So says Dr. Tawfik Hamid, senior fellow and chair for the Study of Islamic Radicalism at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. Hamid is a former member of the terrorist Islamic organization Jamaa Islamiya with Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who later became the second in command of Al-Qaeda. For more than 25 years Hamid has spoken out in favor of reformation in the Muslim world based on peaceful interpretations of Islamic texts.

The Cordoba Initiative’s choice of location for the Cordoba House Islamic center may be constitutionally protected, he said, but it is insensitive and has caused a rift between the Muslim community and America.

“My worry is this can be the spark that can create a clash of civilizations if our leaders are not wise enough to have a strategy that can respect everyone and end it in a peaceful way to bring moderate people to the table to stop radicalism that can come from both sides,” he said.

Also, Hamid said, should the center be built at the Park Place site, the radicals responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks will believe their actions paved the way for a new Islamic institution in America.

“The aim of building the mosque was to build bridges,” he said. “The outcome was the opposite of this. By the radicals it will be seen as a sign of victory and encourage more attacks on America.”

Recently, Hamid wrote a Declaration of Beliefs of Muslim Moderates, which calls for “contemporary understandings of Islam to replace currently predominant harsh and radical (Salafi/Wahabbi) interpretations of our religion.”

The declaration calls for Muslims to ban the Redda Law, which Hamid said allows for the killing of Muslims who convert out of the faith; an end to violence against women; a rejection of the idea of Islamic domination of the world; a declaration of anti-Semitism and slavery as un-Islamic; and an end to laws that permit the killing of homosexuals.

The declaration — which is circulating on the Internet — is part of what Hamid called a new theological interpretation, providing a way that Islam can remain viable without radical interpretations of core values.

“That is the problem with many Muslims — they are so scared that if they start to touch these values their religion will collapse. The only way to help these people is to give them other interpretations.”

Hamid has received mostly positive feedback from non-Muslims to his declaration, while the Muslim community has thus far remained silent, he said. The requests in the document are simple and can be phrased as yes or no questions that get at the core of Muslim beliefs. He expects Muslim leaders who sign it to take action to change Islamic education, rather than just pay lip service to the document, he said.

“Many people, especially intellectuals, consider it one of the best ways to evaluate and define if a leader of Muslims is a real moderate or a radical,” he said.

In the end, Hamid believes the Cordoba Initiative will change the location of the Islamic center. If the group shows that it did not intend to cause pain or act insensitively, that will help close the rift it has caused. He also suggested that wherever Cordoba House ends up, organizers should build a memorial to Sept. 11 victims inside.

Hamid challenged Cordoba Initiative founder Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to sign the Declaration of Beliefs. If Rauf does this, he said, the radicals will look at the mosque as a sign of defeat.

“If this imam can stand clearly and unambiguously and sign this declaration, I will be the first to support him,” Hamid said.

Editor's Note:  We have reprinted Josh Lipowski's "Mosque Near Ground Zero?" from the Jewish Standard in full here. We encourage you to visit the original.

NFRA proudly featured Dr. Tawfik Hamid as a speaker at the NFRA 2009 National Convention in Reno, NV. The Declaration of Beliefs of Muslim Moderates is below. You can learn more about Dr. Hamid at his website: www.tawfikhamid.com.

Declaration of Beliefs of Muslim Moderates

I (We) are Muslims who want contemporary understandings of Islam to replace currently predominant harsh and radical (Salafi/Wahabbi) interpretations of our religion. We therefore declare that:

1- Redda Law, the Sharia Law that allows the killing of Muslims who convert to other faiths, must be banned in Islamic teachings and in Sharia legal doctrine. Islamic countries that practice Sharia must stop the practice of this law and must admit that Freedom of belief and the right to convert to other faith or believe is a basic right that must be given to all Muslims.

2- Current mainstream Sharia doctrines justify the use of violence against women. They encourage men to beat their wives to discipline them. They allow women accused of adultery to be stoned to death. These doctrines are barbarically inhumane, non-egalitarian, and teach Muslim children to be violent. These teachings must be ended by reinterpreting the Islamic text that justifies such violence.

