Holiday Sales Drop to Force Bankruptcies, Closings (Update4)

Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. retailers face a wave of store closings, bankruptcies and takeovers starting next month as holiday sales are shaping up to be the worst in 40 years.

Retailers may close 73,000 stores in the first half of 2009, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. Talbots Inc. and Sears Holdings Corp. are among chains shuttering underperforming locations. ....

As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

By ANDREW OSBORN

MOSCOW -- For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.

Igor Panarin

In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it's his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin's views also fit neatly with the Kremlin's narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur," he says. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario -- for Russia." Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

In addition to increasing coverage in state media, which are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Mr. Panarin's ideas are now being widely discussed among local experts. He presented his theory at a recent roundtable discussion at the Foreign Ministry. The country's top international relations school has hosted him as a keynote speaker. During an appearance on the state TV channel Rossiya, the station cut between his comments and TV footage of lines at soup kitchens and crowds of homeless people in the U.S. The professor has also been featured on the Kremlin's English-language propaganda channel, Russia Today.

Mr. Panarin's apocalyptic vision "reflects a very pronounced degree of anti-Americanism in Russia today," says Vladimir Pozner, a prominent TV journalist in Russia. "It's much stronger than it was in the Soviet Union."

Mr. Pozner and other Russian commentators and experts on the U.S. dismiss Mr. Panarin's predictions. "Crazy ideas are not usually discussed by serious people," says Sergei Rogov, director of the government-run Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, who thinks Mr. Panarin's theories don't hold water.

Mr. Panarin's résumé includes many years in the Soviet KGB, an experience shared by other top Russian officials. His office, in downtown Moscow, shows his national pride, with pennants on the wall bearing the emblem of the FSB, the KGB's successor agency. It is also full of statuettes of eagles; a double-headed eagle was the symbol of czarist Russia.

The professor says he began his career in the KGB in 1976. In post-Soviet Russia, he got a doctorate in political science, studied U.S. economics, and worked for FAPSI, then the Russian equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency. He says he did strategy forecasts for then-President Boris Yeltsin, adding that the details are "classified."

In September 1998, he attended a conference in Linz, Austria, devoted to information warfare, the use of data to get an edge over a rival. It was there, in front of 400 fellow delegates, that he first presented his theory about the collapse of the U.S. in 2010.

"When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise," he remembers. He says most in the audience were skeptical. "They didn't believe me."

At the end of the presentation, he says many delegates asked him to autograph copies of the map showing a dismembered U.S.

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls "The Californian Republic," and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of "The Texas Republic," a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an "Atlantic America" that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls "The Central North American Republic." Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

"It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time." A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. "It's not there for no reason," he says with a sly grin.

Interest in his forecast revived this fall when he published an article in Izvestia, one of Russia's biggest national dailies. In it, he reiterated his theory, called U.S. foreign debt "a pyramid scheme," and predicted China and Russia would usurp Washington's role as a global financial regulator.

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama "can work miracles," he wrote. "But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

The article prompted a question about the White House's reaction to Prof. Panarin's forecast at a December news conference. "I'll have to decline to comment," spokeswoman Dana Perino said amid much laughter.

For Prof. Panarin, Ms. Perino's response was significant. "The way the answer was phrased was an indication that my views are being listened to very carefully," he says.

The professor says he's convinced that people are taking his theory more seriously. People like him have forecast similar cataclysms before, he says, and been right. He cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd. Mr. Todd is famous for having rightly forecast the demise of the Soviet Union -- 15 years beforehand. "When he forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976, people laughed at him," says Prof. Panarin.

Learning from Japan: Infrastructure Spending Won't Boost the Economy

(Compiler's note -- source a friend: Exerpts here—complete paper below, with source.

Although the benefits of a costly, infrastructure-focused stimulus package based on massive gov­ernment spending may be intuitively attractive, past evidence suggests that the impact of govern­ment spending programs that are intended to encourage economic growth is very modest and unlikely to enhance recovery or deter recession. As noted above, the Japanese government imple­mented such a program during the 1990s, and the consequence was two decades of economic stagna­tion. Less ambitious infrastructure stimulus pro­grams have been implemented in the United States over the past few decades, and numerous indepen­dent and government studies have concluded that these programs had little impact on economic activity or jobs.

It is worth remembering that the New Deal of the 1930s substantially and permanently increased the scope of the federal government as Congress and the President attempted to spend their way out of the Depression. After the stock market collapse in 1929, the Hoover Administration increased federal spending by 47 percent over the following three years. As a result, federal spending increased from 3.4 percent of GDP in 1930 to 6.9 percent in 1932 and reached 9.8 percent by 1940. That same year-- 10 years into the Great Depression--America's unemployment rate stood at 14.6 percent.

