Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton stated:

Judge Robert Bork inspired of a generation of judges, lawyers and activists to have renewed respect for the genius of the U.S. Constitution. His incredible legacy will impact legal and policy debates about our constitutional system for decades to come. Judicial Watch offers its condolences and prayers to the Bork family.

This has caused tremendous damage, according to the study, because the mainstream media has given these “fringe organizations” a forum to raise money and build “social networks within elite conservative circles.” So, essentially the public college professor has determined that conservatives and the mainstream media—notorious foes—have joined forces to trash Islam.

This is truly earth-shattering news! The alarming study was conducted by Christopher Bail, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which interestingly is the nation’s first public university. He used plagiarism detection software to track the influence of 1,084 press releases about Muslims from 120 organizations on more than 50,000 newspaper stories and television transcripts produced after the terrorist attacks in 2001 through 2008.

Bail found that organizations with negative messages about Muslims “captivated the mass media” after the 9/11 attacks resulting in the spreading of negative messages that stoke public fears about Muslims. “They are now so much a part of the mainstream that they have been able to recast genuinely mainstream Muslim organizations as radicals,” the professor said in an announcement promoting his study.

Could he be referring to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a national group that serves as the U.S. front for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas? CAIR bills itself as the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy organization but is described by FBI counterterrorism experts as an entity that promotes and finances terrorism. CAIR has extensive links to foreign and domestic Islamists, was a co-conspirator in a federal terror-finance case involving the Hamas front group Holy Land Foundation and is largely funded by Islamic terrorist-supporting countries. In fact, CAIR was founded in 1994 by three Middle Eastern extremists (Omar Ahmad, Nihad Awad and Rafeeq Jaber) who ran the American propaganda wing of Hamas, known then as the Islamic Association for Palestine.

Judicial Watch has investigated CAIR for its role in the Holy Land Foundation scandal and last year sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) for records related to the agency’s decision not to prosecute the group, likely for political reasons. Special agents of the FBI and federal prosecutors in Texas objected to the Obama DOJ’s decision not to prosecute CAIR, which has been linked by government investigators to Hamas. Press releases provided to the media about this case certainly would be viewed as hostile towards Muslims in the North Carolina professor’s study.

Here’s another one; earlier this year JW sued the FBI for records detailing a secret February 2012 meeting with Director Robert Mueller and a coalition of Islamist organizations that swayed the agency to purge training curricula deemed offensive to Muslims. Some of the organizations that met with Mueller at FBI headquarters have ties to radical terrorist organizations, according to some news reports and Americans have a right to know who they are.  

1. Fox News’ “Hannity” on Thursday at 9 p.m. eastern will air a one-hour special about the “District of Corruption” movie and the permanent political class and crony capitalism on both sides of the aisle the film exposes and indicts.

Fox News’ “Hannity” on Thursday at 9 p.m. eastern will air a one-hour special about the “District of Corruption” movie and the permanent political class and crony capitalism on both sides of the aisle the film exposes and indicts.

Incredibly, the district’s Diversity Committee is seriously considering it and is holding special meetings to gather information before making the final recommendation. This is all going down in Broward County, which has the nation’s sixth-largest public school system and the second largest in the Sunshine State. The district has more than 258,000 students whose educations are being financed by American taxpayers.

Like most of the nation’s public schools, breaks in Broward County are secular so as not to favor or offend any religion. For instance, there is winter break around Christmas and spring break around Easter. Throughout the academic year there are also teacher planning days in which students aren’t present as well as federal holidays acknowledged by the government. Florida also has a state law to allow students to take off religious holidays without penalty.

Never the less, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a national organization that serves as the U.S. front for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, wants Broward to officially acknowledge two sacred Islamic days; Eid al-Fitr – the end of Ramadan – and Eid-al Adha, which marks the end of Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Public school districts Massachusetts, New Jersey and Michigan have caved into the Muslim demand and one Maryland district is considering it.

CAIR, described by top FBI counterterrorism chiefs as an entity that not only promotes terrorism but also finances it, is behind the movement. This is outrageous because the group has extensive links to foreign and domestic Islamists, was a co-conspirator in a federal terror-finance case involving the Hamas front group Holy Land Foundation and is largely funded by Islamic terrorist-supporting countries. In fact, CAIR was founded in 1994 by three Middle Eastern extremists (Omar Ahmad, Nihad Awad and Rafeeq Jaber) who ran the American propaganda wing of Hamas, known then as the Islamic Association for Palestine.

 None of this seems to matter to the chairman of the Broward school board’s Diversity Committee, Roland Foulkes, who was quoted in a local newspaper saying “this is about inclusive diversity, and the Muslim community has too long been excluded.” He added that Acknowledging Islamic holy days is “long overdue” to reflect the full diversity of everyone.  

