May 18-22, 2016
May 18 00:36 Human rights in a Shari'ah world May 18 11:15 Supplemental fundraising drive May 18 12:20 Shariah as the foundation May 19 16:30 The DFL's bonding obstruction May 20 05:03 AFSCME's FMLA 'hardship'? May 20 12:48 The Times' Whining May 20 23:44 Thissen's, Bakk's bonding blunder May 22 00:57 Sartell's referendum in perspective
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Human rights in a Shari'ah world
When I first read this article by Alpha News, it caught my attention for all the wrong reasons. Before we get into the specifics of Alpha News' article, it's important to know that the person who has been criticized by various Muslim organizations, including the Central Minnesota chapter of CAIR MN, asked Alpha News to not use his real name. Alpha News agreed, causing them to refer to the person getting criticized as Kevin Johnson. Additionally, it's important to know that Johnson is a licensed physician.
Johnson put together a presentation titled Shari'ah 101, which he presented in January of 2016. Shortly after giving his presentation, Johnson's work at CentraCare was terminated. One of the things from Johnson's presentation was Article 24 of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. Follow this link to read the entire document. It's part of the University of Minnesota's Human Rights Library.
This is Dr. Johnson's letter explaining what happened to him:
It's important that people know what Article 24 of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam says. Here's what it says:
ARTICLE 24:
All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari'ah.
It's equally important to know what Article 22 says:
ARTICLE 22:
(a) Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari'ah.
1. Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Shari'ah.
(c) Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical Values or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith.
(d) It is not permitted to excite nationalistic or doctrinal hatred or to do anything that may be an incitement to any form or racial discrimination.
In other words, all rights are tied to whether people speak ill of the Prophet or whether they speak well of the Prophet. The key principle to take from one of Islam's foundational documents on human rights is that human rights aren't extended to people who don't accept the Prophet's teachings.
The key point to take from this 'human rights document' is that it doesn't square with the Constitution's Bill of Rights. Specifically, it doesn't square with the First Amendment. Finally, the key point to take away from Kevin Johnson's story is that he was terminated by CentraCare less than a week after he'd given this presentation.
Never forget Dr. Johnson's final admonition:
CentraCare has decided to value political deference to Islam over patient access to health care. That should frighten everyone.
That's political cowardice on CentraCare's part.
Posted Wednesday, May 18, 2016 12:36 AM
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Supplemental fundraising drive
A little over a month ago, I held my annual fundraising week. To say that I appreciate those people who contributed is understatement. Due to some unusual circumstances, I'm holding a supplemental fundraising drive.
Last night, I wrote my first post on a series about 'creeping Shariah'. I've written about many important issues in the 11 years I've operated LFR. None of those issues is as big as this issue. In fact, none are even close in importance.
I'm a strong believer in the old Biblical admonition that "a worker is worthy of his wages." With most issues, I don't press my case on this. Most issues, though, are transient. The issue of creeping Shariah isn't transient. It's the opposite. It's existential. The harm that Shariah law can do to western civilization is immense, though CAIR will attempt to minimize Shariah's impact. I will attempt, through this series, to highlight the potential impact of Shariah.
If you want to contribute to getting this information to the public with a check, leave a comment to this post and I will contact you on how we can make this happen. Otherwise, feel free to contribute by clicking on the Donate button in the upper right hand corner of the page.
As always, thanks for your contributions. Know that they're definitely appreciated.
Originally posted Wednesday, May 18, 2016, revised 10-Jun 1:08 AM
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Shariah as the foundation
When I wrote this post , I wrote it to highlight the fact that widely accepted Islamic documents teach principles that are totally contrary to the US Constitution .
In my post titled "Human rights in a Shari'ah world", I highlighted a document titled "the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam." Kevin Johnson had the temerity to tell the truth about what's in "the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam during his presentation, which is titled "Shariah 101."
One of the things that Johnson highlights in his presentation is Article 22 of "the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam." Article 22 states "Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari'ah."
Let's compare that with the First Amendment.
