A Disturbing Look at a Very Near Future: Tax Cuts vs More Spending at the Special Session

(Compiler's note: Must read. rca)

by Newt Gingrich

We have a choice between two futures.

For the first, fast forward 23 days. It’s November 17. Congress convenes for a special session with a veto-proof Democratic majority Senate, an expanded Democrat majority in the House and a Democrat in the White House.

The sole item on their agenda is to pass the $300 billion government spending package promised by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi back in October.

There is no mistaking what is coming. Even before Democrats won sweeping, one-party control of Washington, they had made their intentions to increase taxes and spending clear.

Originally pegged at $150 billion, Pelosi’s spending package ballooned as time went on.

With 11 days to go before the election, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) fleshed out some details of the massive spending package. Frank called for a 25 percent cut in defense spending and conceded that Democrats will raise taxes to pay for new government spending. If they couldn’t get the votes in November, Frank was confident that they would have them in January.

And long before the election, President-elect Barack Obama had expressed his preference for wealth redistribution over wealth creation both on the campaign trail and in a startling radio interview in 2001, in which he claims the Warren Court was not radical enough. (Bill Whittle does an excellent job of dissecting this interview at National Review Online )

“You Can’t Say We Weren’t Warned”

The newly empowered Democratic majority passes the massive spending bill, confident that even a veto by President Bush can and will be overridden by their new Senate majority in January.

Before President-elect Barack Obama even takes office, government spending increases by $300 billion, bringing the grand total for the last six months of 2008 to $1.45 trillion.

And all center-right Americans can do is shake their heads and think, “You can’t say we weren’t warned.”

There is a Different Future: Make the Election About Big Spending Vs Big Economic Growth

For candidates, campaign managers, and consultants who are disturbed at this look at the very near future, there is another way.

But that way begins now. Today.

To avoid defeat on November 4 and avoid an out-of-control spending spree in the new Congress, the voters have to be given a real choice on Election Day.

• A choice between robust government spending and robust economic growth;

• A choice between higher spending and lower taxes;

• A choice between spreading the wealth around and increasing it through rapid economic recovery.

Because when Americans are asked to make these choices, our answers are clear and unequivocal.

We trust the private sector to grow the economy more than government. We favor keeping our money over giving it to Washington. We favor creating more wealth over redistributing the wealth we’ve worked for and saved.

We just have to be given the choice.

Three Times More Americans Believe In Tax Cuts Over More Government Spending

Newly released polling data show just how out of touch with Americans the REPO Team (Reid-Pelosi-Obama) pre-Christmas spending spree is.

By 60%-20%, Americans believe lower taxes, not higher government spending, will best ensure economic recovery, according to a new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll.

By 86%-9%, Americans believe government should focus on jobs and economic growth over income redistribution, according to a New Models/Winston Group survey.

By 71%-25%, Americans believe that if you cut taxes on small business it will create new jobs, according to the New Models/Winston Group poll.

So What Are We Waiting For?

So what are we waiting for? To counter the Reid-Pelosi-Obama massive $300 billion government spending spree, Republicans should offer a $300 billion tax cut package.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has proposed a rapid economic recovery program that should be the centerpiece of the campaign going forward. Instead of marrying new deficit spending with liberal special interests like the Reid-Pelosi-Obama plan does, the Boehner plan marries sound economics with the small government, free market values of the American people.

Here are some of the reforms in the Boehner rapid economic recovery plan:

• Energy Independence: Creating jobs and reducing energy and food costs by enacting an “all of the above” energy plan. For more information, watch my new movie “We Have the Power” (watch the new trailer here and buy the movie here ) and read my new book Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less .

• Creating Jobs: Bringing American jobs back home by lowering the tax rate on profits that companies bring back to the United States.

• Restoring Home Values: Encouraging home purchases by easing capital gains rules for homes purchased in the next 18 months and held for at least five years.

• Spurring Economic Growth: Immediately suspend the capital gains tax on individuals and businesses for equities purchased during the next two years.

• Encouraging American Companies to Assist in Recovery: Lower the tax rate on business income so American companies have an incentive to invest in distressed assets.

• Protecting Retirement: Suspend rules that require individuals at age 70½ to begin withdrawing from their Individual Retirement Accounts. This would spare investors from being forced to sell their stocks at just the time when the market is hurting the most.

I will have more to say about what we can do now to avert this impending massive government spending spree at an event this Friday at the American Enterprise Institute entitled “Energy, the Economy, and the Special Session of Congress.” For more details, go to www.aei.org.

In the meantime, there is no time to waste. Republicans and center-right independents and Democrats can give the voters a real choice in the election, or we can lose our choice in the congressional special session to come.

Either way, you can’t say we weren’t warned.

Laura Hollis :: Townhall.com Columnist

(Compiler's note: An absolutely stunning article -- must read. rca)

by Laura Hollis

Well, now we know why Barack Obama’s been so reluctant to have symbols of this country associated with his campaign. No flags on his airplane. Nix to pins on his lapel. Not inclined to put his hand over his heart during the national anthem.

After all, it turns out he has a problem with that other slightly more significant representation of our nation, the United States Constitution.

Just as he tried to prove to everyone that his patriotism was demonstrated by the lack of symbols of the United States, so he is now arguing that his passion for the Constitution is demonstrated by his commitment to shredding it.

The Drudge Report and other legitimate investigative sources like the National Review, have exposed the most damning evidence yet of Barack Obama’s utter disregard for the core principles of the United States government. In a radio interview given in 2001, Obama reveals yet again about what he means by ‘equality,’ when he says, “…the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.”

Bad? Sure. Because now it’s not just “spread the wealth” a little bit (antithetical as that already is to American notions of hard work and prosperity). It’s that “redistribution of wealth” is part and parcel of Obama’s vision of what is “political and economic justice” in this society.

But it is much worse. Because this Harvard-educated lawyer then announces that the United States Supreme Court when headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, was “not radical enough,” in its pursuit of civil liberties, because “[i]t didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.”

