The Federal Reserve Bank – It’s Not What You Think (Part Two – Who Owns the Bank)

(Compiler's note: Ever wonder where your money is going? .... A must read)

Vincent Gioia

In Part One of this series, I promised to tell you who owns the Federal Reserve Bank and that you would be surprised. As I said, the Federal Reserve is a private company of bankers with twelve branch banks that confiscate our money and they have been doing this for almost a hundred years. They are not part of the United States government, but they collect hundreds of billions of dollars from the American taxpayers every year, trillions in total, and they have never been audited and they do not pay taxes on profits.

Representative Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency for 12 years is quoted in the Congressional Record as saying:

“The Federal Reserve Board...has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. Our people's money - to the extent of $1,200,000,000 - has within the last few months been shipped abroad to redeem Federal Reserve Notes and to pay other gambling debts of the traitorous Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks.… “

So who are the masters of the Federal Reserve Bank who receive these huge profits? They include an impressive list of not only foreign-owned banks and investment houses, but domestic banks as well. If you don’t believe The Federal Reserve (FED) is a privately owned, organization; check the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA.

The owners of the 12 Central Federal Reserve Banks are:

- Rothschild Bank of London
- Rothschild Bank of Berlin
- Lazard Brothers of Paris
- Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy
- Warburg Bank of Amsterdam
- Warburg Bank of Hamburg
- Lehman Brothers of New York
- Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York
- Goldman, Sachs of New York
- Chase Manhattan Bank of New York

All in all, there are about 300 very powerful foreign individuals who own the FED through ownership of the above-listed banks and investment houses.

Theoretically, the FED is required to give back most of its profits to the Treasury Department but there is no organization that has the power to audit the FED (not even the Congress or the IRS). Therefore, there is a huge opportunity for "creative accounting" to hide and deny the profit to which the U.S. taxpayers are entitled, which amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

A few Republican congressmen annually introduce legislation to audit the FED and, every year, the legislation is defeated. The owners of the FED are an extremely powerful, invisible lobbying power.

Of course it helps the FED owners that they exert major control of media outlets so that the public is kept uninformed about the FED owners’ shenanigans. The owners of the FED own the controlling interests in ALL major media in the United States: Rockefeller, through Chase Manhattan bank, controls CBS and ABC and 28 other broadcasting firms, and each of the other owners of the FED also has controlling interest in the US media. This perhaps explains why the media have been silent about the FED scam. The FED fraud is the biggest and longest cover-up in United States history.

As pointed out in Part One, according to Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the US Congress has the power to print money (“the Congress shall have the power...to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin ..”). According to the Supreme Court, the Congress cannot transfer its power to other organizations like the FED, but they have done it anyway.

Here is how the owners of the FED profit at the expense of the American people.

The US Government runs deficits annually in the billions of dollars, and lately in the trillions of dollars. Congress covers this by issuing government bonds which are bought by the FED. Since the FED has the power to print money, it can buy any amount of the US Government bonds at almost no cost, except for the small fee paid to the Treasury to print money (about 3 cents/$100).

This amounts to a profit to the FED owners of about $99.97 for every 3 cents they invested to print the money. Basically, they exchange something that costs almost nothing to them for the US Government Bonds, which have value.

Since the FED can not be audited by the IRS (or even by Congress), much of this profit can go anywhere the FED owners want it to go; and it is tax free.

After buying the bonds, the owner of the FED can either keep the bonds, and collect the interest the US Government now owes them, or sell the bonds to the U.S. taxpayers or foreigners. In either case, the FED owners have received $99.97 profit for every 3 cents it invested to print the money. Since the FED is a privately owned corporation, the profit of the FED goes to the FED owners.

The US Government now owes the FED owners the interest on those bonds. Remember the FED owners do not earn the bonds, they simply arrange for printing the money to buy the bonds. In other words, the FED creates money out of thin air, and exchanges it for the interest-bearing bonds.

In order to pay for the bonds' interest, the US Government taxes the US population.

When a US citizen holding US Government bonds receives his/her return of investment on the bonds, essentially the money he/she receives is the tax money he/she has been paying to the Government.

When the owners of the FED receive the interest on the bonds they're holding, they are receiving that money essentially for free, without outlaying any upfront risk capital of their own and without the need to pay taxes on the profit!

In reality every year the FED profits by hundreds of billions of dollars by buying US Government bonds. Yet it only returns about $20 billion to the US Treasury. The rest of the profit has been spent as "Operational Expenses". The FED expects us to believe that the FED’s operational expenses are hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

In actuality, those profits are given as "DIVIDENDS TO SHAREHOLDERS.”

Is there any doubt this scam will eventually not only increase the national debt but lead to bankrupting the US government and taxpayers as well?

THE FED SHOULD BE ABOLISHED

The US Congress has the option to buy back the FED at $450 million (per Congressional records). If the Congress does this, it will own the billions of US Government Bonds held by the FED. The US Government will actually profit by buying back the FED; and the U.S. government would no longer have to pay interests to the FED owners on those bonds.

This will give the owners of the FED what they deserve after all the years of milking the public. Through their ownership in the FED, hugely powerful foreign and domestic banks have raked in trillions of dollars in tax free dividends, ripped off the backs of the American taxpayer; isn’t it about time we do something about it?

Let’s remember what Henry Ford once said “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

Weatherman terrorists: Obama's centrism a 'smokescreen'

President-elect Barack Obama is "feigning" a centrist position on some issues so he can ultimately push through a radical agenda, including universal healthcare and trimming the military

, according to analysis by a founder of the Weathermen terror group, Mark Rudd, who has ties to Obama mentors.

Another top former Weathermen terrorist with ties to Obama mentors, Jeff Jones, concurred the president-elect will attempt major change, including "redistributing financial resources downward." He called Obama's "centrist" appointments a "smokescreen" to "co-opt the moderate center," declaring, "even Lenin would be impressed!"....

GOP-killing juggernaut puts bull's-eye on states

By Bob Unruh

Millionaires, billionaires donating to takeover plan

A Democratic juggernaut of local and regional organizations that blast Republicans and promote Democrats using money donated by hundreds of millionaires and even billionaires was a key to President-elect Barack Obama's win over GOP candidate Sen. John McCain last month. And a new report warns the same attack strategy now is being installed in states, targeting especially the offices of secretary of state, where elections are managed.

"The Democracy Alliance helped Democrats give Republicans a shellacking in November. Now it's organizing state-level chapters in at least 19 states, and once-conservative Colorado, which hosts the Democracy Alliance's most successful state affiliate, has turned Democrat blue," the report from Matthew Vadum and James Dellinger of Capital Research Center concludes.