3- Traditional Sharia doctrines teach Muslims that they must engage in war so that Islam will dominate the world. When Islam becomes dominant, Non-Muslims are offered three options: to convert to Islam, to pay Jizzia (a humiliating tax), or to be killed. These doctrines run contrary to modern respect for diversity and for personal freedom of speech and belief. This understanding of Jihad that seeks domination of Islam over other peoples must no longer be regarded as an Islamic value and its teaching as a duty for Muslims must end.

The early Islamic wars known as “Futohaat Islameia” were fought to implement this doctrine of Jihad. These wars therefore should now be regarded as un-Islamic and un-justifiable.

4- Jews are individuals who deserve the same respect accorded to all individuals. They should not be called “pigs and monkeys.” The Islamic teaching that Muslims must fight and kill all Jews before the end of days is totally incorrect and unacceptable as it does not exist in the Quran. All teachings that encourage anti-Semitic attitudes, violence or disrespect toward Jews must be declared un-Islamic.

5- Slavery is a crime against humanity. All Sharia laws that justify slavery in our modern times must not be taught any more. Muslim scholars must have a clear and loud voice against slavery.

6- Islamic Sharia laws currently permit the killing homosexuals. These laws also are advocating a crime against our fellow human beings. They must be declared un-Islamic and their implementation must be considered criminal.

Signed,

Dr. Tawfik Hamid

The above violent teachings, which currently are taught in mainstream Islamic books in America, are implemented in countries that allow governance according to Sharia Law. Future Muslim generations must be protected from these destructive doctrines, interpretations and customs.

These violent Sharia doctrines must be replaced with clear and unconditional explanations of why they no longer are valid.

Anything short of a fully clear and unequivocal stand against these doctrines indicates passive approval. Therefore, all Islamic leaders who genuinely consider themselves to be Muslim moderates must post these principles in English and in Arabic in full public view on their websites and declare them in their media outlets.

Failure to publically post and support these principles should be interpreted as clear evidence that a leader’s mosque or Islamic organization must be considered radical.

Related Posts

• No Related Posts

The subtitle of the article appears to tell more: "Conservatives outnumber liberals in nearly every state, but not in D.C." That subtitle, in much smaller font below the headline, is, in fact, false. The data which Gallup provides in the actual poll reveals this remarkable fact: conservatives outnumber liberals in every single state of our nation, without exception, including such proverbial bastions of leftism as Massachusetts, Hawaii, Vermont, and Rhode Island. This is electrifying news, particularly in light of the Tea Party movement and the rebellion within the Republican Party against RINOs. Why would Gallup ignore this fascinating news it discovered? Why would Gallup place a subtitle around this poll which is not true and which understates the poll's importance?

Six months later, Gallup announced a poll on the same question: the ideology of respondents in each of the fifty states. What was the title of this article? "Ideology: Three Deep South States Most Conservative," although in much smaller print, the subtitle was "Only District of Columbia has More Liberals than Conservatives." This reconfirms the almost unbelievable results of the August 2009 poll, yet Gallup practicably ignores what its own data shows.

On August 18, 2010, Gallup announced that "Voter Enthusiasm Highest Among Conservatives," but don't try reading the online article. Instead, watch and listen to Frank Newport, Editor in Chief, talking to you about the data but only barely showing it. Why not let visitors see the data instead of listening to Dr. Newport tell us what he thinks the data means (conservatives and liberals are the most enthused voters and moderates the least enthused)? Because -- if you are prepared to stop and start the video clip and look for the faded numbers -- the dramatic difference in ideological enthusiasm makes the title of the poll patently milquetoast. It is almost as if Gallup did not want you examining intellectually its data and wanted you, instead, to watch Newport's bobbing head as he speaks on a busy city sidewalk.

Most curious of all is the poll dated August 17, 2010 with the title "GOP Shows Strongest Positioning Yet in 2010 Test Vote." The four graphs in that article show that since January 2010, Republican support in the generic congressional ballot reached a high water mark in mid-August 2010: interesting, but with polls fluctuating all over the place in the last decade, how important is that polling data really? Surely Gallup did not appear to see much historic about the generic ballot data in August.

