Lawfare - Revised Trump Travel Ban Blocked Again

President Trump's revised travel ban has been blocked by two far left Obama appointed federal judges in deep Blue states. One of them was actually one of Obama's classmates at Harvard and a good friend of our former president.

Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii and Judge Theodore Chung in Maryland decided to block Trump's clearly legal temporary travel ban on the most spurious of grounds. Regardless on how carefully this was formulated and how much in accordance it is with clearly stated Federal law, both judges (who appear to have communicated between themselves based on the wording of their opinions) somehow found that the new travel ban violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Since the ban doesn't mention religion at all (and all the countries, while predominantly Muslim have significant non-Muslim minorities) these obscene swine in black robes relied not on the substance of the president's executive order, but on their personal interpretation of statements the president made on the campaign trail. They are literally willing to roll the dice and risk the lives of Americans in order to play politics. And rest assured, these so-called judges would be the first to rule in favor of violating that establishment cause by forcing Catholic institutions to pay for abortificants or to harshly penalize a baker of a florist for the heinous crime of refusing to participate in a same sex marriage because of their religious beliefs. Nor did they say a thing about President Obama's travel ban, which was identical to President trump's original executive order.

Here's the president responding to this idiocy in a rally held, appropriately at the Hermitage in Nashville, Tennessee...the home of former President Andrew Jackson. Old Hickory would have undoubtedly approved:





While this judicial overreach will be overturned, it will take literally months before the Supreme Court does so. And in that interval, thousands of unvettable refugees from countries with clear ties to terrorism can be allowed into America.

Based on his remarks, President Trump was all for going with the first travel ban to the Supreme Court, since it was likewise perfectly legal, something I suggested at the time. Between now and when the Supreme Court makes its ruling, the president should immediately suspend all funding and all activity involving the Refugee Resettlement Program, which uses taxpayer dollars to bring refugees form the most anti-Semitic and misogynist countries in the world and settle them in the heartland, complete with green cards, subsidized housing,healthcare and EBT cards.

And what if the President simply decides to defy the court order and proceed anyway? He might be sued,but would a lawsuit be successful? I doubt it, and in any case by the time it gets to court, a Supreme Court decision would make the matter moot.

As former president Andrew Jackson once famously said, "The judges have made their decision. Now let them enforce it."

Additionally, these rogue, Obama appointed judges should be removed by impeachment by Congress, both houses of which are now controlled by Republicans. Or, under the Good Behavior Clause of Article III of the Constitution by way of a writ of scire facias filed before a federal court. If the Left can do judge shopping, so can President Trump. It's time these judges realized there's a cost for being such obviousl political animals and engaging in partisan lawfare and obstruction of justice.

There is no executive order from President Trump, no matter how legal and no matter how common sense that the Left and their judges will not obstruct and oppose. It's time to go on offense.

Al Gore Sues Al Jazeera For Fraud And Breach Of Contract

Yes, Al Gore is suing Al-Jezeera for $65 million and legal costs for fraud and breach of contract.

He and his partner Joel Hyatt are claiming that Jihad-TV is refusing to pay up in full for the sale of Gore and Hyatt's comatose Current TV network to Qatar-owned al Jazeera for $500 million back in January 2013.

The deal was based on the Qatari Royal family's desire to get on American airwaves by assuming Current's distribution deals with cable and satellite TV providers. Unfortunately for al-Jazeera, few Americans are all that interested in watching Jihad-TV's version of jihadi propagandized news, so the ratings have been a dismal failure and advertising revenues are way down.

Gore and Hyatt's Their lawyer essentially believes that al-Jazeera are seeking to give themselves a discount, seeing how things have turned out.

This is the same person who told Jon Stewart how proud he was of selling to jihadi financing Qatar and how Jihad-TV was "..going to really be a positive addition to the U.S. media landscape."

 

Poor,poor Al Gore. What's the use of selling out to America's enemies if they don't even pay you for it?

Court Ruling: Israeli And US Terrorism Victims Now 'Own' Iran's Internet

 
ه هدف مقدس!  What happened to "Monday Night Jihad?"


The United States District Court ruled today that the .ir domain name, along with Iran’s IP addresses
are assets that can be seized to satisfy judgments totaling over a billion dollars, owed by Iran to Israeli and US victims of terrorism perpetrated by Iranian-supported proxies like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah organizations, among others.

The verdict was won by attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Shurat Hadin Law Center and what it means is absolutely delicious. The fees paid by Iran to keep its Internet going could be levied and given to the victims, or their lawyers now have to legal right to force an auction of Iran’s Internet assets to help satisfy the judgment.

 

Shurat Hadin and others have been pursuing Iran in court for over a decade and have obtained numerous judgments against The Islamic Republic which Iran has refused to pay.

Faced with Iranian refusal to provide such compensation, Darshan-Leitner has been pursuing these judgments in the courts. “We’ve been able to seize numerous Iranian assets to satisfy these judgments,” Darshan-Leitner told The Times of Israel. “Last year, for example, we were awarded a building on New York’s Fifth Avenue, and we have a case pending for seizure of an Iranian government-owned art collection at the University of Chicago.”

But today's ruling might end up being the most costly for Iran.

The Iranians, like every other country pay fees to The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an agency that's part of the US Department of Commerce which administers the World Wide Web. The court ruling today leaves the way clear for those fees Iran pays every year to renew its' domains and its country prefix, .ir to be collected by Sharat Hadin and distributed to the plaintiffs to help satisfy the judgments. Included in the judgment are all the “top-level domain” (TLD) names provided by ICANN to Iran, including the .IR TLD, the Persian-language ایران TLD, and all Internet Protocol (IP) addresses being utilized by the Iranian government and its agencies.

At this point, according to Darshan-Leitner, the only question is how ICAAN is going to respond.They have ten days to do so.

But wait, there's more.

Since ICANN will essentially not be paid its fees since they're going to the terrorism victims, they may simply decide not to do business with Iran anymore. If that happens, ICANN can actually pull the plug on Iran's internet, suspending its use of the .ir domain and disconnecting Iranian IP addresses from the web.

