Constitutionalists of Maine

Sunday, November 22, 2009

CAIR Threatens Maine School to Force Muslim Prayer Time

From The Lewiston Sun Journal:

"A national Muslim civil rights organization has filed a formal request with the Lewiston School Department to allow a middle school student to pray on school property. The group also wants Lewiston to modify existing policy and provide "constitutionally protected religious accommodation," such as a designated prayer room.

The group has also requested the school department institute diversity training for school staff, and to ensure the middle-schooler won't face retaliation because of her request to pray at the Lewiston Middle School.

According to the Washington, D.C.,-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, seventh-grader Nasra Aden had been routinely "praying discreetly during her free time or lunch break in a corner of a school hallway." But, on Tuesday, CAIR asserts a teacher told Aden "never to pray on school property" after Aden was seen preparing to kneel in prayer in a corner of one of the hallways.

After Aden told her mother, Jamad Warsame, what happened, Warsame spoke with school Principal Maureen Lachappelle and asked the school to accommodate her daughter's desire to pray. According to CAIR, Warsame's request was rebuffed and she has been "forced to pick up her daughter every day and take her to a nearby park to pray."

Lachappelle said Aden is not being forced to leave school to pray, but that the district accommodated her mother's request for her to leave the campus this past week for prayer.

Lewiston Superintendent Leon Levesque, who learned of CAIR's written accusations hours after a press release had already been published on various Web sites, said, "Students are free to pray quietly during class if they choose as long as it's not disruptive," because "prayer is constitutionally protected in schools."

"They can pray audibly or silently," and are subjected to the same rules of order as apply to other students in the school. "We have never denied a student's right to pray," he said.

Aden's uncle, Ismail Warsame, who lives in Orono, said Lachappelle and another school official told the family that because the school department "could not provide a room for Muslims to pray, it was against the school policy for anyone to pray."

Lachappelle disputes that was the department's explanation.

Lachappelle said she told Jamad Warsame that the school department cannot provide special prayer rooms for students of any religion, but that "students certainly have a right to pray in school. We know that's their constitutional right."

A lot of kids pray silently in school," Lachappelle said, at their desks before a test or during study hall. "We don't promote prayer and we don't deny" students' right to pray, she said. "We're neutral."

Levesque said that staff is trained to protect the right of students to pray, and he's certain many students do pray unnoticed. The district also allows religious clubs to meet in school buildings before and after school, and that students are permitted to be excused from school for religious holidays.

In a written statement, Ismail Warsame called school officials' alleged actions in responding to Aden's effort to pray "a stunning scenario of lack of multicultural competency" and "clear violation of our constitutional rights to free religious expression.""

Percentage of Aborted Pregnancies in Europe

Why do I put this up here?
Because what you see in this picture is the (non-)future of the US. It is, for that matter the future of the entire Free World if current trends do not get reversed in a hurry. With the marxist social engineers that rule us at present, that will not happen.
The West is definitely commiting cultural suicide as we speak.
I found the map at the Johnston Archive.

The End of the Global Warming Hoax?

And here is what the WSJ has to say about the end of global warming as we know it. What I am wondering about is: Obama was supposed to give a big chunk of the sovereignty of the USA away during that summit, because "the global warming dangers were so PRESSING that we NEEDED a coordinated INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE". The Communist Internationale and their minions in the US will have to find different ways, so we have to keep a sharp lookout for their next attempt. We still have to watch that bogus climate summit in Copenhagen though:

"Hacked Emails Show Climate Science Ridden with Rancor

The picture that emerges of prominent climate-change scientists from the more than 3,000 documents and emails accessed by hackers and put on the Internet this week is one of professional backbiting and questionable scientific practices. It could undermine the idea that the science of man-made global warming is entirely settled just weeks before a crucial climate-change summit.

Researchers at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, England, were victims of a cyberattack by hackers sometime Thursday. A collection of emails dating back to the mid-1990s as well as scientific documents were splashed across the Internet. University officials confirmed the hacker attack, but couldn't immediately confirm the authenticity of all the documents posted on the Internet.

The publicly posted material includes years of correspondence among leading climate researchers, most of whom participate in the preparation of climate-change reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authoritative summaries of global climate science that influence policy makers around the world.

The release of the documents comes just weeks before a big climate-change summit in Copenhagen."

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Global Warming is Going to Exit with a Whimper After All

The lovely Dymphna over at the Gates of Vienna has an excellent article with excellent links about the "Climate Change Email Affair" that I touched upon earlier.

Please go read it ALL HERE! Follow her links!!!
She writes:

"Who’da thunk it? This argument was supposed to drag on for another two decades or so. Or however long it took to make us and other foolish governments who bought the solely-anthropogenic-because-humanity-is-evil global warming…umm, science. Yes, that’s it: the settled science of man-made climate disasters. They left us but one option, and that was penitence eternal.

We deserved cold, dark homes in the winter and sweltering, cramped cement apartments in the summer. We all needed to give up our cars and the evil fuel used to make them run. We were supposed to shun any idea of nuclear power.

Now there you have two ugly, sinful words in one phrase. “Nuclear” anything is bad, and of course, “power” is for thugs like George Bush and other American imperialists. Humble rulers would forsake ‘rule’ for dialogue, and surrender ‘power’ for being liked instead of being feared. In other words, Hope and Change."

Read on HERE

Alleged CRU Emails - This is Hot!

"On 20 November 2009, emails and other documents, apparently originating from with the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia have been made public.

If real, these emails contain some quite surprising [...] insights into what has been happening within the climate change scientific establishment. Worryingly this same group of scientists are very influential in terms of economic and social policy formation around the subject of climate change.