But the Gallup Poll released also in August 2010, entitled "Gallup Election 2010 Key Indicators," shows something incomparably more interesting. The tables at the top show that Republicans have a seven-point lead in the generic ballot, and the graph immediately below that -- which inexplicably stretches out a five-month period -- seems to show that the lines of congressional ballot support for the two political parties have almost no trend at all. The bottom graph, which is curiously disconnected from the other graph, shows the generic ballot trends from 1950 to 2006. (Why not extend that to 2010?) That graph shows that, except for a brief period in 1994, when Republicans had a five-point lead for a few weeks, and for a briefer period in 2002, when Republicans had a four-point lead, Democrats have always led in the congressional ballot.

Go to yet another Gallup Poll, this one released on April 13, 2010, and the investigative reader would discover that in those periods not shown in the August 2010 article, Democrats led on the generic congressional ballot from 2006 through 2009 -- which is not particularly surprising. Put these three separate articles together, and a genuinely dramatic fact can be deciphered: in August 2010, the Gallup generic ballot showed Republicans stronger against Democrats than in more than sixty years of tracking this data.

So why is the title to this article not "Republican Lead over Democrats Largest in Polling History"? Or why not "Democrat Generic Ballot Weakest in Sixty Years"? Why, since Gallup reports all this data in scattered reports and must have all the figures together in a single database, did someone at Gallup not play with a spreadsheet, push a button, and then say, "Wow! Look at this, guys! Republicans are in the best position on the congressional ballot than they have ever been! What a story!" We all know why, don't we?

Editor's Note: We have reprinted former NFRA Treasurer Bruce Walker's "Gallup Ignoring Its Own Big Stories" from American Thinker in full here. For additional links to corroborating evidence and more articles by Bruce Walker we encourage you to visit the original.

Related Posts

• No Related Posts

Technorati Tags: Bias, Polls

“This is a great day for West Virginia.” declared West Virginia Republican Assembly President Mark Scott, a former state chairman candidate whose backing helped put Stuart over the top. “Republicans in the Mountain State now have representation that reflects their true conservative values. They can count on the WVRA to lead the way.”

“It's a great time for the West Virginia Republican party and the WVRA,” affirmed Rod Martin, President of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies. “We look forward to working with West Virginia conservatives to build on this victory, and to elect the kind of state and federal officeholders West Virginia deserves."

Both Stuart and Scott had previously run for the office. Mark Scott said, "I decided that the best way to advance the conservative agenda in our state was to join forces with Stuart rather than run myself. He and I are of like mind. Also, many of his core supporters are members of the WVRA."

The governing body of the state party has a solid representation from members of the West Virginia Republican Assembly. "This board is conservative through and through. Conservative activists are now in control of the state party," said Scott. " Three of the nine vice chairmen are members of the WVRA. All but two of the others are of like mind.”

“Seventy percent of Republicans self-identify as conservative,” Martin added, “while just three percent self-identify liberal. So why does the tail always seem to wag the dog in our Party? Well, it doesn’t anymore in West Virginia, and the West Virginia Republican Assembly made it happen.”

The West Virginia Republican Assembly, the state’s affiliate of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA), gives voice to the overwhelming conservative majority in the Republican Party and recruits committed conservatives to get involved and take their Party back. The West Virginia Republican Assembly website is located at http://www.wvra.us while the NFRA website is at http://www.RepublicanAssemblies.org.

#####

If you would like to schedule an interview with NFRA President Dr. Rod D. Martin, or would like more information about the National Federation of Republican Assemblies, please email Jennifer Wortham at Secretary@RepublicanAssemblies.org or call (850) 687-4382.

Related Posts

• No Related Posts

Technorati Tags: West Virginia Republican Assembly

Dr. Donald Berwick

Barack Obama's incredible "recess appointment" of Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is probably the most significant domestic-policy personnel decision in a generation. It is more important to the direction of the country than Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court.

The court's decisions are subject to the tempering influence of nine competing minds. Dr. Berwick would direct an agency that has a budget bigger than the Pentagon. Decisions by the CMS shape American medicine.

Dr. Berwick's ideas on the design and purpose of the U.S. system of medicine aren't merely about "change." They would be revolutionary.

One may agree with these views or not, but for the president to tell the American people they have to simply accept this through anything so flaccid as a recess appointment is beyond outrageous. It isn't acceptable.

