the attack as “Islamic” extremism.
“It is Islamist terrorism,” she said. “It is a perversion of a great faith.”…

SEAN HANNITY BLASTS GOP ON OBAMACARE REPEAL AND REPLACE PLAN

SEAN HANNITY BLASTS GOP ON OBAMACARE 
REPEAL AND REPLACE PLAN
 

DAN BONGINO, EX SECRET SERVICE AGENT: TERRORISTS ARE NOT "LONE WOLVES" ANYMORE

DAN BONGINO, EX SECRET SERVICE AGENT: TERRORISTS ARE NOT "LONE WOLVES" ANYMORE 
 

SOUTHERN BAPTIST ALBERT MOHLER GIVES AIR TIME TO AUTHOR OF "THE BENEDICT OPTION" (A MONASTIC/CATHOLIC PROMOTING BOOK)

 http://www.breakpoint.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Benedict_Option_Symposium_feature2-400x200.jpg
S.B.C. (SLOWLY BECOMING CATHOLIC)
SOUTHERN BAPTIST ALBERT MOHLER GIVES AIR TIME TO AUTHOR OF "THE BENEDICT OPTION" (A MONASTIC/CATHOLIC PROMOTING BOOK)
 https://caelumetterra.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/img_0738.jpg
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
 
LTRP Note: This is another example of a major Christian leader laying aside the integrity of biblical faith and giving credence to the Roman Catholicism and contemplative mysticism for the sake of “unity” and “morality.”
By Cathy Mickel
(Author of Spiritual Junk Food: The Dumbing Down of Christian Youth)

Albert Mohler
Where is the wisdom in Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, giving air time to Rod Dreher, the author of The Benedict Option (a book highlighting the way of Saint Benedict, Catholic “saint” and founder of the monastic Benedictine order)? (Other evangelical leaders who support the book are Matt Chandler; https://twitter.com/villagechurchtx/status/839994280101961729,  Russell Moore; http://www.russellmoore.com/2017/03/10/signposts-conversation-rod-dreher/,  and John Piper; https://twitter.com/JohnPiper/status/839647675364622336 )
In the interview, Mohler says, “[T]he book is very important. I want to commend it to every thinking Christian. We ought to read this book and we ought also to read far beyond the title.” (http://www.albertmohler.com/2017/02/13/benedict-option-conversation-rod-dreher)
The following are a few quotes from what the author of The Benedict Option said to Albert Mohler in the interview.
[T]he West owes an incalculable debt to those Benedictine monks.
So this is nothing new. We’re just rediscovering an old tradition, things that our ancestors knew. And look, I think that whether we’re evangelical, Catholic, or Orthodox, we need to go back to the early church to see how our ancestors did it, see what they did, see how they embodied the faith and culture and practices [contemplative prayer].
. . . time for Christians to take seriously the times we’re in, to read the signs of the times and to respond in a responsible way, in a clear way, in a patient way. And I use Saint Benedict of Nursia [considered the “father of western monasticism”], the 6th century saint, who was a Christian who lived through the fall of the Roman Empire; he was born four years after the Empire officially fell. And he went down to Rome to get his education and saw it was completely corrupt, it was falling apart. He went out to the woods to pray; he lived in cave for three years, and asked God to show him what to do with his life. He ended up coming out and founding a monastic order. That monastic order he founded ended up over the next few centuries spreading like wildfire throughout Western Europe. And what they did was prepare the way for civilization to return to Western Europe. They tendered within those monasteries the Scriptures, the prayers, the liturgies, and the old ways of doing things. So they became a sort of ark that traveled over the dark sea of time until it found dry land, and there was light after the darkness.” [see John Caddock’s article “Brennan Manning’s “New Monks” & Their Dangerous Contemplative Monasticism”]
One of the stories I tell in the book is about going to the Benedictine monastery in Norcia, a small town in the mountains of central Italy, that was where say Benedict was born. He was a son of the Roman governor. Well, there’s still a monastery there today. Napoleon closed it down in 1810, but in the year 2000 some American monks went there and reopened it. And they wanted to sing the traditional Latin mass, and it’s become a real oasis of Christian peace and beauty. Well, it’s the sort of place where you go there up in the mountains, and you really envy these men, their peace, where they can worship and meet visitors.
[I]n my own case, my life is shaped around liturgy that’s been in our church for 1500 years. My life is shaped around the chanting of Psalms and on all kinds of sensual ways that embody the faith. Of course you can have smells and bells and go straight to hell, that doesn’t change you and lead to greater conversion. But for me as an Orthodox Christian and me as a Catholic, the faith had more traction and it drew me in closer and closer. (emphasis added)
Here is Amazon’s description of Benedict Option:
In a radical new vision for the future of Christianity, NYT bestselling author and conservative columnist Rod Dreher calls on American Christians to prepare for the coming Dark Age by embracing an ancient Christian way of life [contemplative prayer] . . .

