Homer/Lockport Tea Party

LARRY KELLEY
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in the May 2010 issue of Townhall Magazine.

The Muslim Brotherhood is leading the way for radical Muslims to infiltrate American society and government. Their goal is simple: control the United States and impose Shariah law.

In A.D. 622, Muhammad was forced to flee to Medina from his birthplace in Mecca, where the ruling tribe, the Quraysh, had come to see his preaching and proselytizing as a threat. While in Medina, he amassed a following of Bedouin warriors who swarmed to his banner to participate in the conquest and plunder of the smaller cities dotting the surrounding Arabian landscape.

In 630, Muhammad’s armies surrounded Mecca and forced its unconditional submission. All organized resistance on the Arabian Peninsula then collapsed, bringing it under Islamic military domination.

In their book “Muslim Mafia,” coauthors David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry expose the Muslim Brotherhood as the worldwide, Saudi government-funded Islamist hand behind all Sunni terrorist groups and the world’s largest and most dangerous stateless organization. They reveal the Brotherhood’s plan for the eventual Islamic domination of the United States and strategy to follow the example of the prophet after “he fled to Medina.”

WEAKNESS IN THE FACE OF A THREAT

While there are reasons to be encouraged by the administration’s Afghanistan offensive, many serious observers of America’s war with militant Islam see reasons for alarm. A case in point — the Fort Hood Massacre. It was shocking enough to learn that the American domestic military establishment cannot even protect its own troops inside the United States. But what seemed even more shocking was the fact that the country’s most senior Army officer, Gen. George Casey, publicly stated that the attack caused him to be more worried about harm to the military’s diversity than the disgrace that failed to prevent such an appalling waste of lives.

Many fear our superpower status is rapidly ebbing away and, shockingly, at the behest of our own government. The reasons for alarm continue to multiply: the (thankfully now-abandoned) initiative to prosecute the CIA operatives whose “enhanced interrogation techniques” produced intelligence that thwarted numerous 9/11-style attacks; this administration’s prosecution of Navy Seals who allegedly punched a captured terrorist who killed and mutilated Americans in Fallujah, Iraq; the White House’s pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility and release more of the most senior terrorists back to their terror networks; the cancellation of our long-range missile defense installation contracts in the Czech Republic and Poland precisely when Iran is feverishly working on nuclear long-range missiles; the failure to issue the smallest encouragement to the Iranian freedom fighters who want to align with us in their efforts to put down the most dangerous Islamic regime on the planet; and its profligate spending that threatens to render America feckless, indebted to its enemies and unable to finance its own defense.

Given the escalating Islamic threat, it seems appropriate to ask: Why is this diminution of American power happening? Are there Islamic jihadists influencing our government? Who are the jihadists influencing? What have they accomplished? And what is their end game?

BUILDING THE BROTHERHOOD

In 1948, an influential Egyptian writer, Sayyid Qutb, set sail from Cairo to New York City. His trip was financed by powerful Egyptian friends who were also conspiring against the dissolute monarch, King Farouk, who was a puppet of the occupying British government and who had put out a warrant for the seditious writer’s arrest. Also in that year, five Arab armies were in the final stages of losing the war to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state within Islamic lands. As Lawrence Wright puts it in his book, “The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11,” “[This event] not only stunned the Arab world but the shame of that experience would shape the Arab intellectual experience more profoundly than any other in modern history.”

Qutb’s writing espoused a new Islamic fundamentalist ideology and movement, which was reflected in an organization called the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Qutb was a member. Founded in 1928 by an equally influential Egyptian, Sheik Hassan al-Banna, the original goal of the Brotherhood was to convert Egypt into an Islamic state.

Al-Banna was a man of action. Just two decades after its founding, his organization counted hundreds of thousands of members across Egypt and throughout the Middle East. He and Qutb saw the movement as a kind of counter society, challenging every norm of Western secular politics and culture.

In 1949, while still in the United States and as his book, “Social Justice in Islam,” was about to be published, Qutb learned that al-Banna had been assassinated. The event shocked him. The Egyptian government killed al-Banna and did so out of self-defense because the Brotherhood was beginning to embrace violence, blowing up movie theaters in Cairo and murdering British and Egyptian officials.

With al-Banna’s death, Qutb became the leading voice of the new Muslim fundamentalism. He wrote, “The white man in Europe or America is our number one enemy. … We are endowing our children with amazement and respect for the master who tramples our honor and enslaves us. Let us instead plant the seeds of hatred, disgust and revenge in the souls of these children. Let us teach them that the white man is the enemy of humanity and that they should destroy him at the first opportunity.”

INSPIRING BIN LADEN

In August 1950, Qutb returned to Egypt fully radicalized and determined to violently overthrow the regime. By this time, the Brotherhood numbered 1 million members in a country of 18 million.

In January 1952, the Brothers fomented a riot in Cairo, and in September, the government was seized in a military junta, led by a young army colonel, Gamal Nasser. The military plotters coordinated the coup very closely with the Brothers, and in fact, one of the officers, Anwar Sadat, the man who succeeded Nasser, was himself a Brother.

While Nasser invited Qutb to be an advisor to his Revolutionary Command Council, the alliance was short-lived. Nasser’s dream was to found a Pan-Arab modern socialist state with Cairo as its capital. This had nothing to do with the dream of a new theocratic caliphate that Qutb and the Brothers had in mind.

In October 1954, while Nasser was speaking to a huge assembly and the country listened on the radio, a number of Brothers opened fire at him. Miraculously, Nasser escaped injury. The regime immediately captured and hung the conspirators, rounded up thousands of Brothers and placed thousands in concentration camps, including Qutb, who was given a life sentence.

Qutb, suffering torture in prison, became a hero for the new Islamic fundamentalists. Through family and friends, bits and pieces of Qutb’s Islamist manifesto, “Milestones,” were smuggled out of his cell and ultimately published in 1962. It was this book that would profoundly influence a young Osama bin Laden.

Although Nasser pardoned and released him in 1964, Qutb went immediately back to plotting violent revolution, with the secret support of Saudi Arabia whose ruling monarchy feared Nasser’s brand of Pan-Arabism. Six months later, Qutb and 42 conspirators were arrested and put on trial. Qutb received his death sentence gratefully. “I performed jihad for 15 years until I earned this martyrdom,” he declared.

Nassar knew that Qutb was more dangerous to him dead than alive. He dispatched Sadat to visit Qutb in prison and offered him another pardon if he would a write a request for clemency. Qutb refused and was hung after prayers in August 1966, His body was not surrendered to his family for fear his grave would become a shrine. As Wright puts it, “[Qutb’s] lonely genius would unsettle Islam, threaten regimes across the Muslim world and beckon to a generation of rootless Arabs who were looking for meaning and purpose in their lives and would find it in jihad.”

Al-Banna and Qutb were the Marx and Lenin of the new Islamic fundamentalism that produced the Muslim Brothers, that inspired and produced unknown numbers of new leaders of even more violent splinter affiliates, including: Hamas; the Taliban; Ayman al Zawahiri’s al-Jihad, which conducted the assassination of Anwar Sadat; and bin Laden’s al Qaeda.

THE BROTHERHOOD COMES TO AMERICA

In the mid-20th century, the Brotherhood began its campaign to infiltrate and impact the direction of the United States.

During the 1960s, the Brotherhood began sending vast numbers of students to American universities.

In 1973, with massive Saudi funding, they formed the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), an investment vehicle that enabled them to acquire 300 mosques and schools in the United States.