It is important to recognize that our infrastruc­ture and the continued investment in it are impor­tant underpinnings of future economic growth and sustained prosperity. But it is equally important to recognize that the long-term nature of these bene­fits to cost-effective mobility and quality services, and the need to choose carefully among competing options and technologies, suggests that a stimulus scheme based on spending is ill-suited to the short-term stimulus needs that are of concern to policy­makers. Given current congressional practices, any stimulus package approved by Congress is certain to contain a host of projects that have nothing to do with prosperity and everything to do with political influence and current fashion.

Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.)

by Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D.

As the U.S. economy continues to deteriorate and has now entered a recession of uncertain magnitude, many in Congress, the media, and the business com­munity are pushing for a bold federally funded stimu­lus package that they claim will create jobs, raise incomes, and put the economy back on its path of positive economic growth. Not surprisingly, much of this advocacy stems from a nostalgic embrace of Pres­ident Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, imple­mented in the early 1930s in a failed effort to end the Great Depression that had its origin in the stock mar­ket collapse of October 1929.

Related to this sentimental longing for New Deal authenticity is the revival of the teachings of John Maynard Keynes, who postulated in his 1935 The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that "There is room...to promote investment and, at the same time, to promote consumption, not merely to the level which with the existing propensity to con­sume would correspond to the increased investment, but to a higher level still."[1] Subsequent generations of elected officials throughout the world took this obser­vation as a license to raid their treasuries, and no country could be sorrier for endorsing a primitive ver­sion of Keynes's teachings than the Japanese--who squandered vast sums of national wealth in a vain attempt at stimulus that cost them the chance to lead the world in economic growth and prosperity.[2]

New Deal Back in Vogue

Here in America, federal officials and lobbyists have raced back in time to embrace their own retro-Keynesian kitsch by passing H.R. 7110, the Job Cre­ation and Unemployment Relief Act of 2008, in September. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that this bill will cost $58.2 billion between 2009 and 2013.

More recently, President-elect Barack Obama announced his intention to propose a stimulus package composed of spending increases and tax reductions that may total between $500 billion and $1 trillion and that will include a substantial amount of money for infrastructure, an inexact term that includes the physical assets upon which everyone depends: telephone poles, school buildings, roads, electric wires, power-generation plants, waste-water treatment facilities, grist mills, reservoirs, etc. This focus stems in part from a belief that much of our infrastructure has deteri­orated and that a substantial investment in it is essential to long-term growth and prosper­ity while also providing jobs and profits in the present.

Not surprisingly, trade associations that repre­sent road, rail, and transit builders and operators have been aggressive in their advocacy of more infrastructure spending, promising tens of thou­sands of new jobs and vastly improved service in the future. The media have also joined in; The New York Times's Paul Krugman was one of many to make this case for more infrastructure spending when he urged recently that "[f]iscal expansion will be even better for America's future if a large part of the expansion takes the form of public investment--of building roads, repairing bridges and developing new technologies, all of which make the nation richer in the long run."[3]

Little Impact on Jobs or Growth

As The Heritage Foundation has noted in earlier reports, past infrastructure spending--especially related to transportation--has little to show in terms of countercyclical stimulus or job creation.[4] Much of this lackluster impact stems from the long lag time involved in getting such spending pro­grams up and running, as well as the propensity of the state and local governments to substitute federal money for already-committed state and local money in order to shift such funds to other purposes.[5]

In this regard, trade associations like the Ameri­can Association of State Highway and Transporta­tion Officials, which contend that there are more than 3,000 transportation projects ready to get started within 30 to 180 days, are most likely refer­ring to projects that are already funded. In this time of need, no sensible state government would waste the considerable costs associated with planning, permitting, engineering, and management in get­ting projects "ready to go" unless there were funds already available to start--and complete--them.

In making his pitch for more spending, Mr. Krugman perhaps anticipates that critics of his spending scheme might cite the example of Japan, whose reliance on bold infrastructure spending in the early 1990s led to the squandering of so much money on so many wasteful projects that the coun­try soon slipped from one the world's most prosper­ous nations to the status of a middling also-ran that has yet to recover from its mistake. Krugman attempts to create a parallel to New Deal timidity by arguing that "[i]n 1996-97 the Japanese govern­ment tried to balance its budget, cutting spending and raising taxes. And again the recession that fol­lowed led to a steep fall in private investment."

The Japanese Experience

In fact, Japanese fiscal policy during the 1990s was flamboyantly unrestrained, and during that decade no other advanced industrialized country had expanded government spending by nearly as much. Starting in 1991, government spending (outlays) in Japan accounted for just 31.6 percent of the nation's GDP--one of the lowest among members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).[6] That year also marked the high watermark of Japanese pros­perity: In 1991, Japan's per capita gross national income (as adjusted for purchasing power parity) reached 86 percent of the U.S. gross national per capita income, compared to the 66 percent Japan had reached in 1970--a remarkable achievement that only tax- and budget-cutting Ireland has achieved since then.