As these emails are already in the public domain, I think it is important that people are able to look through them and judge for themselves. Until I am told otherwise I have no reason to think the text found on this site is true or false. It is here just as a curiosity!"

Check the database HERE.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Lindsey Graham Destroys Eric Holder

No comment needed here.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The Single Payer Bunch

Can the Tenth Amendment Save Us?

Can the Tenth Amendment Save Us?
by Cal Thomas

Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess? Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution?

The Framers created a limited government, thus ensuring individuals would have the opportunity to become all that their talents and persistence would allow. The Left has put aside the original Constitution in favor of a "living document" that they believe allows them to do whatever they want and demand more tax dollars with which to do it.

Can they be stopped? Some constitutional scholars think the Tenth Amendment offers the best opportunity. The Tenth Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

In 1939, the Supreme Court began to dilute constitutional language so that it became open to broader interpretation. Rob Natelson, professor of Constitutional Law and Legal History at the University of Montana, has written that even before Franklin Roosevelt's court-packing scheme, it was changing the way the Constitution was interpreted, especially, "how the commerce and taxing powers were turned upside-down, the necessary and proper clauses and incidental powers, the false claim that the Supreme Court is conservative, how bad precedent leads to more bad court rulings, state elections as critical for constitutional activists, and more."

While during the last seven decades the court has tolerated the federal welfare state, Natelson says it has never, except in wartime, "authorized an expansion of the federal scope quite as large as what is being proposed now. And in recent years, both the Court and individual justices -- even 'liberal' justices -- have said repeatedly that there are boundaries beyond which Congress may not go." ... "Chief Justice John Marshall once wrote that if Congress were to use its legitimate powers as a 'pretext' for assuming an unauthorized power, 'it would become the painful duty' of the Court 'to say that such an act was not the law of the land.'"

It would be nice to know now what those boundaries are and whether Congress is exceeding its powers as it prepares to alter one-sixth of our economy and change how we access health insurance and health care.

Natelson makes a fascinating argument in his essay, "Is ObamaCare Constitutional?" (www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/08/18/is-obamacare-constitutional), using the Court's Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. In Roe, he writes, the court struck down state abortion laws that "intruded into the doctor-patient relationship. But the intrusion invalidated in Roe was insignificant compared to the massive intervention contemplated by schemes such as HB3200. 'Global budgeting' and 'single-payer' plans go even further, and seem clearly to violate the Supreme Court's Substantive Due Process rules."

Constitutional Attorney John Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, tells me, "Although the states surrendered many of their powers to the new federal government, they retained a residuary and inviolable sovereignty that is reflected throughout the Constitution's text. The Framers rejected the concept of a central government that would act upon and through the States, and instead designed a system in which the State and federal governments would exercise concurrent authority over the people. The Court's jurisprudence makes clear that the federal government may not compel the states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program."

Lawyers are busy writing language only they can understand which seeks to circumvent the intentions of the Founders. But it will be difficult to circumvent the last four words of the Tenth Amendment, which state unambiguously where ultimate power lies: "...or to the people."

Americans who believe their government should not be a giant ATM, dispensing money and benefits to people who have not earned them, and who want their country returned to its founding principles, must now exercise that power before it is taken from them. The Tenth Amendment is one place to begin. The streets are another. It worked for the Left.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Everyone in Britain Could be Given a Personal 'Carbon Allowance'

Everyone in Britain should have an annual carbon ration and be penalised if they use too much fuel, the head of the Environment Agency will say.

Lord Smith of Finsbury believes that implementing individual carbon allowances for every person will be the most effective way of meeting the targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

It would involve people being issued with a unique number which they would hand over when purchasing products that contribute to their carbon footprint, such as fuel, airline tickets and electricity.

Like with a bank account, a statement would be sent out each month to help people keep track of what they are using.

If their "carbon account" hits zero, they would have to pay to get more credits.

Those who are frugal with their carbon usage will be able to sell their unused credits and make a profit.

Lord Smith will call for the scheme to be part of a "Green New Deal" to be introduced within 20 years when he addresses the agency's annual conference on Monday.

An Environment Agency spokesman said only those with "extravagant lifestyles" would be affected by the carbon allowances.

He said: "A lot of people who cycle will get money back. It will probably only be bankers and those with extravagant lifestyles who would lose out."

The rest HERE.

George Casey, Accessory After the Fact to Mass Murder?

By Lawrence Auster at View from the Right, "the right blog for the right"

Let's look again at those golden words from the highest officer of the U.S. Army:

"Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

Many people including me have been disgusted and outraged by this statement, which makes diversity the supreme good, supplanting all others, including the protection of life, including the protection of our country. But it's even worse than I realized. Casey is adopting the very principle that kept Nidal Hasan's fellow officers from reporting him and his superiors from investigating and disciplining him. Why didn't they report and sanction him for his jihadist, murderous, and treasonous statements? Because, had they done so, certain consequences, undesirable to today's Army, would have followed: Hasan, a Muslim, would have had to be removed from the Army and perhaps punished as well; and pious Muslims generally would have had to be looked at much more carefully by the Army, which would have had the effect of reducing Muslim recruitment and retention. In short, diversity would have been made a casualty. And, according to Casey, to make diversity a casualty would have been WORSE than the slaughter at Fort Hood. Casey is thus approving the behavior of the officers who left the jihad-spouting Hasan in place and, by doing so, enabled him to commit mass murder. He is a conscious accessory after the fact in the Muslim mass murder of U.S. soldiers.