Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Surrendering U.S. Sovereignty at G-20 Summit

(Analyst's  note:  How is that change going?  This is a must read item.)


By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

While all eyes were on the rantings of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, the United States — under President Obamawas surrendering its economic sovereignty at the G-20 summit.

The result of this conclave, which France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy hailed as “revolutionary,” was that all the nations agreed to coordinate their economic policies and programs and to submit them to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for comment and approval.

While the G-20 nations and the IMF are, for now, only going to use “moral suasion” on those nations found not to be in compliance, talk of sanctions looms on the horizon.

While the specific policies to which the U.S. committed itself (reducing the deficit and strengthening regulatory oversight of financial institutions) are laudable in themselves, the process and the precedent are frightening.

We are to subject our most basic national economic policies to the review of a group of nations that includes autocratic Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. Even though our gross domestic product is three times bigger than the second-largest economy (Japan) and equal to that of 13 of the G-20 nations combined, we are to sit politely by with our one vote and submit to the global consensus. Europe has five votes (Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the EU), while we have but one.

And the process will be administered by the IMF, whose counsel to less-developed nations over the past two decades has consistently called for social pain and economic austerity. The IMF’s misguided policies have been responsible for more revolutions than Marx, Engels, and Lenin combined. Its bureaucrats’ arrogance is legendary, and its search for appropriate punishments to fit the crime of spending too much on the poor smacks of colonialism and imperialism. They are our new overseers.
This combination of the IMF and the G-20 will not only work to structure national economic policies but to limit executive compensation at financial institutions. The watchful, wise leaders of such nations as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia — among others — will monitor Wall Street to assure themselves that their compensation is not out of line. One particularly looks forward to the views of the Saudi monarchy on this question of excessive personal enrichment.

Perhaps as part of his public spasm of apology, President Obama also strove successfully to increase the voting strength of the debtor nations on the IMF from the current 43 percent to 48 percent. This is the economic equivalent of giving deadbeat debtors more votes on their bank’s governing board of directors.

Thus, the world’s most successful economy, ours — which is the only one that has produced reliable economic growth for three decades and has lifted real personal incomes almost every year — is going to subject itself to the burden of justifying its own economic policies in front of a global community of 20 nations, some of which do not even embrace free-market economies in the first place.

Indeed, it is only through access to our markets that nations have been able to escape poverty. Japan, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China and India have sequentially trod this path into prosperity.

Obviously, we live in a global economy. But the United States is 24 percent of it. We are entitled to more than one-twentieth of a voice, and it is the world that should be following our policies — not the other way around.

Much of the damage of the Obama administration can be undone at the next election. But such grants of sovereignty to autocratic, backward, bureaucratic and even communist nations will be hard to undo.

The world is recovering from its leftist obsession — e.g., the Angela Merkel victory in Germany. But by the time the voters discover how phony, failed and fraudulent these policies are, we may have given it all away already. Irrevocably.

Silent-but-deadly jihad: Al-Qaeda increasing use of suppository bombs

(Analyst's note:  Troubling.  How about simply running everyone through a bomb proof booth that is saturated with phone frequencies.  We might need more than one booth - giving us time to hose out those "caught in the act" of jihad.  Just a thought ... )