If this has not stopped you dead in your tracks, either you don’t understand, or you’re already dead. What Obama is doing here is expressing his opinion that the Court would have better effectuated his definition of “political and economic justice” if it had been willing to ignore the limits placed upon it by the Constitution.

I have written elsewhere of Obama’s potential designs on the country, and his inclinations should he obtain the power he seeks. Many of the hypotheticals I posited then were pooh-poohed by readers, who said, in essence, “He’d never do that; the Constitution prevents it.”

At this point, any belief in Obama’s respect for constitutional limits is delusional. If he is so cavalier about the Constitution’s limits upon the power of the judiciary, why on earth would he respect the limits on the power of the Presidency? Or on Congress? Clamor for the reinstatement of the insidiously named “Fairness Doctrine” has already put the First Amendment in Obama’s sights. What would be sacrosanct about the Second? Or the Fourth? Or Fifth? Or Eighth? Why would Obama let any constitutional limit stand in the way of what he views as “political and economic justice”?

These views are why Obama’s acquaintances, associates and allies matter. Why his Alinskyite “by any means necessary” philosophy matters. Why we should care that he funds and takes money from people who say they hate or wish to undermine America. Why we should be concerned when he took spiritual sustenance from a man who spends much of his time condemning white people. This is what drives Barack Obama. And this is why he wants the Presidency.

The rest of Obama’s observations during this interview are just as asinine, and just as threatening. He says, “generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [It] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.”

This is deception. As an initial matter, few listening to him would understand the gobbledygook, “negative liberties.” But more importantly, he never explains that the United States Constitution is the oldest constitution in effect in the world. And that is no accident. It is the oldest, because it is the only constitution I am aware of that is drafted the way it is. Specifically, other constitutions list certain rights that the government conveys upon the people. Or, to put it as Obama did, the things “government must do on your behalf.”

Our Constitution, by contrast, has precisely the opposite construction. We, the people, are presumed to have all the rights, not just those written down in the Constitution. (And the Declaration of Independence states that these rights are “endowed by our Creator;” not by any government.)

Lest this be unclear, the drafters of the Constitution put it in writing. The Ninth Amendment says, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

And the Tenth Amendment goes further, stating explicitly that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.”

Obama is engaging in dangerous demagoguery when he suggests that we the people of the United States need him – or the government he wants in place – to give us rights we don’t already have.

This deceitful view was echoed when he was introduced by Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur in Ohio earlier this week, who said that Americans “needed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing all Americans a job, health care, homes, an education, and a fair playing field for business and farmers.” This is no “bill of rights,” it is a bill of attainder (look it up). Those found “guilty” would be anyone wealthier, more successful, or more prosperous than any other. And the punishment? The very things Obama and the Democrats are already pushing for: high taxes, and even seizure and redistribution of all American’s private property.

I am stunned beyond belief that these blunt admissions do not give otherwise patriotic Obama supporters (and this describes the vast majority of them) serious pause. But those voting for him seem to fall into two groups. The first group says, “Oh well, Bush has trashed the Constitution, too.” Even assuming that this were true, it is hardly a ringing endorsement for your candidate. Worse, it displays a surprising ignorance that the procedural protections Obama is determined to dismantle won’t be there to protect you against the next right-wing fascist you guys are always running in terror from. What – you think Obama will give those rights back right before (if) he leaves office?

The second group consists of disgruntled so-called “conservatives” like Kathleen Parker, Colin Powell, Peggy Noonan, and Christopher Buckley, who hear what Obama is saying, but choose not to believe him. I’m not sure what to say to these people, except that their refusal to learn from history suggests that there may be something to those claims that there’s no such thing as evolution.

Those who drafted the Constitution knew that persuasive orators who promised beneficence in exchange for liberty would come along. This is why George Washington admonished that “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master.” And it is why Thomas Jefferson said, "In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

Every President, upon taking office, takes an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." A President should be willing to die to defend our Constitution. Obama is dying to destroy it.

-------------------------------------- Read

Smoking Audio and Also read Halloween Fright Night: Obama's Words Should Scare Americans of All Ages!

Dr Doom - Global Stag-Deflation Coming?

from S.M.A.R.T. Investing with TSK

The Coming Global Stag-Deflation?

"In London last Thursday, Dr Doom predicted that hundreds of hedge funds will go bust and stock markets may soon have to shut – perhaps for as long as a week – in order to stem the panic selling now sweeping the world. What happened? The next day trading was briefly stopped in New York and Moscow."

Dr Doom (Nouriel Roubini), a New York University economics professor who predicted the financial crisis in 2006, talked to Bloomberg on October 27, 2008.

What does Dr Doom think is going to happen next?

1. I fear the worst is yet to come ;
2. 2 years of severe recession, not priced into market yet ;
3. Significant downside risk for equities in US and Globally ;
4. Stocks will fall sharply and go sideways ;
5. Downside risk for commodities of 20% ;
6. Risk of global stag-deflation (stagnation/recession plus deflation) .

Seems he is very accurate in his predictions, other than timing.

So be patient hor, dun catch the falling knives, dun try to call bottom. Dun be brave like Warren Buffet hor, he got deep pockets, can afford to lose, can afford to wait.

Let Mr Market call the bottom, then we take the ride up.

Economy's 'Dr. Doom' Makes Heroic Call

Arabs: Obama ‘One of Us'

from NewsMax

While Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama “has tried to push his origins into the background, his ‘Islamic roots’ have won him a place in many Arabs’ hearts.”

That’s the observation of Iranian-born commentator Amir Taheri, whose column in Tuesday’s New York Post notes that many Arabs and other Muslims see Obama as “one of them.”

They see that Obama has Arabic-Islamic first and middle names: Barack means “blessed” and Hussein means “beautiful.” His last name is Swahili, an East African language based on Arabic, Taheri writes. His sister is named Oumah, Arabic for “the community of the faithful;” his daughter Malia bears the name of a daughter of the noted Caliph Othman; and his father and stepfather were both Muslims.

Although Taheri did not note it, Obama was raised partially as a Muslim when he lived in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather. While there, he studied at two schools and was registered at both as a Muslim student.