In 1987, Hamas, the Palestinian wing of the Brothers with the stated goal of destroying Israel, was founded and largely funded by American Muslims.

In 1990, the Brotherhood formed the American Muslim Council (AMC) with Abdurahman Alamoudi as its boss and the new capo di tutti of the entire syndicate.

Then in 1994, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was founded.

In 1980, there were 481 officially recognized Mosques in the United States. Today, there are 1,209, with an estimated 80 percent of those funded and controlled by Saudi Arabia, where the official religion is virulently anti-Western Wahhabi Islam.

Sperry and Gaubatz’s “Muslim Mafia” exposes the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in America using declassified FBI documents, FBI agent interviews, transcripts of telephone wire taps and thousands of internal documents smuggled out of CAIR headquarters by Gaubatz’s son, Chris Gaubatz, who posed as an American convert to Islam and was hired by CAIR. They demonstrate that the Brotherhood is now a worldwide central clearinghouse for virtually all Sunni terrorist groups, is operating inside U.S. mosques across the country and is in complete control of CAIR and its myriad subsidiaries.

And while the House of Saud attempts to portray itself as a loyal U.S. trading partner, the authors prove that it is actually financing and partnering with the Brotherhood, that it is actively undermining our national security, and that it controls CAIR and at least 46 other supposedly moderate Muslim front groups in the United States, along with countless other subsidiary shell companies. And for the first time, they expose the Brotherhood’s five-phase plan for dominating America:

• Phase I: Establish an elite Muslim Leadership and raise Islamicist consciousness in the community;

• Phase II: Create Islamic institutions that the leadership can control and form autonomous Muslim enclaves;

• Phase III: Infiltrate America’s political and social institutions forming a shadow state; escalate conversions; manipulate mass media to remove language offensive to Islam;

• Phase IV: Open hostile public confrontation over U.S. policies, riot, make militant demands for special rights and accommodations;

• Phase V: Wage final conflict and overthrow (jihad).

According to Sperry and Gaubatz, the consensus among counterterrorism officials is that the North American Brotherhood is already in Phase III.

CLERICAL INFILTRATORS

Many of the imams at major mosques play a pivotal role in implementing the first two phases of the plan, acting as recruiters and organizers. In internal documents, they refer to the United States as their Dar al-Arqam, their safe house. FBI wiretaps of secret meetings reveal that the Brotherhood views America as a pushover.

I found the Muslim Community Association (MCA) of Santa Clara, Calif., a mosque near my home, mentioned in numerous sources as a major Brotherhood center with ties to al Qaeda. I was able to meet with the MCA outreach director, Dian Alyan, at the mosque on a Friday in order to also observe services.

After her lengthy description of how her Mosque was a force for good, I read her the following, culled from my sources (Robert Spencer, Gaubatz, Sperry and others), and asked for her reaction:

“Ali ‘the American’ Mohamed was a loyal member of the Muslim Brotherhood who emigrated from Egypt to spy for the Brotherhood in America. He infiltrated the U.S. Army as a sergeant and became a U.S. Special Forces trainer. He went on to the JFK Special Warfare Center and School (SWICK) where was able to steal classified military secrets. During leaves, he would travel to New Jersey to train al Qaeda operatives in weapons and warfare tactics.

“After his honorable discharge, he moved to Santa Clara where he set up a communications cell for al Qaeda while fronting as a computer engineer … there he brought Ayman al-Zawahiri to California for fundraising tour, which netted the al Qaeda leader $500,000. A large chunk of it was raised at the Muslim Community Association, the home mosque of CAIR cofounder Omar Ahmad. Five years later, the FBI arrested Mohamed, who subsequently pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa.”

As I neared the end of my reading, I saw Ms. Alyan’s face flush from her impeccable olive hue to a bright pink, which gave me a sickening feeling, as if I had kicked her in the stomach.

“Where did you get that, off the Internet?” she asked.

“No, from books and recently declassified FBI files,” I said.

“May I have those? I’d like to show them to Mr. [Mohammed] Nadeem [president of MCA].”

I told her that I would send her clean copies without my notes scribbled on them.

“Muslim Mafia” contains many depictions of American imams openly espousing treason. For example, American Muslim cleric Zaid Shakir, was secretly recorded giving a lecture in the San Francisco area advising his audience of fellow Muslim Americans to follow the strategy of the prophet when he fled to Medina and accumulated power first before waging violent jihad. Shakir is a regular speaker at CAIR-sponsored events, where he has referred to the Brotherhood’s aforementioned plan to overthrow America by saying, “If we put a nationwide infrastructure in place and marshaled our resources, we’d take over this country in a very short time.”

U.S. GOVERNMENT INFILTRATORS

The Brothers and their Islamist allies have been successfully gaining access to the highest levels of our government since the Clinton administration. Just a few who’ve been outed are:

Sami al-Arian: In Sperry’s 2005 book, “Infiltration,” he writes that on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Sami al-Arian awoke “extremely upbeat.” Finally, all the work he had done in Florida in 2000 “getting out the Muslim vote” had paid off — conservative activist and leading George W. Bush advocate Grover Norquist argued that it was al-Arian’s Muslim voters in Florida who had pushed Bush over the finish line. In a few hours, he and eight other Muslim leaders would meet with the president to discuss how Bush would live up to his campaign pledge to end the use of secret intelligence in the investigation of American Muslims — the culmination of a four-year effort for this Muslim professor and the secret Brotherhood capo.

Ironically the 9/11 attacks preempted al-Arian’s audience with Bush. Today, he’s behind bars, convicted of fraudulently raising money and funneling it to Hamas and other terrorist organizations conducting suicide operations in Israel.

Abdurahman Alamoudi: In 1997, Norquist brokered a meeting with then-Texas Gov. Bush to develop a plan to bring in a previously untapped voting block, he called it the “Muslim Strategy.” The meeting featured AMC boss and top Brotherhood member Alamoudi, top AMC lieutenant Khaled Suffuri, Karl Rove, Norquist and Talat Othman, a Saudi friend of Bush and fellow member of Harken Oil. The plan hinged on a Bush vow to limit the government’s use of secret information in the investigation of Muslims — the same deal al-Arian sought to close four years later.

Alamoudi had long been the toast of the town in multiculturalist Washington. In 1993, he was commissioned to create the first Muslim chaplin corps for the Pentagon. In 1996, he organized the first Ramadan dinner for government officials and met with Clinton and Gore in the White House. That year, he was recorded at the Islamic Association of Palestine’s annual convention in Illinois saying, “I think if we are outside the country, we can say, ‘O Allah, destroy America.’ But once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it.”

Today, Alamoudi is serving a 23-year prison sentence. Busted in 2003 for trying to smuggle $340,000 in sequentially numbered bills into the United States from Libya, prosecutors connected him to Hamas and Hezbollah, and he eventually pled guilty to plotting terrorist attacks on the United States with support from Libya.

Shiek Hamza Yusuf: The only Muslim in a group of religious leaders invited to the White House to pray with the president after 9/11, Yusuf is an American-born convert to Islam and cultivates his moderate image. But only two days prior to 9/11, he spoke to Muslims in Irvine, Calif., gathered in support of a cop-killing Muslim imam, “[T]his country [America] is facing a very terrible fate. The reason for this is that this country stands condemned. … This country unfortunately has a great tribulation coming to it.”