 

If ICANN decides to carry the Iranians, it gets even worse. Shurat Hadin would likely pursue an auction of the Iranian Internet assets, (which would probably generate a lot more cash) and Iran's websites and domains could be purchased by anyone. The possibilities are endless. Can you imagine the Saudis or the Israelis getting hold of Iran's official government website? And the effect on Iranian commerce would be a disaster.

“The payments are just one aspect of the judgment,” Darshan-Leitner said. “It’s the assets themselves that we were awarded. This is the first time that terror victims have moved to seize the domain names, IPs and Internet licenses of terror-sponsoring states like Iran in an attempt to satisfy their court judgments. The Iranians must be shown that there is a steep price to be paid for their sponsorship of terrorism. In business and legal terms it is quite simple — we are owed money, and these assets are currency worth money. We remain committed to helping these American families satisfy their judgments.”


Well done, Ms. Darshan-Leitner!

UPDATE: I've received a couple of e-mails that mention that the Europeans and EU internet organizations will not go along with this. Au contraire! First of all, EU groups like RIPE are bound by international treaty to be subservient to ICANN when it comes to internet and domain rulings.

And second, almost all European countries have treaties with the U.S. agreeing to reciprocation. That means that we honor financial judgments in those countries' courts as valid in ours, and they do the same for judgments in U.S. courts. As a matter of fact Iran lost a nice chunk of money a couple of years ago when Italian courts honored a U.S. District court judgement and allowed the seizure of two Iranian government bank accounts to help satisfy that judgment.

I also plead guilty to not bothering to run a number of comments like this one ( anonymous, of course):

In a total breakdown of international law, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, a Jewish attorney, has successfully triggered a judgement by the U.S. district court (which is totally overrun by corrupt Jewish judges) which will allow the seizure of Iran's internet assets via theft of their national .ir web designation.

Here is what went down: The Israeli Mossad, in the name of Iran, staged a large number of rocket attacks against Israel from Gaza, which gave Israel the "right" to inflict hundreds of billions of dollars of damage against Palestine in the form of bulldozings and murder campaigns, and as a bonus, provided a front from which a lawsuit could be launched against Iran to steal their assets. Since ICANN, which regulates the web is in America, this theft can be enforced via this court order.

This signals an entirely new era of Jewish corruption, if they get away with this I cannot possibly see how the web around the world will survive, and VIOLENCE IS THE ONLY ANSWER. You HAVE TO have a hot war over something like this.

You cannot have a stable world which is so web dependent being subjected to bogus judgements such as this. Into the mix as part of the settlement was the ENFORCED FACT that IRAN DID 911 AND HAD TO PAY REPARATIONS. Yet obviously no mention of Urban Moving systems was made, and the fact that Larry Silverstein himself had explosives planted in building 7 to bring it down, and himself gave the order to do so. The fact that Iran was judged responsible for 911 proves corruption at the highest levels of the American government, where Kikedom is living an orgy of deception and injustice. It cannot get any worse than this.

This judgement against Iran is so unjust it amounts to an act of war or a mugging by a crack head, and it is STUNNING NEWS that is NOT BEING REPORTED IN THE MSM.

This CANNOT and WILL NOT be reported in the MSM despite it being EARTH SHATTERING NEWS simply because too many people out there know Iran is completely innocent. This means that this court proceeding has to proceed in secrecy the same way antidepressant damage and tainted vaccines are totally not allowed in the press, as is the real truth about Fukushima, nuclear blackmail, and the Japan earthquake. The only way the Jews can get away with a crime this big is to keep it buried entirely.

And I do not believe for a minute that Nitsana Darshan-Leitner believes her case is real, she simply knew she had a corrupt judge available and WENT FOR IT for Israel. And one thing I have learned about thieves is once they discover they can get away with stealing, the thefts increase until they wreak total destruction on the innocent. This could be the end of the web and the end of all pretend global stability, who is next?

When we stop laughing, it's important to realize a little something that's true about 90% plus of the  creatures whom call themselves 'anti-ZIonists' or are involved the BDS movement. As the above screed makes clear, when they say  'Israel' they mean Jews. It's simply a more politically correct way of saying it. And that applies to a number of people with Jewish surnames who are part of this movement, or want the viewpoints of people like a Jewish Voice For Peace acknowledged as legitimate 'dialogue'.

-Selah-

Huge 2nd Amendment Victory - FLA. Court Rules Colleges Cannot Ban Guns

The young woman pictured above is Alexandria Lainez, a single mom who sued the University of North Florida over the right to carry a gun in her vehicle while attending classes at UNF so she would be able to defend herself and her child while traveling to and from campus.

“I think it’s pretty important to be able to protect myself and my son, especially with that long commute to and from school.”

Ms. Lainez, 24, has had a concealed weapons permit for three years, has taken gun safety courses and is a proud member of Florida Carry, a state chapter of a number of organizations defending 2nd amendment rights.

When the UNF ruled that she was not allowed to have a fire arm on UNF property which includes their parking lots, she sued...and won.

The Florida appeals court ruled that UNF was violating state law and that “No college or university has the authority” to make such a regulation. This decision is huge, and will affect 2nd Amendment rights statewide.

In Florida, a state law in 1987 prohibited local governments from passing local gun control ordinances stricter than those passed by the legislature, but there were no penalties for non-compliance, a number of local governments didn't comply and passed there ownlaws and regulations.

In 2011, the Legislature passed another law that provided for hefty fines and removal from office for elected officials and allowing for personal damages up to $100,000 for violations.

After that most local governments complied, but a few politically correct bastions like UNF remained scofflaws.

It remains to be seen whether UNF decides to appeal. According to UNF Associate Director for Public Relations Joanna Norris, in spite of the ruling, until the university decides whether to pursue this, UNF's anti-gun regulations will remain in effect and they will continue to break the law.

(h/t BizPac)

Judge Won't Halt PA Voter ID Law

We have a twofer here...some news and an excellent example of biased media masquerading as straight news, courtesy of the Associated Press new wire.

Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson refused to grant an injunction that would have halted Pennsylvania's new voter ID law, which requires each voter to show a valid photo ID.

The AP described that as 'a tough new voter identification law championed by Republicans.'

Of course, they don't identify exactly what's so tough about requiring a photo ID to vote, something you can't even cash a check or fill a prescription at most pharmacies without showing.

It gets better:

The Republican-penned law — which passed over the objections of Democrats — has ignited a furious debate over voting rights as Pennsylvania is poised to play a key role in deciding the presidential contest. Plaintiffs, including a 93-year-old woman who recalled marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1960, had asked Simpson to block the law from taking effect in this year's election as part of a wider challenge to its constitutionality.

Riddle me this..did you ever read or hear Obama Care or the so-called stimulus being described as 'a Democrat-penned law' passed over the objections of Republicans? And the subtle touch of gratuitously adding a 93-year-old woman who 'recalled marching with Martin Luther King Jr.' is just too rich.

Republicans defend the law as necessary to protect the integrity of the election. But Democrats say the law will make it harder for people who lack ID for valid reasons to vote.

And what valid reasons could that be? My mother is 80, hasn't driven in years, uses a walker and qualifies financially to get her photo-ID for free.She not only gets free transpo to the DMV to obtain it via taxi coupons and metro access ( assuming I'm not available to drive her) but they have special windows and expedited appointments for seniors and the disabled, mandated by the the Americans with Disabilities Act.

They also identify Judge Simpson as a Republican, something that hardly ever gets done if the judge is a Democrat. I knw, because whenever a questionable, partisan ruling comes along, the first thing I research is who appointed the judge.

So now, we have the subtext of a heartless, right wing Republican Judge trying to keep black people from exercising their civil rights!

In his written opinion, Simpson said the plaintiffs "did an excellent job of 'putting a face' to those burdened by the voter ID requirement," but he said he that sympathy had no bearing on the merits of the law. He wrote that he believed state officials and agencies were actively resolving problems with the law and that they would carry it out in a "nonpartisan, even-handed manner."

Further, he characterized the law as neutral, nondiscriminatory and applying uniformly to all voters. Speculation about the possible problems in issuing valid photo IDs or confusion on Election Day did not warrant "invalidation of all lawful applications" of it.

The old law was voter fraud heaven. It allowed people to vote with a bank statement or a utility bill as ID, something any illegal alien or felon could easily obtain. For that matter, a single bank statement or electric bill can also be passed around to quite a few people.And if necessary, you could even borrow an old one from someone who was deceased, but still on the rolls.

And in fact, Pennsylvania is taking some extraordinary steps to make sure no one who really wants to vote and needs an ID gets one.

The state is planning to begin issuing a special photo ID card for registered voters who are unable to get a PennDOT-issued ID and lack other acceptable photo IDs, such as passports or active-duty military IDs.

In addition, the state is rolling out a public relations campaign at taxpayer expense to make people aware of the law.

Needless to say, Democrats are going to take this to Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, which is split evenly between Republican and Democrat appointees. And if that fails, There's always Eric Holder and the Obama Department of Justice, which refused to prosecute members of the New Black Panther party in Philadelphia for an open and shut case of voter intimidation, but are eagerly looking at the law and have already requested a long list of information about it.

The Pennsylvania law, by the way, mirrors the Indianan voter ID law which the Supreme Court already ruled was constitutional and in compliance with federal laws.

But the idea, of course, is to hold things up in the courts until after November.

Felons, illegal aliens and the dead...they're an important and necessary Democrat constituency, and they can't win elections without them.

Soros Funded Group Forces States To Fund Special Voter Registration Drives For Welfare Recipients

The Takers vs. The Makers indeed. It's what this election is all about.

The left is pulling out all the stops to win this one. Their latest gambit is using lawfare to force states to make special and sustained efforts to register welfare recipients...at taxpayer expense.

The key group involved is the ACORN affiliated Demos foundation funded by George Soros. It still lists President Barack Obama on its masthead as part of its founding board of directors.

What they've done is to find a poster child on welfare in various states who claims they were not offered a voter registration form, per Bill Clinton's 'motor-voter' legislation from the 1990's. Then they've sued, and forced state governments to spend taxpayer dollars to go to extraordinary lengths to register welfare recipients.

As Bill Jacobsen relates, what's happened in Massachusetts is particularly egregious,because the Massachusetts state government is not only actively complying but enthusiastically behind these efforts:

The news broke today that Massachusetts has taken extraordinary efforts in response to a lawsuit by a former ACORN affiliated, Soros-funded group to register 500,000 welfare recipients to vote (who would have thought there were that many people on welfare considering Mass has only 6.5 million residents).

Republicans cried foul, as this was a transparent attempt to register Warren’s base, while no similar efforts were made to register voters who might be more favorably inclined towards Brown.

Rob Eno of Red Mass Group, however, took the story to an entirely new level by discovering that the group in question is run by Elizabeth Warren’s daughter:

Elizabeth Warren’s daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi is leaving nothing to chance in the 2012 election for her mother. Warren Tyagi, the chair of the George Soros funded Demos Foundation, has bankrolled, through Demos, former members of ACORN in their pursuit to have the Commonwealth’s welfare agency perform a voter registration drive. The Boston Herald has the story, although they missed the Warren familial connection….

The article goes on to show that NEU4J ( New England For Justice United) was aided financially in this effort by Warren Tyagi, who runs...wait for it..Demos.

The name demos, by the way is a cynical but entirely accurate inside joke. In Greek, it means 'the mob'.

NEU4J, along with the NAACP New England Area Conference, reached an agreement with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on July 5 — just two months after the suit was filed, which means they essentially rolled over and gave NEU4J pretty much whatever they wanted..

The deal requires state officials to mail vote registration forms to the 477,944 welfare recipients who were on the books between June 1, 2011 and May 31, 2012. The mailings will cost the state $275,844.