The report from the center, which studies non-profit organizations, is titled "The Democracy Alliance Does America: The Soros-Founded Plutocrats' Club Forms State Chapters," and is accessible online.

It concludes the 2008 victory for Obama was a result of the outraged millionaire donors to the Democrats who watched another failure for their cause in 2004, after opening their checkbooks for tens of millions of dollars.

"It was born out the frustration of wealthy liberals who gave generously to liberal candidates and 527 political committees, but received no electoral payoff in 2004," the report said.

George Soros and others "were angry and discouraged after contributing to the Media Fund which spent $57 million on TV ads attacking President Bush in swing states and to American Coming Together which spent $78 million on get out the vote efforts," the report said.

The result was a victory for President George W. Bush. So assembling in 2005, 70 millionaires and billionaires met in Phoenix "for a secret long-term strategy session." Their principal point of agreement was "the conservative movement was 'a fundamental threat to the American way of life.'"

They studied the success of conservatives, their network of organizations, funders and activists, including think tanks, legal advocacy organizations and leadership schools.

Former Clinton administration official Rob Stein explained Democrats, meanwhile, had become a top-down organization run by professional politicians. Result? The birth of the Democracy Alliance, "a loose collection of super-rich donors committed to building organizations that would propel American to the left," the report said.

Colorado was one of the first regions targeted. According to the CRC documentation, Colorado went for Bush by 9 percent in 2000, and by 5 percent in 2004. In 1998, the state had two GOP senators and four of the six members of the House were GOP, as well as the governor and both houses in the state legislature.

As the money began flowing, the results began changing, and now both Senate seats are Democrat as are five of the state's seven House members as well as the governor's office and both houses of the state legislature.

Defeating GOP U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a vocal opponent of homosexual marriage, for example, cost an estimated $2.6 million and included such "juvenile harassment" stunts as an "interviewer" asking Musgrave to choose between stopping a "gay" marriage and saving a life, the report said.

Taking over the state legislature cost $2 million, and the governor's office was $7.5 million, the report said, funded by well-known Democrats Pat Stryker, Tim Gill and Rutt Bridges, among others.

The report explains the work focuses on seven components: the capacity to generate intellectual ammunition, ability to pursue investigations, to mobilize for elections, to combat negative media, to sue strategically, to train new leaders and maintain a new media presence.

Journalist Fred Barnes, according to the report, said, "If copied in other states, [this] has the potential to produce sweeping Democratic gains nationwide."

The concept depends on wealthy liberals' spending tons of money to "create a vast infrastructure of liberal organizations that produces an anti-Republican, anti-conservative echo chamber in politics and the media."

Now, the CRC warned, the same organizing is going on "in at least 19 states," and even more to the point, a special campaign has been set up to target the offices of Secretary of State around the nation.

"As the murderously astute Joseph Stalin once remarked, 'The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything,'" the report said.

"Since 2006, Democracy Alliance partners have quietly funded the Secretary of State Project, a below-the-radar non-federal '527' political group. It can accept unlimited contributions that are not immediately publicly disclosed. Its website claims, 'A modest political investment in electing clean candidates to critical Secretary of State offices is an efficient way to protect the election,'" the report said.

"SoS endorses secretary of state candidates who take the position that voter fraud is largely a myth; that vote suppression is widely and solely used by Republicans; that it's a waste of time to remove obviously fraudulent names from voter rolls; and that legal requirements that voters show photo identification discriminate against racial minorities," the report said.

Among its victories so far is Mark Ritchie in Minnesota in 2006, the state official currently presiding over the Senate recount in that state, the report said.

Also, in Ohio, Jennifer Brunner "trounced" her opponent.

"It October the SoS investment paid off when Brunner defied federal law by refusing to take steps to verify 200,000 questionable voter registrations," the report said.

While the report said group members deliberately are low-profile, among those whose membership has been cited in various reports are Quark creator Tim Gill, RealNetworks chief Rob Glaser, investment banker Steven M. Gluckstern, Hyatt heiress Rachel Peritzker Hunter, former Oracle executive John Luongo, television producer Norman Lear, Taco Bell heir Robert McKay, actor Rob Reiner and dozens more.

The leaders met on Nov. 12, following Obama's victory, in Washington, the report said. The goal? Apparently power, since the president alone, according to one Democratic official, appoints 5,000 officials to run agencies employing two million voters that hire another 10 million outside contractors.

"It's safe to say they are planning their next moves," the report said.

Gulf Oil CEO says gas could hit $1 next year

Gulf Oil CEO Joe Petrowski said on Wednesday that the price of oil could sink to $20 per barrel, and there is a chance gasoline prices could drop as low as $1 per gallon by early next year. ....

Gates Will Lead New Obama Team at Defense Department

U.S. Stocks Drop, Led by GM; Exxon Falls on $25 Crude Forecast

By Elizabeth Stanton and Jeff Kearns

Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks fell for the first time in three days, pushed down by concern General Motors Corp. may file for bankruptcy and a plunge in energy shares following Merrill Lynch & Co.’s prediction that oil will hit $25 a barrel.

GM lost 16 percent after a person familiar with the matter said the largest U.S. automaker is exploring a reorganization with workers, creditors and lenders. Southwestern Energy Co., EOG Resources Inc. and Exxon Mobil Corp. slumped, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Energy Index to a 6.2 percent decline. Apple Inc. slipped 4.7 percent as Nokia Oyj said the global mobile-phone market will shrink 5 percent or more next year.

The S&P 500 lost 2.9 percent to 845.22. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 215.45 points, or 2.5 percent, to 8,376.24. Indexes also dropped after the Labor Department said more Americans are collecting jobless benefits than at any time since 1982. Economists estimate a report tomorrow will show the unemployment rate increased to 6.8 percent, a 15-year high.

“As bad as you think it is, it’s worse,” said Diane Garnick, who helps oversee about $500 billion as an investment strategist at Invesco Ltd. in New York. “The chances of the economy turning around in the first half of 2009 are declining rapidly because unemployed people can’t spur economic growth.”

The S&P 500 has fallen 42 percent in 2008 as writedowns and losses at financial firms approach $1 trillion and more economists forecast that the U.S. recession will be one of the most severe in the post-World War II era. Today’s decline pared its rebound from an 11-year low on Nov. 20 to 12 percent.