The superintendent of Broward County schools, Robert Runcie, opposes the idea but it could be out of his hands if the board votes to pass the Muslim holiday schedule. “If we do that for everybody and every cause out there, even though they’re all valid, we would literally have a problem squeezing in the number of instructional days we need,” Runcie said. A local newspaper columnist asks: “If we close schools for Muslims, do we close them for every religion that demands it? Do we close for the Wiccans?”

It was just a few weeks ago that the USPS made headlines for its record $5.2 billion loss in the last quarter of the fiscal year, bringing total losses for 2011 to an astounding $11.6 billion. To illustrate the agency’s rapid rate of decline, during the same last-quarter period in 2010 the USPS reported a loss of $3.1 billion.

Yet top executives at the devastated agency are making a killing and violating a law that caps Postal Service employee compensation in the process. Known as the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, the measure says employees cannot be paid more than $199,700 for calendar year 2011 with some “exceptions” allowing the amount to go as high as $230,700 for “bonuses or other awards” and $276,840 for “critical positions.”

It turns out that at least three USPS officers made more than the legal compensation limit for their respective work category, according to the agency’s inspector general. In a report made public this month, the Postal Service watchdog reveals that one of the officers, identified as the president of digital solutions, made a whopping $306,250 last year.  This exceeds even the “critical position” cap set by the federal law.  

Another employee, who was supposed to cap out at $199,700 because he/she didn’t meet any of the exception criteria, made $230,700 last year, according to the USPS Inspector General. A third agency officer, who also failed to qualify for the elevated salary, made $203,861 last year thanks to a $20,000 “incentive payment.”

Adding insult to injury, two former USPS officials will soon collect monstrous “deferred executive retention bonuses.” Former Postmaster General John Potter, currently president of the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority, will rake in $786,301 and former Chief Information Officer Ross Philo will get $642,999.

The USPS is well known for its financial scandals. Last summer, in the midst of an $8.3 billion deficit, the agency was exposed for blowing $400,000 on professional sports tickets, booze and fancy meals. The items were purchased by USPS managers and employees with special charge cards issued to U.S. government agencies. Previous to that, two separate audits found similar wrongdoing at the struggling federal agency which has been in serious financial debt for years.  

 On Mon., Oct. 15, 2012, U.S. Army Judge Col. James Pohl ruled on whether the defendants had to be present for all phases of the proceeding. Ultimately, Judge Pohl ruled that the defendants could waive their right to be present on a daily basis until the trial begins in earnest around the year 2014.  The order, which was later amended to allow the prisoners to change their minds at any time, was issued over the government’s objection.  Chief Prosecution Counsel Brig. General Mark Martins argued vigorously for keeping the defendants in the courtroom (to the extent they were not so disruptive as to make their presence impossible) so that justice might be served in person.  The judge, however, said their right to be present included a right to be excused from this phase of the trial.

 On day two of the weeklong session, Judge Pohl decided whether the defendants could dress as they wished. During the defendants’ unruly arraignment in May, the Joint Task Force commander who runs the detention facility where all al Qaeda suspects are housed, had denied Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s (KSM) request to wear either a camouflage jacket or an orange jumpsuit to court, saying the field jacket had cargo pockets that posed a security threat and that the jumpsuit was not proper courtroom attire. The defendants had also reportedly been forcefully extracted from their cells when they declined to come to court on prior occasions. On Tues., Oct. 16, though, Judge Pohl, who is actually presiding over the trial, reviewed the warden’s decisions, allowing a camouflage vest (so long as it formed no part of a current uniform of the U.S. Armed Forces), saying a vest’s pockets were no more dangerous than those of a Western-style suit worn by Majid Khan during his entry of a guilty plea in February.  However, Judge Pohl barred the jumpsuit, saying it was irrelevant to KSM’s present incarceration, where inmates wear white robes.

 In addition to granting their clothing requests and excusing the defendants’ absence through a written waiver, Judge Pohl later amended his order to allow for them to change their minds at any time, effectively letting them come and go into the courtroom as they pleased.  KSM was the first to take advantage of this indulgence, agreeing to come to court around 5:00 a.m. Wed., Oct. 17, then changing his mind around 9:00 a.m. while in a holding cell adjacent to the courtroom, then asking to rejoin the proceedings after midmorning prayer.  Because the defendants are heavily guarded, the movement of any one accused is labor and time intensive, although the Joint Task Force guards appeared to handle each transition in a very orderly fashion.

Once in court in his preferred attire, KSM seemed unsatisfied to sit and listen.  Just before 3 p.m. Wed., Oct. 17, KSM raised his hand to remark on a debate underway about the extent to which national security information relevant to the trial ought to remain secret.  The judge admonished KSM to confer with his civilian attorney, David Nevin of Boise, prior to speaking out in court.  Nevertheless, after a brief conference, KSM (through an interpreter) said the following:

 In the name of Allah, most graceful, the government at the end of the argument gave you an advice.  They told you any decision you’re going to issue you have to keep in mind the national security and to remember that there were 3,000 people killed on September 11. . . .