The text of the First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
The difference between human rights in Islam vs. the civil rights in the Constitution is dramatic. The Constitution, specifically the First Amendment, doesn't put qualifiers on the exercise of free speech. According to the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, everyone has the "right to express his opinion freely" if it isn't "contrary to the principles of Shari'ah." That's a pretty big qualifier.
This part of Dr. Johnson's presentation drives that point home powerfully:
It's apparent that being Shari'ah-compliant is important to St. Cloud's Islamic leaders. It's apparent because Dr. Johnson was terminated less than 2 weeks after he signed a contract with CentraCare and after he was told that CentraCare advised him they'd need him to work "as much as possible for the next six months" and less than a week after Dr. Johnson had given his presentation.
The chief point to take from this is that CentraCare put a higher priority on being politically correct than it's putting on living according to the Constitution. If businesses like CentraCare are willing to trash the First Amendment and become Shariah-compliant, then the First Amendment will have been seriously undermined.
If you want to only be able to speak your mind when you aren't contradicting Shariah, do nothing. If you think that the Constitution and the First Amendment are right, however, then it's imperative that you join the fight against the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam.
Posted Wednesday, May 18, 2016 9:49 PM
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The DFL's bonding obstruction
Last year, Rep. Paul Thissen's partisanship paved the way for the legislature's special session. Without his throwing a daily hissy fit about Republicans, the legislature wouldn't have needed a special session to finish the biennial budget. Thanks to Rep. Thissen's whining, there was a special session. Though this AP article doesn't mention Rep. Thissen, it's definitely got his fingerprints all over it.
For instance, the final paragraph of the article starts with "DFLers called the House bill partisan and said it elevated projects in Republican districts above others that were ranked higher priorities. They cited was Eastman Hall, which was ranked lower on the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities wish list than projects in Hibbing, Rochester, Winona and Bemidji, which are in DFL district and were not included in the bill."
The truth is that the Senate DFL, not the House GOP, is to blame for the bonding bill logjam. The Senate DFL's bill called for $1,800,000,000 of bonding. That's $750,000,000 more than the biggest bonding bill in Minnesota history. Because the Senate DFL's bonding bill was that expensive, Republicans couldn't take it seriously.
Republicans couldn't take it seriously because the DFL's bonding bill keeps running up debt which requires high taxes :
Moody's 2015 State Debt Median Report ranks Minnesota debt burden as moderately elevated compared to other states: Minnesota's net tax-supported debt (NTD) per capita is $1,538 compared to the national median of $1,012; NTD as a percentage of personal income is 3.2% for Minnesota versus a national median of 2.5%; and NTD as a percentage of gross state domestic product of 2.69% is above the national median of 2.21%. However, Moody's estimates Minnesota's fiscal 2014 debt service ratio (net tax-supported debt as a percentage of operating fund revenues and pledged revenues) to be 4.2% versus a fiscal 2014 median of 5.3%. This ranks in the top (or most favorable) quartile of state rankings.
Rather than letting the private sector grow the economy, the DFL's preferred path is to have the government borrow money to pay for what essentially is a sugar high economic bump. The DFL is incapable of thinking that the private sector doesn't need help in growing the economy because the DFL thinks that the government has to be involved in everything.
Until the DFL stops thinking that the economy won't grow if the government isn't spending tons of money, Minnesota won't have a strong private sector economy.
Posted Thursday, May 19, 2016 4:30 PM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 19-May-16 06:34 PM
If our economy both statewide and nationally is so strong, why do we need to keep passing bonding bills to "create" jobs?
AFSCME's FMLA 'hardship'?
This article from AFSCME Minnesota's website highlights how spoiled their workers are. For instance, Roberta Suski said "We had to have a lot of hard conversations about whether we could afford for me to be out the entire 12 weeks, knowing six weeks would be unpaid. We are barely scraping by right now."
When I worked at Fingerhut, they were known for having one of the best benefit packages in Minnesota. FYI- I worked there until April, 1997. Parents of newborn children or parents who adopted children were given 6 weeks off. Their time off wasn't paid. In the 20 years I worked there, nobody complained about not getting paid time off for having children.