As such he received Islamic religious instruction, studied the Koran, and prayed with other students. He did attend mosque, albeit infrequently, with his stepfather.

Obama’s religious upbringing after Indonesia is somewhat of a mystery until his late 20s. At that point, Obama says he converted to Christianity after meeting the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in Chicago.

Still, Obama has maintained strong support from American Muslims, including Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam movement. Farrakhan has endorsed Obama and has called him the “messiah.”

These factors have made Obama a big hit in the Arab world, where he has received wide praise, including:

• The Syrian regime has indicated its preference for Obama. Buthaina Shaaban, an adviser to President Bashar al-Assad, has written: “The change suggested by Obama is essential not only for the U.S. but for the entire human family.”
  
  
• Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi called Obama “a Muslim” and said: “All the people in the Arab and Muslim world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcome him and prayed for his success,” although Qaddafi also expressed criticism of Obama’s comments on the future of Jerusalem.
  
  
• Hamas political adviser Ahmed Yousef said this year: “We like Mr. Obama and we hope that he will win the election.”
  
  
• Hezbollah’s second in command, Sheik Naim al-Kassim, urged Americans to vote for Obama as a step toward peace with Islam, and pro-Hezbollah columnist Amal Saad-Ghorayeb said there is “no doubt Arabs should welcome an Obama presidency,” according to Taheri.
  
  
• In Saudi Arabia, commentator Hussein Shobokshi wrote that an Obama presidency “would mark an important moral transformation in the superpower and is a healthy indicator of the long-awaited improvement in the international arena.”

Some columnists also have noted Obama’s close ties to several Palestinian radicals, including Columbia University Prof. Rashid Khalidi — former communications director for the Palestinian Liberation Organization — and another Palestinian political activist, the late Edward Said.

The “Arab street” also favors Obama. Recent surveys found that he is the preferred candidate in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

• Editor's Note: Check out the explosive new ad linking Obama and Rev. Wright — Go Here Now

Experts affirm: Ayers wrote Obama's memoir

Scientific analyses independently find radical's mark on 'Dreams From My Father'

Independent scientific analysis by a number of leading experts supports the literary detective work of WND columnist Jack Cashill that has led him to conclude unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers was the primary author of important sections of Barack Obama's highly acclaimed memoir and editor of the book as a whole.

Obama's 1995 book, "Dreams From My Father," won the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album and drew praise from Time magazine, which called it "the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician."

But since July, Cashill has unveiled in a dozen columns, summarized here, his compelling evidence that the co-founder of the radical Weather Underground group – dismissed by Obama as "just a guy who lives in my neighborhood" – shaped and refined the book with his exceptional writing skill and radical ideas.

The evidence, Cashill says, "severely tests Obama's claim of a superficial relationship with the self-declared 'communist' Ayers. This appears to be a conscious and consequential deception."

Cashill points out that in contrast to "Dreams," the Obama writing samples unearthed before 1995 "are pedestrian and uninspired."

"There is no precedent for this kind of literary transformation," he writes. "It is as if a high 90s golfer suddenly showed up with his PGA card -- with no known practice rounds in between."

In a new column today, Cashill reports four different stylometric analysts now have supported his extensive forensic evidence, and he awaits the results from a fifth.....

Taliban using children as human shields

'Brave' taliban hiding behind children.

From ISAF

Initially the Marines observed four adults and two children in a truck laden with burlap sacks and shovels. The adults began digging holes. Once the burlap sacks were removed from the truck and opened, the Marines were able to see IED materiel in the sacks and that the holes being dug in the road were for IEDs.

Marine snipers shot two of the positively identified insurgents as they emplaced an IED. After the initial shots were fired, the other two insurgents grabbed the two children they had brought with them and held them in front of them to use them as shields.

The Marines waited until the children were let go and ran away before snipers shot the remaining two insurgents.

More at ROA

Officials weigh creating domestic intelligence agency

By Katherine McIntire Peters

There is no easy answer as to whether the United States would be well-served by a domestic intelligence agency, a nonprofit research institution concluded in a new report.

"If America's counterterrorism-focused domestic intelligence, broadly conceived, is found wanting -- and how to do better while preserving civil liberties is the policy challenge -- changing organizations is one approach," said Gregory Treverton, director of the RAND Corp.'s Center for Global Risk and Security and author of the report, during a Capitol Hill briefing on Tuesday. But there are other ways of improving counterterrorism activities that should be considered, including revising laws, spending more money to enhance existing capabilities, and improving leadership or the means for sharing information, he said.

RAND studied the issue at the request of the Homeland Security Department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis. Two years ago, Congress directed that office to conduct "an independent study on the feasibility of creating a counterterrorism intelligence agency." The request stemmed from the failure of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials to anticipate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The research institute was not asked to make recommendations or to evaluate the performance of any existing agencies or programs. Instead, RAND was asked to consider whether a new organization could improve current domestic intelligence operations. The concerns it was to examine centered around the perceptions that the FBI is dominated by a law enforcement and case-based approach to terrorism; the FBI and the CIA do not talk to each other; too much poor-quality information is collected, and collection efforts are uncoordinated; analysis is fragmented; and it's difficult to move information across the domestic intelligence enterprise.

One challenge RAND faced is that the FBI is undergoing its own transformation in the wake of Sept. 11. Its budget doubled from $3.1 billion in 2001 to $6.4 billion in 2008 and the agency created a National Security Branch to focus on prevention and intelligence in the counterterrorism mission. An evaluation of the effectiveness of those changes would be useful before considering a new approach, Treverton said.

The United States doesn't have a domestic intelligence agency devoted to counterterrorism, but there are a number of programs within agencies aimed at detecting and preventing domestic terrorist attacks. The FBI has both domestic intelligence and law enforcement responsibilities and the CIA, Homeland Security and National Counterterrorism Center all have roles, as do state and municipal organizations.

Treverton noted that domestic intelligence and law enforcement both involve the investigation of tips and other information about suspicious behavior, but while law enforcement is focused on specific cases, domestic intelligence also includes exploratory activities that serve a broader warning function by building a strategic understanding of the domestic threat environment. It's an area ripe for clashes with civil liberties and one that makes many Americans uncomfortable.