New Lows

Sixteen companies in the S&P 500 fell to 52-week lows today. They included Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., the largest publicly traded copper producer, and Campbell Soup Co. None reached new highs.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index added 4.8 percent to 63.64. The so-called VIX, which reached a record high of 80.86 on Nov. 20, measures the cost of using options as insurance against S&P 500 declines. The MSCI World Index of 23 developed markets retreated 1.8 percent to 844.58. The Russell 2000 Index of small U.S. companies fell 3.1 percent to 439.53.

“There’s a concern out there that this isn’t a recession, it’s the Great Depression II, or the Great Recession I,” said Kenneth Schapiro, president of Condor Capital Management, which oversees $500 million in Martinsville, New Jersey. “People have seen their retirement funds affected by what’s happened and are concerned about putting more capital in.”

GM fell 16 percent to $4.11. Chrysler LLC executives are also considering a pre-arranged bankruptcy filing, a person familiar with the companies’ internal discussions said.

‘Immediate’ Need

GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. today renewed their plea for a combined $34 billion in federal aid as a deadlocked Congress showed no progress in deciding how to aid them. GM Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said his company needs an “immediate” $4 billion, and $4 billion more next month.

Ronald Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers union, told a Senate panel today that GM may fail this month without a cash infusion.

Southwestern Energy, an oil and natural gas producer, fell 15 percent to $26.34 as all 40 energy companies in the S&P 500 retreated. EOG Resources, the former oil and gas unit of Enron Corp., slid 14 percent to $68.79. Exxon, the world’s largest oil company, lost 3.4 percent to $76.27.

Crude oil tumbled 6.8 percent to $43.59 a barrel in New York, the lowest price since January 2005. It has plunged 70 percent since the closing record of $145.29 set in July and may fall below $25 next year if the recession that’s slashing fuel demand around the world spreads to China, Francisco Blanch, commodity strategist at Merrill Lynch, wrote in a report today.

First Drop Since 2001

Apple, maker of the iPhone mobile device as well as iPod music players and Macintosh computers, fell 4.7 percent to $91.41. Finland-based Nokia, the largest maker of mobile phones, forecast the first drop in industry sales since 2001 and lowered its estimate for industry revenue in the current quarter.

Global smartphone sales growth slowed to 11.5 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier as consumers postponed replacement purchases, research firm Gartner Inc. said today. Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry, said this week that quarterly subscriber gains fell short of its forecast.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. gained 1.3 percent to $55.11. The world’s largest retailer said November sales exceeded its projection, spurred by discounts on groceries, consumer electronics and Christmas decorations.

‘Good Sign’

“Consumers are still responsive to price; that’s a good sign,” said Julie Van Cleave, who oversees $3 billion, including Wal-Mart shares, at Deutsche Bank AG unit DWS Investments in Milwaukee. “They’re going to fewer stores but making larger purchases.”

Other chain stores rallied on November sales that beat estimates. Nordstrom Inc., the U.S. department store operator with more than 100 namesake locations, jumped 10 percent to $12.01. Office Depot Inc. added 15 percent to $2.17. Macy’s Inc., the second-biggest department store, climbed 6 percent to $7.83 after affirming its fourth-quarter sales forecast.

Homebuilders gained amid reports the Treasury Department is considering stepping up purchases of mortgage-backed securities to drive rates on some loans down to 4.5 percent. The average rate on 30-year fixed-rate loans dropped to 5.47 percent last week, the lowest level since 2005, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

D.R. Horton Inc., the largest U.S. homebuilder, advanced 8 percent to $7.82. Lennar Corp. added 10 percent to $8.50. Centex Corp. climbed 9 percent to $11.10. An index of homebuilders in the S&P 500 rose 6.6 percent to the highest level in a month.

Falling Sales

Merck & Co. dropped 5.5 percent to $25. The company said 2009 profit may decline amid falling sales of its Zetia and Vytorin cholesterol pills and weak international revenue.

Adobe Systems Inc. lost 9.3 percent to $20.44. The world’s largest maker of graphics and Web-design software forecast sales that missed analysts’ estimates, saying the economy has crimped spending. Adobe also plans to cut 600 jobs, amounting to about 8 percent of its staff.

The Labor Department said today that 4.09 million fired workers received government unemployment checks in the week ended Nov. 22, the most since December 1982 and more than economists estimated in a Bloomberg survey. Data to be released tomorrow are forecast to show U.S. payrolls shrank in November for the 10th straight month, sending the unemployment rate to 6.8 percent, the highest since 1993.

AT&T, DuPont Cuts

AT&T Inc., the largest U.S. phone company, and DuPont Co., the third-biggest U.S. chemical maker, said they will cut jobs to lower costs as the recession erodes profit.

AT&T lost 3.1 percent to $28.17. The company plans to cut 12,000 jobs, or about 4 percent of its workforce. DuPont rose 0.3 percent to $23.69 after saying it will cut about 2,500 jobs because the global recession is cutting demand for products such as auto paint and Tyvek weather wrap.

“Businesses are battening down the hatches,” Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group Inc. in Pittsburgh, said in Bloomberg Television interview. “Job losses are going to continue to accelerate.”

Law of Sea Saves Pirates

from EagleSpeak

Seven lucky pirates were rescued by a Danish warship after the pirates spent several days adrift in the Gulf of Aden because the Danes complied with international law. As reported here:

“Under international law, ships are obligated to help people who are distressed at sea,” the navy said. “Because the people on board couldn’t be directly connected with a criminal act, they were treated only as distressed.”
***
“Because of the weather in the area, it wasn’t possible to tow the distressed vessel,” the navy said. “For the safety of sea transport in the area, the vessel was therefore destroyed.”

The alleged pirate vessel had been adrift in Yemen waters, and the crew has now been turned over to Yemeni authorities, the navy said. The Absalon’s crew confiscated the weapons found on board.

The weapons included anti-tank rockets and machine guns, according to broadcaster TV2. The pirates had been adrift at sea for seven days, the last three days without food or water, TV2 said.

Jihad Recruiting Effort May Explain Missing Somalis in Minneapolis Area

AP

Young Somali men in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area are disappearing, stirring fears they may be returning to Somalia to join terrorist groups like Shabaab, seen above at a training camp.

Young Somali men in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area are disappearing, stirring fears they may be returning to Somalia to join terrorist groups like Shabaab, seen above at a training camp.

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Dozens of young Somali men in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area have disappeared in recent months, causing community members and U.S. intelligence officials to fear that they are joining jihadist groups in Somalia.

Officials are especially concerned that some of the men may be destined to return to the U.S. after they have received terrorist training. ....