As the decade of the 1990s wore on, many other countries--especially in Europe--were paring back government spending to spur growth, but Japan was doing just the opposite. By 2000, its government outlays had jumped to 38.3 percent of GDP, while Canada had reduced its government's share from 52.3 percent in 1991 to 41.1 percent, and the United Kingdom had gone from 44 percent to 37.5 percent, to cite just a few of the many developed nations that were actively shrinking government over that period to bolster their private sectors.

While Krugman is correct in noting that Japan cut back spending in 1997 (to 35.1 percent from a 36.4 percent share of GDP), it soon shot up to around 38 percent, where it remains today. As a 2001 Heritage Foundation report noted, a substan­tial portion of Japan's stimulus spending was focused on infrastructure:[7]

Beginning in 1991-1992, Japan adopted the spending approach now advocated by many in the U.S. Congress when it embarked on a massive nationwide program of infrastruc­ture investment. Between 1992 and 2000, Japan implemented 10 separate spending stimulus packages in which public infra­structure investment was a major compo­nent. Excluding the 2000 program, for which final costs are not yet available, addi­tional spending on the infrastructure com­ponent alone amounted to 30.4 trillion yen, or $254 billion at the current exchange rate.

Cutting spending seems not to have deterred prosperity in most of the European countries that have done so since 1990, while the relative prosper­ity of the Japanese has been on the decline as gov­ernment spending has advanced. After peaking at 86 percent of U.S. income in 1991 and 1992, Japa­nese income continually fell behind the U.S., and by 2000, Japan's per capita gross national income had fallen to 73.7 percent of that of the U.S. despite the increased spending stimulus in Japan during the 1990s and into the 2000s. This decline in relative performance reflects the fact that the Japanese econ­omy grew at an annual rate of only 0.6 percent between 1992 and 2007. In 1991, only the United States, Austria, and Switzerland had higher per cap­ita incomes than Japan. By 2006 (the most recent OECD numbers), Japan's per capita income was surpassed by Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Holland, Switzerland, Sweden, and the U.S.[8]

Conclusion

Although the benefits of a costly, infrastructure-focused stimulus package based on massive gov­ernment spending may be intuitively attractive, past evidence suggests that the impact of govern­ment spending programs that are intended to encourage economic growth is very modest and unlikely to enhance recovery or deter recession. As noted above, the Japanese government imple­mented such a program during the 1990s, and the consequence was two decades of economic stagna­tion. Less ambitious infrastructure stimulus pro­grams have been implemented in the United States over the past few decades, and numerous indepen­dent and government studies have concluded that these programs had little impact on economic activity or jobs.

It is worth remembering that the New Deal of the 1930s substantially and permanently increased the scope of the federal government as Congress and the President attempted to spend their way out of the Depression. After the stock market collapse in 1929, the Hoover Administration increased federal spending by 47 percent over the following three years. As a result, federal spending increased from 3.4 percent of GDP in 1930 to 6.9 percent in 1932 and reached 9.8 percent by 1940. That same year-- 10 years into the Great Depression--America's unemployment rate stood at 14.6 percent.

It is important to recognize that our infrastruc­ture and the continued investment in it are impor­tant underpinnings of future economic growth and sustained prosperity. But it is equally important to recognize that the long-term nature of these bene­fits to cost-effective mobility and quality services, and the need to choose carefully among competing options and technologies, suggests that a stimulus scheme based on spending is ill-suited to the short-term stimulus needs that are of concern to policy­makers. Given current congressional practices, any stimulus package approved by Congress is certain to contain a host of projects that have nothing to do with prosperity and everything to do with political influence and current fashion.

Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

---

[1]John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (New York: A Harbinger Book, 1964 edition), p. 325.

[2]Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., "Lessons on How NOT to Stimulate the Economy," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 1495, October 22, 2001, pp. 3-6, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/BG1495.cfm. See also Amity Shlaes, "The Perils of a Cement Tsunami," The Washington Post, December 10, 2008, p. A25. at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/12/09/AR2008120902785.html.

[3]Paul Krugman, "Deficits and the Future," The New York Times, December 1, 2008, at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/opinion
/01krugman.html?pagewanted=print(December 16, 2008).

[4]Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., "More Transportation Spending: False Promises of Prosperity and Job Creation," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2121, April 2, 2008, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/budget/bg2121.cfm.

[5]Ibid., pp. 6-7.

[6]All subsequent data on incomes are from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Factbook 2008: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics--ISBN-92-64-04054-4, "Macroeconomic Trends--Gross Domestic product (GDP)" and "National Income Per Capita (U.S. dollars, current prices and PPPS)," while data on government spending shares come from OECD Economic Outlook 77, Annex Table 25: General Government Outlays.

[7]Utt, "Lessons on How NOT to Stimulate the Economy," p. 3.

[8]Luxembourg and Norway are excluded from these calculations because of anomalous economic factors that distort their data relative to those of other advanced nations.