Massachusetts also agreed to run public service announcements on TV and radio stations from mid-July through mid-October publicizing the registration push. And welfare office waiting rooms, which will soon be equipped with TVs, must make announcements explaining how to register to vote.

The office of Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, who was also named in the suit must take part in three voter outreach activities in communities with a high concentration of welfare recipients.

Let's chew this over for a minute..in a state with a close senate race at hand, the daughter and son-in-law of one of the candidates are in charge of spending tax payer dollars to register her base!

GOP incumbent Scott Brown had it exactly right:

“I want every legal vote to count, but it’s outrageous to use taxpayer dollars to register welfare recipients as part of a special effort to boost one political party over another,” Brown said in a statement this morning. “This effort to sign up welfare recipients is being aided by Elizabeth Warren’s daughter and it’s clearly designed to benefit her mother’s political campaign. It means that I’m going to have to work that much harder to get out my pro-jobs, pro-free enterprise message.”

Not only that, but the money and manpower the state of Massachusetts is spending could and should be considered campaign contributions.

Also, as Professor Jacobsen reveals: the claim was not that people were not offered registration forms, but that Mass officials should have take more steps after over 90% of welfare recipients said they already were registered to vote (far above the actual number). The Sec. of State attached to the Answer the steps which already had been taken to assure adherence with the so-called Motor-Voter law. Rather than defend the case, Mass just decided to agree to a mass mailing.

I'll just bet they did.

And it isn't just Massachusetts. So far Demos has sued 9 states, including the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

The cases are still pending in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Louisiana but settlements have been reached in Ohio, Missouri, New Mexico, Indiana and Georgia. Meanwhile, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado and Mississippi have all agreed to comply without being sued.

This, of course isn't the Democrat's normal tactic of voter fraud. This is just a way of attempting to maximize their base..at taxpayer expense.

It remains to be seen how successful this will end up being on election day.

Gibson Guitars Settles With Feds

Gibson Guitars essentially did a plea bargain with the feds that amounted to $600,000 in fines and arbitrary levies in order to end litigation for what amounted to selective prosecution by th Obama Administration.

"We felt compelled to settle as the costs of proving our case at trial would have cost millions of dollars and taken a very long time to resolve," CEO Henry Juszkiewicz said in a statement late Monday night.

"This allows us to get back to the business of making guitars," he said, noting that the settlement would allow them to continue sourcing rosewood and ebony from India as it has for decades.

"We feel that Gibson was inappropriately targeted, and a matter that could have been addressed with a simple contact from a caring human being representing the government," he said in his statement. "Instead, the Government used violent and hostile means with the full force of the US Government and several armed law enforcement agencies costing the tax payer millions of dollars and putting a job creating US manufacture at risk and at a competitive disadvantage."

Gibson agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty, abandon its claims to about $262,000 worth of wood seized by federal agents and to contribute $50,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to promote the conservation of protected tree species.

George Gruhn, whose shop in Nashville is famous among guitar player had it exactly right:

"Regardless of the merits of the case on either side, it would have cost more than that by far to pursue it," he said. "Even if they thought they conceivably they could win, it would have probably cost more than $1 million to do it."

The law involved was the Lacey Act, which was originally a decent piece of legislation designed to stop the trade in endangered wildlife goods, like ivory. In 2008, lobbying by environmental wack jobs to a Democrat dominated congress added rare woods to the bill.

While Justice and Interior Department officials said in a September letter that those who "unknowingly possess" an instrument made from illegally imported materials don't have a criminal problem, I wouldn't trust them one bit.That 'unknowingly' gives the leeway to go after selected targets. Your prosecution will be based on your political contributions, just like Gibson's was.

If you own a pre-1970's Gibson guitar, all of whom used Brazilian rosewood, ( or a number of other vintage instruments) I'd be very careful. Certainly I'd never take it through customs.

Appeals Court Tosses Jihad Group's Lawsuit

Al-Haramain 'Islamic charity that was actually a front for laundering money to send to the likes of al-Qaeda and Hamas lost in court today, big time.

You might remember the facts on this one.

Back in September, 2007, Al Haramain, a Saudi funded 'charity' was popped for funding things like Hamas,al Qaeda, the Bali Bombings, he 1998 US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya and a host of other nefarious activities.

The US government got some confidential intel and based on that, tapped the phones of the Oregon branch of Al Haramain and obtained hard evidence of their activities, after which the government then designated the Oregon branch as terrorists, and froze their assets. Al Haramain challenged this in court, unaware of the evidence the Feds had. Unfortunately, during the discovery portion of that litigation, a government employee accidentally gave top secret logs of the tapped phone conversations to Al Haramain's lawyers as part of a stack of documents.

Al Haramain then lawyered up with the likes of the ACLU and the usual lefty suspects to turn this into a case to challenge the legality of the surveillance, and by extension the legality of all secret surveillance in trials of this kind.They were attempting to set a legal precedent to stop the Federal government from conducting surveillance on anybody, to prevent any similar surveillance in the future, and to make inadmissible any evidence gathered by surveillance in the past.

Al-Haramain and their lawyers were forced to return all copies of the classified document, but not before a number of copies made their way overseas. At that point the suit hinged on two questions; did the plaintiff, al-Haramain have the legal right to sue the government? In order to be able to sue, they had to prove the surveillance, and to prove that, they had to use the only evidence which proving it, the logs..which the feds claimed was inadmissible evidence because of national security concerns. Al -Haramin and their lawyers actually wanted to proceed with the case based on the memories and descriptions of the document, using testimony from the various people that saw it before it was given back to the government.

The 9th circuit court of appeals, with a three judge panel consisting of two Clinton appointees and a superannuated Carter appointee ruled mostly in the jihadis favor, but with some interesting twists that guaranteed this would just be punted elsewhere. They ruled the jihadis had standing to sue the federal government, but that the log itself was inadmissible as evidence!