Omar Ahmad: Co-founder of CAIR and also an honored guest at the Bush White House, Ahmad was invited by the president to the National Cathedral to mourn the Americans lost on 9/11. In 1998, he was secretly recorded at an Islamic conference in Fremont, Calif., saying, “Islam isn’t in America to equal to any other faith but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America and Islam the only accepted religion.” Before founding CAIR, Ahmad was a leader at the Islamic Association of Palestine, which was an Islamist organization that raised money in America for Hamas but was shut down by the government in 2005.

The three largest American-based Brotherhood front groups have been blacklisted and/or shut down by the FBI. The FBI shut down Holy Land Foundation, the largest Islamic charity, for fraudulently raising money for Hamas and listed CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) as unindicted co-conspirators.

THE COMPROMISED

Many American officials seem to be compromised by two interlocking phenomena. First, they cannot countenance a belief system that is cloaked in a religious conviction that includes our subjugation. Second, for good reason, they are driven by fear. In Northern Virginia, the Muslim Brotherhood has targeted U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, issuing death threats to him and his family for his prosecution of their leaders, including CAIR executives.

Here are a few government players who have been used by Islamists:

Robert S. Mueller: FBI Director Robert Mueller, appointed by Bush and retained by Obama, has allowed his agency to be infiltrated and his agents brainwashed by CAIR/Brotherhood operatives. One of his responses to 9/11 was to sponsor “diversity and sensitivity workshops” conducted by CAIR executives. As Sperry and Gaubatz point out, these quickly turned into nothing less than “dangerous disinformation campaigns designed to desensitize agents from the threat of Islamic terrorism.”

Documents obtained by Chris Gaubatz confirm that CAIR is enjoying, under the Obama administration, expanded “positive relations with the FBI.” Assistant Director for Public Affairs John Miller, now invites highly suspect CAIR officials to FBI headquarters for regular “working lunches.” Incredibly, it’s Miller’s policy to keep CAIR and other Muslim groups informed about FBI plans to raid Islamic targets in counterterrorism investigations.

Agents assert that these “outreach” policies have created discord at all levels of the FBI except within the top brass, which “continues to be clueless about the nature of the enemy.”

Brian Humphrey: In 2006, then-Customs and Border Protection Executive Director Brian Humphrey assured CAIR that his agents do not single out Muslim airline passengers for special screening. Further, his agents must undergo a course in Muslim sensitivity. The course is put together by Margaret Nydell, an Arabic Studies professor at Georgetown University, which houses a large Saudi financed center on Islamic studies. One border agent described her course as “politically correct drivel.”

Valerie Jarrett: A longtime Obama associate from Chicago and now a senior advisor to the president, Valerie Jarrett had the dubious distinction of being the first White House official to address a national convention of Brotherhood front group ISNA.

Eric Holder: Last December, in a piece for National Review titled “Shifty Shifting,” Andrew McCarthy eviscerated Attorney General Eric Holder, describing him as a man who seems to be compromised not by Muslim intimidation but by the ideology of the extreme international Left of which he and Obama are members in good standing. Holder served as the No. 2 man in the Clinton Justice Department when, as McCarthy puts it, “nearly as many terrorists were pardoned as were prosecuted,” and served during a time when the al Qaeda attacks on U.S. interests were occurring every year and escalating in intensity. It was Holder who obtained the pardon for Marc Rich, one of the FBI’s most wanted, a man who was indicted for millions of dollars in fraud and tax evasion and for cutting illegal deals with the regime in Iran.

Holder’s desire to close Guantanamo without a plan for what to do with the 200 prisoners detained there along with his desire to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and four other terrorists in a civilian court are indicative of a much larger malfeasance in this administration’s approach to our war with Islamic terrorists. In a House Judiciary Committee hearing last fall, he exhibited an abject ignorance of the fact that a civilian trial for the terrorists would be exactly what our Islamic enemies crave, a new weapon where they would gain intelligence and broadcast propaganda.

THE BROTHERS AS SEEN BY AN APOSTATE

I spoke with Nonie Darwish, author of “Now They Call Me Infidel” and “Cruel and Usual Punishment” and internationally recognized advocate for Muslim apostates. Now an American, she grew up a Muslim in Egypt, the daughter of an Egyptian general whose family was part of President Nasser’s inner circle.

I asked her to characterize the current state of the Brotherhood in Egypt and internationally. She explained that they are very popular throughout the entire world of Sunni Islam. In most countries — Islamic and in the West — they remain somewhat clandestine. But in Egypt, the Brothers operate openly. There are even avowed members serving in the Egyptian parliament. “The reason that they are so popular is because they are seen as carrying the flag of true Islam,” she added.

“How can the Mubarak government allow the Brothers to be in the government, given that they were accomplices to the assassination of Sadat?” I asked.

“Because the Egyptian government is afraid of them,” she said. “There are assassination attempts constantly, because the Brothers are always watching and evaluating if Mubarak is pure enough. Most Muslim leaders walk a fine line, keeping one foot in the West while they keep talking to their own people about jihad.”

“And in the U.S., how would you describe the Brothers today?” I asked.

Ms. Darwish explained that we are beginning to resemble Egypt, not just in the sense that Brothers are operating openly, working to reverse the Patriot Act and always trying to gain more protection for their jihadist syndicate but because, as she puts it, “our leaders now have invited them to join the government.”

She cited as an example Dalia Mogahed, also an Egyptian by birth, the chief advisor to Obama on Islamic affairs and the first veiled Muslim to work in the White House. “I can tell that she is very sympathetic to the Brothers.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“See if you can find any statement she has ever made condemning the acts of terrorist organizations such as Hamas or al Qaeda. You won’t find one.”

Dan Proft commentary

Washington, DC public schools have an acute problem with juvenile delinquency.

Trouble is, the problem isn’t with the students but rather the supposed grown-ups in charge of the Washington Teachers Union (WTU).

Once thought to be an unlikely laboratory for school reform, the District’s success with school vouchers, begrudgingly recognized even by the Obama administration, its high incidence of children attending charter schools (35 percent) and its outspoken Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee have made Washington, DC a bellwether for K-12 reform.

But none of these gains have come without incident. And the latest battle between Rhee and the WTU over the firing of bad teachers is no exception.

IMPACT Leaves a Mark

Last year Rhee worked with rank-and-file teachers to develop a new system for evaluating teacher performance called IMPACT, which ties teacher retention in part to student performance on standardized tests. But only in part.

At the time, WTU boss George Parker grumbled, “[IMPACT] takes the art of teaching and turns it into bean counting.”

Unfortunately, the sort of artistry practiced in DC’s public schools was producing a 49 percent graduation rate. The system’s failure is even more glaring when compared with the 82 percent graduation rate among the District’s school voucher students.

It was hardly surprising the WTU would blanch at holding teachers to account for their students’ academic progress. But it was a surprise the WTU agreed in June to a contract providing significantly more money for teachers-including merit pay incentives-in exchange for empowering Rhee to fire bad teachers, regardless of seniority, under the new IMPACT evaluation criteria.

And when Rhee announced at the end of July that 241 DC teachers would be fired, suddenly WTU officials became the bean counters.

“They’ve gone too far too fast,” Parker complained to the Washington Post. He said the WTU would appeal every termination and likely file a federal unfair labor practice complaint for good measure.

Rhee Changes Paradigm

Rhee should continue to challenge the WTU’s “money for nothing” attitude. Rhee’s willingness to trade more money for better teachers and greater flexibility in removing bad teachers highlights her sophistication as an education reformer.