"What is it that we want from domestic intelligence for counterterrorism?" Treverton asks. "Do we want every tip pursued?" That's probably not realistic, and it's not clear that a new agency or even a new organization within an existing agency would address lawmakers' concerns about the current means for gathering domestic intelligence, he said.

Government reorganizations often fail because they reflect the competing interests and political goals of their creators, and there is little consensus about how a domestic intelligence agency should operate. "Clarity of mission is key," whether that mission resides in an existing organization or a new one, Treverton said.

Creating a new domestic intelligence agency could mean several different things. RAND's analysis focused on the two most obvious alternatives to the status quo. The first is to combine functions of existing agencies into a separate agency with a relationship to the Justice Department, similar to the one the FBI has now. The second is to create an agency within an existing agency, most likely within the FBI or perhaps within Homeland Security.

An agency within an agency may be less disruptive and less costly than creating a separate organization, but a separate agency may offer the kind of mission clarity that's needed to give rise to an effective culture of intelligence-driven prevention, Treverton said. A separate service also may be able to pull from a broader, more diverse recruitment pool. Officials in domestic intelligence services in other democracies told RAND analysts they felt they were able to attract talent not normally drawn to a law enforcement culture.

RAND sought to establish the framework for a break-even analysis that would examine how much a new agency would have to reduce the risk of terrorist attacks to justify costs, both tangible and intangible, such as the impingement on civil liberties. For example, if it costs $500 million to create a domestic intelligence agency, to break even, the new service would have to reduce the nation's risk of terrorism by 50 percent if the annual risk were assumed be $1 billion. If the terrorism risk were assumed to be $10 billion, then the new agency would have to reduce that risk only by 5 percent to break even.

"What this analysis shows is that the choice turns on what level of terrorism risk is assessed or assumed, topics on which experts and policy makers differ considerably," Treverton said.

Homeland Security launches program to find illegal immigrants in jails

By Chris Strohm

The Homeland Security Department will launch a program Monday aimed at identifying illegal immigrants held in county and city jails across the country, but critics worry that nonthreatening individuals could be ensnarled in confusing deportation proceedings or denied legal protections.

With an infusion of funding from the Congress, the department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has started an aggressive effort to find illegal immigrants who are incarcerated and enter them into deportation proceedings. ICE says its initial focus is on finding and removing illegal immigrants who have been convicted of violent crimes or those convicted of major drug offenses.

The program will allow local law enforcement agencies to automatically compare the fingerprints of their prisoners against FBI criminal databases and Homeland Security immigration databases. When law enforcement officials run a check on fingerprints against the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a check will automatically be done against Homeland Security's Automated Biometric Identification System.

The program will begin with the Harris County Sheriff's Office in Texas, with the goal of being expanded to about 50 other local law enforcement agencies by the spring.

"It sounds rather simple but it really changes the way we do business and the way we go about identifying individuals for immigration enforcement," said David Venturella, director of ICE's Secure Communities program.

"We're going to be measured and careful in our rollout but we're going to do it as aggressively as possible," he added.

ICE will first focus on having the program operational with county jails and then at city jails. Venturella said reaching all jail booking sites will take three and a half years. But he said doing so will require much more funding from Congress to cover additional costs, such as more detention capacity and transportation services.

ICE estimates the total cost could be $3 billion a year, which is more than half the total annual budget of the entire agency. The total number of criminal illegal immigrants in U.S. jails who were charged with deportable offenses surged to more than 220,000 in fiscal 2008, according to statistics released by ICE last week. This compares to about 164,000 in 2007 and 67,000 in 2006. ICE estimates that federal, state and local prisons and jails hold between 300,000 to 450,000 criminal illegal immigrants who are potentially removable.

Immigration advocates agree that illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes should be deported. But they fear noncitizens might not be given proper legal protections.

"Our concern is making sure that people have access to counsel or are advised of their rights," said Kerri Sherlock Talbot, associate director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "Sometimes people are pressured into signing away their rights by basically stipulating that they are removable from the United States," she said.

Some illegal immigrants might qualify for visas, such as those who can legitimately claim asylum or those who have been victimized or trafficked, she said. Although ICE says it is only targeting illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes, immigration advocates worry that nonthreatening individuals might get swept up in the process.

Utilizing Terrorism Early Warning Groups to Meet the National Preparedness Goal

The Terrorism Early Warning Group concept fulfills the intelligence requirements outlined in Homeland Security Directive 8: Interim National Preparedness Goal. Existing and emerging TEWs can serve as a foundation for a national intelligence sharing and analysis network bringing critical information and capabilities to local jurisdictions. This paper articulates a vision for expanding the Terrorism Early Warning Group (TEW) network that meets the local and national requirements as specified in, Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8: Interim National Preparedness Goal (HSPD-8). Download White Paper (free)

Top-secret files cite Brit minister

FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN

Investigation looking into links to Russian oligarch

LONDON -- Both British intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, have revealed that the controversial Lord Mandelson, the government's Business Minister, appears "repeatedly" in top-secret files because of his regular contacts with a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

The files carry the highest "Y-category" security rating and can be read only by intel chiefs John Scarlett of MI6 and Jonathan Evans of MI5.

Both services now have launched an "intensive investigation" into the Izmailovo Organization, the most powerful of all the Russian mafia gangs whose members are identified in the files as having "contacts" with the oligarch. ....

Pandemic Preparedness Complacency Still a Problem

By Anthony L. Kimery, HSToday

An eventual human pandemic at some unknown point in the future is virtually inevitable'

On the heels of the World Bank’s recent dire warning that an influenza pandemic would ignite a “major global recession,” several UN officials have once again warned about growing complacency toward preparedness for a flu pandemic.

Last Friday, Bernard Vallat, director general of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), warned that the complacency of developing countries where avian flu persists, like Egypt and Indonesia, has hampered efforts to eradicate the virus.

"The problem we have is mainly in the backyards of poor families in Indonesia and Egypt," Vallat said.