Today, the deal went down in that suit, with a different panel of 9th circuit judges tossing out a previous award of $40,800 in damages and $2.5 million in legal fees in a unanimous ruling, because Congress had never explicitly waived sovereign immunity in these cases:

"It is well understood that any waiver of sovereign immunity must be unequivocally expressed. Section 1810 [of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not include an explicit waiver of immunity, nor is it appropriate to imply such a waiver," Judge Margaret McKeown wrote in an opinion joined by Judges Harry Pregerson and Michael Dawkins. (A copy of the opinion is posted here.

This technicality pretty much finishes the matter, and it is a far bigger deal than most of the stuff you'll read in the media today. At stake was our very ability to use domestic surveillance in the war on jihad.

A case on the constitutionality of the warrantless wiretapping program is due to be heard by the Supreme Court in their next term, but that case relates to the program as it is now, after changes Congress made in 2008 providing statutory authority for the program. It doesn't apply in the Al-Haramain case.

I especially like the fact that treasonous scum conducting lawfare for our enemies ended up not getting paid.They deserve far worse.

A Huge Win For Pam Geller And For 1st Amendment Rights

New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority(MTA) ran an ad on the sides of their buses demonizing Israel's IDF and identifying the 'Palestinians' as being on the side of “peace and justice.”

In response, New York activist, author and blogger Pam Geller's group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) put together the above ad and raised funds to run it in a similar fashion.

The MTA,which was perfectly happy to run th epro-Palestinian ad rejected the AFDI's ad out of hand on the grounds it was “demeaning” to certain groups...as if the pro Palestinain ad wasn't!

So Geller and the AFDI sued the MTA in federal court, claiming discrimination under the Ist Amendment.

Today, the verdict came back and Judge Federal Judge Paul A. Engelmayer, sitting in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that the MTA had clearly violated the AFDI's First Amendment rights and Geller and her group one on all counts.

From Judge Englemeyer's opinion:

As a threshold matter, the Court notes that the AFDI Ad is not only protected speech—it is core political speech. The Ad expresses AFDI’s pro-Israel perspective on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the Middle East, and implicitly calls for a pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy with regard to that conflict….

It proscribes ads that demean a person or group on account of one of nine enumerated subjects: “race, color, religion,
national origin, ancestry, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation.” But, outside of these “specified disfavored topics,” R.A.V., 505 U.S. at 391, MTA’s standard permits all other demeaning ads.

… MTA’s standard permits ads that demean individuals or groups based on a host of circumstances and characteristics—including place of residence, personal history, education, occupation or employment, physical characteristics (other than disability), political affiliation, union membership, point of view, or behavior….

To illustrate the point concretely, under MTA’s no-demeaning standard, an advertiser willing to pay for the privilege is today at liberty to place a demeaning ad on the side or back of a city bus that states any of the following: “Southerners are bigots”; “Upper West Siders are elitist snobs”; “Fat people are slobs”; “Blondes are bimbos”; “Lawyers are sleazebags”; or “The store clerks at Gristedes are rude and lazy.” The regulation also does not prohibit an ad that expresses: “Democrats are communists”; “Republicans are heartless”; or “Tea Party adherents are barbaric.” The standard would also countenance an ad that argues: “Proponents [or opponents] of the new health care law are brain-damaged.” Strikingly, as MTA conceded at argument, its no-demeaning standard currently permits a bus ad even to target an individual private citizen for abuse in the most vile of terms….

By differentiating between which people or groups can and cannot be demeaned on the exterior of a city bus, MTA’s no-demeaning standard, like St. Paul’s ordinance, discriminates based on content….

In so many words, the buses are public forums, and not only was the MTA suppressing protected political speech but it had inconsistently applied its own standard by allowing the pro-Palestinian ad while rejecting the AFDI's.

“In light of that, disallowing a pro-Israel ad was clearly a politically correct, politically motivated denial of free speech,” said Pamela Geller, Executive Director of the American Freedom Defense Initiative. “As such, Judge Engelamyer’s decision is crucial not just for AFDI and the MTA, but for the freedom of speech in general. The AFDI case has set a key legal precedent for the freedom of speech and won a great victory for the First Amendment.”

Geller added: “The freedom of speech is increasingly threatened in the U.S. in recent years -- the Left and Islamic supremacists are doing all they can to rule honest discussion of Islamic jihad violence and Jew-hatred out of the realm of acceptable public discourse. Judge Engelmayer has struck a huge blow against this sinister authoritarian effort and for the freedom of speech that is the cornerstone of all our freedoms. Truth will not be suppressed or embargoed.”

In view of the insane blowback to members of Congress for even suggesting that prominent members of the Obama Administration with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood answer a few questions and have those ties investigated, Geller definitely has a point.

Even better, the ad will now be running on MTA buses an dafter this verdict, the MTA will be paying a good part of the cost itself.

Poetic justice, that.

The fear of Muslim violence doesn't quite trump the Constitution - at least, not yet.

Israeli Village Saved From Death

Migron is a small Israeli community situated in the hill country about five miles north-east of Jerusalem. It was established back in 2002 as small village within easy commuting distance from Jerusalem, and has a population of about 500 people. Some would refer to the small community as an 'outpost'.

Shortly after Migron’s construction, Migron became a target of Peace Now, who started a legal campaign on behalf of several 'Palestinian' Arabs who claimed that their families owned the land upon which Migron sits. According to the Arabs, the land had been given to them by King Hussein of Jordan.

The residents of Migron claimed that they had legally purchased the land, and showed paperwork recording the sale and giving them legal title. The resident's attorneys made the argument all of Judea and Samaria were illegally occupied by Jordan between 1948 to 1967, and that therefore King Hussein had no right to 'give' land to anyone.

Israel's Supreme Court chose to ignore both the history of the area and the villager's legal paperwork showing ownership and ruled in favor of the Arabs. The Court ordered the army to remove the Israeli inhabitants and destroy all structures.

After several appeals which saw three homes demolished,a final 'death sentence' was pronounced on Migron on August 2, 2011, with the court ruling that Migron must be demolished and the inhabitants removed by March 31, 2012.

What happened next is poetic justice.