She is aiming to secure teacher accountability through the back door when politicians-local and federal-inhibit competition that would bring it through the front door.

Rhee’s policy choices indicate she understands two important truths about K-12 education. First, teacher quality is paramount. Second, it is both very difficult and very costly to remove bad teachers under the accepted paradigm of collective bargaining agreements. So Rhee has set out to abide by the first truth by rewarding quality teachers and changing the accepted paradigm.

The scholarship on teacher quality is clear: It is the most important school-related factor in student achievement. Some studies suggest the difference between having a good teacher and having a bad one can exceed one grade-level equivalent in annual achievement growth.

Tough to Fire Bad Teachers

The data on firing bad teachers is equally stark. A Newsweek report published in March found:

“In New York City in 2008, three out of 30,000 tenured teachers were dismissed for cause. The statistics are just as eye-popping in other cities. The percentage of teachers dismissed for poor performance in Chicago between 2005 and 2008 (the most recent figures available) was 0.1 percent. In Akron, Ohio, zero percent. In Toledo, 0.01 percent. In Denver, zero percent.”

Newsweek further observed: “Year after year, about 99 percent of all teachers in the United States are rated ‘satisfactory’ by their school systems; firing a teacher invites a costly court battle with the local union.”

How costly?

A study by the Small Newspaper Group in Illinois found in the years 2001-2005, Illinois school districts spent an average of more than $219,000 in legal fees each time they attempted to terminate a tenured teacher.

Administrators Cowed

The study found the costs of firing bad teachers are so prohibitive in Illinois an average of only two are dismissed each year for cause out of the more than 95,000 tenured teachers in the state,

And that doesn’t begin to account for the time involved.

It took the Los Angeles Unified School District seven years to fire a high school teacher who had been removed from the classroom in 2002 amid allegations of sexual misconduct. The teacher received full salary and benefits during that period.

By comparison, it took four years to build the Golden Gate Bridge.

The teachers’ unions may jawbone the idea that they are not in the business of protecting bad teachers. The unions may attempt to shift the blame onto principals, administrators, and school boards who are “not doing their jobs” in ridding schools of bad teachers. But the costs imposed by the teachers’ unions induce administrators to take the path of least resistance through non-solutions such as New York City’s notorious “rubber rooms.”

Advancing ‘Rhee-form’

It may be economically rational to capitulate to the unions, but reformers such as Rhee recognize appeasing the unions means conceding failure, a failure directly visited upon the students. Remember them?

By maintaining a focus on increasing teacher quality and making calculated tradeoffs designed to get bad actors to do the right thing in spite of themselves, Rhee has DC schools on the right path.

Dan Proft (dan@danproft.com) is a talk show host and political commentator for WLS-AM 890 (wlsam.com) in Chicago.

For other Dan Proft commentaries (radio & print), please visit: http://www.urqmedia.com/proft/

For other recent Don Wade & Roma interviews, commentary, and discussions visit: http://www.wlsam.com/sectional.asp?id=16410

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The Religion of Peace.

WWIII Started in 1979

You have to read the catalog of events in this brief piece. Then, ask yourself how anyone can take the position that all we have to do is bring our troops home from Iraq, reset the snooze alarm, go back to sleep, and no one will ever bother us again. In case you missed it, World War III began in November 1979…

US Navy Captain Ouimette is the Executive Officer at Naval Air Station, Pensacola , Florida . Here is a copy of the speech he gave last month. It is an accurate account of why we are in so much trouble today and why this action is so necessary.

AMERICA NEEDS TO WAKE UP!

That’s what we think we heard on the 11th of September 2001 (When more than 3,000 Americans were killed) and maybe it was, but I think it should have been ‘Get Out of Bed!’ In fact, the alarm clock has been buzzing since 1979 and we have continued to hit the snooze button and roll over for a few more minutes of peaceful sleep since then.

It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheaval when a group of Iranian students attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran. This seizure was an outright attack on American soil; it was an attack that held the world’s most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency The attack on this sovereign U. S. Embassy set the stage for events to follow for the next 25 years.

America was still reeling from the aftermath of the Vietnam experience and had a serious threat from the Soviet Union when then, President Carter, had to do something. He chose to conduct a clandestine raid in the desert. The ill-fated mission ended in ruin, but stood as a symbol of America’s inability to deal with terrorism.

America ‘s military had been decimated and down sized since the end of the Vietnam War. A poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly organized military was called on to execute a complex mission that was doomed from the start.

Shortly after the Tehran experience, Americans began to be kidnapped and killed throughout the Middle East. America could do little to protect her citizens living and working abroad. The attacks against US soil continued.

In April of 1983 a large vehicle packed with high explosives was driven into the US Embassy compound in Beirut. When it explodes, it kills 63 people. The alarm went off again and America hit the Snooze Button once more.

Then just six short months later in 1983 a large truck heavily laden down with over 2500 pounds of TNT smashed through the main gate of the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut and 241 US servicemen are killed. America mourns her dead and hit the Snooze Button once more.

Two months later in December 1983, another truck loaded with explosives is driven into the US Embassy in Kuwait, and America continues her slumber.

The following year, in September 1984, another van was driven into the gate of the US Embassy in Beirut and America slept.

Soon the terrorism spreads to Europe . In April 1985 a bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by US soldiers in Madrid.

Then in August 1985 a Volkswagen loaded with explosives is driven into the main gate of the US Air Force Base at Rheine-Main, 22 are killed and the snooze alarm is buzzing louder and louder as US interests are continually attacked.

Fifty-nine days later in1985 a cruise ship, the Achille Lauro is hijacked and we watched as an American in a wheelchair is singled out of the passenger list and executed.

The terrorists then shift their tactics to bombing civilian airliners when they bomb TWA Flight 840 in April of 1986 that killed 4 and the most tragic bombing, Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 259.

The wake up alarm is getting louder and louder.

The terrorists decide to bring the fight to America . In January 1993, two CIA agents are shot and killed as they enter CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The following month, February 1993, a group of terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives is driven into the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people are killed and over 1000 are injured. Still this is a crime and not an act of war? The Snooze alarm is depressed again.

Then in November 1995 a car bomb explodes at a US military complex in RiyadhSaudi Arabiakilling seven service men and women.

A few months later in June of 1996, another truck bomb explodes only 35 yards from the US military compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It destroys the Khobar Towers, a US Air Force barracks, killing 19 and injuring over 500. The terrorists are getting braver and smarter as they see that America does not respond decisively.

They move to coordinate their attacks in a simultaneous attack on two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania . These attacks were planned with precision. They kill 224. America responds with cruise missile attacks and goes back to sleep.

The USS Cole was docked in the port of Aden, Yemen for refueling on 12 October 2000, when a small craft pulled along side the ship and exploded killing 17 US Navy Sailors. Attacking a US War Ship is an act of war, but we sent the FBI to investigate the crime and went back to sleep.

And of course you know the events of 11 September 2001. Most Americans think this was the first attack against US soil or in America . How wrong they are. America has been under a constant attack since 1979 and we chose to hit the snooze alarm and roll over and go back to sleep.

In the news lately we have seen lots of finger pointing from every high official in government over what they knew and what they didn’t know. But if you’ve read the papers and paid a little attention I think you can see exactly what they knew. You don’t have to be in the FBI or CIA or on the National Security Council to see the pattern that has been developing since 1979.