Keeping Marines Off the Beach

by Norman Polmar

As the new administration takes office, the defense budget will come under extensive scrutiny. A recent editorial in The New York Times entitled "How to Pay for a 21st-Century Military" calls for a halt to the F-22 Raptor fighter, the DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer, SSN 688 Virginia-class submarines, and MV-22 Osprey programs, among others.

Some "big dollar" programs could be cut, in part to demonstrate the seriousness of the Obama administration to reform the U.S. military establishment. But there will be many programs at risk that have less visibility. One of the leading candidates for cancellation is the long-gestating Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), the advanced "amtrac" that has been under development for almost two decades.

The Marine Corps now has ten of the EFVs -- that designation being assigned in 2003 to replace the more prosaic but useful AAAV -- Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle, which in turn replaced the LVT -- Landing vehicle Tracked -- designation in 1982.

The EFV can carry 17 Marines on land or sea, at a speed up to 45 mph on land and about 25 knots at sea. The EFV’s range is 325 miles on land and 65 nautical miles at sea.

But those specifications are the "rub." How does the EFV fit into the Marines Corps concept of Operational Maneuver From The Sea (OMFTS)? That concept calls for launching an assault from 25 to 100 nautical miles from the objective -- which may be an inland location, such as an airfield, capital, or military base. Recent studies by the Defense Science Board (DSB) and Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC) call for amphibious ships to stand offshore at least 50 miles because of the threat of land-launched cruise missiles (as struck the Israeli frigate Hanit operating off the Lebanese coast in 2006).

Thus, launching an assault from 25 or more nautical miles offshore would see the assault troops flown in by MV-22 tilt-rotor STOVL aircraft and CH-46E and CH-53E helicopters, the former at more than 300 mph and the helicopters at more than 100 mph. And, of course, they could land troops on an inland objective.

Follow-up equipment that was not air landed would be brought ashore by Air Cushion Landing Craft (ACLC), with a new design being developed, and the few remaining LCU landing craft.

Where does the EFV fit in? It cannot be launched from more than about 30 miles offshore because of its limited waterborne range if it is to return to the launching ship; it could be launched farther out if it is to then climb ashore and operate as a personnel carrier. And, even at 30 miles the transit time would be more than an hour, or longer if the seas are rough. If too rough, of course, the EFVs could not be employed.

After the EFVs "hit the beach" they must then travel to the objective. At that point the troops will have been "in the box" for at least an hour. Once ashore, an EFV operating as a personnel carrier has the benefit of a relatively heavy gun armament -- a 30-mm cannon and 7.62-mm machine gun. But it will lack support from armored vehicles -- tanks or even the Marines’ valued LAV (Light Armored Vehicle) -- making the EFV particularly vulnerable to the widely proliferated anti-tank weapons found in the Third World.

The official cost of the EFV is $10 million per vehicle, with several hundred planned to replace the existing AAV-7 series. The total EFV force will not be fielded until at least 2020.

With some "bugs" still to be worked out after two decades of development and the high cost per vehicle, coupled with the operational limitations or at least questions about how the EFV fits into the OMFTS concept, the EFV must be considered a highly visible target for administration budget cutters.

Help Track Muslim Jihadists INSIDE the U.S.

(Compiler's note: A must read article)

From WorldNetDaily

.... Below you will find a special message from our dedicated friends at the Mapping Sharia Project.

An Islamic cleric recently proclaimed that suicide bombings against U.S. troops in Iraq were justified.

It might not surprise you to learn that these were the words of some fanatic Al Qaeda leader hiding in a cave in Pakistan, or a mullah indoctrinating students at a madrassa in Syria. But this was said by an imam in Texas.

That's right, this incendiary statement—advocating the killing of our soldiers—was made right here on American soil. And this Texas imam is hardly alone.

Across the United States, foreign-born clerics are using mosques as staging grounds to advocate violence against non-Muslims and the spread of Sharia, or Islamic law. While presenting themselves as pious spiritual leaders, Islamofascist scholars trained in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan are flooding onto our shores and inciting a young generation of American Muslims to plot the downfall of the Constitution and the rise of law based on the violent teachings of the Koran.

It's not too late to stop this surge of radical Islam on American shores. But in order to stop it, authorities need to know which organizations are advocating treason in our midst.

This is where the Mapping Sharia Project comes in.

While political correctness and red tape often prevent law enforcement from investigating groups allegedly supporting terrorist causes, our operatives are able to collect this important information from the most obvious source—the imams themselves.

At the Mapping Sharia Project, we send our trained field researchers in to meet with imams and learn their views directly from them. So far, we have visited over 200 Islamic centers across the country, and conducted legal interviews with these foreign scholars to learn firsthand what they're advocating.

In order to continue our efforts to document which organizations are advocating violence against non-Muslims, we need your help.

The Mapping Sharia Project is an independent organization that receives no government support. We depend on the support of concerned citizens like you to sustain the manpower and resources required to send our trained researchers out into the field to document how radical Islam is taking root in America.