Monday, Dr. David Nabarro, the UN's pandemic preparedness czar, said, "“things are a lot better now than they were when we started this work in 2005, but they are not good enough. We are still not sufficiently prepared to properly bring a pandemic under control quickly."

It’s not a new warning. World Health Organization and other avian flu authorities have been saying for years that too many countries - especially those most at risk - have not been doing enough to monitor and control the virus’ spread. But the already developed nations also are said to not be doing enough to assist in adequate global surveillance and monitoring.

HSToday.us also has repeatedly reported on experts’ concerns about what they see as global complacency toward pandemic preparedness.

"Now there is fatigue, and the solution is to have new incentives for these people to cooperate with veterinary services in the field of disease policy implementation," Vallat said.

Nearly half of reported deaths from H5N1 have occurred in Indonesia. Egypt has experienced the most deaths outside Asia, with 22 deaths out of 50 reported infections.

With experts predicting that a worst case pandemic would kill hundreds of millions worldwide, the World Bank warned in a report released about a week ago that a pandemic would exact an economic toll in the trillions of dollars and gut global gross domestic product (GDP) by "almost five percent, constituting a major global recession."

"Because such a pandemic would spread very quickly, substantial efforts need to be put into place to develop effective strategies and contingency plans that could be enacted at short notice," the bank concluded.

Vallat said "vaccination is not the solution for the full eradication of the pathogen," which authorities have said may not work because many rural farmers in developing nations are not reporting or are under reporting problems.

Vallat and other experts have said vaccination programs must be accompanied by the culling of birds from infected flocks, farmers compensated and a "ring fence" of targeted vaccinations established. He added that on-going global bird/poultry vaccination programs will take another several years to complete.

Meanwhile, the The Center for Migration and Refugee Studies and the International Organization for Migration reported that refugees and economic migrants from influenza prone areas are a particularly vulnerable group who could spread a pandemic strain of influenza if they are not carefully monitored, quarantined and treated.

Similarly, World Bank economists Andrew Burns, Dominique van der Mensbrugghe and Hans Timmer stated that, “generally speaking, developing countries would be hardest hit, because higher population densities and poverty accentuate the economic impacts.”

At the recent Sixth International Ministerial Conference on Avian and Pandemic Influenza, participating nations were asked to pledge $500 million towards preparedness and mitigation efforts. That is the annual amount the United Nations says is needed to prepare for a calamitous worldwide pandemic.

More than $2.7 billion dollars has been promised - and $1.5 billion delivered – by international donors to supplement the spending by at-risk countries to combat bird flu during the last five years since the lethal virus emerged in Southeast Asia and spread across Asia, Europe and Africa.

But even with global preparedness, the World Bank dismally concluded – as have many pandemic authorities – that “an eventual human pandemic at some unknown point in the future is virtually inevitable."

Grapevine Reports on LA Times Obama-Khalidi Tape

by Gateway Pundit

Brit Hume reported on the Obama-Khalidi tape that the LA Times is concealing from the American public on The Grapevine tonight.

The LA Times is holding a video that shows Barack Obama celebrating with a group of Palestinians who are openly hostile towards Israel. Barack Obama even gives a toast to a former PLO operative at this celebration. If the American public saw this radical side of Barack Obama it is unlikely he would ever be elected president.
But, the media refuses to release this video.

This outrageous controversy was reported on The Grapevine tonight:

Hat Tip Gregg
The Grapevine reported on the controversy and mentioned this blog:

The McCain camp has now joined those demanding The Los Angeles Times release a 2003 video that shows Barack Obama celebrating with a group of Palestinians hostile to Israel.

Peter Wallsten wrote in April about Obama's association with former Palestinian operative Rashid Khalidi. The celebration was a farewell for Khalidi as he left Chicago for a job in New York. Wallsten called Khalidi a, "critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights."

He says, "A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young State Senator Barack Obama... Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife... and conversations that had challenged his thinking."

Wallsten writes that a young Palestinian read a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism. Another speaker likened Israeli settlers on the West Bank to Usama bin Laden.

Wallsten confirmed he has the tape, but told the political blog Gateway Pundit he does not plan on releasing it. The newspaper declines to comment.

The LA Times endorsed Democrat Barack Obama.

Previously:
** Obama's Fancied the Chicago Terror Gang-- Partied With Bombers & Former PLO Operative
** Jewish Voters Confront Barack Obama On His Close Association with Former PLO Operative Rashid Khalidi
** LA Times Won't Release Video of Obama Publicly Praising Former PLO Operative & Jew Hater
** Media Refuses to Release Video of Obama Toasting & Praising Close Friend Rashid Khalidi--
** Confirmed: MSM Holds Video Of Barack Obama Attending Jew-Bash & Toasting a Former PLO Operative
** Update On The Obama-Khalidi Tape-- Contact
** O'Reilly Factor Reports on the Obama-Khalidi Tape (Video)
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Interesting (and Scary) speech from a Dutch Representative

Source a friend

(Compiler's note: Must read -- this, my friends, is what we are in for if we are not very very careful in the United States of America. Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, a Dutch Parliamentarian and chairman of the Party for Freedom, the Netherlands, at the Four Seasons, New York, introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem. The speech was sponsored by the Hudson Institute on September 25.)

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for inviting me. Great to be at the Four Seasons. I come from a country that has one season only: a rainy season that starts January 1st and ends December 31st. When we have three sunny days in a row, the government declares a national emergency. So Four Seasons, that's new to me.

It's great to be in New York. When I see the skyscrapers and office buildings, I think of what Ayn Rand said: "The sky over New York and the will of man- made visible." Of course. Without the Dutch you would have been nowhere, still figuring out how to buy this island from the Indians. But we are glad we did it for you. And, frankly, you did a far better job than we possibly could have done.

I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The danger I see looming is the scenario of America as the last man standing. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe. In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe? Patriots from around Europe risk their lives every day to prevent precisely this scenario form becoming a reality.

My short lecture consists of 4 parts.

First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe. Then, I will say a few things about Islam. Thirdly, if you are still here, I will talk a little bit abou the movie you just saw. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem.