Behind The Terror: The Role Of Organized Crime

Listen Now [39 min 18 sec] add to playlist

Fresh Air from WHYY, December 4, 2008 · Investigative journalist David Kaplan says that terrorists often use organized crime tactics — and profits — to execute their activities. He discusses the link between terrorism and criminal syndicates, and how that relationship may have played out in the recent attacks on Mumbai.

Kaplan is the editorial director for the Center for Public Integrity. Throughout his 30-year career, he has investigated various criminal groups, including terrorists, corporate polluters, corrupt law enforcement officials and neo-Nazis.

Scientists ask: Is technology rewiring our brains?

NEW YORK – What does a teenage brain on Google look like? Do all those hours spent online rewire the circuitry? Could these kids even relate better to emoticons than to real people? These sound like concerns from worried parents. But they're coming from brain scientists. ....

Iran Confronts an 'Economic Evolution'

Gasoline? It's 36 cents a gallon. Laundry detergent? Fifty cents for a standard-size box. Milk? About 20 cents a quart. These prices are so low because Iran's government spends half its national budget to subsidize many of life's necessities. Not for long. ....

....In October, when oil was selling for $70 a barrel, Central Bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani warned of a huge budget deficit if the price did not rise. "If this rate continues until the end of the year, $54 billion of expected oil income won't materialize," he told the official Islamic Republic News Agency. On Wednesday, Iranian oil was selling for $42.....

Suit contesting Barack Obama's citizenship heads to U.S. Supreme Court Friday

By James Janega

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider Friday whether to take up a lawsuit challenging President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship, a continuation of a New Jersey case embraced by some opponents of Obama's election.

The meeting of justices will coincide with a vigil by the filer's supporters in Washington on the steps of the nation's highest court.

The suit originally sought to stay the election, and was filed on behalf of Leo Donofrio against New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells.

Legal experts say the appeal has little chance of succeeding, despite appearing on the court's schedule. Legal records show it is only the tip of an iceberg of nationwide efforts seeking to derail Obama's election over accusations that he either wasn't born a U.S. citizen or that he later renounced his citizenship in Indonesia.

The Obama campaign has maintained that he was born in Hawaii, has an authentic birth certificate, and is a "natural-born" U.S. citizen. Hawaiian officials agree.

Among those filing lawsuits is Alan Keyes, who lost to Obama in the 2004 Illinois Senate race. Keyes' suit seeks to halt certification of votes in California. Another suit by a Kentucky man seeks to have a federal judge review Obama's original birth certificate, which Hawaiian officials say is locked in a state vault.

by a person who is currently suing the "Peoples Association of Human, Animals COther suits have been filed by Andy Martin, whose case was dismissed in Hawaii, and by an Ohio man whose case also was dismissed. Five more suits, all later dismissed, were filed in Hawaii onceived God/s and Religions, John McCain [and] USA Govt." The plaintiff previously sought to sue Wikipedia and "All News Media."

The most famous case questioning Obama's citizenship was filed in Pennsylvania in August on behalf of Philip J. Berg and sought to enjoin the Democratic National Committee from nominating Obama. The U.S. Supreme Court denied an application for an injunction and hasn't scheduled a conference on other aspects of the case. Earlier, a federal judge rejected it for "lack of standing"—ruling that Berg had no legal right to sue. In cases like this, judges sometimes believe the matter is best left to political institutions, such as the Electoral College or Congress, said legal scholar Eugene Volokh of the University of California at Los Angeles.

The remaining case with the highest profile is Donofrio vs. Wells. Because it was referred by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to other justices for conference, it gained undue importance for people unschooled in how the court works, Volokh said.

Many petitioners seeking stays of pending events have their cases distributed to the full court, he said. Of those, Volokh found that 782 were denied in the last eight years while just 60 were heard—and not all of those ultimately were successful.

'Natural-born' requirement called 'stupidest provision'

By Bob Unruh

An associate lawyer in a Chicago-based firm whose partner served on a finance committee for then-Sen. Barack Obama has advocated for the elimination of the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a president be a "natural-born" citizen, calling the requirement "stupid" and asserting it discriminates, is outdated and undemocratic.

Barack Obama and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga

The paper was written in 2006 by Sarah Herlihy, just two years after Obama had won a landslide election in Illinois to the U.S. Senate. Herlihy is listed as an associate at the Chicago firm of Kirkland & Ellis. A partner in the same firm, Bruce I. Ettelson, cites his membership on the finance committees for both Obama and Sen. Richard Durbin on the corporate website.

The article by Herlihy is available online under law review articles from Kent University.

The issue is the subject of nearly two dozen court cases in recent weeks, including at least two that have gone to the U.S. Supreme Court.

There have been accusations that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii as his campaign has stated. His paternal grandmother has stated she was in attendance at his birth in Mombasa. While Hawaii officials say they have seen his birth certificate, they have declined to release information from it.

Join more than 150,000 others in signing WND's online petition calling for release of Barack Obama's birth certificate and verifying beyond any shadow of a doubt his constitutional eligibility for office. This offer ends Thursday at noon Eastern Time to ensure all letters are delivered by Friday morning to the Supreme Court.

The Certification of Live Birth from Hawaii that the Obama campaign posted on the Internet isn't considered by critics to resolve the issue, since during the 1960s when Obama was born, the new state issued the document to infants not necessarily born in Hawaii.

There also remain unanswered questions about his youth, when he lived and attended school in Indonesia and later when he traveled to Pakistan. The questions include whether he gave up a U.S. citizenship to attend school or traveled on another nation's passport to Pakistan at a time when U.S. passports were unwelcome there.

Answers to those issues could determine whether Obama meets the Constitution's demand for a "natural-born" citizen.

Herlihy's published paper reveals that the requirement likely was considered in a negative light by organizations linked to Obama in the months before he announced in 2007 his candidacy for the presidency.

"The natural born citizen requirement in Article II of the United States Constitution has been called the 'stupidest provision' in the Constitution, "undecidedly un-American," "blatantly discriminatory," and the "Constitution's worst provision," Herlihy begins in her introduction to the paper titled, "Amending the Natural Born Citizen Requirement: Globalization as the Impetus and the Obstacle."

She concludes that the "emotional" reasons to oppose changing the Constitution will prevail over the "rational" reasons demanding a change.

"The current American perceptions about the effects of globalization and the misunderstanding about what globalization actually is will result in Americans deciding that naturalized citizens should not be president because this would, in effect, be promoting globalization, Herlihy wrote.