Consider just a few examples that Mapping Sharia Project researchers have recently uncovered:

* In New York, Islamic leaders advocating putting weapons into the hands of gang members after they have been taught Islam.

* In Virginia, an Islamic leader near Virginia Tech informed our researcher he advocates Sharia law in the U.S., similar to Sudan. He also argued in favor of slaying anyone who does not adhere to "pure Islam."

* In Florida, Islamic leaders support killing non-Muslims and even Muslims who do not agree with their ideology of Sharia.

* In Texas, clerics informed our researchers how illegal funding is obtained in the U.S. and then transferred to foreign organizations in support of terrorist organizations.

Foreign clerics are sowing the seeds of radical Islam here in America. The War on Terror is not a foreign war being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Islamofascists have brought the battle to our own backyard. We need to know what they're planning.

The work being done by the concerned citizens at Mapping Sharia Project is critical for national security. We need your help to keep up our efforts to document the foreign nationals who have entered our country to preach hatred and convert young Americans to their evil cause.

The march of radical Islam can be stopped, but only if we know where it is going. Please help the Mapping Sharia Project continue its efforts to defend liberty.

Click Here to help the Mapping Sharia Project by making a contribution today.

P.S. "The Mapping Sharia Project is performing a critical mission," says Joseph Farah, editor and founder of WorldNetDaily.com. "With foreign-born jihadists on American soil preaching violence and seeking to undermine the Constitution, Mapping Sharia plays an invaluable role in identifying potentially dangerous organizations accused of terrorist ties. No one else is doing this work—not the FBI, not the police, not the Department of Homeland Security. So it's up to those of us who recognize the dangers to support the Mapping Shariah Project."

Over 60 per cent of Britain's Muslim schools have extremist links, says draft report

(Compiler's note: Must read -- We frequently refer you to what is happening in Great Britain because there we have a road map of what is coming to the United States, if we fail to act or choose to act as Great Britain has acted over the past 30 years. Seldom in life do we get the opportunity to see so clearly what does not work so that we can avoid replicating what does not work.

The bottom line is that Britain’s approach to dealing with the threat of radical Islam, no matter how well-intentioned, is proving to be an abject failure. Britain’s politically correct attempts to appease and accommodate Islamic militancy, in the hopes of mitigating radicalism and terrorism, are not only failing to mitigate those threats, they are accelerating them.

For instance, two different polls released over the past few years reveal that Britain’s Muslim population is increasingly clamoring for the imposition of Shariah law – which is now officially recognized in numerous cities across the country. These polls also reveal that second-generation Muslims, the children of the immigrants who came to Britain, are likely to be more radical than their parents.

The latest evidence of the failure of Britain’s approach is revealed in the commentary below.

As dangerous as Islamic terrorism is, to focus on that threat to the exclusion of the many ways that “cultural jihad” is being advanced in the West and here in America, is in itself dangerous. What will America be like in 30 years if we have 2,000 Islamic schools and madrassas in this country, a majority of which have links to extremists, teach extremist doctrines, and isolate their students from the world at large?

This is what the chilling study referred to below has found in Britain. This is cultural jihad at work. We are watching the transformation of Britain take place before our very eyes.

If we fail to act…or if we choose to act as Britain has…we are next.)

By Damian Thompson

Britain's Muslim schools have been sharply criticised in a controversial draft report commissioned by a leading think tank which suggests that over 60 per cent of them are linked to potentially dangerous Islamic fundamentalists.

An early version of the report, entitled When Worlds Collide, alleges that of the 133 Muslim primary and secondary schools it surveyed, 82 (61.6 per cent) have connections or direct affiliations to fundamentalists. The 133 schools are in the private sector but supposedly subject to Ofsted inspection.

The report also claims that some of these schools teach "repugnant" beliefs about the wickedness of Western society and Jews.

The claims in the report, written by Denis MacEoin in response to a commission from Civitas, will provoke ritual cries of "Islamophobia" from the Muslim Council of Britain and fellow travellers such as Koran Armstrong. MacEoin has been careful to back up his claims with evidence - in particular, screen captures of links to Islamic hate-mongers, including supporters of Al-Qaeda.

Civitas, however, is not prepared to endorse MacEoin's 61.6 per cent figure, which will not appear in the published version of When Worlds Collide. A spokesman for Civitas explains: "We want to concentrate on claims that are absolutely robust, rather than complicated material, some of it in Arabic, that might unjustly damage someone's reputation."

Perhaps the most alarming finding of the draft I've seen is that so many of these schools (including ones with no connections to political extremism) are bricking up their pupils behind a wall of Koranic injunctions and Sharia law.

The schools known as Darul Ulooms, which base their curriculum on a seventeenth-century Indian teaching system, include very few secular subjects, claims the report. It says: "Their aim is not to prepare pupils for life in the wider world, but to give them the tools for a more limited existence inside the Muslim enclaves."