The Europe you know is changing. You have probably seen the landmarks. The Eiffel Tower and Trafalgar Square and Rome's ancient buildings and maybe the canals of Amsterdam. They are still there. And they still look very much the same as they did a hundred years ago.

But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world, a world very few visitors see - and one that does not appear in your tourist guidebook. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration. All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It's the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corner. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.

There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.

Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseille and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities. In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims. Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear "whore, whore". Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin. In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Holocaust can in many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity. In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels, because he was drinking during the Ramadan. Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel. I could go on forever with stories like this . Stories about Islamization.

A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.

Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favour of a worldwide caliphate. A Dutch study reported that half of Dutch Muslims admit they "understand" the 9/11 attacks.

Muslims demand what they call 'respect'. And this is how we give them respect. Our elites are willing to give in. To give up. In my own country we have gone from calls by one cabinet member to turn Muslim holidays into official state holidays, to statements by another cabinet member, that Islam is part of Dutch culture, to an affirmation by the Christian-Democratic attorney general that he is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey.

Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. Some prefer to see these as isolated incidents, but I call it a Muslim intifada. I call the perpetrators "settlers".

Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies, they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.

Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries. Politicians shy away from taking a stand against this creeping sharia. They believe in the equality of all cultures. Moreover, on a mundane level, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.

Our many problems with Islam cannot be explained by poverty, repression or the European colonial past, as the Left claims. Nor does it have anything to do with Palestinians or American troops in Iraq. The problem is Islam itself.

Allow me to give you a brief Islam 101. The first thing you need to know about Islam is the importance of the book of the Quran. The Quran is Allah's personal word, revealed by an angel to Mohammed, the prophet. This is where the trouble starts. Every word in the Quran is Allah's word and therefore not open to discussion or interpretation. It is valid for every Muslim and for all times. Therefore, there is no such a thing as moderate Islam. Sure, there are a lot of moderate Muslims. But a moderate Islam is non-existent.

The Quran calls for hatred, violence, submission, murder, and terrorism. The Quran calls for Muslims to kill non-Muslims, to terrorize non-Muslims and to fulfil their duty to wage war: violent jihad. Jihad is a duty for every Muslim, Islam is to rule the world - by the sword. The Quran is clearly anti-Semitic, describing Jews as monkeys and pigs.

The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behaviour is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages - at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. He advised on matters of slavery, but never advised to liberate slaves. Islam has no other morality than the advancement of Islam. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad. There is no gray area or other side.

Quran as Allah's own word and Mohammed as the perfect man are the two most important facets of Islam. Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of eve ry person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.

This is what you need to know about Islam, in order to understand what is going on in Europe. For millions of Muslims the Quran and the live of Mohammed are not 14 centuries old, but are an everyday reality, an ideal, that guide every aspect of their lives. Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam "the most retrograde force in the world", and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran.

Which brings me to my movie, Fitna.

I am a lawmaker, and not a movie maker. But I felt I had the moral duty to educate about Islam. The duty to make clear that the Quran stands at the heart of what some people call terrorism but is in reality jihad. I wanted to show that the problems of Islam are at the core of Islam, and do not belong to its fringes.

Now, from the day the plan for my movie was made public, it caused quite a stir, in the Netherlands and throughout Europe. First, there was a political storm, with government leaders, across the continent in sheer panic. The Netherlands was put under a heightened terror alert, because of possible attacks or a revolt by our Muslim population. The Dutch branch of the Islamic organization Hizb ut-Tahrir declared that the Netherlands was due for an attack. Internationally, there was a series of incidents. The Taliban threatened to organize additional attacks against Dutch troops in Afghanistan, and a website linked to Al Qaeda published the message that I ought to be killed, while various muftis in the Middle East stated that I would be responsible for all the bloodshed after the screening of the movie. In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Dutch flag was burned on several occasions. Dolls representing me were also burned. The Indonesian President announced that I will never be admitted into Indonesia again, while the UN Secretary General and the European Union issued cowardly statements in the same vein as those made by the Dutch Government. I could go on and on. It was an absolute disgrace, a sell-out.

A plethora of legal troubles also followed, and have not ended yet. Currently the state of Jordan is litigating against me. Only last week there were renewed security agency reports about a heightened terror alert for the Netherlands because of Fitna.

Now, I would like to say a few things about Israel. Because, very soon, we will get together in its capitol. The best way for a politician in Europe to lose votes is to say something positive about Israel. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I, however, will continue to speak up for Israel. I see defending Israel as a matter of principle. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel. First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.

Samuel Huntington writes it so aptly: "Islam has bloody borders". Israel is located precisely on that border. This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam's territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia. Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.

The war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to relea se its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.

Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel, they can get everything. Therefore, it is not that the West has a stake in Israel. It is Israel.

It is very difficult to be an optimist in the face of the growing Islamization of Europe. All the tides are against us. On all fronts we are losing. Demographically the momentum is with Islam. Muslim immigration is even a source of pride within ruling liberal parties. Academia, the arts, the media, trade unions, the churches, the business world, the entire political establishment have all converted to the suicidal theory of multiculturalism. So-called journal ists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization20as a 'right-wing extremists' or 'racists'. The entire establishment has sided with our enemy. Leftists, liberals and Christian-Democrats are now all in bed with Islam.

This is the most painful thing to see: the betrayal by our elites. At this moment in Europe's history, our elites are supposed to lead us. To stand up for centuries of civilization. To defend our heritage. To honour our eternal Judeo-Christian values that made Europe what it is today. But there are very few signs of hope to be seen at the govern mental level. Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown, Berlusconi; in private, they probably know how grave the situation is. But when the little red light goes on, they stare into the camera and tell us that Islam is a religion of peace, and we should all try to get along nicely and sing Kumbaya. They willingly participate in, what President Reagan so aptly called: "the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom."

If there is hope in Europe, it comes from the people, not from the elites. Change can only come from a grass-roots level. It has to come from the citizens themselves. Yet these patriots will have to take on the entire political, legal and media establishment.

Over the past years there have been some small, but encouraging, signs of a rebirth of the original European spirit. Maybe the elites turn their backs on freedom, the public does not. In my country, the Netherlands, 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat to our national identity. I don't think the public opinion in Holland is very different from other European countries.