The Arabs and their supporters in Peace Now got greedy and filed a lawsuit in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, demanding that the Israeli government compensate them for the years during which Migron existed on what they had said was their land.

The Magistrate’s Court, just as a matter of routine, asked that the Arab plaintiffs provide their proof of ownership to the court.

Following that,the Arabs, who had managed to skate through Israel's Supreme Court without being asked this simple question suddenly withdrew their lawsuit.

Because the Arab plaintiffs had no proof of ownership and refused to provide any explanation of why they had withdrawn their suit, the Magistrate’s Court stopped the demolition of Migron's homes and the eviction of the families that live there.

This was fairly major news in Israel and a huge embarrassment for the Supreme Court, especially at a time when the Israeli government is crafting new legislation on new procedures in how Supreme Court justice are selected . The only explanation the Court gave was that “The High Court does not debate evidence.”

The entire fiasco sheds a great deal of light on the necessity of the pending legislation curbing the foreign funding of Israel's Left wing Organizations.

Peace Now is funded almost entirely by the EU and grants from places like the Tides Foundation and the New Israel Fund in America.The UK alone, for example, gave Peace Now £310,000 (about $500,000) in the period of 2008-11.

What they've done with the money, among other things, is to challenge the existence of any community in Israel they oppose as a 'settlement' in court with the idea of harassing Israelis who live in Judea and Samaria and flooding Israeli courts with bogus lawsuits no matter how weak the evidence is, all designed to make it more difficult for the Israeli government to build housing and infrastructure.

In the recent past they tried exactly the same strategy they used in Migron - better known as lawfare - in unsuccessful attempts to have the Israeli communities of of Kiryat Netafim and the Jerusalem suburbs of Ma'aleh Adumim and Har Homa destroyed and the land turned over to Israel's enemies. Needless to say, they have never done anything to challenge the widespread illegal 'Palestinian' construction in Judea and Samaria or in East Jerusalem. In fact they've even attempted to intervene when the City of Jerusalem has attempted to demolish unsafe and illegal structures built by Arabs without permits or any compliance with building and safety codes that were actually hazards to adjacent structures.

Given the state of Middle East peace, one could be forgiven for considering Peace Now's activities as borderline treason.

For now, their attempt to throw their fellow Jews out of their homes in Migron has been foiled, appropriately, by their own greed and zeal to accomplish it at all costs. Hopefully, when Israel limits foreign funding for groups like Peace Now their contemptible efforts to wage lawfare against their own country will be curtailed.

Meanwhile, their fellow citizens can do what Israelis do best,build. Let a thousand bulldozers bloom!

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Pam Geller Suing The NY MTA

Atlas Shrug's Pam Geller is suing the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority for refusing to run the above ad on its subways and buses.

According to an MTA spokesman, the agency “does not approve or disapprove of issue-oriented advertisements based on the viewpoint being expressed,” and that it recently approved other ads that focused on the Middle East. “However, our advertising standards do prohibit language that demeans an individual or group.”

Apparently the word 'savage' was the sticking point.

However, the MTA was perfectly happy to run this ad,which calls the IDF savages by implication:



Aw,isn't that cute? I wonder if the good folks over at the MTA ever heard of Samir Kuntar, an honorary 'Palestinian citizen' who was feted by Mahmoud Abbas himself. Or that Abbas referred to the many child murderers held in Israeli prisons as 'heroes of freedom' and insists they all have to be freed in any peace deal...and that includes the Tanzim sniper who shot little 10-month-old Shalhevat Pas in her stroller.

Maybe if Pam used this picture, it would have made her point a bit more graphically:



That was taken after the non-savages lynched two IDF reservists who wandered across the border accidentally during what was supposed to be peacetime and were literally torn apart by a mob while the 'Palestinian' security forces stood and watched...and participated. They were convicted in an Israeli court of course...the 'Palestinians have never put anyone in jail for murdering Jews.

( sorry about the LGF link...that was back when Chuckles was still sane)

Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center and ace lawyer David Yerushalmi are involved, so this isn't frivolous and has major implications for the way jihad and its adherents are portrayed in the future.

Yaser Koach, Pam!

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The UK Finally Amends Its Anti-Israel Universal Jurisdiction Laws

After years of broken promises to fix an intolerable situation, Britain has finally amended its Universal Jurisdiction laws.

Under the former law, any 'activist' was able to go to court and get an arrest warrant against any foreign national visiting Britain for alleged 'war crimes'. As you can imagine, in the UK this was aimed almost exclusively at Israelis.Any present or former member of the Israeli government and or who had served in the IDF was liable to arrest and prosecution the minute they set foot in Britain.

In just two of many instances, Israeli Opposition leader Tzipi Livni was forced to cancel a 2009 visit to Britain because she served as foreign minister during the 2008-09 Gaza war.And a high level group of Israeli officers en route to the UK for a joint security conference was likewise forced to cancel in 2010 because of the same law.

Former British Labour PM Gordon Brown had promised the Israelis to repeal or amend the law numerous times,but never did, and the current British PM, Conservative David Cameron also dragged his feet about changing what amounted to a huge Do Not Enter sign for Israelis.

But the law has finally been amended. Now, it's required that such warrants have to be submitted to Britain's director of public prosecutions, who must agree to issue an arrest warrant in universal jurisdiction cases in which the alleged crimes were committed outside of Britain.

Queen Elizabeth II signed has signed the new law, which went into effect September 15th.

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US Judge Vacates Judgment After The Fact, Hearts PLO Terrorists

If you go to court and lose, get a huge judgment against you and ignore it and refuse to pay a penny for three years, what do you think the odds are that the court would simply set it aside and allow you contest the whole thing from scratch again,just because?

Pretty good, if you're the 'Palestinian Authority' and you murder Jews.

Back in February of 2002, there was a horrendous suicide bombing of a crowded pizza parlor in the Jewish village of Karnei Shomron by the PLO.