"Although this argument is admittedly circular, because globalization is the thing that makes the need to abolish the requirement more and more persuasive, Americans' subsequent perceptions about globalization are the very things that will prevent Americans from embracing the idea of eliminating the natural born requirement.

"Logical Americans are looking for a reason to ignore the rational reasons promoted by globalization so that they may vote based on their own emotions and instincts," she wrote.

Read all the evidence about Obama's birthplace in Jerome Corsi's "The Obama Nation."

She blamed support for the constitutional provision on "fear, racism, religious intolerance, or blind faith in the decisions of the Founding Fathers."

WND called Herlihy's number listed on the law firm website, and a woman answered with, "Sarah Herlihy." But when WND identified itself as a news agency, the woman said she didn't think "Sarah Herlihy" was in, but would take a message. There was no return call.

In the body of her argument, Herlihy said the constitutional provision simply is outdated.

"Considering that the Founding Fathers presumably included the natural born citizen clause in the Constitution partly out of fear of foreign subversion, the current stability of the American government and the intense media scrutiny of presidential candidates virtually eliminates the possibility of a 'foreigner' coming to America, becoming a naturalized citizen, generating enough public support to become president, and somehow using the presidency to directly benefit his homeland," she wrote.

"The natural born citizen clause of the United States Constitution should be repealed for numerous reasons. Limiting presidential eligibility to natural born citizens discriminates against naturalized citizens, is outdated and undemocratic, and incorrectly assumes that birthplace is a proxy for loyalty," she wrote.

Many of the reasons for keeping the limit, she wrote, "are based primarily on emotion."

A web blogger suggested, "So it sure looks like Obama's people have looked into the matter of 'natural born' as far back as early 2006. What is even more disturbing is that it would appear that they are following the thought of: 'If the facts do not support the theory, Destroy the facts!"

Clinton's Confirmation May Spark Constitutional Battle

By Stephen Clark

The biggest obstacle facing Hillary Clinton's Senate confirmation as President-elect Barack Obama's top diplomat may not be her husband's wheeling and dealing abroad for his foundation, as many suspected.

Instead, it could be the U.S. Constitution.

According to an emolument clause in the Constitution, no lawmaker can be appointed to any civil position that was created or received a wage increase during the lawmaker's time in office.

President Bush ordered Cabinet salaries raised to $191,300 from $186,600 by executive order early this year, while Clinton was senator.

"My understanding is that does prohibit her unless they can find some way around it and I gather that they have in the past," former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger told FOX News.

"This isn't the first time this has come up," he said, referring to appointees of other presidents. "Maybe she has to renounce the salary increase but I'm sure they'll find a way around it."

The Obama transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

Some constitutional lawyers don't foresee the provision derailing Clinton's nomination.

"I don't believe it presents a serious issue because the legislative fix which has been done in the past is perfectly constitutional," said Adam Bonin, an attorney at the Philadelphia law firm of Cozen O'Connor.

The legislation that Bonin referred to is the "Saxbe fix" that allowed President Richard Nixon to name Ohio Sen. William Saxbe his Attorney General.

The attorney general's salary was raised during Saxbe's term in 1969 but Nixon convinced Congress to lower Saxbe's salary to what it was before 1969.

The most recent case involved Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, who was nominated to be President-elect Bill Clinton's treasury secretary in 1993. To avoid conflict, Congress passed legislation lowering the salary of that position to its 1989 level.

Bonin believes Congress should pass similar legislation for Clinton.

"I think that's the safe move to make," he said, adding that he believes Clinton could be confirmed without a legislative fix because Congress didn't vote for Bush's pay raise.

Daniel Dreisdach, a professor of law at American University, said it would be difficult for anyone to use the provision to challenge Clinton's confirmation.

"In this respect, it's a bit analogous to this question of whether Barack Obama is a natural born citizen," he said, referring to a lawsuit, dismissed last month, seeking to obtain a copy of Obama's Hawaii birth certificate.

"Then it becomes who has legal standing to challenge his credentials as president or Hillary Clinton's assumption of the office," he said.

Dreisdach said as long as Democrats control the Senate, the Obama transition team won't worry about this provision in the Constitution.

"The Obama team is well aware of it and they have dismissed it," Dreisdach said. "I find it hard to believe that a Democratic majority will take a different view."

Muslim World League calls for "a strategic plan to introduce Islam as a solution to major problems facing humanity"

by Robert Spencer

And, natch, as "a religion that promotes peace, freedom and tolerance."

Among the elements of this strategic plan:

■ “They should also make use of their good relations with Western countries to enact laws preventing the denigration of Islam and Muslim personalities”

■ "Islamic organizations have been asked to monitor school syllabuses in non-Muslim countries to prevent distortion of facts about Islam and Muslims."

"Forum calls for strategic plan to reach out to non-Muslims," by P.K. Abdul Ghafour for Arab News, December 4 (thanks to Paul):

JEDDAH: An international conference organized by the Muslim World League has called for a strategic plan to introduce Islam as a solution to major problems facing humanity and as a religion that promotes peace, freedom and tolerance.

The three-day conference, titled “Introducing Islam to non-Islamic countries: Reality and aspirations,” stressed that non-Muslims living in Islamic countries should enjoy all of the rights enjoyed by Muslims.

Really? All of them? In this they run counter to the provisions of traditional Islamic law regarding the subjugated status of the dhimmis, as mandated by the Qur'anic injunction that they pay the jizya (poll tax) "with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (9:29).

"The subject peoples," [i.e., the dhimmis] according to a manual of Islamic law endorsed by Al-Azhar University in Cairo, must "pay the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)" and "are distinguished from Muslims in dress, wearing a wide cloth belt (zunnar); are not greeted with ‘as-Salamu ‘alaykum’ [the traditional Muslim greeting, 'Peace be with you']; must keep to the side of the street; may not build higher than or as high as the Muslims’ buildings, though if they acquire a tall house, it is not razed; are forbidden to openly display wine or pork . . . recite the Torah or Evangel aloud, or make public display of their funerals or feastdays; and are forbidden to build new churches." ('Umdat al-Salik, o11.3, 5).

"All of the rights"? Really? Is this a statement of reform? Somehow I doubt it, in light of their other statements -- particularly about restricting free speech (see below).

It said Muslim countries must introduce Islam to non-Muslim countries as part of efforts to improve foreign relations.

So this is avowedly a political effort, not solely a religious one.

“They should also make use of their good relations with Western countries to enact laws preventing the denigration of Islam and Muslim personalities,” said a final communiqué issued after the conference.