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, was taken aback at the end-around: "Senate confirmation of presidential appointees is an essential process prescribed by the Constitution that serves as a check on executive power."

Let's look, then, at what President Obama won't let the American electorate hear Dr. Berwick say in front of a committee of Congress. These excerpts are from past speeches and articles by Dr. Berwick:

"I cannot believe that the individual health care consumer can enforce through choice the proper configurations of a system as massive and complex as health care. That is for leaders to do."

"You cap your health care budget, and you make the political and economic choices you need to make to keep affordability within reach."

"Please don't put your faith in market forces. It's a popular idea: that Adam Smith's invisible hand would do a better job of designing care than leaders with plans can."

"Indeed, the Holy Grail of universal coverage in the United States may remain out of reach unless, through rational collective action overriding some individual self-interest, we can reduce per capita costs."

"It may therefore be necessary to set a legislative target for the growth of spending at 1.5 percentage points below currently projected increases and to grant the federal government the authority to reduce updates in Medicare fees if the target is exceeded."

"About 8% of GDP is plenty for 'best known' care."

"A progressive policy regime will control and rationalize financing—control supply."

"The unaided human mind, and the acts of the individual, cannot assure excellence. Health care is a system, and its performance is a systemic property."

"Health care is a common good—single payer, speaking and buying for the common good."

"And it's important also to make health a human right because the main health determinants are not health care but sanitation, nutrition, housing, social justice, employment, and the like."

"Hence, those working in health care delivery may be faced with situations in which it seems that the best course is to manipulate the flawed system for the benefit of a specific patient or segment of the population, rather than to work to improve the delivery of care for all. Such manipulation produces more flaws, and the downward spiral continues."

"For-profit, entrepreneurial providers of medical imaging, renal dialysis, and outpatient surgery, for example, may find their business opportunities constrained."

"One over-demanded service is prevention: annual physicals, screening tests, and other measures that supposedly help catch diseases early."

"I would place a commitment to excellence—standardization to the best-known method—above clinician autonomy as a rule for care."

"Health care has taken a century to learn how badly we need the best of Frederick Taylor [the father of scientific management]. If we can't standardize appropriate parts of our processes to absolute reliability, we cannot approach perfection."

"Young doctors and nurses should emerge from training understanding the values of standardization and the risks of too great an emphasis on individual autonomy."

"Political leaders in the Labour Government have become more enamored of the use of market forces and choice as an engine for change, rather than planned, centrally coordinated technical support."

"The U.K has people in charge of its health care—people with the clear duty and much of the authority to take on the challenge of changing the system as a whole. The U.S. does not."

***

There is no need to rehearse the analogies in literature and social thought that Dr. Berwick's ideas summon. That the Obama White House would try to push this past public scrutiny with a recess appointment says more about Barack Obama than it does Dr. Berwick.

Vilifying Dr. Berwick alone for his views is in a way beside the point. Within Mr. Obama's circle they all think like this. Defeat Dr. Berwick, and they will send up 50 more who would pursue the same goals.

If the American people want the world Dr. Berwick wishes to give them, that's their choice. But they must be given that choice with full, televised confirmation hearings.

Barack Obama, Donald Berwick and the rest may fancy themselves philosopher kings who know what we need without the need to inform or persuade us first. That's not how it works here. That is Sen. Baucus's point.

It should be clear why Berwick is bigger than Kagan. We need a large public debate over these views, over what Mr. Obama has said his health plan would and would not do. We need to find out if every Democrat in Congress and every Democrat writing newspaper columns and blogs agrees with Dr. Berwick about clinical and individual autonomy and about leaders with plans.

Then we need to build an election around whether we want to go down the road Dr. Berwick has planned for us, or start dismantling the one that President Obama paved through Congress on a partisan vote.

Editor's Note: We have reprinted Daniel Henninger's "Berwick Recess Appointment Is Bigger Than Kagan" from the Wall Street Journal in full here. We encourage you to visit the original.