The consequences for bright Muslim British girls are absolutely dire. Lively intellects are being destroyed and brilliant careers cut off before they can begin. To quote the report again: “Every year, an incalculable number of Muslim teenagers and young women are lost to the wider world that informs their citizenship.”

The numbers are increasing fast, and there is confusion over how many schools exist. The growth of non-Muslim schools, says MacEoin, is “hugely overshadowed by a rapidly growing sector of Muslim institutions. These now number 127 [sic] full-time schools and an estimated 700 part-time madrassas for intense religious instruction [and that doesn’t include the Darul Uloom seminaries] … Many recreate in the UK the style and content of schooling that can be found in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India.” Great.

And all this is happening with the implicit consent of the Government, Ofsted – and Christian leaders, who bang on about the threat to “faith schools” (and, in the case of R. Williams, the virtues of Sharia) while shielding their eyes from the evidence that many Muslim faith schools are poisonously anti-Christian.

I've seen many of the extremely damaging screen grabs on which MacEoin bases his claims. Memo to the Muslim Council of Britain: start lining up irate spokesmen now.

CIA Obstruction Stopped FBI from Uncovering 9/11

by Jane with The Jawa Report

Lawrence Wright is the author of The Looming Towers. This excellent article in the New Yorker focuses on the failure of the CIA to coordinate with the FBI in the USS Cole investigation, which lead to a failure to uncover the plans for 9/11.

Outside the scope of the article is the fact that all the Yemenis mentioned (and a dozen not mentioned) are free in Yemen including those convicted in Yemen of the Cole bombing. The exceptions are Nasheri, "Khalled" bin Attash and others who are in Gitmo. These Yemenis were in the inner core of bin Laden's group. Mostly everyone at the Malaysia meeting, where both the Cole and 9/11 were planned, are dead or in jail except for the Yemenis who were in Yemeni custody.

Although they are given benign descriptions in the MSM (and by the leftards) like Abu Jindal "driver" or al-Quso "failed photographer", these are persons involved in large-scale lethal al-Qaeda attacks against the US: the embassies, the Cole and 9/11. Factoring in the passage of a few years and protestations of rehabilitiation, statistically they continue to have a high likelihood of recidivism.

The New Yorker article is certainly worth a read.

Eligibility remains focus of Supremes' conferences

from WorldNetDaily

A second conference has been posted on the docket for the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue of Barack Obama's eligibility to occupy the White House, this one scheduled a week after Congress is to review the Electoral College vote tabulation.

The latest issue posted is a request for an injunction on the election results pending the resolution of a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by attorney Philip J. Berg, a case that is docketed for a similar conference among the justices on Jan. 9.

Berg's original case raises questions about Obama's eligibility and his injunction request first was filed early in December. It was submitted to and rejected by two different justices before it came before Justice Antonin Scalia on Dec. 18. Then just before Christmas the docket was updated to reflect that the motion had been "distributed for conference of January 16, 2009."

On Berg's Obama Crimes.org website, he said Congress is scheduled to hear the Electoral College results on Jan. 8. Then on Jan. 9 there's the conference scheduled on Berg's case itself, with the injunction issue to be addressed a week later.

WND has reported Berg's case, one of the first legal challenges to Obama's eligibility to reach the Supreme Court, alleges he cannot constitutionally be inaugurated.

"I know that Mr. Obama is not a constitutionally qualified natural born citizen and is ineligible to assume the office of president of the United States," Berg said in a statement on his ObamaCrimes.com website.

"Obama knows he is not 'natural born' as he knows where he was born and he knows he was adopted in Indonesia; Obama is an attorney, Harvard Law grad who taught Constitutional law; Obama knows his candidacy is the largest 'hoax' attempted on the citizens of the United States in over 200 years; Obama places our Constitution in a 'crisis' situation; and Obama is in a situation where he can be blackmailed by leaders around the world who know Obama is not qualified," Berg's statement continued.

"The Supreme Court has listed the case of Berg vs. Obama for 'conference' on January 9," the website said.

"I am appalled that the main stream media continues to ignore this issue as we are headed to a 'Constitution Crisis,'" Berg wrote. "There is nothing more important than our U.S. Constitution and it must be enforced. I am concerned that our courts have not yet decided to look into the merits of our allegations."

WND previously reported on a case brought by Cort Wrotnowski. It fell by the wayside when the justices heard about it in conference but refused to give it a further hearing. That was the same fate handed to a case brought by Leo Donofrio. Both challenged Obama on essentially the same issue: allegations that dual citizenship based on a father who was a British subject and a mother who was an American minor disqualified him for office.

Where's the proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S. or that he fulfills the "natural-born American" clause in the Constitution? If you still want to see it, join more than 190,000 others and sign up now!

The high court previously turned down a request from Berg to stop the Electoral College from selecting the 44th president until Obama documents his eligibility for the office.