Three teenagers died in that attack, and two of them were American citizens. Others were injured, some for life. The surviving victims and family members sued Syria as well as the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the 'Palestinian Authority'. The victims of the Karnei Shomron attack won a financial judgment in court back in April 2005.

The 'Palestinians' subsequently ignored that judgment which brought the default judgment and penalties up to $300 million.

In a decision made public today, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon decided to wipe the slate clean, vacate the judgment and all penalties and allow the 'Palestinian Authority' to recontest the lawsuit.

Judge Leon said that though "the default was willful at the time, (the Palestinian organizations) clearly demonstrated their commitment to engaging in this litigation." Moreover, Leon noted, imposing a massive liability "on a struggling government, even if that government is not a recognized state, is not something this court takes lightly."

My, my. So, according to this judge, if you willfully murder or injure innocent people, get sued and then refuse to pay compensation out of sheer animosity, you shouldn't have to because he feels like you can't afford it.So you get to go to court all over again, six years after the initial judgement!

Aside from the fact that Judge Leon is sadly misinformed about the 'Palestinians'and the PLO struggling financially and being unable to pay, this is an outrageous miscarriage of justice. Judge Leon apparently decided to allow the PLO to reopen the case because, well, they're such nice guys and enforcing the previous decision for them to pay up would just be too painful.

The pain and suffering the victims and their families have endured and the pain of justice denied for almost a decade means nothing to him.

Per th einterim agreements, the Israeli govenrment turns over an estimated $1 to $1.4 billion per year to Abbas and the 'Palestinians' in tax revenues collected for customs and other tax levies. I've long recommended that they put these funds in escrow instead, to allow victims of 'Palestinian' terrorism to sue and collect judgments so that moral delinquents like Judge Leon wouldn't be troubled with making decisions they're obviously not equipped for.

( hat tip, the Elder)

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Palestinian Authority Pays Settlement To Jewish Family Over 1996 Terrorist Murders

It took 15 years, but the 'Palestinian Authority' finally made an out of court settlement for an undisclosed amount with the Ungar family over the murders of Yaron and his pregnant wife EfFi Ungar ( Z"l).They were two innocent young people whose lives were callously ended not because of anything they did, but because of whom they were.






























This young couple were brutally slaughtered as they left a wedding in Beit Shemesh, just west of Jerusalem. Several Hamas members were convicted in Israeli civil court of the attacks.

The Ungar family sued the 'Palestinian Authority' in Rhode Island and successfully proved that that the PLO and Palestinian Authority provided a safe haven and operational base for Hamas, who carried out the actual murders. A judge issued a default judgment of $116M after the 'Palestinian Authority' refused to respond to requests for depositions from Yasser Arafat and others.

The 'Palestinians' lawyer, Ramsey Clark actually took this to the Supreme Court in an attempt to get the judgment vacated. The High Court refused, after which the scum actually started leaning on their buddies in the Bush Administration, claiming it would 'bankrupt' the PA - who are far from destitute, as regular members of Joshua's Army know. That effort was also ultimately unsuccessful.

Here's part of the complaint, which the Ungars' attorney Mark Wister were ultimately able to prove in full in court:

Plaintiffs allege that the PA and PLO: refused requests for the surrender of terrorist suspects, see id. ¶ 31; granted material and financial support to the families of members of Hamas who have been killed or captured while carrying out terrorist violence against Jewish civilians in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, see id. ¶ 33; assisted Hamas and its members in avoiding apprehension and punishment, see id. ¶ 34; and solicited Hamas and the individual Hamas Defendants to commit the attack on the Ungars’ vehicle, see id. ¶¶ 17-18, 36. Plaintiffs also claim that the PA employed several members of Hamas and other terrorist groups suspected of or charged with the murder of U.S. citizens as police officers and/or security officials. See id. ¶ 32.

It's not clear exactly what the terms of the settlement were, but since a federal judge had already issued a $116 million default judgment that was vacated as part of the terms of the settlement and a $100 million account belonging to the PA was frozen as a consequence, it was likely substantial, if not quite at the $116 million level. And it opens the door as a precedent for a great many other pending cases, including one involving the families of two US diplomats tortured to death in the Sudan on Arafat's orders.

As the Elder of Ziyon points out, Islamic Jihad is lividwith the PA for agreeing to a settlement over something as basic as murdering some Jews. Sheikh Khader Habib called the agreement "rubbish" and is demanding that the PA apologize to the Palestinian Arabs for even considering payment. He called it "a stab in the heart of Palestinian struggle."

Hey, let's give them a state, a Jew-free little reichlet. I'm sure they'll change overnight.

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Obama Justice Dept. Sues School District That Denied Teacher 3 Weeks Leave For Haj

The Obama Justice Department filed suit today against the Berkeley School District in Illinois because it denied a teacher three weeks unpaid leave during the school term in order to attend the Haj in Mecca.

The case was brought on behalf of Safoorah Khan, and the Justice Department is claiming that the district is guilty of a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

What happened is that a year after starting her job as a teacher, Khan asked for unpaid leave of three weeks to visit Saudi Arabia to perform the Haj in Mecca.

The Haj to the city of Mecca is a religious duty all Muslims are supposed to perform once in their lifetime if they are able. While there, they prostrate themselves before the Ka'aba and a meteorite known as the Sacred Black Stone and perform rites virtually unchanged since it was a pagan idol dedicated to Lah, the Arabian Moon God.

The district twice denied her request, after which Khan wrote to the board that 'based on her religious beliefs, she could not justify delaying performing Hajj'.

She resigned afterwards, and filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)in November 2008, which just by coincidence happenes to be when Barack Hussein Obama was elected president. The EEOC found reasonable cause that discrimination had occurred and forwarded the matter to the U.S. Justice Department, who's now suing and asking for the court to order the school district to adopt new Muslim -friendly policies, to reinstate Khan with back pay and to pay her damages.

Why she couldn't have waited until she retired or had enough vacation time,personal days and unused sick time accrued after a couple of years to schedule the trip to Saudi Arabia in advance is something known only by herself and her lawyers at the Justice Department.

