Saturday, November 1, 2008

Obama: Spike energy costs to make people go 'green'

(Compiler's note: Must read. We need to hear and read this BEFORE the upcoming election. rca)

By Drew Zahn

JOHNSTON, Iowa – In a recently publicized video from the Democratic primaries, Sen. Barack Obama said the government should drive energy bills up though "price signals" in order to force Americans into more environmentally friendly choices.

In the Nov. 9, 2007, interview on Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Press," Obama said Americans like driving SUVs and leaving the lights on, but since "it is undisputable that the climate is getting warmer," consumers would have to change their habits.

When asked what would make consumers change, Obama said government-created "price signals" would make people more mindful of energy costs and compel them to start changing light bulbs and turning off light switches.

Watch the video documentary, "Global Warming or Global Governance? What the media refuse to tell you about so-called climate change"

Associated Press reporter Mike Glover asked, "How do you convince people to change their lifestyle, to live differently?"

Obama's answer, viewable in the video below, was, "I think it is important for us to send some price signals to change behavior. You know, if electricity goes up, people start becoming more mindful of their electricity bill."


When Des Moines Register reporter David Yepsen asked Obama what part of his campaign Americans may not like to hear, the candidate returned to the theme of price signals.

"Number one, we're going to have to start doing a better job of conserving on energy," Obama said. "Americans like to drive their big SUVs. They like to leave all the lights on in their house. We're going to have to change our habits."

He then clarified how the government could implement the kind price signals that change consumer habits.

"We're going to have to cap the emission of greenhouse gases," Obama said. "That means that power plants are going to have to adjust how they generate power. They will pass on those costs to consumers. … A lot of us who can afford it are going to have to pay more per unit of electricity, and that means we're going to have to change our light bulbs, we're going to have to shut the lights off in our houses."

The full context of Obama's comments about driving up electricity prices to bring about consumer change can be viewed in a second segment of the interview below:

Internet bloggers that began circulating the video earlier today also lent their opinion on Obama's plan for consumer change.

"Is that the function of government — to fix prices as a punitive measure to change consumer behavior?" asked the Hot Air Blog. "It will be in an Obama administration. He and a few elites will decide which consumer behaviors are bad and penalize it with price signals."

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, however, commented in a May editorial on the issue of government-created price signals, arguing that a federal gasoline tax would be just the kind of energy "price signal" that would finally persuade Americans to give up their SUVs.

"We need to make a structural shift in our energy economy," Friedman wrote. "The only way to get from here to there is to start now with a price signal that will force the change.

"Barack Obama had the courage to tell voters that the McCain-Clinton summer gas-giveaway plan was a fraud. Wouldn't it be amazing if he took the next step and put the right plan before the American people? Wouldn't that just be amazing?" Friedman wrote.

U.S. border police arrest Mexican troops in Arizona

PHOENIX (Reuters) - U.S. border police arrested seven Mexican soldiers after they accidentally strayed over the international boundary into Arizona, authorities said.
The U.S. Border Patrol said agents encountered the troops in a Humvee a short distance north of the border near Yuma, in far west Arizona, early on Friday.
"The Border Patrol agents on scene established a dialogue with the subjects, who identified themselves as members of the Mexican military," the Border Patrol said in a news release.
"The ... agents informed them of their presence within the United States. Upon notification, the subjects were peaceably taken into custody," it added.
The soldiers, who were assigned to the 23rd Regiment Motorized Cavalry of the Mexican Army, said they had become disoriented while on patrol and had accidentally crossed the international boundary, the Border Patrol said.
After relieving them of their arms, agents took the soldiers to the San Luis, Arizona, port of entry where they were processed and repatriated to Mexico, along with their weapons and vehicle.
The incursion was the second by Mexican troops in recent months.
In August, a group of four Mexican soldiers briefly held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint in a remote stretch of the Arizona desert after they mistakenly strayed north across the border.
(Reporting by Tim Gaynor, editing by Eric Beech)

Murtha scrambles against GOP rival

(Compiler's note: No John, you did NOT "get blindsided." You were just to arrogant to see what was going on in your own area for the past year. Keep after him Bill!!!! Semper Fidelis, rca)

BY MIKE FAHER

It would have been considered unthinkable just a few weeks ago: U.S. Rep. John Murtha, a 17-term congressional stalwart, forced to fight for his political life.

But that’s what appears to be happening just days before 12th district voters decide whether to send the powerful Johnstown Democrat back to Washington.

In the past week, Murtha’s campaign has shifted from cruise control to top speed in the face of a surprisingly strong challenge from Republican opponent William Russell.
And while polling data are scarce, it is clear that the veteran congressman and his supporters – both locally and nationally – are concerned.

"I got blindsided," Murtha acknowledged Friday after an event at Pitt-Johnstown. "I should never have waited as long (to campaign) as I did," he said. "I just thought nobody would vote for a guy who has never lived in this district."

For most of this year, the 12th district race – pitting Murtha against a political newcomer who moved here to challenge the incumbent – was attracting no attention from election operatives or the national press.

But that changed in mid-October, when Murtha called western Pennsylvania a "racist area" and later used the term "redneck" to describe his district’s history – both during media interviews.

The controversy prompted a Murtha apology, but also spurred a Murtha parody on NBC’s "Saturday Night Live."

Whether those comments have led directly to the significant tightening of this race is up for debate. Russell has for months attempted to paint his opponent as an out-of-touch liberal, leaning heavily on Murtha’s opposition to the war in Iraq.

"Our internal (polling) showed three weeks ago that this was a race – even before Jack called his constituents racist," said Peg Luksik, Russell’s campaign manager.

‘It is urgent’

Still, it is clear that the last seven to 10 days have dramatically changed the tenor of the race:

• On Oct. 23, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that a poll conducted for the newspaper showed Murtha with only a four-point lead, within the survey’s margin of error.

• On Oct. 25, Murtha’s campaign sent its first press release attacking Russell directly. Several more were issued over the following days.

• Financial contributions to Murtha’s campaign – which had lagged behind Russell in fund- raising and spending – in-creased dramatically in the past seven days.

• Murtha advertisements have been running frequently on local TV stations and are appearing in this newspaper this weekend.

Forms filed with the Federal Election Commission show Murtha having raised $570,750 this week. And those reports account only for donations of $1,000 or more.

In contrast, Murtha reported $457,340 in contributions from July 1 through Sept. 30.
The Hill, a Washington newspaper, on Thursday reported that Murtha "has sent out a last-minute plea for $1 million to save his hotly contested seat."

And on Wednesday, Murtha put out a fundraising plea to members of the liberal group MoveOn.org.

"When I ask for help, it is because I really need it," he wrote. "It is urgent."
‘Helping with advertising’

To further highlight that sense of urgency, national political groups this week made their presence felt in the 12th district race for the first time.

Sensing Murtha’s vulnerability, the National Republican Congressional Committee went on the attack with television ads. "After four decades in Congress, John Murtha has grown out of touch," said Ken Spain, the GOP congressional committee’s spokesman.

"By calling his own constituents racists and rednecks, he has brought national embarrassment upon himself and to the district he claims to represent."

Meanwhile, a campaign organization representing House Democrats bought television time to defend Murtha. And state Democrats also are chipping in. "We’re helping with advertising, we’re helping with mailers," said Abe Amoros, state Democratic Party spokesman.

As they did in 2006, when Murtha’s Iraq stance led to a relatively tough re-election campaign, fellow Democratic politicians are stepping forward to back the congressman.
Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner called The Tribune-Democrat this week to offer his support. Wagner, along with Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, is scheduled to appear in Johnstown today at a 9:45 a.m. rally for the congressman at 647 Main St.
Wagner, who like Murtha is a Vietnam veteran, said he has supported the congressman since his first campaign in 1974.

"Pennsylvania, especially western Pennsylvania, doesn’t have a more effective person in government than Congressman Murtha," Wagner said.‘We feel ... confident’
As it became clear this week that Murtha had a fight on his hands, many local leaders have expressed similar sentiments.

For the most part, they are effusively praising Murtha’s well-documented ability to bring cash and jobs to the district. "He has led us to a diverse economy, a vibrant economy," said P.J. Stevens, Cambria County president commissioner. "And going forward, nobody is in a better position than the congressman to see that the growth continues."

On Friday, Murtha received Pitt-Johnstown’s distinguished alumni award. In a speech at the ceremony, university President Jem Spectar discussed the congressman’s support for the educational system.

Amoros said Democrats believe Murtha’s constituents are "more worried about their pocketbooks" than the congressman’s recent controversies.

"We feel quite confident that, at the end of the day on Tuesday, Jack Murtha will be re-elected," he said.

But where some see a temporary aberration, Russell’s supporters believe they’re witnessing a sea change.

"If you disconnect from the people you represent," Luksik said, "eventually they’re going to notice."

Intelligence Head Says Next President Faces Volatile Era

(Compiler's note: Must read. rca)

By Joby Warrick

NASHVILLE, Oct. 30 -- The next U.S. president will govern in an era of increasing international instability, including a heightened risk of terrorist attacks in the near future, long-term prospects of regional conflicts and diminished U.S. dominance across the globe, the nation's top intelligence officer said Thursday.

Competition for energy, water and food will drive conflicts between nations to a degree not seen in decades, and climate change and global economic upheaval will amplify the effects, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, said in a speech here.

McConnell, who has given security briefings to both major-party presidential candidates, said the list of worries will soon drown out the euphoria as the next occupant of the White House settles into the job.

"After the new president-elect's excitement subsides after winning the election, it is going to be dampened somewhat when he begins to focus on the realities of the myriad of changes and challenges," he said.

He added that, besides the predictable conflicts and threats, "there is always surprise." McConnell said that the first months of a new presidency are a "period of most vulnerability," noting that major terrorist attacks occurred during the first year of the administrations of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.


The sobering assessment was in part a reflection of a months-long analysis McConnell's agency is preparing for the next administration, highlighting security challenges the country will face in the next two decades. Elements of that forecast have been described by intelligence officials in recent weeks, and some highlights have been shared with the presidential candidates in briefings that have occurred since the August conventions.

In the near term, the focus remains largely on al-Qaeda and its global network, which remains "very lethal" despite dramatic setbacks in Iraq and elsewhere, McConnell said. But in spite of progress against Osama bin Laden and his followers, the terrorist threat is not likely to disappear in the next 20 years. Instead, absent major economic and political improvements in the Middle East, "conditions will be right for growing radicalism and recruitment of youths into terrorist groups," many of which will be descendants of established movements such as al-Qaeda, he said.

These groups will probably be more dangerous than their predecessors, because new technology will place dangerous weapons within their grasp, he warned. "One of our greatest concerns continues to be that a terrorist group or some other dangerous group might acquire and employ biological agents or, less likely, a radiological device, to create casualties greater than September 11," McConnell said.

Meanwhile, population growth will create instability by increasing the strain on natural resources -- not only energy but also fresh water and food supplies, he said. At the same time, large swaths of the planet will struggle to find reliable supplies of fresh water, because of urbanization and climate change. By 2025, 1.4 billion people in 36 countries will face water shortages, McConnell said. The scarcity of basic necessities will "create significant tensions on the globe," he said.

Other intelligence officials in recent weeks have forecast declining U.S. dominance in the near future, but McConnell described the coming change in starker terms. Intelligence analysts see China, India and perhaps Russia ascending to new positions of power, a shift being driven by a massive transfer of wealth and manufacturing capability from the West to Eastern countries, particularly China.

"China is poised to have more impact on the world over the next 20 years than any other country," he said. "China will also start becoming a major military power by 2025 [and] will likely be the world's largest importer of natural resources and the largest contributor to pollution."

Former Top Cyber Official at Center of World Bank Scandal

In 1997, Mohamed Vazir Muhsin, a Sri Lankan accountant, was chosen by then-World Bank President James Wolfensohn as the first chief information officer in the institution's history. Eight years later, Muhsin was unceremoniously thrown out the door, and the bank's information security headaches reached migraine stage. ....

Also click here for additional information

Yes, Barack Obama really is a Manchurian candidate

by David Kupelian

"If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." – Abraham Lincoln

As Election Day rapidly approaches, many Americans are wondering why so many of their countrymen reject a genuine war hero with decades of experience, one whose pro-life, limited-government values pretty much reflect those of Middle America. Instead, these same countrymen are enthralled with a man who not only has no experience or qualifications for the job, but who is, in fact, the most radically left-wing major-party presidential candidate of our lifetime, having been mentored and supported for decades by terrorists (Ayers), communists (Davis), America-hating racists (Wright) and criminals (Rezko).

Doesn't make much sense, does it?

After all, in past presidential contests, Americans have flatly rejected ultraliberal candidates like McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis – and those guys weren't nearly as radicalized as Obama, who the nonpartisan National Journal rates as having the most left-wing voting record in the entire U.S. Senate – even more so than socialist Bernie Sanders! Moreover, recently it's been proven, despite his campaign's denials, that Obama was indeed a member of the socialist "New Party." And Obama himself confesses that during his college days he intentionally sought out Marxists as friends.

So, how do we explain all this? Why are so many of us eager to turn our nation, the greatest and noblest on earth, over to an angry-at-America, hardcore left-wing "change agent" who will – with the help of a like-minded, Democrat-dominated Congress and a liberal-activist federal judiciary – bring about radical "change" to every area of our lives? Just consider:

So again, the question: Why, despite a mountain of evidence utterly proving his profound unworthiness to be president, do so many millions of Americans worship Barack Obama? Let's take a closer look.

The magic of envy

In recent decades, more and more Americans have been conditioned by politicians to depend on government to solve their problems. This is how demagogues have long operated. They demonize "the rich," implying they obtained their wealth by exploiting the downtrodden; they stir up racial hatreds at every opportunity; they endlessly bash business and CEOs as evil exploiters; they promise "social justice" and universal happiness if only we will elevate them to power over us.

They do all this by appealing to anger and envy. They know instinctively that if they can stir up and ignite these dark, addictive passions in all of us, they will create a large voting bloc of people dependent on them, and thus be rewarded with great power. In its purest form, this phenomenon is called Marxism, communism, socialism – the spiritual core of which is raw envy. This philosophy of cradle-to-grave security and "wealth redistribution" exerts a powerfully seductive grip on people who have not discovered true inner "government." As William Penn famously said, "Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants."

Communism, of course, is atheistic – where the government is the only true god, the giver of blessings, the solver of problems, the dispenser of justice and mercy. This envy-based, class-warfare-fueled revolutionary system talks always of justice, fairness, progress – but the only progress it delivers is from freedom to slavery.

This is the appeal more and more Americans have been conditioned over the years to respond to, as we have progressively fallen away from the Judeo-Christian values that once animated our culture and institutions. The envy-based system Marx unleashed on the world is alive and well, and in different forms it still dominates large parts of the world. In America, it has taken root in the Democrat Party. Ronald Reagan may have destroyed the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union, but you cannot destroy evil itself. Evil remains, and continues to do its job of tempting and, if possible, corrupting the souls of men.

Even the encouragement of immorality – free sex, abortion, homosexuality, easy divorce and so on – is all part and parcel of the socialist modus operandi, because immoral, dysfunctional people who have crossed the moral line and thus become estranged from God now need the "god" of socialist government.

All of this, my friends, is what we're poised to elect as president in the person of Barack Obama.

This has been coming for quite awhile. Americans, many of us anyway, have become increasingly corrupted over the years. We've been conditioned by our leaders into voting for lying, unprincipled, seductive candidates. We almost elected certified wacko Al Gore as president – someone who seriously wants to outlaw the internal combustion engine. Then we almost elected John Kerry – a super-ambitious, unprincipled and thoroughly unlikable man who first achieved notoriety by betraying his Vietnam soldier colleagues, scandalously maligning them as baby-killers before Congress and the nation.

Now, we're very close to electing an even worse candidate – and the reasons for this tell us much about ourselves.

The power of guilt

If you've ever studied disasters like the explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle or the sinking of the Titanic, you'll find there was not just one reason, but a whole series of factors that seemingly conspired to cause the catastrophe.

One of the "aiding and abetting" factors in the current election is the fact that Obama is black. Let's talk about race.

Americans – even though slavery and segregation are long gone from the national scene – still have a large and understandable reservoir of collective guilt over its past exploitation and mistreatment of blacks.

Guilt is a fantastically powerful factor in all of our lives. It is a very uncomfortable, nagging pain in our conscience, this thing we call guilt. When we're guilty we try to relieve this inner conflict, and this is often a good thing. If we're guilty toward God, for instance, then we naturally want to make up for that guilt by finding reconciliation and obedience to Him. If we've wronged our neighbor and our conscience bothers us, that guilt is the valuable, redeeming factor that prods us to apologize and make restitution if appropriate. Without being able to experience a guilty conscience, we'd all be amoral psychopaths – literally oblivious to whether or not we had done anything wrong.

However, there's another side to guilt. Manipulative and unprincipled humans soon discover how to use our guilt to get their way. They can even make us feel guilty when we haven't done anything wrong – for instance, by way of false accusation, a tactic the left has perfected.

Now, Barack Obama obviously is not to blame for being black – or more to the point, for how people feel about him because of his race. But the fact is, his being black pushes the guilt button in most of us and we simply see him differently than we would if he were white. (Imagine voting for a white guy with such flimsy credentials and ominous associations.) With white voters in particular, there is a strong urge to finally move beyond our collective guilt over slavery and to prove, once and for all, that we're not a nation beset by racism – by electing a black president.

It's not an exaggeration to call this guilt-induced way of looking at Obama, this conditioned attitude, a type of trance. We hold him to a different standard, we see and feel differently about him, than we would if he were white. We have a kindliness, a desire for his success, a form of love and admiration and well-wishing toward Obama, all based on guilt. But love based on guilt is not real love. It's just an unconscious attempt to rid ourselves of guilt. Shelby Steele, author of "White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era," puts it this way: "[Americans] struggle, above all else, to dissociate themselves from the past sins they are stigmatized with."

Yet this guilt phenomenon is also why craven race-baiters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton still command media respect as "black leaders." We see them through the "white guilt trance," part of which means we're really afraid of being regarded as racists, so we don't criticize these men for their blatant serial demagoguery. Likewise with Obama, there is a great deal of hesitancy to criticize him out of fear of being thought a racist.

You might respond to this by saying: But I don't have any guilt over slavery or segregation. Fine, but it gets much subtler than that.

Did you ever get angry at your kids – and then find yourself "being nice" to them to make up for the guilt of having been impatient? With that in mind, consider just one of many ways guilt (in this case, racial guilt) can find its way into you: Let's say you're walking down the street and a group of black men are walking toward you, and you become fearful (very similar to the story Obama famously told about his white grandmother). That fear has a little resentment attached to it, for that's the nature of fear. But when you become resentful for any reason at all, you automatically incur guilt, because resentment is a wrong, failing way for mature human beings to respond to the stresses of life. Now, saddled with this new guilt associated with black people, a compulsion rises up from within you to make up for that guilt – which you do by discovering a mysterious affinity for black people that wasn't there before. But that "love" isn't real love – it's all rooted in guilt and resentment (just like when you got impatient with your kids, then suddenly became "nice" to them to compensate for your anger). Although my example here centers on race, this guilt principle is universal. Indeed, guilt-based false love is the basis of the ubiquitous "love-hate relationship" that so vexes the human race; hate easily turns into false love, to make up for the guilt of hating. Do you get it?

It's subtle, but this is exactly the kind of dynamic that leads to self-destructive relationships – from personal relationships to electing tyrants.

The Obama News Network

A third factor, shaped powerfully by both the secular love of government and the white guilt factor just discussed, is the incomprehensibly unprofessional way the news media have behaved during the 2008 election.

In my estimation, we basically don't have a free press in America any more, other than the "New Media" – that is, talk radio, the Internet and some cable TV. Most of the rest of the establishment media have pretty much committed suicide this year.

Get David Kupelian's best-selling exposé, "The Marketing of Evil," autographed, from WorldNetDaily.

Just imagine that radical activist groups like the ACLU or the strident abortion outfit NARAL decided to start up their own "news organizations," complete with broadcast "anchor people," "reporters" and "correspondents," as well as newspapers and news websites and so on – and with a straight face they called their output "news." Everybody would laugh. Why? Because, while it would have the familiar form of news, it would of course just have the substance of their radical propaganda. No one would take it seriously.

This is exactly what we have in the so-called "mainstream press" today. The New York Times and NBC News, for example, are not true news organizations any more. They've become political and cultural activist organizations pretending to do news. And after having dropped all pretense at fairness this year, everyone knows it. This is why they're more concerned about Joe the plumber's tax bill than about the election being stolen by ACORN – because the elite media have become nothing more nor less than the propaganda ministry and attack dogs for Barack Obama.

Obama, the Manchurian candidate

In the classic 1962 movie thriller "The Manchurian Candidate," a man was programmed by communist handlers, and then emerged into the public arena as a hero, with a largely manufactured history, large parts of which were either obscured or changed. Then he was planted into a position of great influence, having been programmed to usher in tremendous change at the appointed time.

Barack Obama was programmed for years by his atheist, Muslim father, by the communist sex pervert Frank Marshall Davis, by con man Tony Rezko, by domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and others – most of all by black liberation theology screamer Jeremiah Wright. Obama's resume is largely manufactured. There is a total blackout on his college years. His campaign obscures what he did as a "community organizer." All his radical associations are denied or minimized. His miserable legislative record (voting "present" over 100 times to avoid taking a stand), his lack of achievement, his radical views and so on – all have been laundered through the magic of public relations into the near-sacred saga of "The One" who has been sent to serve, and to save, America.

Yet, as I have documented previously, John McCain rendered more genuine service to his country each and every day of those five-and-a-half years he endured in a North Vietnamese prison than Barack Obama has in his entire life.

In "The Manchurian Candidate," several war heroes came back to America from abroad. But one of them harbored a dark agenda, lying in wait, secretly, until it could emerge and transform America.

America has a choice Tuesday between a genuine war hero and a genuine Manchurian candidate.

Choose well.

Al-Qaida sites show support for Obama

By Ryan Mauro

The call this week by an al-Qaida leader for Allah to "humiliate" President Bush and the Republican Party in Tuesday's election was not the first tacit endorsement of Democrat Barack Obama by the terrorist network.

A contributor to a major al-Qaida website last week said the terrorist group will "let the Democrats win the presidential elections, and Obama will take it," according to Joseph Shahda, an Arabic translator

who monitors radical Islamic websites.

Obama's "goal is to withdraw from Iraq" over a period of time, but "he will be forced to withdraw his forces from Iraq at a much earlier time," said the Oct. 23 post, written under the name "Wissam" on the Al-Hesbah website. Shahda first posted his translation on the popular forum FreeRepublic.com.

Shahada told WND the Al-Hesbah website is one of four main al-Qaida-related forums.

"Overall there are many more posters on these forums who want McCain defeated, because they want Obama to withdraw the U.S. troops from Iraq so the terrorists will claim victory," Shahda said.

The Oct. 23 post also called for launching a "crushing strike" after the election.

Shahda explained that all al-Qaida press releases, videos, audios and speeches are first posted on the terrorist forums.

He noted that a Q&A session in January with al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was based on questions posed by contributors to the four major websites.

In the video released Thursday, an al-Qaida leader believed to be living in Afghanistan or Pakistan, Abu Yahya al-Libi, declared, "O Allah, humiliate Bush and his party, O Lord of the Worlds, degrade and defy him."

Libi also called for the wrath of Allah to be brought against Bush, equating him with past tyrants, according to Reuters.

The title of a Washington Post story Oct. 22 suggested the forums indicated significant al-Qaida support for John McCain.

But the story, "On Al-Qaeda Web Sites, Joy Over U.S. Crisis, Support for McCain," cited only one posting declaring a Republican victory would benefit the terrorist network.

"Al-Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming election," the Post quoted from the website posting, which also stated an attack around the time of the election could help McCain win.

"It will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida will then succeed in exhausting America," it said.

But Shahda said many postings on the Al-Hesbah website mocked the Washington Post article.

"Members were making fun of the Washington Post for not distinguishing between a member's opinion and an al-Qaida official statement," he said.

Shahda said that in addition to the Oct. 23 post stating al-Qaida will let Democrats win, there have been previous comments on al-Qaida-linked Internet forums speaking in favor of Obama that the media has not covered.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

A Marriage of Convenience: Obama, the Left and Radical Islam

As we enter the home stretch of the 2008 presidential election, new revelations about Barack Obama’s harshly critical views of the U.S. Constitution for not providing for wealth distribution have again raised concerns as to whether the American people may be about to elect the first radical Leftist if not outright socialist president in the republic’s history. This hugely troubling possibility, were it to happen, would mark yet another historical watershed that’s mentioned less often – the de facto alliance between the Left and radical Islam in American politics.
The discussion of Islam, to the extent that is mentioned at all in the campaign, has mostly been limited to a rather inconclusive debate in the blogosphere as to whether Obama is a Muslim or not, and a more substantive, if suppressed by the mainstream media, discussion of Senator Obama’s questionable ties to radical Islamists and anti-Semites. The latter has provided more than enough empirical evidence to at least give a pause to a dispassionate observer as to Obama’s pious assertions of his dedication to the struggle against Islamic extremism and friendship for Israel. Without going into too much detail, these connections include well-documented close ties with Black Panther mentor-turned-radical Muslim and Wahhabi stooge, Khalid al-Mansour (nee Don Warden); Nation of Islam hate-spewing, anti-white racist, Louis Farakhan; Columbia professor and apologist of Palestinian terrorism, Rashid Khalidi; and last, but not least, Salam Ibrahim, an alleged Taliban sympathizer and chairman of the defunct Chicago Shariah-finance company Sunrise Equities, who appears to have absconded with $80 million of his clients’ funds.
What all of these unsavory men have in common, apart from friendship with and admiration for Barack Obama, is their passionate dislike for the United States and their virulent anti-Semitism. This may not prove that Obama himself is an Islamist, an anti-Semite or an anti-American, it but it does show that, throughout his career, he has willingly associated with, and been mentored by, people who are. ....

Port of L.A. buys Chinese X-ray scanning system with U.S. taxpayer money

or the first time, a major U.S. port has purchased a sophisticated high-energy X-ray scanning system from a Chinese manufacturer, and it is paying for it with a $1.7 million port security grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The Port of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest, has procured a mobile X-ray scanning system, mounted on a Mack truck chassis, which was manufactured by a Chinese company called Nuctech Company Limited, headquartered in Beijing, whose president happens to be the son of the President of the People’s Republic of China. The Nuctech equipment will be used by the port police to inspect trucks delivering food, groceries and other supplies to cruise ships that are scheduled to depart from the busy West Coast port. ....

Erica Jong Tells Italians Obama Loss 'Will Spark thQaeda wants Republicans, Bush "humiliated": Web video

DUBAI (Reuters) - An al Qaeda leader has called for President George W. Bush and the Republicans to be "humiliated," without endorsing a party in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, according to an Internet video posting.

"O God, humiliate Bush and his party, O Lord of the Worlds, degrade and defy him," Abu Yahya al-Libi said at the end of sermon marking the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, in a video posted on the Internet. ....

Voter machine erratically switches selection

By Chelsea Schilling

A new video showing a W. Va. voting machine erratically switching votes is getting international attention – with nearly 400,000 hits on YouTube.

A Berkeley, Calif., organization, Video The Vote, recently recorded Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright attempting to illustrate the reliability of voting machines, saying he was unable to reproduce a reported vote-switching problem.

"We are totally transparent around here," he said. "We welcome anyone who would like to see how the machines operate and how the machines function."

The organization was attempting to prove Democratic Party votes automatically switch to Republican candidates, but the video showed something entirely different.

Waybright began with an uncalibrated machine to prove his point. When he selected Barack Obama, the machine jumped to Chuck Baldwin. He tried again, and it took him to a screen for voters to write in a candidate. The same selection took him to Chuck Baldwin again.

When he selected a straight Democratic Party ticket, the machine chose John McCain. He selected a straight Republican ticket, and it voted for John McCain.

Such problems were to be expected on uncalibrated equipment. ....

Supremes asked to halt Tuesday's vote

(Compiler's note: This is a must read if there ever was one!! rca)

from WorldNetDaily

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to help the nation avoid a constitutional crisis by halting Tuesday's election until Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama documents his eligibility to run for the top office in the nation.

Democratic attorney Philip Berg had filed a lawsuit alleging Obama is ineligible to be president because of possible birth in Kenya, but as WND reported, a federal judge dismissed the complaint claiming Berg lacks standing to bring the action.


Philip J. Berg

The 34-page memorandum that accompanied the court order from Judge R. Barclay Surrick concluded ordinary citizens can't sue to ensure that a presidential candidate actually meets the constitutional requirements of the office.

Instead, Surrick said Congress could determine "that citizens, voters, or party members should police the Constitution's eligibility requirements for the Presidency," but that it would take new laws to grant individual citizens that ability.

"Until that time," Surrick says, "voters do not have standing to bring the sort of challenge that Plaintiff attempts to bring."


Berg has maintained that uncertainty about how the U.S. does enforce the requirements of presidency may result in a constitutional crisis should an ineligible candidate win the office.

In a statement today, Berg said he is applying to Justice David Souter for an "Immediate Injunction to Stay the Presidential Election of November 4, 2008."

"I am hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court will grant the injunction pending a review of this case to avoid a Constitutional crisis by insisting that Obama produce certified documentation that he is or is not a "natural born" citizen and if he cannot produce documentation that Obama be removed from the ballot for president," Berg said.

"We must legally prevent Obama, the unqualified candidate, from taking the office of the presidency of the United States," Berg said.

The issue of Obama's eligibility first got traction among Internet bloggers and later was heightened when several campaigns were launched to determine whether a "certificate of live birth" posted on the Internet by the Obama campaign was valid.

The issue gained more attention when Berg told radio talk show icon Michael Savage he had an admission from Obama's grandmather that she was at his birth – in Kenya.

"This is a question of who has standing to stand up for our Constitution," Berg told Jeff Schreiber of America's Right blog. "If I don't have standing, if you don't have standing, if your neighbor doesn't have standing to ask whether or not the likely next president of the United States

– the most powerful man in the entire world – is eligible to be in that office in the first place, then who does?"

As WND reported, Berg filed suit in U.S. District Court in August, alleging Obama is not a natural-born citizen and is thus ineligible to serve as president of the United States. Berg demanded that Obama provide documentation to the court to verify that the candidate was born in Hawaii, as Obama contends, and not in Kenya, as Berg believes.

Nouriel Roubini to Congress: Pass Stimulus ASAP

by Luke Mullins

New York University Prof. Nouriel Roubini—Dr. Doom himself—was slated to testify at a congressional hearing Thursday about the economic outlook and the need for a second stimulus package.

Here's what he told lawmakers in his written testimony:

The U.S. is currently in a severe recession that will be deeper, longer and more protracted than previous U.S. recessions. The last two economic recessions—in 1990-91 and 2001—lasted each 8 months and the cumulative fall in GDP from peak through the through was only 1.3% in the 1990-91 contraction and 0.4% in the 2001 contraction. In a typical U.S. recession in the post-WWII period GDP falls by an average of 2% and the recession lasts 10 months. The current economic contraction—that my analysis dates as having started in the first quarter of 2008 will last through the fourth quarter of 2009 with a cumulative fall in GDP of the order of about 4% that is even larger than the worst post-WWII recession (the one in 1957-68 when the GDP fall was 3.7%).

Since most components of private aggregate demand are sharply falling right now (private consumption, residential investment, non-residential investment in structures, capex spending by the corporate sector on software and machinery) a major additional fiscal stimulus is necessary to reduces the depth and length of the current economic contraction. And since direct tax incentives have not been effective in boosting consumption and capex spending (as worried households and firm are retrenching their spending) the new round of fiscal stimulus will have to take the form of direct government spending on goods and services (preferably productive investment in infrastructures) and provision to income to those agents in the economy more likely to spend it (block grants to state and local governments, increased unemployment benefits to unemployed workers, etc.).

Given the size of the expected contraction in private aggregate demand (likely to be about $450 billion in 2009 relative to 2008) a fiscal stimulus of the order of $300 billion minimum (and possibly as large as $400 billion) will be necessary to partially compensate for the sharp fall in private aggregate demand.

This fiscal stimulus should be voted on and spent as soon as possible as delay will make the economic contraction even more severe. A stimulus package legislated only February or March of next year when the new Congress comes back will be too late as the contraction of private aggregate demand will be extremely sharp in the next few months. Such policy action should be legislated right away—in a "lame duck" session right after the election—to ensure that the actual spending is undertaken rapidly in the next few months.

Ex-CIA Expert: Obama Took Millions in Illegal Foreign Donations

(Compiler's note: We see here a "global community organizer" at work. rca)

By:
Kenneth R. Timmerman

A Newsmax investigation of Obama/Biden campaign contributors, undertaken in conjunction with a private investigative firm headed by a former CIA operations officer, has identified 118 donors who appear to lack U.S. citizenship.

Some of these “red flag” donors work for foreign governments; others have made public statements declaring that they are citizens of Cameroun, Nigeria, Pakistan, Canada, and other countries.

A Newsmax sampling of about 3,400 donors also found hundreds more who showed “yellow flags” such as not having used a Social Security number or a known U.S. address. Most U.S.-born citizens are issued Social Security numbers at birth or by the time they enter kindergarten.

Under federal law, only U.S. citizens or permanent residents may donate to federal political campaigns. It is illegal for the campaigns to accept money knowingly from foreign donors.

The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill of 2002 placed new restrictions on political fundraising after the scandals of 1996, when the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign was exposed for having taken millions of dollars of unregulated soft money from donors with ties to Chinese military intelligence.

But even with the new laws, it remains very difficult to identify with any precision foreign money if a campaign itself does not cooperate with the Federal Election Commission and perform its own due diligence.

Until very recently, the Obama campaign had no safeguards in its online fundraising Web site designed to weed out foreign donors. Instead, its operations appeared to be designed specifically to enhance the flow of illegal money.

The Newsmax investigation focused only on donors whose names the Obama campaign disclosed, which are available to public scrutiny through the Federal Election Commission Web site.

In addition to the donations the campaign has disclosed, however, it has taken an unprecedented $218 million from donors whose names it is keeping secret, according to FEC spokesman Robert Biersack.

That money came from individuals who in theory never passed the threshold of $200, the limit the FEC set for public disclosure of a donor’s name and place of residence, so there is no way of knowing how much foreign money could be included in that amount.

For example, hidden away amidst the unprecedented $150 million Obama claims to have raised from individual donors in September was more than $42 million raised from secret donors. These donations appear in the records as a single entry under the heading, “Donors, Unitemized.”

Newsmax retained the services of former CIA operations officer Frederick W. Rustmann Jr. and a team of international forensic accounting experts to comb through Obama’s donor list to identify those who apparently aren’t U.S. citizens or residents. Rustmann, a 24 year veteran field officer, operates CTC International Group Ltd., a West Palm Beach, Fla., firm that provides business intelligence services and analysis.

Using sophisticated Internet search tools, fee-based data bases, and other public records, CTC attempted to identify Social Security numbers and U.S. addresses connected to the Obama donors. Most of these donors gave obvious overseas addresses when they made their donations, but the Obama campaign had no security screen to detect them.

Hillary and McCain demanded proof of citizenship of all their donors,” Rustmann said. “Obama did not, so he benefitted by receiving an enormous amount of money from foreign donors who wanted to influence the U.S. election process.”

Rustmann and his investigative team expressed “high suspicions” that 118 donors flagged as “red” were not U.S. citizens.

“That’s all we can say for certain, because it’s difficult to prove citizenship with no database that lists citizens,” Rustmann said.

Typical is Victor A. of Lagos, Nigeria, who gave $500 to the campaign in May. In the FEC database, his address is listed as Ikoyi, NA. But a closer look at the actual itemized receipts filed by the campaign shows that he declared his address as 9e Awori Street Dolphin Estate, Lagos, Nigeria.

That apparently slipped by the eagle eyes of the Obama campaign’s finance team.

A survey of the Obama donor base returns 8,794 donations from individuals who gave their state as “NA.” They included donors from Bangalore, India; London; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Lagos, Nigeria; and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Thousands more gave state abbreviations that, combined with the city addresses they listed, clearly referred to foreign countries. Examples include IT (Italy), FR (France), GR (Greece), NZ (New Zealand), JP (Japan), GA (Gaza).

Another 2,372 donors gave their state of residence as “ZZ,” with cities including Moscow, Barcelona, Beirut, London, Lausanne, Singapore, Hagatna, Gunma-Ken, Buelach, Shanghai, Geneva, Prague, Aichi-Gun, Kiev, Hong Kong, and others.

The Obama campaign claims that these donors with overseas addresses are Americans living abroad, but there is no way of knowing that for certain because the campaign has not systematically required proof of citizenship from overseas donors.

The pace of foreign donations and other questionable fundraising practices has increased during the past few weeks, even as Obama campaign spokesmen say they have closed loopholes on their Web site and changed the credit-card authorization procedures that have allowed such donations. The Federal Election Commission had flagged 16,639 potential foreign donations as of Oct. 21 that brought in $5,249,263.96 to the campaign.

Take the case of Jo Jacquet, who gave $23,065 to Obama in 23 separate contributions last month. CTC found three people with variations of the name “Jo Anna Jacquet” who had U.S. addresses and Social Security numbers. It is not clear whether this specific Obama donor is a U.S. citizen.

“Jo Jacquet” made all of her contributions on two days, alternating between $5 and $2,300 charges to a credit card.

On all of the donations, she gave her employer as “DFDFGDFG,” and her profession as “DFGDFGDFGHFGH.” None of this attracted the suspicions of the Obama campaign or of Chase Paymentech, the company that processes the Obama campaign’s credit card donations.

The FEC requested that the Obama campaign re-attribute or re-designate all of the money from “Jo Jacquet” that went beyond the $4,600 limit but did not require that it be refunded. Under campaign finance rules, the campaign can shift this money into the “Obama Victory” account, a joint fundraising committee with much higher individual limits that it operates with the Democratic National Committee.

One apparent reason for the unusual number of foreign donors who may not hold U.S. citizenship is the fact the Obama campaign turned off the security features most merchants demand for customers when doing online transactions, such as verifying the card number against the cardholder’s name and billing address.

Another major loophole is the apparent widespread use of gift cards, which notoriously have been used for money-laundering purposes, especially in places such as Russia and Ukraine, industry security analysts tell Newsmax.

Newsmax asked James Wester, a spokesman for Chase Paymentech, who was responsible for taking the unusual step of deactivating the Address Verification Service recommended by VISA USA on the Obama Web site. Such security features can be deactivated by the processing company, or at the request of the merchant, in this case, Obama for America.

Wester said that Paymentech was “not going to be issuing a statement at this time.”

VISA USA has a series of verification tools it recommends to online merchants to prevent online credit card fraud and to guarantee the security of personal credit-card information.

Fraudsters have been known to test credit card numbers by making online donations to charitable organizations,” a credit-card industry insider told Newsmax, on condition of anonymity.

In fact, by operating as a “high-risk merchant,” the Obama campaign could put both its donors and Chase Paymentech at risk, he said.

“A legitimate online merchant or charity would call in the Secret Service or the FBI” if it saw the high fraud rates that have appeared on the Obama campaign Web site.

“If they are not taking basic security safeguards to prevent such obvious online fraud as you have found, then how can any donor have confidence that they will protect credit card information? But if cash flow is the name of the game, it doesn’t matter as long as they get the money up-front and get the job done. They can pay the fines later,” he added.

Following are a few of the individuals the Newsmax/CTC International investigation found of overseas donors. To demonstrate its compliance with FEC regulations, the Obama campaign should request proof that these individuals are, indeed, U.S. citizens;

  • Nasser Z. of 187 Blvd Bineau in Paris-France, “NA,” made seven donations totaling $785. CTC found no record indicating U.S. citizenship. But on Nasser’s personal blog, he states that he is of Algerian origin and lives between Paris and Dubai. He also notes that he is not registered to vote in the United States and hints that he may be an adviser to the Obama campaign on Arab relations.

  • Salem H. gave $200 to the campaign in March 2008, listing a London address. He said he worked as a salesman for “Anaka,” No information was found either on Haffar or his company indicating U.S. citizenship.

  • Essomba H. made 11 donations totaling $265. Essomba gave an address in Lyon, “NA,” and said he was unemployed but working for “Association,” the French equivalent of a community organizer. CTC found that Essomba actually worked for PDT Associates Afrikespace et Oyenga, which showed him as living in Lyon, France. His personal blog states, "I'm a Cameroonian living in France” and notes that he is not registered to vote.

  • Gedewon (or Gideon) G. made 32 donations totaling $1,095. Although he lists his employer as “Filtom Design Services” and his residence as Toronto, Canada, CTC could find no company with that name. Gedewon frequently posts blogs to a Web site for expatriate Eritreans, where he often promotes Obama.

  • Mahamane M. gave $500 to the campaign and listed his address as Niamey, the capitol of the central African state of Niger. He listed his occupation as managing director of C.N.U.T. Niger. The Public Transport Users Council, CNUT is affiliated with the prime minister’s office. In an interview, Mahamane said he is particularly interested in developing transportation resources that will help bring Niger’s extensive uranium resources to market.

  • Gilles M. lives in Zurich and claims to be “founder and senior consultant” of 4?ME (sic) Image Consulting. Gilles made three donations to the campaign for a total of $240.39. The campaign found him suspicious enough to return one of them in July, but kept the rest. Under FEC rules, that will bring Gilles back into the shadows, since his aggregate contributions now total less than $200.

  • Stamen S. of Sofia, Bulgaria, lists his profession as “Mployer” and his employer as "Employer." He has made ten donations totaling $170. CTC found no record indicating U.S. citizenship.

  • Francis B. . of La Creche, France, made three donations totaling $200. He is reported as being a medicine physician at Hospital-Niort and is listed. CTC found no verifiable record of U.S. citizenship.

  • Pedro M.,. who said he was a salesman for Intermundo in Prague, made two donations for a total of $900. CTC found no verifiable record indicating U.S. citizenship.

  • Sandeep M., . an investment manager at Clariden Leu, Kuesnacht, in Zurich, Switzerland, gave the maximum $2,300 allowed per election. CTC found no verifiable record indicating U.S. citizenship.

  • Marissa M., . a nurse living in Guatemala City, gave eight $25 donations. CTC found no verifiable record indicating U.S. citizenship.

  • Somine L. . declared that she worked at the French Ministry of Culture in Paris, and donated $100. CTC found no verifiable record indicating U.S. citizenship.

    Although CTC had no way of accurately evaluating the real amount of foreign donations based on the survey they did for Newsmax, Rustmann said he believe that the anecdotal evidence was clear.

    In my opinion, from what I have seen here, millions of dollars came from illegal donations, because the Obama campaign did little to vet the donors,” Rustmann said.

    An earlier Newsmax estimate, based on the unusual occurrence of unrounded contributions, which fundraising experts attributed to foreign currency donations, concluded that as much as $63 million could have come from foreign sources.

    A veteran investigator with the Criminal Investigative Division of the U.S. Secret Service told Newsmax on Monday that most of the donor fraud Newsmax has identified could fly under the radar of federal investigators, unless the feds received a complaint from a victim of identify fraud.

    Identify fraud certainly appeared to be the case when it came to the $174,800 donated in September in the name of Manchester, Mo., resident, Mary T. Biskup. A retired insurance manager, Biksup told The Washington Post that she never gave the money to the Obama campaign, and had checked her credit-card statements and couldn’t find any trace of a charge to her account.

    “We're not out a penny," Biskup said. "I gather that someone has hacked into something using other people's credit cards and putting my name on it."

    The credit-card industry often covers up identify fraud, such as apparently occurred with Biskup. Credit-card companies would rather swallow losses and chargebacks than admit to consumers that criminals have cracked their security systems, insiders tell Newsmax.

  • McCain Wants `Can-Do' Spies; Obama to Separate Agency, Politics

    By Jeff Bliss


    Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- John McCain and Barack Obama agree that the next president needs to shake up U.S. spy operations. That's where the similarity ends.

    McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has called the Central Intelligence Agency ``dysfunctional'' and wants to create a ``small, nimble, can-do'' espionage organization for bolder clandestine missions, modeled on World War II's Office of Strategic Services.

    ``What he's looking at is something that doesn't have the internal bureaucracy'' of the current spy network, says Kori Schake, a McCain adviser and former National Security Council aide to President George W. Bush.

    Obama, the Democratic candidate, proposes to make the current system more effective, and free from political interference, by consolidating operations from different agencies and giving the director of national intelligence a fixed term of office, like the Federal Reserve chairman.

    The top U.S. intelligence official ``really shouldn't be involved in the political process,'' says John Brennan, former acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center and an Obama adviser. A fixed term also would ``ensure there is going to be continuity through presidents,'' he says.

    Whoever wins Nov. 4, the next president must overhaul a $47.5 billion intelligence effort, spread through 16 agencies, that's still struggling seven years after failing to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks and six years after wrongly concluding that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

    Layers of Bureaucracy

    The latest challenge involves revamping a 2004 law that was supposed to repair flaws exposed by 9/11 and Iraq, national security analysts say. The law established a new office led by a director of national intelligence, or DNI, to oversee the CIA and other intelligence operations. So far, the law has added a layer of bureaucracy without giving the director -- currently former National Security Agency Director Mike McConnell -- enough authority over agencies' budgets, national security analysts say.

    ``The DNI is still very much a work in progress, and a lot people are thinking it's not working,'' says Mark Lowenthal, former CIA assistant director for analysis and production. The next president must get it right, because U.S. spies face an array of threats besides terrorists and hostile countries like Iran and North Korea, advisers from both campaigns say.

    Intelligence agencies, for example, will have to help future administrations respond if global warming creates famines or water shortages that, in turn, generate civil unrest and terrorism, Brennan says.

    Energy Security

    The U.S. reliance on foreign oil will need to be factored into military and intelligence planning even more than it has in the past because of shrinking supplies, says McCain adviser James Woolsey, a former CIA director. ``Energy policy has a lot to do with national security,'' he says.

    McCain, 72, wants to use the OSS, the CIA's predecessor, as the model for a modern-day agency for covert action, psychological warfare, and paramilitary operations. He has said he wants a group that will ``take risks that our bureaucracies today are afraid to take,'' such as sending agents to infiltrate terrorist groups.

    Under the Republican's proposal, the organization would recruit college professors, business executives and first- generation immigrants who could work quickly and aggressively, advisers say.

    Agents would be placed without diplomatic cover in enemy countries and militant organizations, a change from CIA undercover operatives who mostly work out of U.S. embassies and have diplomatic immunity if caught, McCain says.

    `Rogue' Agency

    The Arizona senator has been a critic of the CIA, even calling it a ``rogue'' agency and charging that intelligence officials leaked information detrimental to Bush's 2004 re- election campaign.

    Some intelligence professionals think McCain's plan would only add to the intelligence bureaucracy and duplicate current efforts, Lowenthal says. ``If you start creating a parallel structure, you might create more confusion,'' he says.

    McCain seeks to expand parts of the CIA, increasing the espionage and covert-operation division by 50 percent and doubling the staff for research and development. Those steps were recommended by the Robb-Silberman Commission, a panel McCain served on that was established after botched intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs.

    McCain also wants to beef up the Federal Bureau of Investigation as an intelligence-gathering organization. ``The FBI hasn't fully become part of the intelligence community,'' Schake says.

    Playing Politics

    Obama, 47, aims to keep U.S. spies from playing politics, after some intelligence officials were charged with telling Bush administration policy makers what they wanted to hear during the run-up to the Iraq War.

    A Defense Department intelligence unit run by former Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith undercut other intelligence agencies in arguing for a link between former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, according to a Pentagon inspector general's report last year.

    Appointing the national intelligence director for a specific period, like the Federal Reserve chairman's four-year term, would help promote unvarnished analysis by removing a president's ability to fire the spy chief at will, Obama says.

    To improve the quality of intelligence analysis, Obama proposes hiring more spies and analysts who know the local cultures and languages of world hotspots, and having spy agencies develop competing assessments of those regions.

    Obama's plan includes a $5 billion, three-year program to foster cooperation between U.S. and foreign intelligence and law- enforcement agencies on sharing tips, guarding borders and uncovering terrorist financing.

    Overlapping Operations

    Obama also will look for ways to consolidate overlapping intelligence operations, Brennan says. One target may be the director of national intelligence's 1,500-person staff, which lawmakers have criticized as duplicating work at other agencies.

    Democrats also would consider merging FBI and Department of Homeland Security intelligence offices across the U.S. that share information with state and local law enforcement officials, Brennan says. Too often, the ``cop on the beat in New York City,'' border agents and others don't get vital intelligence because the information-sharing effort isn't better coordinated, he says.

    Whatever changes come under Obama or McCain, the next administration needs to be careful not to diminish the U.S. spying network's capabilities, says Loch Johnson, a political science professor at the University of Georgia in Athens who has written extensively about intelligence.

    ``The intel community does need to be small and more nimble,'' he says. ``But the U.S. is a world power'' and needs a massive spying effort.