Ten to one they consider "denigration of Islam" to be any honest examination of how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence and supremacism. Why do I say that? Because we have seen it before. Here are four examples (one, two, three, four) of Islamic groups objecting to non-Muslims making accurate statements about Islam or Muhammad -- statements much like ones jihadists make without encountering serious opposition from their fellow Muslims.

The goal, in other words, is to silence non-Muslims regarding Islam, thus rendering us mute in the face of the global jihad. Mute and therefore defenseless.

The conferees stressed the need to produce Islamic TV programs in major world languages to introduce Islam to non-Muslims. They also urged Muslims to behave righteously with non-Muslims and understand their culture. “We should come up with innovative ideas to propagate the message of Islam, using the Internet and satellite channels,” it said.

The conference stressed the need to produce special media programs to address non-Muslims and urged support for their social development programs. Permanent and temporary exhibitions must be held to reach out to people, and specialized centers and academic chairs should be established to defend Islam. [...]

There are already specialized centers and academic chairs established to defend Islam. See, most notoriously, John Esposito's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

The conference noted anti-Islam smear campaign was one of the major challenges facing Islamic preachers in non-Muslim countries and urged Muslims to address this problem with unity. Islamic organizations have been asked to monitor school syllabuses in non-Muslim countries to prevent distortion of facts about Islam and Muslims.

That is already happening as well. See the discussion of the Islamization of American public school textbooks in my book Stealth Jihad.

Who Were You With?

(Compiler's note: I know some of you have seen this short piece, but it is so revealing about us Marines that I thought I must share! And yes, I frequently wear my cap with the most familiar eagle, globe and anchor. My cap is black and it goes well with my silver hair -- but like other Marines, I still remember as if it were just yesterday .....)

by William R. Miller

A few years ago I was strolling with my wife through a fall festival in a small Kansas town. I was wearing a red ball cap with an eagle, globe, and anchor logo on the front. I noticed another man with a similar hat as he passed us in the crowd. He stopped, turned to me, and said, “Who were you with?”

“1st Marine Aircraft Wing, MASS Deuce [Marine Air Support Squadron 2], Dong Ha on the DMZ [demilitarized zone], ‘68–‘69. You?” I answered without thinking.

“2/5 [2d Battalion, 5th Marines], Hue City, Tet ‘68, Semper fi,” he said and walked on.

“Who was that?” my wife asked.

“Just another Marine,” I said. Just another Marine, what an understatement I thought.

At other times that day, I saw a cruise jacket, a sweatshirt, and two more ball caps all representing the Marine Corps. I saw the emblems of no other Service. Since then I have become more aware, and I have noted that I see Marine Corps bumper stickers and rear window decals, not Army. I see Marine Corps flags outside homes, not Air Force. And I see Marine caps and jackets, seldom Navy.

I started counting, and I actually see about 20 Marine symbols to each display of the other Armed Forces. Yet, the Marine Corps is still the smallest of the Services. Could it be that “once a Marine, always a Marine” is true? Could it be that there is a greater pride in having been one of the few?

For the last 5 years I, too, have asked the question, “Who were you with?” I have always gotten an answer; no one has ever asked, “What do you mean?” Marines understand the question. A few times the ball cap has represented a son or daughter. But even their parents know the units with whom their children are serving. The pride of their being with the Marines is also in the parents.

This year, at the same festival, I met four Marines. One young man said he spent the Marine Corps birthday, 10 November 2004, in Fallujah with 1/3; the second had helped the 2d Marine Division take Kuwait City in 1991; and the third served with me in Vietnam, only farther south at Chu Lai in 1970. But the one that I remember the most was the man in a worn, faded cruise jacket, walking slowly with a cane, and being passed by the crowd.

I walked to his side, slowed to his pace, and asked, “Who were you with?” He stopped, turned, stood up straight, and looked me in the eye. “5th Marine Division, Iwo Jima, 1945,” he said. A chill went through me and I knew I was in the presence of a history maker. “Thank you,” I said. He smiled and said, “You?” As we talked I told him that I had been an air control officer in Vietnam and that my son had just completed three tours in Iraq with Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 2. Then before I knew it, he was thanking me. He continued to tell me how much harder it is today to tell who the enemy is and how much he admires our young Marines.

Today I teach biology at Baker University in Kansas, and I often tell my students that they have not yet had history happen to them. They do not remember Pearl Harbor or know what happened at the Chosin Reservoir or even where to find Con Thien on a map. At times I get to tell them about Marines whom I have met and the history they helped make. But still it is hard for them to understand what an injured Army captain I met on China Beach meant when he told me, “The most beautiful sight in the world is a Marine F–4 rolling in hot with snake and nape.”

These events are not just part of history; they are history. Had their results been different, the world would be different. “Who were you with?” says more than “Where were you when . . . ?” or “What were you doing when . . . ?” It says participant not spectator. It says Marine.

So the next time you see an eagle, globe, and anchor on a hat or shirt pocket ask the simple question, “Who were you with?” Listen to the answer of a unit, a place, and a time and think about that moment in history. But more than that, listen to the pride saying, “I am a Marine.”

>Dr. Miller served with the 1st MAW, Marine Air Control Group 18, MASS–2 in Vietnam from 1968–69. He is currently working in the Department of Biology, Baker University, Baldwin City, KS.

Experts warn Barack Obama of a nuclear Iran

Iran poses the greatest foreign policy challenge to Barack Obama, the President-elect, with Tehran on course to produce a nuclear bomb in the first year of an Obama administration, a coalition of top think-tanks gave warning yesterday.....

GLOBAL TRENDS 2025: THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL'S 2025 PROJECT

(Compiler's note: A must read item)

From the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council

"Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" is the fourth unclassified report prepared by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in recent years that takes a long-term view of the future. It offers a fresh look at how key global trends might develop over the next 15 years to influence world events. Our report is not meant to be an exercise in prediction or crystal ball-gazing. Mindful that there are many possible "futures," we offer a range of possibilities and potential discontinuities, as a way of opening our minds to developments we might otherwise miss.

Some of our preliminary assessments are highlighted below:

• The whole international system—as constructed following WWII—will be revolutionized. Not only will new players—Brazil, Russia, India and China— have a seat at the international high table, they will bring new stakes and rules of the game.
• The unprecedented transfer of wealth roughly from West to East now under way will continue for the foreseeable future.
• Unprecedented economic growth, coupled with 1.5 billion more people, will put pressure on resources—particularly energy, food, and water—raising the specter of scarcities emerging as demand outstrips supply.
• The potential for conflict will increase owing partly to political turbulence in parts of the greater Middle East.

As with the earlier NIC efforts—such as Mapping The Global Future 2020—the project's primary goal is to provide US policymakers with a view of how world developments could evolve, identifying opportunities and potentially negative developments that might warrant policy action. We also hope this paper stimulates a broader discussion of value to educational and policy institutions at home and abroad.

Purchase a Hardcopy of "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" from the Government Printing Office (ISBN 978-0-16-081834-9) (33.4 MB)

Electoral College scam: Where dead people vote

By Bob Unruh

Lawyer challenging eligibility seeks investigation of process

A lawyer playing a major part in a California lawsuit urging officials to prevent the state's 55 Electoral College votes from being recorded for Barack Obama until questions about his citizenship are resolved has written to county clerks around the state, seeking an investigation into a process that has allowed a dead woman to be listed as an official elector.

Barack Obama

According to Gary Kreep, executive director of the United States Justice Foundation, the clerks have been advised about the "irregularity" in the list of electors provided by the Democratic Party

in California.

"In the 28th Congressional District (Congressman Howard Berman), situated in Los Angeles County, Ilene Huber is listed as the presidential elector designated in that district. However, as shown in the attached certified statement of Dean C. Logan, registrar-recorder/county clerk of the county of Los Angeles, state of California, there is no Ilene Huber listed as a registered voter in the County of Los Angeles. A statewide search of public records has revealed only one Ilene Huber in the state of California, and she is deceased-a copy of her certificate of death is attached hereto as well," the advisory said.

"Further, according to Chris Myers, director of research for the California Democratic Party, who submitted the list of presidential electors for the Democratic Party to the office of the California secretary of state, there are additional, undisclosed, 'errors' in the list of electors. This admission was made in a telephone conversation with a representative of the American Independent Party on or about November 20, 2008," the letter continued.

"It is therefore respectfully suggested to you that an investigation be made by each of your respective offices into the accuracy and validity of the list of presidential electors submitted for the ballot in your respective counties. It is believed that an attempt will be made to 'revise' the list of such electors so that those named individuals that were selected by the voters will be replaced by other names. Such 'revisions' will, in all likelihood, result in litigation being filed to challenge such attempts to alter the ballot post election, and may result in your county being included as a defendant therein," it said.

Kreep said the integrity of elections in the U.S. needs to be maintained, or "the vote of the people becomes merely something that can be ignored by those who hold the reins of political power at the moment."

Kreep previously told WND that because of the lack of proof of Obama's U.S. citizenship and the consequent questions over his ability to meet the Constitution's requirement that only a "natural born citizen" can be president, the Obama administration will be considered by some to be fraudulent.

"We will file lawsuits on his actions, every time. As long as we have money , we will keep filing lawsuits until we get a decision as to his citizenship status," he previously told WND. "We're already talking to groups who are willing to be plaintiffs."

As WND reported, Kreep filed a legal challenge in California with presidential candidate Alan Keyes as a plaintiff questioning Obama's birthplace.

The complaint urges the California secretary of state to refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast until the issue of Obama's eligibility to hold office is resolved.

The case is one of more than a dozen legal challenges brought over Obama's citizenship. The cases all cite Obama's clouded history and the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a president be a natural born citizen.

Sign WND's online petition to insist on release of Barack Obama's birth certificate.

There have been allegations Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii as his campaign has reported, that he could be considered a British subject because of his father's residency in what then was a British protectorate that later became Kenya, and that the "Certificate of Live Birth" posted on his website simply shows his mother registered his birth in Hawaii after he was born, but does not document a location of birth.

There also have been questions raised about his travels as a youth, including the years he spent registered as a Muslim in an Indonesian school, and his later travels to Pakistan at a time when U.S. passports weren't welcome in that nation.

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi traveled to Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.

The biggest question remains why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists, simply hasn't ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin. Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born, while a video posted on YouTube features Obama's Kenyan grandmother Sarah claiming to have witnessed Obama's birth in Kenya.

The California action was filed on behalf of Keyes, as well as Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson, both California electors.

"Should Senator Obama

be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void, Petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal," the action challenges.

U.S. State Department officials declined to respond to WND inquiries about the process for keeping a U.S. citizenship while attending schools in Indonesia, or the possibility of a U.S. citizen keeping that status while traveling on another nation's passport.

But several online "fact" sites have contended that the concerns over Obama's citizenship are much ado about nothing.

Factcheck.org, for example, has posted an image described as Obama's "birth certificate." But within the image can be seen the words "Certificate of Live Birth," which is not the same document. In Hawaii at the time Obama was born the state issued a "Certificate of Live Birth" to a parent registering a birth, but it does not indicate the location of the birth.

"FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate," the group said in a statement accompanying the image of the "Certificate of Live Birth."

The website Snopes.com also attested to Obama's U.S. citizenship, citing information from the campaign.

However, WND columnist Janet Porter, who has investigated the dispute, wrote in her column that there are too many questions to ignore.

"In Hawaii, a Certification of Live Birth is issued within a year of a child's birth to those who register a birth abroad or one that takes place outside a hospital," she said.

"There's the matter that Obama traveled to Indonesia, Pakistan, Southern India and Kenya in 1981. He said he went to Indonesia to see his mother. This seemed plausible, except for the fact that his mother returned to Hawaii in August of 1980 to file for a divorce from her second husband, Lolo Soetoro. Unless she went back to pal around with the man she divorced, she wasn't there at the time of Obama's visit," Porter wrote.

"There's another problem. No record of Obama holding an American passport prior to the one he received once becoming a U.S. senator has been found. If he traveled to Pakistan with an American passport, he wouldn't have been allowed in – since Pakistan was in turmoil in 1981 and under martial law. It was also on the State Department's travel ban list for U.S. citizens," she wrote.

"If he couldn't get into Pakistan with a U.S. passport, perhaps he went there with an Indonesian passport. But the only way you can get one of those is if you are an Indonesian citizen," she wrote.

Spencer: Still Unprepared Against Terror

(Compiler's note: A must read and heed article.)

In Human Events this morning, some lessons from Mumbai:

Why was India -- a nation that has suffered enormously from terrorism in the past seven years -- unprepared for the Mumbai attacks? And why are America, Britain and most of the rest of the civilized world equally unprepared even now, so many years after 9-11?

London’s Telegraph reported Monday that “the former head of Britain’s SAS has revealed that Britain is not adequately prepared for a Mumbai-style terror attack. He said hundreds of civilians would have been massacred if such an assault was carried out in this country.”

The primary reason for this unpreparedness, of course, is the unwillingness or inability of government, law enforcement, and the mainstream media to confront the ideology of the jihadists and the Islamic doctrines that provide the foundation for that ideology.

Instead, it is an ironclad dogma in the American public square that the overwhelming majority of American Muslims decisively and unequivocally reject that ideology and doctrine and have nothing but abhorrence for the jihadists. Thus it is unsurprising that it was a Kuwaiti journalist, rather than an American one, who in the wake of the Mumbai attacks dared to observe that the Emperor has no clothes: “Unfortunately, we have yet to see a distinguished popular condemnation in the traditional Arab or Muslim communities that strongly rejects what is happening in the name of Islam.” So wrote the Kuwaiti columnist Khaled al-Jenfawi.

Underscoring this imperial nudity is the fact that as the full magnitude of the Mumbai carnage was still unfolding, some Muslim leaders as they condemned the attacks appeared principally concerned that they would hurt Islam’s image. Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain lamented that “a handful of terrorists like this bring the entire faith into disrepute.” Likewise Kazim al-Muqdadi, a lecturer at Baghdad University, complained that “the occupation of the synagogue and killing people in hotels tarnishes the Muslim faith.”

How to polish this tarnished image? One way might be to end the duplicity that is all too common. For example, Saudi Arabia announced that it “strongly condemns and denounces this criminal act” in Mumbai. However, Jonathan Fighel of Israel’s International Institute for Counter-Terrorism observed that the Saudis had been sending financial support to the jihadists in Kashmir, the brothers-in-arms of the Mumbai attackers. “This demonstrates,” noted Fighel, “exactly the double game and, I would say, the hypocrisy of the Saudi regime.”

Of course, there is one thing they could do about that that would actually begin to make people think better of Islam. Imams could begin to saturate mosques and madrassas with the message that jihad warfare is never justified, that the imperative to subjugate unbelievers under the rule of Islamic law must be decisively rejected, and that peaceful coexistence as equals with unbelievers is to be maintained indefinitely. But they do not. They continue to play the same double game that the Saudis do.

Hamas leader Khaled Mash’al recently declared that “the day will come, within several years, when this world will change, submitting to the Arab Islamic will, Allah willing.” If Islamic clerics stopped talking about making the world submit to Islamic law and began to teach genuine tolerance of unbelievers and acceptance of them as equals, Islam’s image might begin to improve.

If Muslim leaders worldwide energetically condemned all those who maintained belief in the Qur’an’s literal words of war and in the traditional Islamic doctrines regarding jihad warfare (whether by hot war or by stealth), as well as declaring beyond the fold of Islam anyone who wished to impose Shari’a upon unbelievers by force, and if those leaders demonstrated their sincerity by actions instead of mere words, informed non-Muslims might begin to think better of Islam.

Until they do, how can we?

These things will not happen. Instead, Deepak Chopra and others have rushed to blame the West for the Mumbai jihad massacres -- while at the UN, Islamic states have successfully pushed through a resolution criminalizing “blasphemy,” i.e., criticism of Islam, while ignoring one that was introduced denouncing violence committed in the name of religion. That in itself is telling.

Vice President of Muhammad Mosque Cops 20 Years For Housing Fraud

from Jihad Watch

Liberty City mosque leader goes to prison for housing fraud

BY SUSANNAH A. NESMITH/MIAMIHERALD

* One cannot live on Muhammedanism alone…

snesmith@MiamiHerald.com

A leader in a Liberty City mosque was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday for his role in a housing scam that stole homes from the elderly — and even from dead people.

Sameer Muhammad, the vice president of Muhammad Mosque No. 29 at 5600 NW 7th Avenue, was convicted earlier this year of nine counts of grand theft, forgery and using a false identification related to the scam.

Investigators said Muhammad, 51, and a partner targetted elderly residents with liens on their homes, registering fraudulent deeds to the homes and then selling them.

The partner, Carolyn A. Murphy, would file fraudulent deeds showing herself as the owner of the home and pay off the liens.

Then Muhammad would sell the homes through his real estate investment corporation, Bar None Properties, Inc., and the two would split the proceeds.

In one case, investigators found a deed a couple purportedly signed transferring their home to Murphy — years after they had died.

Murphy was convicted last year and sentenced to 3 years in prison.

Muhammad is listed in corporate records as the vice president of the Liberty City mosque at 5600 NW 7th Avenue.

Miami-Dade’s Inspector General investigated the case.

”These individuals represent the worst in our society because they prey on those that are most disadvantaged,” said Inspector General Chris Mazzella.

Scotland: Police and Muslims to swap roles so officers can be more "sensitive"

from Dhimmi Watch

Officers may also be required to visit mosques in order to "raise cultural awareness." "Police and Muslims to swap roles so officers can be more sensitive," by Michael Howie for the Scotsman, December 2:

ANTI-TERROR police hope to participate in role-reversal sessions with Muslims in an attempt to ease concerns about the "harassment" of Scottish Asians travelling through Glasgow Airport.

The away-days are designed to improve relations between police and the Muslim community and reach a common understanding about the need to question people at the airport.

The move, based on a pilot scheme south of the Border called Operation Nicole, is among a raft of proposals that the country's head of anti-terrorism will put to aggrieved Muslims, who say they are continually harassed by repeated interrogations when they arrive in Scotland from Pakistan.

Other steps drawn up by Assistant Chief Constable Allan Burnett include ensuring special branch officers at ports wear uniforms, the introduction of "behavioural detection" training to teach officers how to spot potential terrorists, visits to mosques to raise cultural awareness and a mentoring scheme for new special branch recruits.

The creation of a new body to maintain dialogue between police and the Muslim community will also be discussed...

U.S. 'Warned India' of Potential Terror Attack on Mumbai

U.S. and Indian intelligence agencies received information as early as September that Pakistan-based terrorists were plotting attacks against Mumbai targets, an official said Tuesday, as the government demanded that Pakistan take "strong action" against those behind the deadly rampage.

Mumbai attacks: Terrorists took cocaine to stay awake during assault

Terrorists who battled Indian commandos for 60-hours last week relied on cocaine and other stimulants to stay awake for the duration of the fight.

Mumbai Massacre Proves Gun Control Works–for Terrorists

Romans also tried Bailouts

(John Walker) Every generation convinces itself that it's living in a "new era," where "all the rules have changed," and consequently stumbles into the same potholes which swallowed countless ancestors ...