And then there's this. The Haj lasts all of five days. If you figure in travel time and recovering from jet lag, the most she would have needed is seven days to do this. So why would she insist on needing three weeks?

This smells of someone using a politically sympathetic Justice Department to try to win a victory for special treatment that applies to Muslims only..and milking a situation to make a financial killing.

Just another case of the Obama Administration observing what seems to be it's first commandment - thou shalt appease Islam.

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CAIR Sues Oklahoma After Anti-Sharia Ballot Measure Passes

The people of Oklahoma had a measure on the ballot, State Question 755 that altered the state Constitution to ban Oklahoma's courts from considering Islamic or international law when making judicial rulings.

It passed by over 70%.

Muneer Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Oklahoma promptly filed a lawsuit calling the law unconstitutional.

Awad gave a press conference and was joined by Chuck Thornton, deputy director of ACLU-Oklahoma; Imad Enchassi, imam of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City (who famously referred to the Tea Party as 'the KKK in drag'); and Nathaniel Batchelder, director of the Central Oklahoma Human Rights Association.

Awad's basis for the suit? He claims SQ755 violates his First Amendment right to freedom of religion because it singles out Islam.According to Awad, there is no threat of an Islamic takeover of state courts, and the law is designed to unfairly single out Islam.

Thornton referred to the law as an "ugly piece of legislation that was used to inflame passions against the Islamic community."

Since sharia law directly mandates an inferior status for women, and non-Muslims and the death penalty for adulterers, homosexuals and those who attempt to leave Islam, all of which violates our Constitution, one would think there would be no question of it getting a foothold here.

Really?

Just recently a judge in New Jersey denied a Muslim woman's case against her husband and ruled that a Muslim husband's right to rape his wife was covered under religious freedom because it did not violate his Islamic beliefs.

While his decision was overturned on appeal, this judge is still sitting on the bench, and there are undoubtedly others like him.Recently, we even had the obscene spectacle of a Supreme Court Justice, Stephen Breyer opining that the Qu'ran might be covered by 'special rights' and that criticism or desecration might not be covered by the First Amendment.

For CAIR, a Muslim Brotherhood front and unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Federation terrorism trial who our own FBI recently cut all ties with, the advantages of the lawsuit are easily seen.

As an Islamist group, their goal is exactly what SQ755 was designed to prevent - the gradual perversion of our justice system to allow sharia law to become an accepted norm here in America - as it already is in Britain, where sharia courts are mandatory in civil matters for Muslims.

So they filed suit as a warning to other states not to allow Americans to vote on similar measures unless they want to be faced with expensive litigation.

It was quite acceptable and proper for the people of Oklahoma by a vast majority to enjoin judges legally not to consider sharia in bench rulings to avoid any confusion, especially in light of the instances mentioned above. And it has nothing to do with fear of an Islamist 'takeover'.

Quite simply, sharia and our Constitution are not compatible, and it has no place in American jurisprudence unless one feels that Muslims - women in particular - do not deserve Constitutional protection simply because they are Muslim.

The people of Oklahoma took a good look at that and decided 'no thank you'.

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Atlas Shrugs' Pam Geller Hit With $10M Lawfare Suit

Author, activist, media personality and blogger extraordinaire Pam Geller over at Atlas Shrugs has long been an outspoken voice against Islamism and its manifestations in the West, especially the Ground Zero Mosque as of late. But this particular case stems from her long time campaign against honor killings and Islamist brutality against Muslim women, an ironic twist seeing as she's frequently characterized as 'anti-Muslim'.

Back in July of 2009, a young teenage girl named Rifka Bary ran away from her home in Ohio after her father threatened to kill her after he found out she had become an apostate and converted to Christianity.Islam mandates the death penalty for apostates.

Bary ended up in Florida sheltering with the family of a Christian Pastor she'd become close to, and her Muslim family, backed by CAIR and the usual suspects mounted a well-financed campaign to have her returned to her home. Pam became a major voice in Rifka's cause to live her own life.

I'll let Pam tell you what happened in her own words:

The Islamic supremacists lost. The lovers and defenders of freedom were victorious. But no good deed goes unpunished.

David Yerushalmi is representing me in the outrageous ten million dollar Islamic supremacist lawsuit brought by Omar Tarazi, lawyer for the parents of Rifqa Bary, whose father threatened to kill her after the Noor mosque ratted her out to her parents. Members of the Noor mosque had spied on her and found out that she had converted out of Islam. Scroll this link.

Tarazi has been a featured speaker at the Noor mosque that spied on Rifqa and publicly ridiculed her. The pressure on Rifqa Bary was intense, the fatwas calling for her death numerous.

The Barys had been working closely with Muslim Brotherhood front, Hamas-linked CAIR to return this poor tortured girl to her violent home. Atlas readers fought hard for Rifqa. We rallied, covered her trials to return her home, sent hundreds of Christmas cards in a holiday campaign (the lawyer Tarazi tried to have the cards seized and banned — unsuccessfully, I might add) and we contacted Florida and Ohio politicians and officials to keep Rifqa safe from her Islamic fundamentalist home and mosque.

It's called lawfare...and it happens when Islamists individuals and organizations like CAIR fueled by petro-dollars from overseas use the courts to silence any criticism of the Religion of Peace. And if that doesn't work, there's always the fatwa and the 'justice' of the blade.

Essentially, it's an attempt to make sharia part of US law by making any criticism of Islam de facto illegal and intimidating publishers from publishing books critical of Islamism and media outlets from having people like Geller on the air because they're afraid of potential litigation.

This sort of thing has been more successful in Europe, most notably the UK, where the libel laws are based on proving the truth of every single claim rather than on proof of actual damages done, as in in the US.

Tarazi is unlikely to be able to prove monetary damages, but the idea is to intimidate Geller, to waste her time and money in court, taint her reputation and to serve as an example to others.

She will undoubtedly be victorious in court, but she needs and deserves our support while this nonsense is going on. Make Atlas one of your regular stops.

(Hat tip , The Baron at Gates of Vienna)

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