RG - Who Is Eboo Patel?

Eboo Patel is the founder and Executive Director of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a Chicago-based institution building the global interfaith youth movement. Author of the award-winning book Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, Eboo is also a regular contributor to the Washington Post, National Public Radio and CNN. He is a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship.

Army Manual and Evangelicals:

in an official manual, the United States Army now lists evangelical Christianity, Catholicism and Islamophobia as forms of religious extremism, along with Al-Qaeda and Hamas (April 2013).

Eboo Patel said this long before Barack Obama appointed Patel as his "Adviser" on Religion. (2008)

Evangelicals as Terrorists:

President Barack Obama's "religion czar" and spiritual adviser has likened evangelical Christians to radical Islamists such as al-Qaeda. He has also been heard comparing Rev. Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network to Osama bin Laden.

Obama met Patel when they both lived and worked in Chicago. Patel was well-known locally as a Muslim activist and a friend to Rashid Khalid, a Palestinian historian of the Middle East who left Chicago to become the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University in New York City.

Van Jones praised by Patel:

In 2011 Patel depicted Van Jones, the revolutionary communist who had served several months as President Obama's “green jobs” czar, as an “American patriot,” a “faith hero,” and one of “the true giants of history.”

Patel's Radical Connections:

In 2005 Patel and several young radicals co-authored the book Letters from Young Activists: Today’s Rebels Speak Out. Among Patel's co-authors were Chesa Boudin (the adopted son of former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers) and Ismail Khalidi (the son of Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi). The book's Preface was written by Ayers’ wife, Weather Underground co-founder Bernardine Dohrn. The back cover featured an endorsement from the convicted cop-killer and former Black Panther Party member Mumia Abu-Jamal. And on the Acknowledgments page, Patel and his fellow authors thanked Ayers personally for the “guidance” and “encouragement” he had provided.

In 2006 Patel published Building the Interfaith Youth Movement: Beyond Dialogue to Action. The book's Afterword was written by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, famous for having led an effort to construct a large mosque near the site of the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan.

Muslim Brotherhood Influence in the White House:

An Egyptian magazine claims that six American Islamist activists who work with the Obama administration are Muslim Brotherhood operatives who enjoy strong influence over U.S. policy.

The six named people include:

1. Eboo Patel, a member of President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships.
   Rose El-Youssef says Patel maintains a close relationship with Hani Ramadan, the grandson of Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna, and is a member of the Muslim Students Association, which it identifies as "a large Brotherhood organization."
2. Arif Alikhan, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for policy development.
   Alikhan is a founder of the World Islamic Organization, which the magazine identifies as a Brotherhood "subsidiary." It suggests that Alikhan was responsible for the "file of Islamic states" in the White House and that he provides the direct link between the Obama administration and the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011.
3. Mohammed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
   Elibiary, who has endorsed the ideas of radical Muslim Brotherhood luminary Sayyid Qutb, may have leaked secret materials contained in Department of Homeland Security databases, according to the magazine. He, however, denies having any connection with the Brotherhood. Elibiary also played a role in defining the Obama administration's counterterrorism strategy, and the magazine asserts that Elibiary wrote the speech Obama gave when he told former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to leave power but offers no source or evidence for the claim.
4. Rashad Hussain, the U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
   According to Rose El-Youssef, Rashad Hussain maintained close ties with people and groups that it says comprise the Muslim Brotherhood network in America. This includes his participation in the June 2002 annual conference of the American Muslim Council, formerly headed by convicted terrorist financier Abdurahman Alamoudi. He also participated in the organizing committee of the Critical Islamic Reflection along with important figures of the American Muslim Brotherhood such as Jamal Barzinji, Hisham al-Talib and Yaqub Mirza.
5. Salam al-Marayati, co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).
   Regarding al-Marayati, who has been among the most influential Muslim American leaders in recent years, the magazine draws connections between MPAC in the international Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure.
6. Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).
   Magid heads ISNA, which was founded by Brotherhood members, was appointed by Obama in 2011 as an adviser to the Department of Homeland Security. The magazine says that has also given speeches and conferences on American Middle East policy at the State Department and offered advice to the FBI.

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RG - With Sadness of Heart and Joy In My Spirit

With Sadness of Heart and Joy In My Spirit. it is with mixed emotions for me to announce that my friend and Co-Founder of this Website - Anne from PA passed away Sunday, April 7 2013 at 1:15 PM. Anne had been fighting a debilitating illness for several Months and seemed on her way to recovery. I talked to her on the telephone for over an hour Thursday, April 4 2013 and she was upbeat although very weary from her physical battle. Anne admonished me to continue the fight to save our Country.

My Spirit rejoices that Anne is with God and no longer suffering.

Anne was a Mother, Grandmother and special friend to many of us on Town Hall, where she was a frequent commentator. Anne was a 'True American Patriot' and cared deeply for her Country and wanted to fight to the end to save her Country.

Anne was extremely intelligent, quick witted and a formidable foe in the realm of politics, patriotism and the battle of good versus evil.

Anne was the driving force in my developing this website - she simply would not take no for an answer.

Anne will be sorely missed and fondly remembered.
RG (WJF)

November 2011, Anne writes:

I don't know if it's the incomprehensible, overwhelming evil that was behind 9-11, or the magnitude of the death and destruction, but ten years later, looking at a picture of the twin towers, or looking at a picture of where the twin towers used to be, most times gives me a lump in my throat, and more often than not a tear in my eye.

I have also experienced a situation similar to Peter Scheibner's. In the mid 60s, while working for American Airlines, I was supposed to be on a plane (commuter carrier) that crashed on take off. All passengers aboard were killed. I was not on board simply because when asked, I agreed to work a shift for a co-worker; a day in the middle of my four day weekend off. Many of the thoughts and emotions Peter Scheibner expressed, I recall thinking and feeling many years ago. Even after more than forty years, I remember those thoughts and emotions when I board a plane in potentially icing conditions.

Through the years there have been other times that God has saved my life through nothing less than a miracle. Instances where people would say it was "luck" or "coincidence." These instances were neither "luck" nor "coincidence," but rather miracles. God's hand.

And my experience this past week, being precisely where God needed me to be, in spite of the fact that I'd rather had not been there, that caused me to be taken by ambulance to Hospital of Univ. of Pennsylvania, which is a world class cardiac facility. And to learn that while I was being prepped for pacemaker implant surgery, my already critically weakened electrical cardio-impulses were rapidly deteriorating, and the surgeons kept me alive while they inserted the pacemaker and the pacemaker started to do what pacemakers do... keep people alive.

The events in my life this past week, as well as watching Peter Scheibner's heart felt video, have given me pause to stop and consider, among other things, the miracles in my life.

The Hebrews have no equivalent word for "coincidence." Life does not happen randomly, and people and situations in our lives are not random. There are reasons, and they are God's reasons.

I recalled again a poster my daughter used to have in her room when she was a teenager. The poster was of a young girl skiing down the moguls, with skis, feet, polls, and hands in every possible direction, and a look of abject terror on the young girl's face. Across the top of the poster it said, "I DON'T BELIEVE IN MIRACLES" and across the bottom it said, "I DEPEND ON MIRACLES."

And so do we all depend on God's miracles, whether or not we realize or want to admit it.

I also thought of what I believe to be one of the most profound lines I've ever heard in any movie... "Out of Africa," when Streep's character, Baroness Karen Blixen, said, "God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road." Perhaps that's God's way of inviting us to trust in Him in all things.

Another thing that came to mind was something I learned many years ago from a Dr. Epstein who is an extraordinarily gifted pediatric surgeon. Dr. Epstein cares for, and operates on only those children with catastrophic medical problems that other pediatric surgeons won't touch. When asked how he dealt with caring for and operating on these innocent little children who have the worst of the worst medical problems... and did he ever ask "why." Dr. Epstein said, "Yes. I used to ask why. And then I realized that it was okay to ask why as long as you don't demand an answer." Dr. Epstein went on to say that he was very aware that we may never get some answers as long as we're in this life, but we just need to accept that, and do what we're called to do.

Miracles abound all around us. Miracles don't have to be feeding thousands from a few baskets of loaves and fishes, or turning water into wine, or the many miracles described in the Bible.

Miracles are often the everyday things that happen in our lives, that put us precisely where we need to be, and exactly when we need to be there. Miracles are often the people in our lives who comfort us, and enable us to keep going forward without being too discouraged. Miracles are those who keep us in their prayers, without being asked. But the greatest of miracles is that God sent His only son to die for us and our sins.

We are living in times that probably, to a person, we never thought we'd experience. We are surrounded by evil and we are being called to prayer and fighting back against the evil.

Peter Scheibner's "Life Objectives" gave me more to think and pray about. Will God say to me, "Well done, my good and faithful servant?"

Anne from PA

When We Arrive in God's Presence:

Anne and I were talking after the election and we both decided that "When we saw God we had a lot of questions for Him?" After a few minutes we came to the conclusion that when we arrived in the presence of God we might NOT be able to talk at all, just because of His magnificence. I found this song and sent Anne a link and said to her - "this sums up all we talked about".

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