When the government feels sad for the death or killing of 3,000 people who were killed on September 11, we also should feel sorry that the American government, who is represented by General Martins and others, have killed thousands of people — millions. . . . I don’t want to be long, but I can say that the president can take someone and throw him in the sea under the name of national security. And so — well, he can also legislate the killings, assassinations under the name of national security, for the American citizens. . . .

 My only advice to you, that you do not get affected by the crocodile tears. Because your blood is not made of gold and ours is made out of water. . . .

 Following KSM’s remarks, Judge Pohl said that “no matter how heartfelt,” he would no longer “entertain personal comments of any accused about the way things are going.”  The next morning, the judge cut short a parallel statement on behalf of American victims delivered by Trial Counsel Edward Ryan.

In contrast to the patience he exhibited toward KSM, Judge Pohl told the government’s attorney:

 I understand this case. I understand that people died. I have got that. I am sensitive to that. I have got all that. But this is not the time to make that argument. Please restrict your argument to facts relevant to the issue before me.

 Another major issue that arose as the week came to a close was whether the civil liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution apply to these “unprivileged alien enemy belligerents,” despite the fact that they are being prosecuted for war crimes in a military tribunal rather than in federal court under the U.S. criminal code.  General Martins hedged, refusing to answer Judge Pohl’s pointed questions directly, replying instead that it was too soon to tell. However, the judge’s five-month delay in even asking this question, as well as the government’s refusal to answer it, raised doubts about the commission’s commitment to a speedy trial.

 If re-elected, President Obama may have other plans for this country’s high-value al Qaeda captives.  The Justice Department’s recent purchase of an Illinois prison suggests the Obama administration may have other plans for carrying out terrorism trials and finally closing the Guantanamo Bay site.

So what if the national debt is a gargantuan $16 trillion and growing? In 2011, Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allocated upwards of $10 million for these minority causes and the cash flow remains strong this year. In the last few days alone the EPA announced that over $2 million will go to several justice programs that include “indoor air quality projects” for minority and low-income families, asthma-friendly homes and education and the development of “solutions to local health and environmental issues in communities overburdened by harmful pollution.”

Here’s how it works; the EPA gives money to leftwing groups—including some dedicated to helping illegal immigrants—that teach black, Latino and indigenous folks how to recycle, reduce carbon emissions through “weatherization” and participate in “green jobs” training. The agency even funded a $7 million study to determine how pollution, combined with stress and other social factors, affects people in “poor and underserved communities.”

The latest round of allocations will go to organizations that will “educate, empower and enable their communities to understand and address local environmental and public health issues,” according to an EPA announcement. Another chunk of cash will go to a nonprofit that will teach low-income public school students in California asthma self-management skills.

 More than $1 million will go to organizations and local governments that will try to develop indoor air quality projects that protect the needy in classrooms, communities and homes. This includes “asthma-friendly homes” for poor minorities and special training to educate the primary adults in the life of an asthmatic child.

All this will help the administration meet its goal of bringing environmental justice to America. Here is an explanation via the EPA: “The principles of environmental justice uphold the idea that all communities overburdened by pollution – particularly minority, low income and indigenous communities – deserve the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards, equal access to the decision-making process and a healthy environment in which to live, learn and work. “

The story comes from River Falls, a quaint 7-square-mile town with a population of about 600. The municipality is located near the Florida border and is best known as a drive-through of sorts for people traveling to the Sunshine State’s famously pristine Panhandle beaches.

For about three decades a woman named Mary Ella Hixon has served as mayor of River Falls and it seems she’s been using taxpayer funds as her personal piggy bank. When the local newspaper started digging around about a questionable deal a few months ago, authorities launched an investigation.

They found that Mayor Hixon, who looks like she could be anyone’s grandma, had stolen at least $201,000 from the south Alabama town over the years. She also transferred a city-owned property to her live-in companion without getting approval from the city council. Police say the stolen cash went to Hixon’s relatives, her boyfriend and his relatives. She also gave some money to co-workers at a development company where she worked.

Hixon’s live-in companion, Richard Moss, has also been charged with four counts of theft for earning at least $80,000 for work he never performed as a “nighttime policeman.” For two years Mayor Hixon paid her boy toy $452.50 per week even though he never worked for the town, according to the local paper. At the time Moss was the administrator of a nearby county’s jail.  

The mayor also used town funds to pay the salaries of other friends who never did any work, including nearly $20,000 to a pal who supposedly repaired water lines and another who got about $9,000 for a different bogus job. When Hixon discovered that a “concerned citizen” had secretly recorded her admitting her illegal conduct, she paid the person hush money and ordered him/her to lie to police.