I think we have been in a war for the past 25 years and it will continue until we as a people decide enough is enough. America needs to ‘Get out of Bed’ and act decisively now. America has been changed forever. We have to be ready to pay the price and make the sacrifice to ensure our way of life continues. We cannot afford to keep hitting the snooze button again and again and roll over and go back to sleep.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto said ‘… it seems all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant.’ This is the message we need to disseminate to terrorists around the world.

This is not a political thing to be hashed over in an election year, this is an AMERICAN thing. This is about our Freedom and the Freedom of our children in years to come.

Need I ask? Should we let the enemy build a Shariah mosque at Ground Zero…?

Read the Shariah Index Program here>>

Mosque Moves Forward, Yet Church in Limbo
by Mark Impomeni

08/09/2010

The battle raging over the Ground Zero mosque is bringing new attention to another, less publicized controversy involving a house of worship in Lower Manhattan.

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which once sat right across the street from the World Trade Center, was crushed under the weight of the collapse of Tower Two on September 11, 2001. St. Nicholas was the only church to be lost in the attacks, and nine years later, while City of New York officials are busy removing every impediment to the building of the Cordoba mosque two blocks from the site, St. Nicholas’ future remains unclear.

The last bit of hopeful news for St. Nicholas came two years ago, in July 2008, when church officials and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced a deal which would have allowed the church to be rebuilt about two blocks from its original location.

The Port Authority agreed to give the church a parcel of land at Liberty and Greenwich Streets, and contribute $20 million toward construction of a new sanctuary. The Port Authority also agreed to build an explosion-proof platform and foundation for the new church building, which would sit on top of a screening area for cars and trucks entering the underground garages at the new World Trade Center.

Trouble emerged after St. Nicholas announced its plans to build a traditional Greek Orthodox church building, 24,000 square feet in size, topped with a grand dome. Port Authority officials told the church to cut back the size of the building and the height of the proposed dome, limiting it to rising no higher than the World Trade Center memorial. The deal fell apart for goodin March 2009, when the Port Authority abruptly ended the talks after refusing to allow church officials to review plans for the garage and screening area underneath. Sixteen months later, the two sides have still not met to resume negotiations.

St. Nicholas Church’s difficulty in getting approvals to rebuild stands in stark contrast to the treatment that the developers of the proposed Cordoba mosque have received. New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, state Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo, and a raft of city officials have all come out publicly in favor of building the mosque, and the city’s Landmarks and Preservation Commission recently voted unanimously to deny protection to the building currently occupying the site where the mosque is to be built.

The mosque is proposed to rise 13 stories, far above the height of the World Trade Center memorial, with no height restrictions imposed.

Inspired by former representative Vito Fossella (R-NY), Human Events and RedState.com are sponsoring an online petition calling on New York officials to take action to stop the mosque from being built.

The contrast has not been lost on at least one candidate for Congress. George Demos is a Republican running in New York’s 1st Congressional District. Demos has made the Cordoba mosque an issue in his campaign, even though his district is on Eastern Long Island, and is highlighting the plight of St. Nicholas Church.

In an exclusive interview with Human Events, Demos had harsh words for the Port Authority, which he accuses of blocking the church from being rebuilt. “The Port Authority is a creation of Congress and should be answerable to two states [New York and New Jersey], but in reality is answerable to no one,” Demos said. “The Port Authority is insular and simply doesn’t care about public opinion. They are simply not making this a priority. Chris Ward is the Port Authority director and he is not allowing this to go forward.”

For its part, the Port Authority says it had no choice but to break off negotiations with the church to avoid delaying the World Trade Center project any longer. The authority said that the church retains the right to rebuild on its own at its original location. “We made an extraordinarily generous offer to resolve this issue and spent eight months trying to finalize that offer, and the church wanted even more on top of that,” Stephen Sigmund, a spokesman for the Port Authority said last year. “They have now given us no choice but to move on to ensure the site is not delayed. The church continues to have the right to rebuild at their original site, and we will pay fair market value for the underground space beneath that building.”

Demos said it is the church that has been unjustly delayed. “One place of worship was destroyed in the attacks. That should be the first thing on that board’s agenda. That should be the first priority,” he said. “There were actually relics of St. Nicholas in that church that were lost in the attacks. Why is it that the same government officials who are so ferverently fighting for the mosque’s right to be built aren’t also fighting for the church to be rebuilt.”

Demos was critical of Mayor Bloomberg’s recent comments on the occasion of the Landmarks Commission vote. In a speech immediately following the vote, Bloomberg said, among other arguments, that allowing the mosque project to go forward would be a victory of sorts over the forces that attacked America on 9/11.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans,” Bloomberg said. “We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.”

Demos called those remarks “premature” and echoed New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio’s call for an investigation into the funding of the mosque. “We need to investigate sources of funding for the mosque. If in fact it is being funded by terrorist regimes, then it is the terrorists who are winning by building a mosque at Ground Zero,” Demos said. “Bloomberg’s comments only beg the question of why aren’t we investigating?”

Demos calls his district, currently represented by four-term Democrat Tim Bishop, a bellwether for Republicans in the fall elections. The district is a traditionally Republican seat, which President Obama narrowly won with 51% of the vote in 2008.
While Demos is focusing his campaign on the issues of jobs, government spending, and his opponent’s voting record—which he characterized as out of step with the district—he said that the plight of St. Nicholas Church is resonating with voters.

Recent polling in New York shows that a majority disagrees with the plan to build the mosque so close to Ground Zero.
Asked what prompted him to take up St. Nicholas’s cause, Demos said the apparent favorable treatment the mosque’s developers received served to illuminate the issue to him as simply a question of right versus wrong.

“This is not a partisan issue,” he said. “It’s an issue of fair-minded candidates for office stepping up and doing the right thing. The focus should be something we can all agree on—getting the church rebuilt.”

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

Published on DickMorris.com on August 16, 2010

For a decade, the left owned the streets. Subsidized by George Soros and energized by the Clinton impeachment in the 90s and the Iraq War since, it dominated the Internet and grass roots campaigning. Michael Moore’s movies – however misguided – enthused their ranks and catalyzed their efforts. ACORN worked to commit massive voter fraud in the guise of stimulating voter turnout and the New Black Panthers worked to intimidate those with whom they disagreed. President Barack Obama was the result.

Now, finally, conservatives are answering with their own grass roots efforts in the Tea Party movement. Tea Party activists are bringing the battle to stop big government spending and taxes to the streets and parks of America.

And its working! The Tea Party movement, working closely with Americans for Prosperity (AFP), mobilized people against the Obamacare proposal and, in the end, will cost the Democrats their Congressional majorities – a fitting price for defying the will of the people.

Democrats are so threatened that they are demonizing the Tea Party as eccentric, extreme and racist. Speaker Pelosi compared them to the Nazis. These are the cries of those about to lose an election – big time!

Now a new film, The Tea Party Movie, shows the anatomy of the group and explains its motivations. With almost no funding or paid staff and all decisions made at the local level, the Tea Party people are reshaping American politics. A bottom-up movement, they are restoring values to our politics.

The film, sometimes moving, sometimes funny, and always interesting is available online at http://www.teapartymovie.com. Do yourself a favor and watch it!

And, on September 12th, pack your bags and migrate to Sacramento, St. Louis, or Washington DC for the three mega-rallies sponsored by the Tea Party folks. Its time to get out of the grandstands and onto the playing field. We need a massive show of participation and enthusiasm to kick-off, animate, and catalyze the effort to throw the big spending socialists out of Congress in November! Go to http://teapartypatriots.org/Recycle/Recycle.aspx to learn more about the rallies. Organize your friends and neighbors to go and attend!