Related Posts

• No Related Posts

Technorati Tags: CMS, Donald Berwick, Recess Appointment

Saint Charles, MO ─ The Missouri Republican Assembly endorsement convention has unanimously endorsed Congressman Roy Blunt for the Republican nomination for United States Senator. The vote was taken during Missouri Lincoln Days in Saint Charles, Missouri, with the endorsement convention recalling the words of Thomas Jefferson who said, “One man with courage is a majority.”

William S. Magill, Chairman of the Missouri Republican Assembly, stated; “Congressman Blunt is a statesman whose moral compass steadfastly points to true North. A Statesman, who at the core of his very soul, understands that the Liberty of which the Constitution of the United States speaks includes the freedom and right to life, the freedom to be raised and nurtured in a traditional family, the freedom to choose our own destiny, unencumbered by unnecessary Governmental interference, and the freedom of death with dignity. Congressman Blunt is not only a friend of genuine conservative values; he is a valiant warrior for them.”

“This election is not complicated," Roy Blunt said. "Missourians understand that Washington is broken and if the country continues to be driven in the wrong direction by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama it could become irrevocably broken. We must and we will lead the charge to restore conservative principles and protect our Constitutional Liberties in Washington. Missourians want their federal government to do the things it should be doing well, and then get out of the way so Missourians can create jobs and prosperity. I am honored that the Missouri Republican Assembly is endorsing my candidacy and I look forward to working with principled conservatives throughout the state to help more Missourians achieve the American Dream in an America as envisioned by our Founding Fathers.”

###

Released under the authority of the Missouri Republican Assembly.

Missouri Republican Assembly 1536 E. Primrose Springfield, MO 65804

Contact: Dr. W. Scott Magill
(417) 886-8898
Hollideck@aol.com

Related Posts

• Missouri Republican Assembly Endorses Allen Icet for State Auditor
• Missouri Republican Assembly Announces 2010 Endorsements

Technorati Tags: Missouri Republican Assembly, Roy Blunt

Icet campaign manager Keith Kirk said he was not surprised by the weekend’s events. “Conservatives overwhelmingly support Allen Icet,” said Kirk. “ Allen has conservative friends and supporters in every community in our state.”

“This campaign will be a true test of Missouri’s conservative values,” continued Kirk. That’s why over 200 conservative activist held a rally in support of Allen’s campaign this past Saturday afternoon. They came from all corners of our great state to support Allen’s values and his campaign. Come August, I think we’ll find that Missourians will proudly join in Allen Icet’s effort to bring fiscal sanity and common sense conservative values to the office of the Missouri Auditor.”

###

Contact: Ross Branson, 573.645.0553

http://www.icetforauditor.com/

Related Posts

• Missouri Republican Assembly Endorses Roy Blunt for U.S. Senate.
• Missouri Republican Assembly Announces 2010 Endorsements

Technorati Tags: Allen Icet, Missouri Republican Assembly

I've just received final word that the election is now over. The results from Saturday and the recount on Tuesday stand and I have won by 1 vote.

I want to thank each and every one of you for your support through this entire long process. I know the emails, phone calls, fliers and miles of yard signs can seem to go on for ever but they serve their purpose. What is vitally important to know is that each and every vote really does count. One single vote can change the outcome of an election and the future of a city. Thank you for trusting me with that future.

I've heard many stories of who that one single vote is. The young lady who waits tables at a local restaurant who has never voted before. The sick husband who didn't feel like voting but did. The wife who usually doesn't vote but did this time. The man who said he was going in and voting for me after talking for 45 minutes outside the polls. Or the 19 year old who came to the polls with her mom and didn't think her vote would make a difference but voted anyway. And the lady  next door that you emailed or called and convinced her that her vote was important. The reality is that the one single vote was YOU! Your vote mattered. It matters in every election.

Please feel free to contact me any time you have a question or concern. I plan to keep the website up so you can always reach me through that. Or you can simply email me. Or call me if you prefer to do that. You can always find me on Facebook or Twitter as well!  I'm not hard to reach.

It's been an interesting process and I have learned from it. Now I'm ready to move forward and get busy doing my part to serve the city of Rowlett and most importantly, serve you.

Please stay in touch!  God bless!

Michael Gallops

Rowlett City Councilman Elect

###

The NFRA congratulates Michael Gallops on his election to the Rowlett, TX, City Council by a margin of one vote! Every vote really does matter, every single election. We have reposted Councilman Elect Gallop's thank you letter to the One Voter here, we encourage you to visit the original.