from Jihad Watch

No, we didn't get this story from The Onion. But the humorous potential is tempered by the fact that this tactic is already precipitating yet another wave of costly, inconvenient, and possibly even unhealthful security measures for travelers, as security agencies ponder the inclusion of full-body X-Rays at security checkpoints to catch devices such as these, as well as possible surgically implanted bombs.
"France: Daily reports Al-Qaeda 'suppository bomb'," from AdnKronos International, October 6 (thanks to Sr. Soph):
Paris, 6 October (AKI) - Al-Qaeda-linked suicide bombers are now using 'suppository bombs' to evade stringent security checks at airports and elsewhere, according to a report in French daily Le Figaro. The paper cites information from France's newly formed DCRI anti-terrorist services.
The devices are undetectable and were used in an assassination attempt in Saudi Arabia in late August, according to DCRI.
The target of the attack, prince Mohammed bin Nayef, son of the Saudi interior minister, suffered only minor injuries when his attacker, wanted Islamist Abul Khair detonated the bomb using a mobile phone. The attack was claimed by Al-Qaeda.
"Khair either swallowed the explosives or inserted them as a suppository," said senior French interior ministry official, quoted by Le Figaro.
The officials said palace security guards in Saudi Arabia had failed to remove Khair's mobile phone.
Security officials worldwide are now considering how to tackle the new threat.
Only X-ray's would have been able to detect the 'suppository bomb' device, but these are not being considered for general security controls, according to officials.
X-ray's are not used for general security scanning due to radiation risks as well cost.
One solution could be to detect and remove the cell phones needed to detonate the 'explosive suppositories', according to a police scientific expert quoted by Le Figaro.
More on potential security measures: "Travellers to Europe face full body X-rays after Al Qaeda suicide bombers ploy to hide devices INSIDE their bodies," from the Daily Mail, October 6:
Travellers to Europe face being treated like drug smugglers as security chiefs are expected to recommend new intrusive security measures.
French anti-terror chiefs are expected to propose the new measures, such as full body X-rays or handing in all electronic devices, after a terrorist tried to kill a Saudi prince with a bomb he had inserted into his body.
Al Qaeda's latest ploy was first pioneered by Abdullah Hassan al Asiri, who blew himself apart in Jeddah in late August in an attack on Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi anti-terrorism chief.
The 23-year-old terrorist blew himself into 70 pieces when he detonated the bomb - inserted into his rectum - with a mobile phone.
His body was said to have absorbed some of the impact of the explosion, however, leaving the prince only slightly injured.
However experts claimed such a blast would be catastrophic in the pressurised atmosphere of a passenger jet.
Now President Nicolas Sarkozy's new domestic intelligence directorate (DCRI) is considering draconian measures, police commanders told Le Figaro newspaper.
But some in the government are already slamming measures that would leave passengers being treated as drug smugglers.
'It is unthinkable when you think about the frequency with which some people fly,' a senior Interior Ministry official told Le Figaro. 'The health risks would be too high.'...

Feds Strip Sheriff Joe of Immigration Enforcement Authority, But Decline to Require Him Wear Pink Underwear

from ImmigrationProf Blog




Joe_alone

Dawnt for Daily Kos reports that "America's Toughest Sheriff" Joe Arpaio announced yesterday that the U.S. government has removed Maricopa County, Arizona's authorization to assist in the enforcement of the U.S. immigration laws.  Why you might ask?  "Arpaio is currently under investigation by the Dept of Justice for civil rights violations, and by the Dept of Labor for labor violations. He is being sued by a number of individuals, organizations, and fellow local officials. 

The mayors of two cities in Maricopa County have called him out for what they allege is racial profiling."  ....

----------------------------------------------------
I just received these comments from Brittanicus which are too good to leave "buried" in the comments section of this article summary which one has to click to see.  Thus, I've incorporated them within the post.  My thanks to Brittanicus.

"The usual suspects are defying--THE AMERICAN PEOPLE--and are implicit in this weakening of our laws is Janet Napolitano, head of the Homeland Security. We all must realize with BLANKET AMNESTY on the immediate horizon, their using all the stops to collapse anything that smells of immigration enforcement. Anybody who has investigated the Democratic leadership would slowly weaken 287 G, that gave regular police training to question suspicious people about their immigrant status? Arizona County Sheriff Joe Ariapo was sure to be marked by Napolitano, because his deputies were having a incredulous success rate, in apprehending illegal aliens in his jurisdiction. However the corrupt lawmakers around the nation, have not been able to crush E-Verify? AS YET?

By now most business are conscious of the federal program E-Verify? It distinguishes US citizens and legal residents from illegal labor. Although not seamless, it has a 99.6 success rate and obviously will overtime become even more constructive to business that believes in the "Rule of Law." Opponents in both the business sector and even on Capitol Hill have released a torrent of abuse against the application. That includes its function is blind to counterfeit documentation and spurious ID and that even legal individuals can be rejected? SO--YOU GO TO THE SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE TO BE EXONERATED? ONLY ILLEGAL WORKERS WILL SHUN TURNING TO SSA FOR RESOLVING THIS ISSUE.