In The Benedict Option, Dreher calls on traditional Christians to learn from the example of St. Benedict of Nursia, a sixth-century monk who turned from the chaos and decadence of the collapsing Roman Empire, and found a new way to live out the faith in community. For five difficult centuries, Benedict’s monks kept the faith alive through the Dark Ages, and prepared the way for the rebirth of civilization. What do ordinary 21st century Christians — Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox — have to learn from the teaching and example of this great spiritual father? That they must read the signs of the times, abandon hope for a political solution to our civilization’s problems, and turn their attention to creating resilient spiritual centers that can survive the coming storm. Whatever their Christian tradition, they must draw on the secrets of Benedictine wisdom to build up the local church, create countercultural schools based on the classical tradition, rebuild family life, thicken communal bonds, and develop survival strategies for doctors, teachers, and others on the front lines of persecution. . . .
Added section from Lighthouse Trails editors—Here are a few quotes from the book, The Benedict Option:
Imagine that you are at a Catholic mass in a dreary 1970s-era suburban church that looks like a converted Pizza Hut. The next Sunday you are at a high Catholic mass in New York City, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The Scripture reading is the same in both places, and Jesus is just as present in the Eucharist at Our Lady of Pizza Hut as at St. Patrick’s. Chances are, though, that you had to work harder to conjure a sense of the true holiness of the mass in the suburban church than in the cathedral—though theologically speaking, the “information” conveyed in Word and Sacrament in both places was the same. This is the difference liturgy can make. (Dreher, Rod. The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation, pp. 106-107, Penguin Publishing Group; emphasis added)
I told the priest how, in response to a personal crisis, my own orthodox priest back in Louisiana had assigned me a strict daily prayer rule, praying the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”) for about an hour each day. It was dull and difficult at first, but I did it out of obedience. Every day, for a seemingly endless hour, silent prayer. In time, though, the hour seemed much shorter, and I discovered that the peace I had conspicuously lacked in my soul came forth. (The Benedict Option, p. 59)
For the monks, prayer is not simply words they speak. Each monk spends several hours daily doing lectio divina, a Benedictine method of Scripture study that involves reading a Scripture passage, meditating on it, praying about it, and finally contemplating its meaning for the soul. (The Benedict Option, pp. 58-59)
The Reformation broke the religious unity [with Rome] of Europe. In Protestant lands, it birthed an unresolvable crisis in religious authority, which over the coming centuries would cause unending schisms. The Benedict Option, p. 45, emphasis added)
If you don’t control your own attention, there are plenty of people eager to do it for you. The first step in regaining cognitive control is creating a space of silence in which you can think. During a deep spiritual crisis in my own life, the toxic tide of chronic anxiety did not began to recede from my mind until my priest ordered me to take up a daily rule of contemplative prayer. Stilling my mind for an hour of prayer was incredibly difficult, but it eventually opened up a beachhead in which the Holy Spirit could work to calm the stormy waters within.  (The Benedict Option, pp. 227-228, emphasis added)
In a 2017 Christianity Today article titled, “The Benedict Option’s Vision for a Christian Village” by Rod Dreher, author of The Benedict Option, Dreher says the following. Our deciphering is in brackets:
I have written The Benedict Option to wake up the church, and to encourage it to act to strengthen itself [unify by removing the barriers between Protestantism and Catholicism], while there is still time. If we want to survive, we have to return to the roots of our faith [not biblical roots, monastic roots of the desert fathers and other mystics], both in thought and in deed. We are going to have to learn habits of the heart [contemplative prayer practices – Nouwen called it moving from the moral (doctrine) to the mystical] forgotten by believers in the West [that’s what Merton taught]. We are going to have to change our lives, and our approach to life, in radical ways. In short, we are going to have to be the church, without compromise, no matter what it costs [the cost is going to be the death of biblical truth]. (source)
These remarks by Dreher are reminiscent of the contemplative pioneer and disciple of Thomas Merton, Richard Foster, when he said: “I see a Catholic monk from the hills of Kentucky standing alongside a Baptist evangelist from the streets of Los Angeles and together offering up a sacrifice of praise. I see a people.” (Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water, San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1998, p. 273) We need not look very far to know how such an ecumenical unifying will take place. The contemplative prayer movement is the vehicle, and it is in our midst waiting for the unaware and undiscerning to hop on for the ride.