Related Posts

• Rhode Island Republican Assembly 2010 Endorsements
• Missouri Republican Assembly Announces 2010 Endorsements
• NFRA Endorsed Candidate Angle Wins Nevada Primary
• ObamaCare’s Ever-Rising Price Tag
• NFRA Endorses Sharron Angle for U.S. Senate in Nevada

Technorati Tags: 2010 Elections, Michael Gallops, vote

On Saturday afternoon, June 12th, 2010, the Rhode Island Republican Assembly (RIRA) held its Biennial Endorsement Convention at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, from 12:00 until 4:30 p.m., to endorse candidates who were seeking the Conservative organization’s support. The RIRA’s by-laws require a 2/3rd’s vote from the voting membership for any endorsement.

The event was attended by over 100 people, including all of the Republican statewide and federal candidates. The candidates were all allowed to speak to the convention, putting forth why RIRA should endorse them, and were allowed to answer questions from all in attendance.

The following candidates were endorsed the Rhode Island Republican Assembly:

First Congressional District – John Loughlin

Second Congressional District – Mark Zaccaria

Governor – John Robitaille

Lt. Governor – No Endorsement

Attorney General – Erik Wallin

Treasurer – Kernan “Kerry” King

Secretary of State – No Endorsement

The Rhode Island Republican Assembly will meet again on July 15, 2010 to take up any additional endorsements based on last minute filings.

The Rhode Island Republican Assembly also voted on several resolutions pertinent to this year’s elections. These resolutions also required a 2/3rd’s vote in the affirmative from the voting membership:

1) PASSED – Abolition of the office of Lieutenant Governor. RIRA’s stance is that this office should be combined with the office of the Governor.

2) PASSED – Opposing binding arbitration / perpetual contracts. RIRA opposes any effort by the General Assembly to pass laws which would create unending contracts or require state and local governments and school committees to be subjected to binding arbitration.

3) PASSED – Urging Governor Carcieri to veto the FY 2011 state budget. RIRA’s stance is that the General Assembly has ignored its duty and responsibilities by putting forth a budget that is not balanced, relies on Federal Funds that have not been appropriated yet, and that said Federal Funds would be coming from an unbalanced Federal Budget with a $14 Trillion deficit.

4) PASSED – Opposing efforts to change the name of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The Rhode Island Republican Assembly believes that the State of Rhode Island’s historic, formal name should not be changed.

5) PASSED – Support of Arizona illegal immigration law. The Rhode Island Republican Assembly supports Arizona’s use of the 10th amendment to protect the American Citizens and require all people who are in the United States of America to adhere to the laws of this sovereign nation and supports the efforts to enforce Federal Laws that have been written years prior to the Arizona law.

6) PASSED – Opposing Deepwater wind project. The Rhode Island Republican Assembly, while supporting green initiatives and technology to make our environment better and to create jobs in Rhode Island, opposes the effort by the General Assembly to intervene in the free market system on behalf of one company or any companies. If the Wind Project is valid and cost justifiable through private market investments and calculated Return on Investments, then it should go forward on its own merits without State guarantees or creating laws that allow for by-passing the due process that has been established over the years.

###

For more information on the Rhode Island Republican Assembly please visit http://ri-ra.org.

Related Posts

• Missouri Republican Assembly Announces 2010 Endorsements
• NFRA Endorses Sharron Angle for U.S. Senate in Nevada
• GOP Faces Internal Debates in 2010
• Your Vote Matters!!!
• NFRA Endorsed Candidate Angle Wins Nevada Primary

Technorati Tags: 2010 Elections, Endorsements, Erik Wallin, John Loughlin, John Robitaille, Kernan "Kerry" King, Mark Zaccaria, Rhode Island Republican Assembly

Friday, June 11, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact Becky Buwalda

(314) 291-4483

The Greater St. Louis chapter of the Missouri Republican Assembly has recently announced their endorsed candidates list for the 2010 election cycle.