As WND has reported, more than a dozen lawsuits have been filed over Obama's eligibility to assume the office of the president, many have been dismissed, while others remain pending.

The cases, in various ways, have alleged Obama does not meet the "natural born citizen" clause of the U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, which reads, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the legal challenges have alleged Obama was not born in Hawaii, as he insists, but in Kenya. Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. Such cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Several details of Obama's past have added twists to the question of his eligibility and citizenship, including his family's move to Indonesia when he was a child, his travel to Pakistan in the '80s when such travel was forbidden to American citizens and conflicting reports from Obama's family about his place of birth.

A partial listing and status update for several of the cases surrounding Obama's eligibility to serve as president is below:

• Philip J. Berg, a Pennsylvania Democrat, demanded that the courts verify Obama's original birth certificate and other documents proving his American citizenship. Supreme Court conferences on the case and its motions are scheduled Jan. 9 and 16.
  


• Leo Donofrio of New Jersey filed a lawsuit claiming Obama's dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president. His case was considered in conference by the U.S. Supreme Court but denied a full hearing.


• Cort Wrotnowski filed suit against Connecticut's secretary of state, making a similar argument to Donofrio. His case was considered in conference by the U.S. Supreme Court, but was denied a full hearing.


• Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes headlines a list of people filing a suit in California, in a case handled by the United States Justice Foundation, that asks the secretary of state to refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office. The case is pending, and lawyers are seeking the public's support.


• Chicago attorney Andy Martin sought legal action requiring Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle to release Obama's vital statistics record. The case was dismissed by Hawaii Circuit Court Judge Bert Ayabe.
  
  
• Lt. Col. Donald Sullivan sought a temporary restraining order to stop the Electoral College vote in North Carolina until Barack Obama's eligibility could be confirmed, alleging doubt about Obama's citizenship. His case was denied.
  
  
• In Ohio, David M. Neal sued to force the secretary of state to request documents from the Federal Elections Commission, the Democratic National Committee, the Ohio Democratic Party and Obama to show the presidential candidate was born in Hawaii. The case was denied.
  
  
• In Washington state, Steven Marquis sued the secretary of state seeking a determination on Obama's citizenship. The case was denied.
  
  
• In Georgia, Rev. Tom Terry asked the state Supreme Court to authenticate Obama's birth certificate. His request for an injuction against Georgia's secretary of state was denied by Georgia Superior Court Judge Jerry W. Baxter.


• California attorney Orly Taitz also has brought a complaint alleging Obama is not a "natural born" citizen and has written an open letter to the Supreme Court asking for the issue to be resolved.

Last month, WND reported the worries over a "constitutional crisis" that could be looming over the issue of Obama's citizenship.

"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," argues the Alan Keyes case pending in California, "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."

With such high stakes potentially at risk, WND earlier launched a letter campaign to contact Electoral College members and urge them to review the controversy.

That followed a campaign that sent more than 60,000 letters by overnight delivery to the U.S. Supreme Court when one case contesting Obama's eligibility for the Oval Office was pending.

A separate petition, already signed by more than 190,000 also is ongoing asking authorities in the election to seek proof Obama was born in the U.S. or that he fulfills the "natural-born American" clause in the Constitution.

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi had gone to both 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 was why, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign has stated, Obama hasn't simply ordered it made available to settle the rumors. The image his campaign posted online has been rejected by critics since it is a "certification of live birth," not a birth certificate, and under Hawaii law at the time such certifications were given to parents of children born outside the state.

The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?

Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born. There have been other allegations that Obama actually was born in Kenya during a time when his father was a British subject. At one point a Kenyan ambassador said Obama's birthplace in Kenya already was being recognized.

U.S. Representatives Myrick and Wolf Write AIG

from ACT for America

On December 19, U.S. Representatives Sue Myrick and Frank Wolf sent a letter to Edward Liddy, Chairman of the Board and CEO of AIG, regarding AIG’s press release announcing its offering of Shariah-compliant insurance products.

Their letter comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed against Treasury Secretary Paulson and the Federal Reserve, which we reported to you last week.

Here is one sentence from the letter:

“Since Americans are now de facto stockholders in your company, we feel it our duty to inform them that your press release ignores the fact that AIG is marketing products that support a radical political institution, Shariah law.”

Representatives Myrick (who is chairperson of the House Anti-Terrorism Caucus) and Wolf lay out in detail the problems with what AIG is doing due to its promotion of Shariah law, and close the letter by offering to set up a briefing for AIG by experts in this field.

Your calls and emails to AIG helped raise the awareness of this issue, and we contacted Rep. Myrick’s office a few days after AIG issued its press release. As we enter the New Year it will be revealing to see just how AIG and the Treasury Secretary respond.

But one thing’s for sure. It should be increasingly clear to Islamists, who are intent on subverting our country through such means as “jihad with money,” that we will not allow them to do so as they have done so successfully in countries like Great Britain.