One can only wonder, will there be any Christian leaders left standing when the battle is over?  Remember the words of Jesus when He said,
[W]hen the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8)
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 An Appendix on the Al Mohler Situation: “The Contemplative Christian (The Christian of the Future?)”
By Ray Yungen
Within the evangelical world, contemplative prayer is increasingly being promoted and accepted. As a result, it is losing its esoteric aspect and is now seen by many as the wave of the future. One can't help but notice the positive exposure it is getting in the Christian media these days. In Today's Christian Woman, a popular and trusted Christian magazine, feature titles make the appeal to draw closer to God. The author of one such article says, Like a growing number of evangelicals, I've turned to spiritual direction because I want to know God better.1 But without exception, every person she cites is a dedicated contemplative, one being Ruth Haley Barton, author of Invitation to Solitude and Silence. Barton was trained at the Shalem Institute (founded by panentheist Tilden Edwards); and in fact, that organization was featured in the article as a resource for the reader. However, considering the content of many statements on the Shalem Institute website, how could Shalem even be listed as a resource for Christians? Listen to a few:
In Christianity and other traditions that understand God to be present everywhere, contemplation includes a reverence for the Divine Mystery, "finding God in all things," or "being open to God's presence," however it may appear.2
[Thomas] Merton taught that there is only one way to develop this radical language of prayer: in silence.3
The rhythm of the group includes . . . chanting, two periods of sitting in silence separated by walking meditation, and a time for optional sharing.4
In another magazine article, Ruth Haley Barton, who incidentally is the former Associate Director of Spiritual Formation at Willow Creek Community Church, echoes Southern Baptist-turned-goddess worshiper Sue Monk Kidd in many ways, including the general malaise or condition of the human soul. Barton recounts:
A few years ago, I began to recognize an inner chaos in my soul . . . No matter how much I prayed, read the Bible, and listened to good teaching, I could not calm the internal roar created by questions with no answers.5
Ruth Haley Barton
The following scenario Barton relates could be the wave of the future for the evangelical church if this movement continues to unfold in the manner it already has:
I sought out a spiritual director, someone well versed in the ways of the soul . . . eventually this wise woman said to me . . . "What you need is stillness and silence so that the sediment can settle and the water can become clear." . . . I decided to accept this invitation to move beyond my addiction to words.6
By "addiction to words," she means normal ways of praying. She still uses words, but only three of them, "Here I am." This is nothing other than the Cloud of Unknowing or the prayer of the heart.
Like Richard Foster, Barton argues that God cannot be reached adequately, if at all, without the silence. In referring to 1 Kings 19 when Elijah was hiding in a cave, Barton encourages:
God loves us enough to wait for us to come openly to Him. Elijah's experience shows that God doesn't scream to get our attention. Instead, we learn that our willingness to listen in silence opens up a quiet space in which we can hear His voice, a voice that longs to speak and offer us guidance for our next step.7
What Barton fails to mention here is that Elijah was a valiant defender of the belief in the one, unique God Yahweh (as seen in his encounter with the 450 prophets of Baal), and he never went into an altered state of silence in his personal encounter with God.
Barton is no longer teaching at Willow Creek. She left there to start the Transforming Center and now teaches pastors and other Christian leaders spiritual formation. Hers is just one of many avenues through which contemplative prayer is creating a new kind of Christian, possibly the Christian of the future.
Endnotes:
1. Agnieszka Tennant, "Drawing Closer to God" (Today's Christian Woman, September/October 2004, Vol. 26, No. 5), p. 14. Published by Christianity Today International, Carol Stream, Illinois.
2. Shalem Institute, "What Does Contemplative Mean?" (Shalem Institute About Shalem page, http://web.archive.org/web/20050204190729/http://shalem.org/about.html#contemplative).
3. Ann Kline, "A New Language of Prayer" (Shalem Institute newsletter, Vol. 29, No. 1, Winter 2005, http://web.archive.org/web/20060930230219/http://www.shalem.org/publication/newsletter/archives/2005/2005_winter/article_04).
4. Shalem Institute website, General Events, "Radical Prayer: A Simple Loving Presence Group" (http://www.shalem.org/programs/generalprograms/groupsevents_folder; no longer online, on file at LT).
5. Ruth Haley Barton, "Beyond Words," Issue #113, September/October, 1999, http://web.archive.org/web/20060628075740/http://www.navpress.com/EPubs/DisplayArticle/1/1.113.13.html), p. 35.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., pp. 37-38.
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SEE:
http://www.albertmohler.com/2017/02/13/benedict-option-conversation-rod-dreher/ 
SEE OUR PREVIOUS POST ABOUT MOHLER'S APOSTASY:
http://ratherexposethem.blogspot.com/2017/03/sho-baraka-southern-baptist-albert.html