The MRA is a grassroots movement to take back the Republican Party for the vast and disenfranchised majority of its members:  Reagan conservatives, who believe in small government, lower taxes, free market capitalism, a strong defense, the right to life, and a decent America. In short, we are the Republican Wing of the Republican Party.

The following candidates have been endorsed by the Missouri Republican Assembly:

US Congress

1st Congressional Dist - Robyn Hamlin
2nd Congressional Dist - Todd Akin
3rd Congressional Dist - Ed Martin

State Senate

2nd Dist - Cynthia Davis
22nd Dist - Greg Zotta
24th Dist - John Lamping
26th Dist - Jack Jackson

State Representative

15th Dist – Sally Faith

16^th Dist – Mark Parkinson
19th Dist - Dave Evans
73rd Dist - Dan O'Sullivan
74th Dist - Dave Blanke
75th Dist - Bryan Koen
77th Dist - Linda Ragsdale
79th Dist - Dan Johnson
84th Dist - Don Gosen
85th Dist - Al Faulstich
89th Dist - Tim Jones
91st Dist - Rich Magee
92nd Dist - Sue Allen
93rd Dist - Dwight Scharnhorst
94th Dist - Rick Stream
95th Dist - Mike Leara
97th Dist - Chris Brown
102nd Dist - Paul Wieland
103rd Dist - George Engelbach

St. Louis County

County Executive - Bill Corrigan
3rd County Council Dist - Colleen Wasinger
5th County Council Dist - Randy Jotte
7th County Council Dist - Greg Quinn

These candidates believe that man's rights flow from the Creator and the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable and cannot be legitimately granted or rescinded by men.

For more information, please contact Scott at 417-890-8980 or gopwing@sbcglobal.net.  You can also find out more about the Republican Assemblies at www.RepublicanAssemblies.org.

###

Missouri Republican Assembly

1536 East Primrose Street, Springfield, MO 65804-7928

Related Posts

• Rhode Island Republican Assembly 2010 Endorsements
• NFRA Endorses Sharron Angle for U.S. Senate in Nevada
• Missouri Republican Assembly Endorses Roy Blunt for U.S. Senate.
• Missouri Republican Assembly Endorses Allen Icet for State Auditor
• Your Vote Matters!!!

Technorati Tags: 2010 Elections, Al Faulstich, Bill Corrigan, Bryan Koen, Chris Brown, Colleen Wasinger, Cynthia Davis, Dan Johnson, Dan O'Sullivan, Dave Blanke, Dave Evans, Don Gosen, Dwight Scharnhorst, Ed Martin, Endorsements, George Engelbach, Greg Quinn, Greg Zotta, Jack Jackson, John Lamping, Linda Ragsdale, Mark Parkinson, Mike Leara, Missouri Republican Assembly, Paul Wieland, Randy Jotte, Rich Magee, Rick Stream, Robyn Hamlin, Sally Faith, Sue Allen, Tim Jones, Todd Akin

There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.

Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.

A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.

One of his first reforms was to rid the White House of the bust of Winston Churchill—a gift from Tony Blair—by packing it back off to 10 Downing Street. A cloudlet of mystery has surrounded the subject ever since, but the central fact stands clear. The new administration had apparently found no place in our national house of many rooms for the British leader who lives on so vividly in the American mind. Churchill, face of our shared wartime struggle, dauntless rallier of his nation who continues, so remarkably, to speak to ours. For a president to whom such associations are alien, ridding the White House of Churchill would, of course, have raised no second thoughts.

Far greater strangeness has since flowed steadily from Washington. The president's appointees, transmitters of policy, go forth with singular passion week after week, delivering the latest inversion of reality. Their work is not easy, focused as it is on a current prime preoccupation of this White House—that is, finding ways to avoid any public mention of the indisputable Islamist identity of the enemy at war with us. No small trick that, but their efforts go forward in public spectacles matchless in their absurdity—unnerving in what they confirm about our current guardians of law and national security.

Consider the hapless Eric Holder, America's attorney general, confronting the question put to him by Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) of the House Judicary Committee on May 13.

Did Mr. Holder think that in the last three terrorist attempts on this soil, one of them successful (Maj. Nidal Hasan's murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, preceded by his shout of "Allahu Akbar!"), that radical Islam might have played any role at all? Mr. Holder seemed puzzled by the question. "People have different reasons" he finally answered—a response he repeated three times. He didn't want "to say anything negative about any religion."