The Tea Party is not only electing Republicans, it is cleansing them. Their victories in intra-party contests in Utah, Colorado, Nevada, and South Carolina shows that they are no happier with big spending Republicans than with Democrats of a similar persuasion. Many worried that the Tea Party would be a third party movement, splitting the vote and electing the Democrats. No way. Instead, they are winning their primaries and purifying the Party.

What a great time to be alive and what a wonderful group to support!
Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick’s columns!

Depressing video but it must be seen and shared.

A funny thing happened to me today. From the moment I awoke this morning, up until this moment has been a nightmare. Everything I was involved in seemed a bit off kilter. Everything I read didn’t make sense or ended up being a lie. I was honked at, as if it were my fault that he cut me off. Found out a friend’s Father died, the Power went out during a storm, as I was ordering dinner. The Register at the Grocery store broke after I loaded a full cart of items on to the conveyer belt.  It was one of the worst, no injury days I’ve had. As a result, I had a short fuse and a bit of a temper and I probably took it out on those around me. So, when I’m in this kind of rut, I like to end the day as early as I can so I can start a new course. I had planned on taking some sleeping pills to end this miserable day early . . .  but I clicked on one more link to read.

The link lead me to the “Text of H.R. 1586: FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act” I like to skim all the way down the article to see what kind of nuggets I can find and then I start reading the whole bill. But as I was scrolling down toward the bottom, I found a very interesting section which contradicted the media and our Representatives. This passed week, I’ve read a dozen times that they cut food stamps and some other garbage to realocate funds in order to cover UNION TEACHERS, but guess what: THEY LIED. The link above will bring you to the bill, which told me a different story. Here are  just a few things that are being cut in the middle of 2 wars.

TITLE III

RESCISSIONS

Sec. 301. There is rescinded from accounts under the heading ‘Department of Agriculture–Rural Development’, $122,000,000, to be derived from the unobligated balances of funds that were provided for such accounts in prior appropriation Acts (other than Public Law 111-5) and that were designated by the Congress in such Acts as an emergency requirement pursuant to a concurrent resolution on the budget or the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.

Sec. 302. Of the funds made available for ‘Department of Commerce–National Telecommunications and Information Administration–Broadband Technology Opportunities Program’ in title II of division A of Public Law 111-5, $302,000,000 are rescinded.

Sec. 303. Of the funds appropriated in Department of Defense Appropriations Acts, the following funds are rescinded from the following accounts in the specified amounts:

• ‘Aircraft Procurement, Army, 2008/2010’, $21,000,000;
• ‘Procurement of Weapons and Tracked Combat Vehicles, Army, 2008/2010’, $21,000,000;
• ‘Procurement of Ammunition, Army, 2008/2010’, $17,000,000;
• ‘Other Procurement, Army, 2008/2010’, $75,000,000;
• ‘Weapons Procurement, Navy, 2008/2010’, $26,000,000;
• Other Procurement, Navy, 2008/2010’, $42,000,000;
• ‘Procurement, Marine Corps, 2008/2010’, $13,000,000;
• ‘Aircraft Procurement, Air Force, 2008/2010’, $102,000,000;
• ‘Missile Procurement, Air Force, 2008/2010’, $28,000,000;
• ‘Procurement of Ammunition, Air Force, 2008/2010’, $7,000,000;
• Other Procurement, Air Force, 2008/2010’, $130,000,000;
• ‘Procurement, Defense-Wide, 2008/2010’, $33,000,000;
• ‘Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Army, 2009/2010’, $76,000,000;
• ‘Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Air Force, 2009/2010’, $164,000,000;
• ‘Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Defense-Wide, 2009/2010’, $137,000,000;
• ‘Operation, Test and Evaluation, Defense, 2009/2010’, $1,000,000;
• ‘Operation and Maintenance, Army, 2010’, $154,000,000;
• ‘Operation and Maintenance, Navy, 2010’, $155,000,000;
• ‘Operation and Maintenance, Marine Corps, 2010’, $25,000,000;
• ‘Operation and Maintenance, Air Force, 2010’, $155,000,000;
• ‘Operation and Maintenance, Defense-Wide, 2010’, $126,000,000;
• ‘Operation and Maintenance, Army Reserve, 2010’, $12,000,000;
• ‘Operation and Maintenance, Navy Reserve, 2010’, $6,000,000;
• ‘Operation and Maintenance, Marine Corps Reserve, 2010’, $1,000,000;
• ‘Operation and Maintenance, Air Force Reserve, 2010’, $14,000,000;
• ‘Operation and Maintenance, Army National Guard, 2010’, $28,000,000; and
• ‘Operation and Maintenance, Air National Guard, 2010’, $27,000,000.

Sec. 304. (a) Of the funds appropriated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5), the following funds are rescinded from the following accounts in the specified amounts:

‘Operation and Maintenance, Army, 2009/2010’, $113,500,000;

‘Operation and Maintenance, Navy, 2009/2010’, $34,000,000;

‘Operation and Maintenance, Marine Corps, 2009/2010’, $7,000,000;

‘Operation and Maintenance, Air Force, 2009/2010’, $61,000,000;

‘Operation and Maintenance, Army Reserve, 2009/2010’, $3,500,000;

‘Operation and Maintenance, Navy Reserve, 2009/2010’, $8,000,000;

‘Operation and Maintenance, Marine Corps Reserve, 2009/2010’, $1,000,000;

‘Operation and Maintenance, Air Force Reserve, 2009/2010’, $2,000,000;

‘Operation and Maintenance, Army National Guard, 2009/2010’, $1,000,000;

‘Operation and Maintenance, Air National Guard, 2009/2010’, $2,500,000; and

‘Defense Health Program, 2009/2010’, $27,000,000.

This is after they cut defense spending budget earlier last month. Their one duty that is spelled out in our Constitution and they are cutting that before other wasteful bills that supply millions of dollars for research on mating habits of the Pelosi field mouse.

Remember when we first got into the war, after 911, and the Regressives complained that we didn’t have the right equipment? That Rumsfeld was sending our sons and daughters to their death with inferior armor and weapons? How can this 111th Congress have the testicular fortitude to cut major military funds during 2 wars for non federal teachers, after the fuss they made in the Bush years? Why couldn’t they use a portion of the $400 BILLION from the stimulus bill that has yet to be spent? Remember when that ultimatum: Pass it or we’re doomed? I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of the fear tactics. If when you drove a car, you had to shift into “D” for DOOMED, who in their right mind would drive?

If they’re policies are so good, whey must they LIE about everything? Why do Democrats run as Conservatives and then get into office, spend lots of money and strip our military before anything else? I can promise you one thing, if we were conservative in our policies, we wouldn’t have any of this trouble that we are facing. But when the economy is going great, people relax and spend freely. It’s that moment when people begin to want the finer things and begin to splurge or waste their funds. They vote for liberals (and sometimes RINOs)  to spend the surplus and spread the wealth around. But when times are tough, everyone becomes more conservative. You see, Conservatism isn’t a party, it’s a philosophy. Everyone who’s gone through the great depression knows what Conservatism is. It’s when you have $10 in your pocket, you only spend $1 and save the rest incase a Marxist get elected. And when they are elected, everyone is a target. They pit neighbor against neighbor to scare you into giving in to their demands. Only full cooperation will be acceptable. If you have too much, they take it and give it to your unfortunately lazy neighbors. If you work hard, they tell you to slow down so that they don’t look bad. If you go behind their back, they will put you in the poor house, or as they did in Europe, in a shallow grave.