Patriotic parties that oppose jihad are growing, against all odds. My own party debuted two years ago, with five percent of the vote. Now it stands at ten percent in the polls. The same is true of all similarly-minded parties in Europe. They are fighting the liberal establishment, and are gaining footholds on the political arena, one voter at the time.

Now, for the first time, these patriotic parties will come together and exchange experiences. It may be the start of something big. Something that might change the map of Europe for decades to come. It might also be Europe's last chance.

This December a conference will take place in Jerusalem. Thanks to Professor Aryeh Eldad, a member of Knesset, we will be able to watch Fitna in the Knesset building and discuss the jihad. We are organizing this event in Israel to emphasize the fact that we are all in the same boat together, and that Israel is part of our common heritage. Those attending will be a select audience. No racist organizations will be allowed. And we will only admit parties that are solidly democratic.

This conference will be the start of an Alliance of European patriots. This Alliance will se rve as the backbone for all organizations and political parties that oppose jihad and Islamization. For this Alliance I seek your support.

This endeavor may be crucial to America and to the West. America may hold fast to the dream that, thanks to its location, it is safe from jihad and shaira. But seven years ago to the day, there was still smoke rising from ground zero, following the attacks that forever shattered that dream. Yet there is a danger even greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America - as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.

Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe's children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.

This is not the first time our civilization is under threat. We have seen dangers before. We have been betrayed by our elites before. They have sided with our enemies before. And yet, then, freedom prevailed.

These are not times in which to take lessons from appeasement, capitulation, giving away, giving up or giving in. These are not times in which to draw lessons from Mr. Chamberlain. These are times calling us to draw lessons from Mr. Churchill and the words he spoke in 1942: "Never give in, never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy".

Big Brother spy plan sparks revolt

Government wants every telephone registered

LONDON

-- British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, the political master of the MI5 intelligence agency, Scotland

Yard's Anti-Terrorism Command and GCHQ, the government's eavesdropping center, is facing an unprecedented clash with her own senior officials over plans to boost the level of spying on British citizens ....

Sharia Finance UK: We Know It Doesn’t Work But Let’s Have It Anyway…

(Compiler's note: Will our nation be next to try this as a "fix" to our current financial crisis brought on by continuing gov't intervention?)

from Winds of Jihad

* as long as it pleases Muslims…

New sharia row over Chancellor’s plans for ‘Islamic bonds’

By SIMON WALTERS/Mail Online

Approval: Chancellor Alistair Darling is ready to give the go-ahead to sharia-compliant bonds

A new sharia law controversy erupted last night over Government plans to issue special “Islamic bonds” to pay for Gordon Brown’s public-spending programme by raising money from the Middle East.

Britain is to become the first Western nation to issue bonds approved by Muslim clerics in line with sharia law, which bans conventional loans involving interest payments as “sinful”.

Looks like Gordon Brownnose has already sold ... to his Muhammedan friends, but it is highly unlikely that it will save him or his pathetic, pandering government…

The scheme would mark one of the most significant economic advances of sharia law in the non-Muslim world.

It will lead to the ownership of Government buildings and other assets currently belonging to British taxpayers being switched wholesale to wealthy Middle-Eastern businessmen and banks.

The Government sees sharia-compliant bonds as a way of tapping Middle-East money and building bridges with the Muslim community.

But critics say the scheme would waste money and could undermine Britain’s financial and legal systems.

Senior Conservative MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said: “I am concerned about the signal this would send ? it could be the thin end of the wedge.

“British Common Law must be supreme and should apply to everyone.”

A spokesman for the National Secular Society said: “There are lots of different ways to arrange financing.

“Constructing financial instruments to be sharia-compliant seems to me to involve a lot of unnecessary complication, which will serve only to make a lot of lawyers very rich.”

The attempt to embrace Islamic financing would also appear to be at odds with Mr Brown’s promise to promote Britishness and British values and institutions.

The Treasury has already faced heavy criticism for removing Britannia from 50p coins.

Other Western nations have been reluctant to issue Islamic bonds.

In the United States the bonds are banned partly as a result of claims that the money could be linked to terrorism.

Uproar: The new row comes hot on the heels of Archbishop Rowan Williams’s claim that the spread of sharia law to Britain was ‘inevitable’

The Treasury proposal follows the heated debate over the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams’s claim that the spread of elements of sharia law in parts of Britain was “inevitable”.

Downing Street distanced Gordon Brown from Dr Williams’s comments.

A spokesman said: “The Prime Minister is very clear that British laws must be based on British values and that religious law, while respecting other cultures, should be subservient to British criminal and civil law.”

However, The Mail on Sunday has established that Chancellor Alistair Darling is ready to give the go-ahead to sharia-compliant bonds ? known as “sukuk”, an early Arabic form of cheque.

Treasury officials have been working behind the scenes for months on the plan.

The deadline for responses to Mr Darling’s consultation document setting out how the bonds will work expires on Thursday.

The Islamic bonds proposal was devised by Mr Brown’s former Treasury adviser Ed Balls, now Schools Secretary and the Premier’s most powerful Cabinet ally.

He claims it is a vital way of improving relations with Muslims in Britain as well as helping the UK to obtain vast sums from Middle-East banks in oil-rich nations such as Dubai and Qatar.

Sharia-compliant bonds have been issued by the governments of Pakistan and Malaysia and private banks but never by a Western government.

Architect: former Treasury adviser Ed Balls, the Premier’s most powerful Cabinet ally, devised the Islamic bonds proposal

Treasury officials say the aim is to attract big investors as well as making it easier for British Muslims to invest in National Savings products at banks and post offices.

The Government has already backed Islamic car loans and mortgages.

Sharia-compliant bonds were designed to get round the ban on paying interest ? “riba” in Islamic law.

The Koran says it is sinful to make money from money.

Unlike a conventional bond which is debt-based, a “sukuk” is asset-based. Instead of receiving interest, bond holders receive “rent” on the asset, thereby complying with sharia law.