Fast forward to today. Specifically focus on the tax increases envisioned in this article . Envision a "payroll tax of $1.70 per week on both employers and employees would fund the leave benefit."
Politicians complain all the time about unfunded mandates handed down by the federal government. I've never heard a politician whine about passing legislation that essentially passes an unfunded mandate onto businesses. The argument that 'everyone benefits' is BS. What AFSCME doesn't want to admit is that businesses don't benefit from being forced into paying employees not to work for extended periods of time.
If they were being honest, what AFSCME would admit is that 'everyone that matters to us benefits'. The truth is that the DFL is attempting to put another stifling burden on business. The truth is that the DFL and AFSCME, if they got their way, wouldn't improve people's lives. They'd just chase more businesses from Minnesota.
Posted Friday, May 20, 2016 5:03 AM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 20-May-16 08:11 PM
If AFSCME/DFL want paid leave for having a child, tell them to get short term disability insurance. Doesn't cost that much and it will cover expense until you get back to work. If you can't afford to have a child without being paid, maybe you shouldn't be having children. Too logical I know.
The Times' Whining
It's time that the St. Cloud Times put more thought into their Our View editorials. This one is particularly annoying. Their chief complaint is that things don't get done until there's a deadline. Now that's a shocker. Both parties hold to their positions until the last minute. The DFL does it because they're rigid ideologues that want things their way. Principled conservatives, not to be confused with Republicans, stick to their guns because they've thought things through and believe that their ideas work.
The Times might as well have just used Paul Thissen's talking points in writing the opening paragraphs of the editorial. Those paragraphs state "With three days left in the 2016 legislative session, anything can happen. Of course, Minnesotans would not know about it because it probably would take place behind closed doors.
That introduction in itself highlights one of the biggest frustrations rank-and-file Minnesotans have about the 2016 session. Just like so many other recent sessions, 2016 is coming to a conclusion with virtually no way for voters to see what's going into final agreements worth potentially billions of tax dollars."
When government is this intrusive, it's guaranteed that there will be lots of lobbyists looking for a slice of the government pie. Rather than whining about last minute negotiations, the Times should be complaining that government is too intrusive, too expensive and too larded up with fat to effectively serve the people.
Editorials like this give the DFL the cover to keep doing what they're doing. Simply put, they know that a 'throw the bums out' editorial, which this is, plays to their advantage because they're the out party in the House.
DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, Republican House Speaker Kurt Daudt, DFL Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk and perhaps a handful of other key legislators are holding "closed door" negotiations as they try to bridge gaps involving transportation funding, the $900 million state surplus and a statewide bonding bill. These leaders emerge from their meetings and say virtually nothing that helps voters learn anything useful. Then it's rinse and repeat until a secret deal is reached.
While the Times' editorial whines about secrecy, the Times says nothing about the fact that the DFL transportation bill sticks people with a major tax increase. Why don't they speak out against something substantive rather than whining about process? Isn't the goal to pass legislation that improves society?
Based on the Times' editorial, their goal seems to be to whine without providing substantive solutions.
Posted Friday, May 20, 2016 12:48 PM
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Thissen's, Bakk's bonding blunder
Predictably, the DFL, led by Rep. Paul Thissen, Gov. Dayton and Sen. Tom Bakk, is overreaching in a major way. Predictably, they're pushing a bonding bill that's the biggest in state history by orders of magnitude. It isn't surprising to hear Rep. Thissen whining about the bill. In this article , Thissen is quoted as saying "This bill is an unfortunate, sad joke that House Republicans are playing on Minnesotans. We should vote no on this bill and get to work on a real bonding bill that will create jobs and strengthen communities in every part of this state. The clock is ticking. Let's get to work."
The DFL is constantly telling people that Minnesota's economy is going great. They're also telling people that the bonding bill is a jobs bill. What the DFL won't say is that the bonding bill costs Minnesotans tons of money in higher taxes, money that could be used by businesses to create permanent jobs when they expand their companies. The DFL won't say that the jobs that are getting created are temporary construction jobs.