The open border conspirators are losing, as they did in a federal Maryland court a week previous. As E-Verify are perfected it needs to become a permanent tool in the incomplete arsenal of immigration enforcement. It needs to reach out to every company, big and small, in our country and every individual who works there? E-Verify eventually will expel foreign national from the workplace, without financial appropriations on a large scale. These people will self-deport when they cannot be hired anymore. Businesses facing huge fines and prison will be the ultimate deterrent. In time it will save our ailing schools, health care, home mortgages and government welfare system. Look to NUMBERSUSA for honest an answer, that includes costs to taxpayers for the new blanket AMNESTY. Which Senators and Republicans are anti-US American Worker and their immigration grades?

For an example Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) has a miserable enforcement grade of "C-". He was out to erase E-Verify, under fund the border fence from the beginning of the Democratic administration. Then JUDICIAL WATCH is a public watchdog group Promoting Integrity, Transparency and Accountability in Government, Politics and the Law. They uncover misconduct by government officials and litigation to hold to account politicians and public officials who engage in corrupt activities. Finally CAPSWEB informs the public about the coming nightmare of OVERPOPULATION that is already exhibiting itself in our deteriorating infrastructure. TELL YOUR POLITICIANS YOU HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE AT 202-224-3121

SAY NO PRO –ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT LIBERAL SOCIALIST--SANCTUARY CITY--MAYOR GAVIN NEWSOM FOR GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA.

Incidentally regarding the 2010 Census? Small states will miss out big time on federal dollars, while mass illegal immigrant states will gain more seats in Congress and too much power and influence? Of course ICE could check the immigration status of those who are counted, even though it's supposedly against US law? Or is counting 20 million plus (?) non-legal residence against the US Constitution?"

Press Release: Rep. Myrick Connects the Dots of the Recent US Terror Plots

 (Analyst's note:  Absolutely must read.  Eleven days ago Rep. Sue Myrick, co-chair of the U.S. House of Representatives Anti-Terrorism Caucus, put out the release below, connecting the dots between the spate of recently-foiled terrorist plots. Rep. Myrick is one of many in the House and Senate who do in fact now “get it.” )


There is no current evidence that materially connects any of the terror plots recently revealed.  However, I have taken sentences directly from FBI press releases, and FBI investigative documents, and highlighted the clear connection below .  These plots are all tied together by one thing: a global ideology that is self-identified by its believers as jihadist, or “jihadiyya”.   It is hard to ignore this fact  when in these cases below several of these men very clearly, and very directly, state that they followed this ideology (jihad), and wanted to kill.

I find this connection disturbing seeing as these plots come on the heels of the Administration's efforts to rename 'jihadists' - which is what they call themselves - 'violent extremists'." 
- US Rep. Sue Myrick 
 
FBI Arrests Jordanian Citizen for Attempting to Bomb Skyscraper in Downtown Dallas: http://dallas.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel09/dl092409.htm  “Smadi made clear his intention to serve as a soldier for Usama Bin Laden and al Qaeda, and to conduct violent jihad.”
 
Illinois Man Arrested in Plot to Bomb Courthouse and Murder Federal Employees: http://springfield.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/2009/si092409.htm “…Finton expressed his desire to receive military training and to travel to Gaza or other overseas locations to become a jihadist fighter.”
 
NC Boyd Case—New Charges…Possible Target was Marine Corps Base Quantico: http://charlotte.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/2009/ce092409.htm “According to the indictment, during the period from 1989 through 1992, Daniel Boyd traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan where he received military-style training in terrorist training camps for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad.”
 
NY Transit Terror Case- indictment handed down- conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction—explosive bombs—in the United States: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/sept09/zazi_092409.html    Zazi has told FBI investigators that he "attended courses at an al Qaeda training facility" while in Pakistan.

Brooklyn Resident Indicted for the Conspiracy to Commit Murder Overseas and Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Terrorists: http://newyork.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel09/nyfo092409a.htm   “According to the indictment and other documents filed by the government, in early January 2009, Kaziu devised a plan to travel abroad for the purpose of joining a radical foreign fighter group and to take up arms against perceived enemies of Islam.”

FTC to Regulate Blogging

Print Texas terror suspect made video for bin Laden, FBI says

Biowatch Quietly Protects Nation From Biological Terror Threat

from National Terror Alert

I’m always impressed by the countless men and women who quietly work behind the scenes to protect this nation from the threat of terrorism. It’s not often that you get even a small glimpse into the vital role many of them play, yet for every investigation and every plot that is thwarted there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, who played a crucial role. One such group, Biowatch, is featured in a USA today article.
Behind the scenes, system sniffs for biological attacks
A ringing telephone startled Tom Slezak from a sound sleep. It was 1 a.m. on Oct. 6, 2001. The caller gave Slezak three hours to pack for a chilling, top-secret mission: to protect Washington, D.C., and other U.S. cities from a major bioterror attack.


For all Slezak knew, an attack had begun. Hours earlier, a Florida photo editor named Bob Stevens had died after inhaling anthrax powder sent by mail, jolting a nation that was still reeling from the 9/11 hijackings. At the time, the scope of the anthrax attacks that eventually killed five people and sickened 17 others wasn’t clear.

Slezak got the call because he helped pioneer the genetic analysis of biological agents at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Today, eight years after the anthrax attacks, the system Slezak’s research team started, known as BioWatch, is quietly operating in more than 30 cities.

A federally funded, locally run program with an $80 million annual budget, it depends on a network of vacuum pumps that draw surrounding air through filters, sniffing for signs of biological agents.

[...]


The scenarios envisioned by Hooks and other Homeland Security officials are enough to keep anyone awake at night: A terrorist in a pickup in Charlotte, spewing a biological agent through an agricultural sprayer. A small plane releasing microbes into night skies upwind of Washington, D.C. Someone spraying anthrax from a briefcase in Pennsylvania Station in New York, the busiest transit hub in the USA, with 600,000 people streaming through each day.


“How many people would be infected? How far would it spread? They’d go right through there, jump on a train and be gone,” Hooks says. “Those are the kinds of things I worry about.”


The only way to know the detection system is capable of picking up such threats is to test it, says Omberg of Los Alamos. BioWatch analysts have released benign microbes upwind of likely terrorist targets and population centers. BioWatch sensors in the Washington, D.C., area have reliably picked up bacteria released near the Pentagon and Tysons Corner, a close-in office and retail hub in Virginia.


Real-world alerts, such as the tularemia incident in Washington, D.C., also have helped some cities gear up for a biological incident. Houston, even more than Washington, is home to the bacteria that cause tularemia, Francisella tularensis, which regularly triggers BioWatch alerts.

Read the full article

Good News for Terrorists: Democrat Revisions to the Patriot Act

If only terrorists would be so accommodating as not to change cell phones, the new curbs on the Patriot Act being pushed by Democrats in Congress would not be so dangerous. ....

New Shar'iah Charity Fund: Underwriting Radical Islam?

by Hana Levi Julian

A new global Islamic charity fund set to launch in early 2010 may become the vehicle to support something entirely different, according to Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, who warned that the new charity must be watched carefully. sharia

In an exclusive interview Monday with Israel National News, Jasser expressed deep concern that the World Zakat Fund, established in part by the Malaysian government, may be "nothing more than a ruse to give transnational Islamist movements and their controlling Muslim theocrats an economic power base."

The new fund will collect donations from the 2.5 percent "zakat" set aside under Shar'iah law by observant Muslims who have the wherewithal to save money. According to a statement released to the media, it is the first Islamic charity fund ever to be established.

The fund is hoping to raise nearly a billion dollars by the end of its first year. Humayon Dar, CEO of BMB Islamic, the Shar'iah adviser to the fund, said last week that donors have made soft commitments of approximately $50 million thus far.