And who can forget the exhortations on jihad by John Brennan, Mr. Obama's chief adviser on counterterrorism? Mr. Brennan has in the past charged that Americans lack sensitivity to the Muslim world, and that we have particularly failed to credit its peace-loving disposition. In a May 26 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Brennan held forth fervently, if not quite comprehensibly, on who our enemy was not: "Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is just a tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind, and as Americans we refuse to live in fear."

He went on to announce, sternly, that we do not refer to our enemies as Islamists or jihadists because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam. How then might we be permitted to describe our enemies? One hint comes from another of Mr. Brennan's pronouncements in that speech: That "violent extremists are victims of political, economic and social forces."

Yes, that would work. Consider the news bulletins we could have read: "Police have arrested Faisal Shahzad, victim of political, economic and social forces living in Connecticut, for efforts to set off a car bomb explosion in Times Square." Plotters in Afghanistan and Yemen, preparing for their next attempt at mass murder in America, could only have listened in wonderment. They must have marvelled in particular on learning that this was the chief counterterrorism adviser to the president of the United States.

Long after Mr. Obama leaves office, it will be this parade of explicators, laboring mightily to sell each new piece of official reality revisionism—Janet Napolitano and her immortal "man-caused disasters'' among them—that will stand most memorably as the face of this administration.

It is a White House that has focused consistently on the sensitivities of the world community—as it is euphemistically known—a body of which the president of the United States frequently appears to view himself as a representative at large.

It is what has caused this president and his counterterrorist brain trust to deem it acceptable to insult Americans with nonsensical evasions concerning the enemy we face. It is this focus that caused Mr. Holder to insist on holding the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan, despite the rage this decision induced in New Yorkers, and later to insist if not there, then elsewhere in New York. This was all to be a dazzling exhibition for that world community—proof of Mr. Obama's moral reclamation program and that America had been delivered from the darkness of the Bush years.

It was why this administration tapped officials like Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Among his better known contributions to political discourse was a 2005 address in which he compared the treatment of Muslim-Americans in the United States after 9/11 with the plight of the Japanese-Americans interned in camps after Pearl Harbor. During a human-rights conference held in China this May, Mr. Posner cited the new Arizona immigration law by way of assuring the Chinese, those exemplary guardians of freedom, that the United States too had its problems with discrimination.

So there we were: America and China, in the same boat on human rights, two buddies struggling for reform. For this view of reality, which brought withering criticism in Congress and calls for his resignation, Mr. Posner has been roundly embraced in the State Department as a superbly effective representative.

It is no surprise that Mr. Posner—like numerous of his kind—has found a natural home in this administration. His is a sensibility and political disposition with which Mr. Obama is at home. The beliefs and attitudes that this president has internalized are to be found everywhere—in the salons of the left the world over—and, above all, in the academic establishment, stuffed with tenured radicals and their political progeny. The places where it is held as revealed truth that the United States is now, and has been throughout its history, the chief engine of injustice and oppression in the world.

They are attitudes to be found everywhere, but never before in a president of the United States. Mr. Obama may not hold all, or the more extreme, of these views. But there can be no doubt by now of the influences that have shaped him. They account for his grand apology tour through the capitals of Europe and to the Muslim world, during which he decried America's moral failures—her arrogance, insensitivity. They were the words of a man to whom reasons for American guilt came naturally. Americans were shocked by this behavior in their newly elected president. But he was telling them something from those lecterns in foreign lands—something about his distant relation to the country he was about to lead.

The truth about that distance is now sinking in, which is all to the good. A country governed by leaders too principled to speak the name of its mortal enemy needs every infusion of reality it can get.

Editor's Note: We are reprinting Dorothy Rabinowitz's "The Alien in the White House" from the Wall Street Journal in full here. We encourage you to visit the original.

Related Posts

• The Coming Resignation of Barack Obama
• Barack Obama: Enemy within
• Obama’s Speech in Egypt Signals ‘Worrisome’ Shift in U.S. Policy
• Obama Sells U.S. Short, But for What?
• Obama’s Enemies List

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama