By Phyllis Chesler

So, I’m guilty, I also stood on line with everyone else and contributed to James Bond’s record-setting weekend box office receipts of $70.4 million dollars in hard American currency. Daniel Craig’s Bond in Quantam of Solace has just trumped his earlier record in Casino Royale of $40 million dollars for an opening weekend. … (Continue reading…)

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

The Wall Street Journal reports that there may be a concerted effort by Democrats to fix a vote recount for Minnesota’s Senatorial seat so that “left-wing joker Al Franken” will “win” the election. The recount process is being presided over by the fox-tending-the-chicken-coop Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D):

… who isn’t exactly a nonpartisan observer. One of Mr. Ritchie’s financial supporters during his 2006 run for office was a 527 group called the Secretary of State Project, which was co-founded by James Rucker, who came from MoveOn.org. The group says it is devoted to putting Democrats in jobs where they can “protect elections.”

Mr. Ritchie is also an ally of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, of fraudulent voter-registration fame. That relationship might explain why prior to the election Mr. Ritchie waved off evidence of thousands of irregularities on Minnesota voter rolls, claiming that accusations of fraud were nothing more than “desperateness” from Republicans. …

Here are the salient points of the shenanigans going on, but you should read the entire article:

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A briefing by Andrew C. McCarthy*

Andrew McCarthy is the director of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. A former federal prosecutor, he has served as a special assistant to the deputy secretary of defense. After the 9/11 attacks, he supervised the U.S. Attorney’s Anti-Terrorism Command Post in New York City. He is a contributor to National Review and Commentary, as well as various other publications. Among his numerous awards is the Justice Department’s highest honor, the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service Award. He has taught at Fordham University Law School and New York Law School. On October 6, 2008, McCarthy addressed the Middle East Forum in New York City about his new book, Willful Blindness: Memoir of the Jihad. It builds on his article, “Prosecuting the New York Sheikh,” which appeared in the March 1997 Middle East Quarterly, and his acceptance speech on receiving the Middle East Forum’s Albert J. Wood Public Affairs Award in 1996.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Two men on a motorcycle used water pistols to spray acid on girls walking to school Wednesday in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, blinding at least two of them, military spokesmen said. ….

CNN.com, 11/12/08

Also yesterday in Afghanistan, a “… suicide bombing … occurred near a government building hours later that killed and wounded several civilians, including women and children.” And in neighboring Pakistan yesterday, “Gunmen shot dead a U.S. aid official along with his driver as he left his home in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Wednesday, a senior police official said.”

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by Michael Rubin*

“Not talking doesn’t make us look tough — it makes us look arrogant,” President-elect Barack Obama declares. Throughout his campaign, he has promised renewed engagement after eight years of moribund diplomacy. Chief among his diplomatic targets is Syria, low-hanging fruit unencumbered by the political minefield that would result from engaging the Hamas-dominated Palestinian government. Obama has already dispatched once and future adviser Robert Malley to discuss his regional agenda with Syrian leaders.

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by Daniel Pipes*

Ali ibn Abi-Talib, the seventh-century figure central to Shiite Islam, is said to have predicted when the world will end, columnist Amir Taheri points out. A “tall black man” commanding “the strongest army on earth” will take power “in the west.” He will carry “a clear sign” from the third imam, Hussein. Ali says of the tall black man: “Shiites should have no doubt that he is with us.”

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By Phyllis Chesler*

She knew.

She told her friends that her father was going to kill her. She ran away, stayed at a shelter, stayed with friends. She was lured back home by honeyed sentences. Her family could not sleep without her. Late last year, on December 10th, in Toronto, sixteen year-old Aqsa Parvez’s father. Mohammed, and her brother, Waqas, collaborated in her murder.

Aqsa’s crime? She refused to wear hijab, she was becoming too assimilated.

Mohammed and Waqas Parvez are currently in jail awaiting trial.

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by Daniel Pipes*

NOTE: This is Daniel Pipes’ foreword to the new book by Jonathan Schanzer, Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle For Palestine, released today.

Divisions among Palestinians generally do not receive their due attention, Jonathan Schanzer correctly points out, in the immense academic and journalistic coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead, an official, propagandistic, and inaccurate party line holds sway. To quote Rashid Khalidi, a former Palestine Liberation Organization employee now teaching at Columbia University,^[i] a “uniform Palestinian identity” exists. The Palestinians are one — full stop, end of story.

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By Phyllis Chesler

Every hospital patient has a story. Just stop anyone on the street. Ask your relatives and friends. If they’ve done time in a hospital they’ll tell you about some indignity, perhaps a nightmare or two. If you haven’t heard these stories, it’s partly because you haven’t asked, or more likely, because most people want to forget about their hospital experiences if they can.

It is hard for me to write about such minor humiliations. Why? Because in terms of science and medicine, we are blessed to be alive in the American twenty-first century — and we know it. … (Continue reading…)

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By Andrew L. Jaffee Australians defiant

Australians have finally found some justice and hopefully, a sense of peace and closure. Three Islamists were executed by Indonesian authorities on Sunday, shortly after midnight, for the heinous, cowardly, and evil bombings of several nightclubs in Bali on October 12, 2002, an act which “killed 202 people — most of them young Australians — and injured more than 300.” Australians have held steadfast in the war against Islamo-fascism, and will probably become even more unwavering in defense of Western ideals after hearing the twisted and unremorseful ramblings of the three Bali bombers before their executions.

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By Phyllis Chesler*

The people are talking about it on television and in newspapers and magazines. Of course, I refer to the positive effect that President Obama’s election is expected to have on young African-American men and on the conversation about race.

Jonathan Kaufman and Gary Fields, in “Election of Obama Recasts National Conversation on Race,” in The Wall Street Journal.

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By Raheel Raza*

If you are Canadian and Islamist, you probably voted for the New Democratic Party (NDP), which won 18.2% of the vote on October 14, 2008. This was an increase in of about 1% in the vote and led to seven more seats from the 2006 elections. However, the party could not budge itself from its permanent 4^th place in Canada’s parliament. Endorsed by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), the left-leaning NDP has shown an incredible lack of understanding of the Islamist agenda and how soft jihadis are using democratic institutions by manipulating our respect for multiculturalism.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

I supported McCain, but I’m starting to get a little tired of all the dire prognostications about an Obama presidency. Some good has already come out of his election, and the voters have spoken. It is my desire and duty as a citizen to support our new president, and give him a chance. From yesterday’s USAToday, entitled, “Poll: Hopes are high for race relations:”

Barack Obama’s election has inspired a wave of optimism about the future of race relations in the United States, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken the day after the first African American won the White House.

Confidence that the nation will resolve its racial problems rose to a historic level. Two-thirds of Americans predict that relations between blacks and whites “will eventually be worked out” in the United States, by far the highest number since Gallup first asked the question in the midst of the civil rights struggle in 1963. …

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By Joe Kaufman*

Combating radical Islam requires understanding the lawful or peaceful means Islamists use to spread their doctrines.

Islamism is a threat to America because it does not accept the principles of general religious freedom, as protected under the U.S. Constitution. Rather, it has a totalitarian agenda that does not recognize national boundaries or the separation of religious dictates from the social, political, and economic governance of society — including the private lives of its citizenry. The Islamist view of law is based on Shari’a (Islamic law), not the American Constitution.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

I always thought it was kind of obvious that Americans were evolving — seeing people as more than just black and white (skin colors) — especially since the late ’60s. Just look at the Bush Administration, which “appointed a more diverse set of top advisers than any president in history”, like Condoleezza Rice, Colin L. Powell, Roderick R. Paige, Alphonso Jackson, Claude Allen, Leo S. Mackay, Jr., Larry D. Thompson, and Stephen A. Perry.

Obama wouldn’t have been elected if not for white voters (if we can define what “white” means). Many children who may have written their own futures off because of their race will now have new hope for success, and they will know that working hard and getting educated, as Obama did, is important. It will also be harder for people to shirk personal responsibility by using the race card as many consider the presidency the highest achievement in the land, and an African-American has made it.

Confirmation that race is becoming less important to Americans has come from none other than the New York Times in a story entitled, “For Pollsters, the Racial Effect That Wasn’t:”

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