The Senate's bonding bill tops out at $1,470,742,000. That's a ton of pork. Spending $28,055,000 on tearing down buildings on the Bemidji State campus and the Hibbing Community College campus, then rebuilding the buildings that are getting torn down. The Senate bill also includes $20,385,000 for Rochester Community and Technical College to "complete design, demolish Memorial and Plaza Halls, construct, equip, and furnish an academic building expansion, and renovate,
equip, and furnish replacement space for classrooms, labs, and office spaces."
That's before spending $17,780,000 to "complete the Heart of the Zoo II project, including renovation of the snow monkey exhibit and surrounding public spaces and construction of a meerkat exhibit." That's before appropriating $10,000,000 for the Metropolitan Regional Parks and Trails Capital Improvements. That money will pay for "the cost of improvements and betterments of a capital nature and acquisition by the council and local government units of regional recreational open-space lands in accordance with the council's policy plan as provided in Minnesota Statutes, section 473.147."
That's $76,220,000 just on those 5 projects. There are other projects in the Senate bonding bill that are equally unworthy of a Republican's vote. For all of Rep. Thissen's whining, he's frequently been short of solutions and positive suggestions. Sen. Bakk is better than Rep. Thissen but mostly because it's difficult to do worse than Rep. Thissen.
Posted Friday, May 20, 2016 11:44 PM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 21-May-16 03:53 PM
The DFL believe that the money we make is theirs and they can spend it the way they see fit and then if there's anything left, we the working people get some of it to spend as we see fit.
Bonding bills are nothing but pork project make work bills for the unions that in turn funnel the money back to the DFL.
Sartell's referendum in perspective
If this LTE doesn't put Sartell's bonding referendum in perspective, nothing will. The LTE's second paragraph contains the first red flag. That paragraph says "It's just one meal out at a restaurant a month, right? It will only lengthen your mortgage payments for up to six months on the average home. No big deal; what's six months? Most residents won't live in their home for 25 years, which is the length of this bond."
While the writer didn't say that she got the "one meal at a restaurant a month" figure from the school board, it isn't a stretch to think that that's where she got it from. It's an old sales technique that's used to make something sound inexpensive. It's like the TV sales pitch for leasing a vehicle. Rather than saying what the cost of a vehicle is, these types of ads usually say something like 'you can lease a brand new Mercedes for only $295 a month' right before they tell you that they require $5,000 down at signing.
What they don't tell you is how much money you'd spend during the cost of the lease only to have to lease another vehicle. That isn't the case in this LTE. Instead of glossing over that statistic, Tammy Hagerty puts it into perspective by saying "But say you are a farmer owning 140 acres and rent another 400 acres from other landowners in this district. (Landowners rent their land to cover their taxes.) Taxes on that farmer's homestead and acreage are $2,319.39 a year. With the projected increase of $948 a year, the family farm that you've owned for over 35 years will cost you an additional $81,610.75 over the next 25 years."
It's one thing to hear that a property tax increase would only cost "one meal at a restaurant a month." That's pretty reasonable sounding. It's another when the taxpayers hear that that bonding initiative alone will cost a farmer $81,610.75 over the course of 25 years.
Taxpayers, it's time to stop accepting sales pitch figures that politicians use. It's time to demand that they use dollars and cents figures. Further, we should insist that school board members that don't tell the truth should be immediately thrown off he board. I wrote this post about Colleen Donovan's LTE because of this information:
'The Dec. 19 Times report 'St. Cloud schools hike tax levy 14.75%' reported the district stating an owner of a home valued at $150,000, if their home value did not increase, would pay $49 more in taxes due to the 2015 levy increase. My 2015 tax statement showed that levy increased my taxes by 54.5 percent, or an increase of $79.59. And my house is valued under $100,000 . This is far from the $49 on a $150,000 the district reported in December. The district did not need voter approval to do this.'
In short, these school board members don't automatically tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Unfortunately, it sometimes requires citizen pressure.
Posted Sunday, May 22, 2016 12:57 AM
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