When something doesn’t make sense, there is always a lie involved. Take money from citizens to spend it so that citizens can have money? But when they need to cut their budgets, they do it in the most peculiar fashion: by cutting military funds first. If it’s a city, they cut police and firefighters first so you can feel the pain and accept a tax hike.  If you believe in the theory of Relativity, then nothing that is happening makes any sense. If I can’t pay my bills, I do not cut food first? I don’t sell the tires on my car because I will need my car with tires to get to work on time. I don’t cut off the water so I can continue my cable subscription with all the channels including the sports package. Nobody starts a diet to lose muscle and keep their fat. Our Government does and they have been doing it for over 80 years.

We better take our country back this November and bring responsible adults to the table. Lets Teach these unaccountable spend-a-holics what happens when you trash our constitution, free of charge. No more $40 billion bills supporting failures! No more mystery candidate theater. No more deal makers who sell out everyone except themselves. No more empty promises! No More repenting after  spending, or supporting Mosques at Ground Zero, or overturning 7 million voters, no more czars, or vacation 27 hours after returning from a vacation! NO MORE!

Lets all become teachers and give these clowns a free lesson on who’s boss: We The People.

I feel better now, maybe I can finally end this miserable day. Sweet dreams of November.

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.”

- John Marshal

Great second Amendment video.  No, it’s not a hard question little girl! Youth is no excuse.

Pass this video on to your friends . . . and God bless America and our weapons that keep us free.

Posted: September 12, 2008
By Jeff Ferguson
courtesy of Champion News

This article first posted on July 23, 2008. The author is a guest on Champion News Talk Radio this Sunday, September 14, 2008 at 8:00 a.m. (AM560 on the radio dial).

In 2003 I began investigating a local school construction project in my town that had been resoundingly defeated by the voters of that district in a 1999 referendum. How could our district proceed with this program when the voters had rejected it? And how did they intend to get the money for it?

What I learned was that although district voters had rejected that referendum, our district administration used a loophole in the state School Code to get their building program anyway. Article 17-2.11 of the School Code provides that if a licensed architect certifies that the cost of repairs on a given building exceeds the cost of replacing that building, the district is then free to sell bonds without voter approval in order to finance their building program.

Unfortunately, my five years of investigating similar projects has revealed that this scenario is not unusual. In fact, as I dug further into the School Construction Program (SCP), I found that of the 506 projects in Illinois at least 250 were done without the approval of the local voters of those districts. As a result, many school districts in this state had accrued significant obligations to pay back the municipal bonds for these projects, in effect leaving huge tax loads for future generations of district residents.

Like layers of an onion, my investigation into these projects revealed a network of professional associations and governing bodies that were involved in a hidden industry.

Local Problem with Statewide Roots

After the 1999 referendum failed, my local school district decided to change direction to get around the voters. They were assisted by a network of professional agencies and associations, most of which stood to profit from such building programs. The documentation trail they created was riddled with conflicting statements and revealed several illegalities.

The district’s first step was to “justify” the building project to qualify for the state’s School Construction Program (SCP). Previously approved repair estimates on the two buildings in question in our district were cancelled. These estimates had been prepared by our district’s first architect and approved by a staff architect at the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) assigned by that office to our Health and Life Safety survey process.

The cancelled estimates were marked as ‘District considering SCP” and the project was then reassigned by a director at the ISBE to a different staff architect, one who was much more cooperative. Interestingly, the final estimates included an admission by our new architect that their firm could not build our new building for the lowball estimate that was submitted. Additionally, due to an obviously flawed “state formula,” the bid they submitted was for less than half what the planned building was actually expected to cost.

At the same time, a bank Vice-President had come to town courting and coaching our district on how and when to sell bonds for local matching funds. All this was months before any replacement or repair estimates were even submitted by our new architect.

In spite of a large number of irregularities and outright violations of the required approval process, a particular law firm that participated in the creation of the Build Smart publication was willing to rubber stamp our bonds stating they were legal and valid and complied with all State Statutes.

Eventually, having obtained approval to proceed with the building program, our district had successfully used the SCP’s playbook to hire architects, engineers and building contractors and the building program was completed. Although the original plan rejected by voters was to build one new high school, the district ended up with two new school buildings that were significantly larger and costlier than what was approved. But to the board, that just meant more bonds had to be sold. Local taxpayers were left holding the bill.

Citing procedural irregularities and glaring violations of state laws to challenge the district’s legal authority to sell bonds for that project, a group of local taxpayers sued the district. But in court, the district did not even address the merits of their complaint and made no effort to refute it. The court acted similarly, dismissing the complaint due to untimeliness although the taxpayers had been aggressively seeking resolution to these issues all along, which the school board refused to hear.

The bottom line is that the taxpayers had already rejected plans to build a new school. Rather than abiding by that mandate, the school district manipulated the process by which they got approval to sell bonds to fund the schools anyway at a final cost that was millions of dollars more than the original estimates. Many glaring irregularities and outright legal violations throughout the process were ignored by the courts to avoid taking action on the matter, thus allowing this network of public school system affiliates to continue to disenfranchise taxpayers.

The Birth of a Bureaucracy

In 1998, under former Governor George Ryan, funding for school construction in Illinois was statutorily guaranteed at a minimum of $500 million per year for at least 7 years. Under the direction of the Capital Development Board (CDB), a collection of private and public interests were gathered to create a process whereby school districts could navigate (or circumvent) the statutory requirements to secure funding under the School Construction Program (SCP). The fruit of their labor was published in 2002. It was a book entitled “Build Smart: School Construction in Illinois,” a publication that has been touted as the “Bible” for districts wishing to build new schools, with or without voter approval.

The School Construction Program is jointly administered by the ISBE and the CDB. The SCP has led to state matching grants ($3.1 Billion) for over 500 projects in Illinois, about half of which have been completed without the approval of the local voters in their respective districts. Research into the SCP’s matching fund program using general obligation bonds revealed that it is a focal point for a relatively small network of groups and individuals that control the SCP, manipulating it to make a tremendous amount of money.

Working against Taxpayer Interests

It would be reasonable to wonder why the ISBE or the CDB would allow such glaring conflicts of interest to operate unchallenged. The answer is that they actually assist the process and work to ensure that this network profits regardless of the taxpayers’ interests. Members of this network include:

The Illinois Association of School Business Officials (IASBO): Contains a variety of committees controlled mostly by law firms and financial organizations that benefit greatly from the public school system. The real reason for this board’s existence is to ensure control over local school boards and to manipulate legislation.

The Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB): Touted as a professional support association, the IASB conducts “training” of local school board members to show them “how things are done” in the Illinois public school system. At its Joint Annual Conference hosted by the IASBO, IASB, and IASA, board members are courted by the same professional network whose contracts for services they may one day vote on in their home district. Ironically, businesses and individuals can contribute tax free charitable donations to the IASB for purposes of training school board members.

The Illinois Association of School Administrators (IASA): This advocacy organization for school administrators purports to seek education excellence through “continued school improvement.” It is actually a networking organization whose member benefits include “professional and legal services.”

