NONIE DARWISH SEZ.....


Having spent my childhood in Gaza and Cairo hearing Jews cursed and called “apes,” “pigs” and “enemies of God” from the pulpits of mosques, I commend “In Gaza, Hamas’s Fiery Insults to Jews Complicate Peace Effort” (front page, April 1).

Worldwide Islamic terrorism is the natural product of the constant hate speech and propaganda children hear in Arab schools, mosques, media, Islamic universities — and now children’s television.

Hamas seeks to produce a generation ready for jihad. Even Arabs from middle-class families cannot shed the legacy of hatred we were subjected to as children in the Middle East.

Arab religious and political leaders do not realize that this indoctrination of hatred and violence against Jews and Israel in children has infected Arab society. It started against Jews. But it leads to bombings of Muslims by Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to indiscriminate bombings in New York, Madrid and London. The world must demand an end to it.

Nonie Darwish
Los Angeles, April 1, 2008

Citizens have a right to know that every election, no matter the margin of victory, is concluded fairly with respect to the idea of one person, one vote.
While one part of the solution came from our elected officials in Washington in the form of the Help America Vote Act, the sec­ond — and I think far more important part — must come from the individual states. Since enactment of the Help America Vote Act in 2002, several states — including Georgia and Indiana, which attracted publicity for their efforts — have proposed tougher voter identi­fication standards: standards that require photo ID to vote. Despite furious legal chal­lenges, national polling shows that almost 80 percent of American citizens agree that photo ID should be required to verify identity before casting a ballot.
Photo identification requirements are designed to do one thing: prevent fraud in our elections. Unfortunately, the occurrence of fraud in our voting system is all too prevalent. The Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform (chaired by former Presi­dent Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker) made such a determina­tion when it released its report in 2005. The report cited numerous examples from other states that demonstrate how fraud has played a role in recent U.S. elections. One such case in East Chicago, Ind., result­ed in the Indiana Supreme Court invalidating a mayoral primary based on evidence of rampant absen­tee ballot fraud that included the use of a vacant lot as an address for nonresident vot­ers.

Rep. Keith Ellison representing the 5th district of Minnesota plans to sponsor a bill to outlaw use of photo I.D. to vote. This would easily pass in our Democrat controlled congress.

What are the Beltway politicians buying with all the hundreds of billions of dollars they are spending? They are buying what politicians are most interested in — power. In the name of protecting the taxpayers’ investment, they are buying the power to tell General Motors how to make cars, banks how to bank and, before it is all over with, all sorts of other people how to do the work they specialize in, and for which members of Congress have no competence, much less expertise.

On Tuesday, Obama was inau­gurated and vowed a new era. On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee met and showed the old era was very much alive. Democratic subcommittee chairmen sat like potted plants because all power was wielded by Obey. Republi­cans were in the dark because of an information embargo placed on the majority staff.
Obama is clearly going to have to show the hard way that he meant what he said about bringing change. He didn’t run for president just to sign what­ever bills the Old Bulls put on his desk

Where is the change.Simply put, words matter. This is particu­larly true in an inaugural address. In this case, Obama’s words reflect a stated desire to reconfigure the role of government and mar­kets in our country.
The political talk shows have been full of debate as to how “red America” should react. Two baseline conclusions should be obvious: First, all Americans should pray for the safety and success of the greatest democracy in the history of the world — and those prayers and good wishes must extend to the new president, his family and the administration. But when it comes to $825 billion in new deficit spending, increased taxes on producers, the elimination of secret ballots in union elections, protectionism, a “new” fairness doctrine, an end to moral clarity in the fight against terrorism, giving terrorists rights enjoyed by U.S. citizens, a future of limited horizons rather than growth and opportunity, and plain old divi­sive class-warfare rhetoric — count me (and millions of other Republicans, Democrats and independents) among the loyal opposi­tion