The Treasury consultation document says Government assets such as “buildings or a piece of infrastructure” would be switched to a “special-purpose vehicle” set up to administer the bond.

This would be carried out by a contract known as an “ijara”.

The asset would then be leased back by the Government, generating rental payments for the Islamic bond holders.

When the “sukuk” matured, the Government would guarantee to buy back the asset, allowing the bond-holders to get their redemption payments.

“Sukuk are akin to Islamic investment certificates,” the document says.

“They are designed to be in compliance with sharia law, the divine law in Islam which is based on the Quran.”

Concerned: Senior Tory MP Edward Leigh warned today, ‘This could be the thin end of the wedge’

Islamic bonds are slightly more expensive than Western-style bonds, mainly because they require extensive legal and religious advice.

The Treasury initiative has been given added impetus by the worldwide credit squeeze, which is making it harder for all governments to raise money.

The Government says the bonds will also help London retain its position ahead of New York and Frankfurt as the world’s leading financial centre.

Global Islamic finance assets, including private equity and bonds, are now said to be worth up to £150 billion. Sukuk volumes have soared from almost nothing to £35 billion in the past ten years.

Maurice Fitzpatrick, a senior tax partner at accountants Grant Thornton, said: “The Treasury wants to borrow money from as wide a range of sources as possible.

“Sharia bonds might well prove to be more expensive, but we would not know for sure until it was put into practice.”

Special rules for Islamic finances have been challenged by Mahmoud El-Gamal, chairman of Islamic economics at Rice University, Houston.

“The main beneficiaries are lawyers, multi-national banks and self-styled religious scholars retained as consultants to certify the Islamicity of re-engineered financial products,” he said.

Muslim Labour peer Lord Ahmed said: “This is a positive step for Muslims in Britain but the main reason for doing it is to attract money to the UK from Middle-East investors. Claims that it is connected to terrorist funds are absurd.

* the usual drivel from the Muzz/ed

Obama rips U.S. Constitution

(Compiler's note: Absolutely a must read article. The implications here are significant to our continued economic and national security.)

Faults Supreme Court for not mandating 'redistribution of wealth'

Seven years before Barack Obama's "spread the wealth" comment to Joe the Plumber became a GOP campaign theme, the Democratic presidential candidate said in a radio interview the U.S. has suffered from a fundamentally flawed Constitution that does not mandate or allow for redistribution of wealth.

In a newly unearthed tape, Obama is heard telling Chicago's public station WBEZ-FM in 2001 that "redistributive change" is needed, pointing to what he regarded as a failure of the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren in its rulings on civil rights issues in the 1960s.

The Warren court, he said, failed to "break free from the essential constraints" in the U.S. Constitution and launch a major redistribution of wealth. But Obama, then an Illinois state lawmaker, said the legislative branch of government, rather than the courts, probably was the ideal avenue for accomplishing that goal.

In the 2001 interview, Obama said:

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be OK

But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.

And that hasn't shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

The video is available here:

In his top-rated national radio show today, Rush Limbaugh reacted to the tape.

The Constitution, he said, "most certainly does spell out things it must do on your behalf. He understands it. He just doesn't like it."

"He's talking about giving things to people," Limbaugh said. "This is perverted. Some people call this radical. I call it perverted.

"To me, ladies and gentlemen, the Constitution is a gift from God. It's not a disappointment; it's a blessing," he said.

Limbaugh cited unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, with whom Obama has had a relationship for many years, as well as Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor under whose teaching Obama attended church for two decades. Ayers has stated his Weather Underground didn't accomplish enough in the bombings on the U.S. Capitol and other locations, and Wright has called on God to d*** America.

"I'm beginning to wonder just who taught whom," Limbaugh said. "How much did Obama teach Ayers, Jeremiah Wright. Obama didn't have to hear what Jeremiah Wright was saying, Obama may have half written those sermons."

The change sought by Obama, however, simply couldn't be accomplished through court action, the Democrat said in the 2001 interview.

"The court's not very good at it," he said. "I'm not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way."

"You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, the court … engaging in a process that essentially is administrative," he said.

A commentator on the website American Thinker said Obama "wishes to scrap the limits placed on government powers because they get in the way of his redistributive schemes."

"What powers are we talking about? Private property rights for one. Since property is distributed 'unequally' in Obama's world, policies must be shaped and laws passed to deal with that situation."

GOP presidential candidate John McCain's campaign stated the tape proves Obama is too liberal for the White House.

"Now we know that the slogans 'change you can believe in' and 'change we need' are code words for Barack Obama's ultimate goal: 'redistributive change,'" said McCain-Palin senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin.

But the Obama campaign called the statements just another distraction.

"In this interview back in 2001, Obama was talking about the civil rights movement – and the kind of work that has to be done on the ground to make sure that everyone can live out the promise of equality. Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with Obama's economic plan or his plan to give the middle class a tax cut. It's just another distraction from an increasingly desperate McCain campaign," spokesman Bill Burton said.

However, reaction to Obama's comments reached around the globe. In the Telegraph newspaper of London, Toby Harnden said the 2001 remarks are consistent with Obama's recent statement to the now iconic Joe the Plumber in Ohio, that "when you spread the wealth around it's a good thing for everybody."

"Although his remarks were heavily analytical and academic," Harndon said of the 2001 interview, Obama "spoke warmly of the notion of redistributing wealth, suggesting that there were other vehicles that the courts to achieve it."

Limbaugh commented, "We know Joe (the Plumber) got Obama to reveal himself."

But what would be next?

"Would he quote Marx? Would he demand change in the spirit of the Soviet Union? Would he ask us to have Constitution-burning parties?" Limbaugh said.

Limbaugh contended, however, that the "redistribution" was just a distraction.

"It's part of a process where the government confiscates private property and uses it to secure their own power. It's not about fairness," Limbaugh said. "They buy votes with the money they confiscate."

He continued, "Redistribution is the least frightening part of socialism. What comes after and before is what shocks like a Taser."

The weblog Right Pundits.com said, "In other words, he sees our money as belonging to the government. He wants to take our money and he will decide how to spend it."