The Illinois State Board of Investment (ISBI): This board manages and invests assets of various pension funds, including retirement systems for general assembly members, police and firemen, municipal, county and state retirees, university retirees, and judges. This board controls over $12 Billion in investments. It is highly probable that due to their high rates of returns and federal tax exempt status, general obligation bonds for school construction are included in those holdings. This fund also shares reciprocity with various other retirement systems, including the infamous Teachers Retirement System and several Cook County systems.

The Illinois Finance Authority (IFA): Created by Governor Blagojevich in early 2004, the IFA’s first director was Ali Ata although he had no financial experience. The IFA is a State agency fully funded by private interests such as LaSalle Bank. A quick Internet search of the IFA will show they have financed over $12 Billion in various projects since their inception, much of which were projects initiated by Governor Blagojevich.

The Illinois School District Liquid Asset Fund Plus (ISDLAF+): This fund was created by the IASB, the IASBO, and the IASA and is administered by PMA Financial Network, Inc. Its purpose is to “enhance the investment opportunities” and “provide financial management resources” for Illinois public school districts. In actuality, it is a regulating body that controls local school district investments.

The Illinois School Purchasing Network (ISPN): Created by Governor Blagojevich in 2005, this agency provides many “benefits” for school boards, including financial assistance from the IFA and the ISDLAF+; energy contracts offered by the Illinois Energy Consortium, another IASBO/IASB/IASA-sponsored program; and elimination of “administrative burdens associated with the bidding process.” The result is a closed, controlled process for purchasing such goods and services as energy utilities and supplies, office supplies and furniture; technology products; physical education and playground equipment; janitorial materials; carpeting and flooring; and office machines.

These organizations operate “under the radar” to maintain control of public school building construction in Illinois. They have created a closed, tightly controlled system for new school construction that includes assistance in navigating regulatory requirements to get projects approved, providing financing options for building projects, and controlling which architects, engineering firms and construction companies to use.

Bullet-proof system

As evidenced by our local case, and in spite of the conflicts of interest riddling these programs, Illinois courts and numerous state agencies have turned their heads and ignored these matters.

Before filing our lawsuit, we appealed to the Inspector General to investigate our concerns. At the direction of Governor Blagojevich’s office, our complaint was dropped in 2003. Recent findings have given rise to speculation that this move may have been connected to financial contributions to the Blagojevich campaign by the president of the architectural/engineering firm handling our local building program.

The Network of Associates

Another interesting component of this “network” is how they work together, and how individuals jump from agency to board to company within the network. Here are some examples:

•The ISBE director who switched staff architects in our local district case has since left the ISBE to work for LaSalle Bank and the Illinois Finance Authority, both key members of this network of manipulators.
•At the local level, our former Building Administrator who worked so closely with the architect went on to retire, only to join the payroll of the architect’s firm to do some construction management on the very project he helped push through.
•Our district’s attorney, who approved the contracts for two new buildings a month before the required BINA hearing was held (and nine months before the CDB grant was approved) was actually litigating construction cases on behalf of the CDB at the same time.
•Additional research has revealed that the current director of the IFA, Kym Hubbard, was a former portfolio manager for the Illinois State Board of Investment.
•Nearly all of the people involved with my local district’s building program participated in the creation of the SCP’s “Build Smart” publication, including the ISBE director, CDB administrator, bond underwriting law firm, and the financing bank’s Vice-President. Others who benefitted shared an affiliation with the creators via the Illinois Association of School Business Officials (IASBO). The IASBO operates as a form of “central command” for this bureaucracy, as a closer look at this network would reveal.
•The CDB’s SCP administrator was a state-licensed architect who also happened to serve in various capacities with a chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). In spite of this obvious conflict of interest, this architect’s job was to approve submissions from fellow architects who were AIA associates and to award grants to districts allowing them to secure the services of such architects to build new schools.
•Ali Ata, appointed by Blagojevich to be the first director of the IFA, is a co-defendant with Tony Rezko, who was convicted this year in Chicago for illegal influence-peddling. At the Rezko trial, Ata testified that he had received his appointment as IFA Director in part by donating big bucks to Blagojevich’s campaign.
•Former division director of the ISBE Nona Myers left that position to work for LaSalle Bank, a financial institution deeply involved in financing school construction projects. In making this move, she positioned herself to steer business to LaSalle through the newly created IFA.
•A former LaSalle Bank employee, Linda Rafanello, was also involved in courting and coaching school districts on the sale of bonds. She continues to work with districts to get bond referenda passed, and at last check, was a Senior VP with PMA Financial Network, Inc.
But perhaps the best part is that school board members are approving the payment of their IASB voluntary membership dues from your local school district’s funds and getting away with it. After all, who’s going to do anything about it? Surely not a Judge who is an adjunct professor at the same University where our former Superintendent’s son serves on the legal staff.

And you might not want to waste your time with the Illinois Attorney General’s office, the Inspector General’s office, the Auditor General’s office, the Illinois State Police Public Integrity Unit, the Governor’s office, the ISBE, the CDB, the Secretary of State’s office, the Dept. of Professional Regulations, or many other agencies. They all refused to address our local issue, thereby providing a shield from angry taxpayers getting fleeced by the very system meant to protect their interests.

Click here to read another Champion News article on this topic, and here to watch an interview with Jeff Ferguson.

Jeff Ferguson is the founder of the Illinois Coalition for Public Awareness.

Currently, the village of Homer Glen is looking at using “Home Rule” and federal “Build America Bonds” to build a high school for Homer Glen. This funding would only cover the construction costs of the building. The land would have to be purchased from Lockport High School District 205. Upon completion of the high school District 205 would be in charge of operating the school, and the Village of Homer Glen would be leasing the building to the district.

On the School Board Side:
Three Proposed Plans To Relieve Overcrowding
The District 205 Board of Education currently is considering three proposed plans to relieve overcrowding, as presented at its August 3 special board meeting. The three plans include building an addition at East campus, making a referendum request to extend current bonds and the Homer Glen proposal to enter into a lease agreement for a new campus. Please click here to learn more about each proposal. The Board of Education is scheduled to further discuss this issue at its next board meeting at 7 p.m. August 16.

District 205 Office Phone Number: 815-588-8100
More Information on the proposed high school:

SouthTown Star Article – Homer Glen Plan Attractive to SD 205

SouthTown Star Article – Lockport Pushing for greater Student Achievement

The proposal, the concerns & the questions:
Build America Bonds are stimulus money, plan and simply. We realize that that money is going to go somewhere but at what point do we say no to be being bribed with our own money!
So the Village of Homer Glen starts receiving their lease payments from District 205 where does that money go – to pay back the debt on the bonds or does that go into a general fund?
No one seems to want to tackle the question of taxes, be it property taxes, municipal taxes or federal taxes – the school has to be paid for, and taxes will go up.
Should a municipal tax be deemed necessary to service the debt for the new school, that tax can only be leveled upon the residents of the Village of Homer Glen; yet the school will be available to all students of school district 205 even if they do not live in the village of Homer Glenn.
This will all be done without a referendum! Let the will of the people be heard.
District 205 Report Card shows an average class size of 21.4, does this deem that we need a whole new school? What about an addition vs a whole new school?
Isn’t enrollment decreasing?

The outside consulting firm “Consortium for Educational Change” is run by the Illinois Education Association (aka the Illinois Teacher’s Union) used to study school improvements like using face & twitter is just another example of the irresponsible use of our tax dollars!

Let your friends in Homer Glen know what’s going but you also need to notify your friends in Lockport, Joliet and Crest Hill because this effects all us.