That could grow to as much as $10 billion within the first decade, however: Dar estimated there are some 40,000 high-net-worth Muslims in the Middle East alone, including 400 billionaires. He added that between $20 billion to $30 billion in zakat is distributed in the Muslim world each year.
'Giving the Fox the Keys to the Henhouse'

Jasser told INN that he believes the fund would simply serve to consolidate financial power "in vast orders of magnitude" and then hand it over to the member nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

These are countries that have refused to abide by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, he pointed out, "and do not adhere to the same standards of human rights as Western nations."

Moreover, he said, "As far as I know, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mohamed Mahathir, has never retracted his comment from 2002 where he stated, 'A universal Islamic banking system is a jihad worth pursuing to abolish this slavery [to the West].'"

Giving OIC nations the collective ability to determine the distribution of "Muslim charity," he said, is "the epitome of giving the 'fox the keys to the henhouse.'"

'Benign Distribution of Funds by Radical Islamists?'
It is not yet clear where and how the funds from the new charity will be distributed, Jasser noted. "At this point, the effort is in its infancy, and the important details of where their monies will go is unknown."

However, he said, the controlling members of the fund's Shar'iah finance board merit some concern:

Dr. Ali al-Quradaghi is a member of the European Council of Fatwa Research, and a colleague of the global spiritual guide of the radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Yusuf Qaradawi, who has sanctioned terrorist activity in Israel and Iraq. Qaradawi has also called for the murder of Muslim apostates, and has expressed the intention of replacing Western capitalism with "integrated Islamic philosophy."
Syria's Abdul Sattar Abu Guddah, is closely affiliated with Sheikh Muhammad Taqi Usmani, who has been removed from numerous boards of Western banks, according to Jasser. Abu Guddah was on the board of the al-Baraka Bank, which was implicated in the financing of the 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorist attack on the United States. The allegations against the bank were later dismissed.

Abdul-aziz Fawzan Saleh Al-Fawzan is a Saudi Arabia-based Wahabi Islamist whom Jasser calls "a self-proclaimed hater of Christians."

In addition, the management board of BMB Islamic includes three members who hail from the International Islamic University in Pakistan. Jasser noted that in a seminar held recently by the university on Israel and Gaza, "The speaker provided an interpretation of the Koran, Chapter 5, which is anti-Semitic and incites violence."

University president Anwar Siddiqui led a discussion at the same conference with a panel of radical Islamists, Jasser said, "who called for the Islamic state in Gaza and the West Bank and for a boycott of America and Israel," among others.

"I cannot imagine how individuals as radical as this are going to distribute billions in funds in a 'benign' method globally," he said pointedly.

White House angry at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan

The relationship between President Barack Obama and the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan has been put under severe strain by Gen Stanley McChrystal's comments on strategy for the war.

Will Social Security survive the recession? Tax revenue plummets while retirees seek early benefits

Gen. Petraeus Was Treated for Prostate Cancer

Petraeus underwent two months of radiation treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, and the treatment was successful, a spokesman says.

No Rush to Escalate

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

 At a White House dinner with a group of historians at the beginning of the summer, Robert Dallek, a shrewd student of both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, offered a chilling comment to President Obama.

 "In my judgment," he recalls saying, "war kills off great reform movements." The American record is pretty clear: World War I brought the Progressive Era to a close. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was waging World War II, he was candid in saying that "Dr. New Deal" had given way to "Dr. Win the War." Korea ended Harry Truman's Fair Deal, and Vietnam brought Lyndon Johnson's Great Society to an abrupt halt.

Dallek is not a pacifist, and he does not pretend that his observation settles the question against war in every case. Of the four he mentioned, I think World War II and Korea were certainly necessary fights.

But Dallek's point helps explain why Obama is right to have grave qualms about an extended commitment of many more American troops to Afghanistan. Obama was elected not to escalate a war but to end one. The change and hope he promised did not involve a vast new campaign to transform Afghanistan. ....