Hixon has been sentenced to a decade in prison, however, the judge took into consideration “her advanced age” and reduced it to five years of probation. She also must pay $200 per month in restitution and a lien has been placed on her home. Who would have thought? In a newspaper photo taken on the day of her court hearing, she looks like a harmless little old lady with white hair, glasses and a brown bead necklace.   

Keep in mind that this is a city rife with all sorts of public corruption. In the last few years Detroit’s mayor (Kwame Kilpatrick) went to jail for a multitude of crimes, a deputy mayor and prominent city councilwoman each plead guilty to bribery in different schemes,  several public school employees got charged with numerous felonies for embezzling education funds and  a mayoral aide got federally indicted for bribery and extortion.

Two years ago the city’s police chief, Warren Evans, was fired over a sexual relationship with a subordinate and an unauthorized appearance in a reality television show. The disgraced chief also disciplined an officer for bad-mouthing his girlfriend at the time, a lieutenant on the force named Monique Patterson.

This week the cop (Ralph Godbee) picked by Detroit’s mayor to replace Evans as police chief, got slapped with a 30-day suspension for having an extramarital affair with one of his officers, Angelica Robinson. It appears that yet another mess is brewing in Motor City. Officer Robinson has lawyered up, which means there’s probably a lawsuit in the making and, once again, Detroit taxpayers will get stuck with a fat bill.

Here is a good indicator that the city will end up doling out some cash to settle the case; Officer Robinson’s attorney told the local newspaper that she was trying to end the affair and the chief didn’t like it. Then she became “very depressed” and there was “concern” that she might commit suicide. Officer Robinson’s gun has been taken away and she is being evaluated by a doctor, according to her attorney.

Detroit taxpayers have for years felt the deep financial pain caused by its never-ending roster of corrupt public officials. Former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a convicted felon who went to jail in 2008, lied under oath at a police whistleblower trial to hide an extramarital affair with a city staffer. The cops had been wrongfully fired for asking questions that could have exposed the undercover romance and Kilpatrick ended up orchestrating a secret city deal to pay the officers nearly $9 million for their troubles.

Kilpatrick had been mayor for six years and got charged with nearly a dozen felonies before hitting the slammer. Less than a year later, a veteran city councilwoman (the wife of Michigan Democrat Rep. John Conyers) got busted for taking bribes. Capping a lengthy federal investigation, Monica Conyers finally admitted that she took bribes from a developer to change her vote on a major city contract.

Around the same time five officials from the cash-strapped Detroit Public School system, long known as a cesspool of fraud and mismanagement, got criminally charged for operating an illegal scheme in which they openly stole tens of thousands of dollars from the system, took illegal kickbacks and paid friends who never did any work for the district.

The move to ban chimp research started nearly a year ago when the administration quietly proposed to include chimpanzees on the U.S. government’s endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working on it and in case the agency doesn’t come through, the president got his Democratic pals in Congress to introduce legislation to officially make the primates endangered.   

A consortium of influential animal rights groups are behind the chimp research ban. More than a year ago they delivered a lengthy petition demanding the government upgrade captive chimpanzees from threatened to endangered status which would ban scientists from using the approximately 1,000 chimps available for biological and behavioral studies in the U.S. The petition also asks that chimps be barred from the entertainment industry and forbidden from being kept in private zoos or as personal pets.

 The animal rights groups assert that the chimpanzee is an “imperiled species” that’s being exploited. One of the nation’s largest mainstream newspapers went so far as to write that, to many people, chimps “look like relatives behind bars.”

Caving into the animal rights movement could put millions of human lives at stake because it would forbid the sort of biomedical research that has helped produce life-saving vaccines for diseases such as Hepatitis B. Chimps are also essential in AIDs research and the hope of developing an elusive vaccine against the deadlier Hepatitis C, an infectious viral disease that leads to swelling of the liver and plagues tens of millions of people worldwide.

 The reason chimps are so valuable to medical researchers is that they share many similarities to humans, including more than 98% of the genetic code. In fact, chimps are the only known animal other than humans that can become infected with AIDS, the lethal virus that destroys the immune system. In short, research on chimpanzees helps topnotch scientists find cures and ultimately eradicate diseases.

 None of this seems to matter to the Obama Administration, which announced this month that the government is retiring 110 of its 563 research chimpanzees as it works towards killing the program altogether. The announcement was made by the director (Francis Collins) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the government agency that funds medical and behavioral research.

 Collins tells a mainstream newspaper that it’s a significant step in winding down the NIH’s investment in chimp research based on the way science has evolved and “our great sensitivity to the special nature of these remarkable animals, our closest relatives.”  The head of a national animal rights group pushing to end all medical research on chimps said he was “very pleased” with the move.