To read the letter Representatives Myrick and Wolf sent, please click here.

Viagra helps CIA win friends in Afghanistan

Rezko attorney 'owns' Obama mansion

(Compiler's note: A look inside of Chicago politics ...)

By Jerome R. Corsi

An attorney for convicted fundraiser Tony Rezko is listed as the owner and taxpayer for Barack Obama's Chicago mansion, according to records obtained by WND.

William Miceli is a lawyer at the Chicago law firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland, which also formerly employed Obama.

The controversy began when a website called News and Commentary for Thinking People published a 48-page document that lists Miceli as the owner of the Obama home at 5046 S. Greenwood.

Miner, Barnhill & Galland was Obama's employer when he did extensive legal work for Rezko, who awaits sentencing after he was convicted in June of fraud, money laundering and bribery-related counts.

Miceli, as a senior attorney at the firm, supervised Obama when the future president wrote letters on behalf of Rezko urging public authorities to award him new public properties to rehabilitate, notes the "Barack Book" website maintained by GOP.com.

WND asked for comment from Obama's transition team and the Democratic National Committee but did not receive a response.

Investigative reporter Tim Novak at the Chicago Sun-Times has identified 15 building projects that Rezmar, Rezko's development company, redeveloped while it was represented by Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland during Obama's time at the firm.

The law firm changed its name when senior partner Allison Davis left to join Rezko in his schemes to take out loans on low-income housing projects. Several of the transactions remain under investigation, because the millions of dollars Rezko borrowed against the properties to make redevelopments are gone, while many of the properties remain boarded up and uninhabitable.

Following the Jan. 21 Democratic Party primary debate, Miceli told the Washington Post that he was Obama's supervisor at the law firm, in response to Sen. Hillary Clinton's charges Obama had worked for a Chicago slumlord, Rezko.

The Post said "Obama denied doing any legal work directly for Rezko or his companies," contending Obama had done only "about five hours worth of work" on a joint real estate development project involving Rezko and a Chicago church group.

Miceli told the Post Obama "was a very junior lawyer at the time, who was given responsibility for basic due diligence, document review."

Miceli said Obama "did what he was told by the firm," minimizing the importance of any work Obama admittedly did for the Rezko account.

WND confirmed the tax bill for the Obama home is mailed to Miceli, not to Obama or the Northern Trust account through which Obama has claimed the home was purchased.

Records from the Cook County Treasurer's Office give the PIN number for the Obama property as 20-11-115-037-0000 and list Miceli as the person who receives Obama's property tax invoice by mail.

Eric Herman, a spokesman for the Cook County assessor, confirmed to WND that the Treasurer's Office records were correct and that Miceli did receive the Obama property tax invoice by mail.

Miceli did not return a call WND placed to him at Miner, Barnhill & Galland.

Herman told WND a second PIN number, 20-11-115-036-0000, identified the vacant lot next to the Obama mansion that was purchased by Rita Rezko, Tony Rezko's wife.

Here, WND found conflicts between the tax records maintained by the Cook County Treasurer's Office and the deed information maintained by the Cook County Recorder of Deeds.

Rosslyn Whitlock, an Internet support specialist at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds, confirmed to WND that the office has no information listed for the Obama home under the PIN number 20-11-115-037-0000, the number used by the Cook County Assessor's office for property tax purposes.

Records at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds list Rita Rezko as the holder of the warranty deed for the vacant lot at 5050 S. Greenwood adjoining the Obama mansion, under the PIN number 20-11-115-036-0000.

WND was able to locate warranty information at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds , which Herman at the County Assessor's office told WND was the "old PIN number" assigned to the Obama home at 5046 S. Greenwood Avenue, before the home was sold to Obama.

Neither spokesman could explain to WND the discrepancy in PIN numbers, nor why the Cook County Recorder of Deeds has no information filed under the new PIN number assigned to the property after the Obama purchase.

Records with the Cook County Recorder of Deeds under the PIN number 20-11-115-034-0000 indicate the mortgage is held by Northern Trust Company under trust number 10209, which Obama has indicated was the trust the Obama family used to purchase the home.

Meanwhile, WND has reported that since arresting Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has taken new interest in Rezko's involvement in the Obama mansion purchase.

WND also reported real estate credit analyst Kenneth Conner has filed a civil suit alleging he was wrongfully dismissed by Mutual Bank of Harvey for objecting to what he considered a fraudulent appraisal of the vacant lot. The appraisal was submitted by the Rezkos at an intentionally high figure, he claims, permitting them to borrow an additional $125,000 that amounted to a "political payoff" to Obama.

Homeland Security forecasts 5-year terror threats

By EILEEN SULLIVAN

WASHINGTON (AP) - The terrorism threat to the United States over the next five years will be driven by instability in the Middle East and Africa, persistent challenges to border security and increasing Internet savvy, says a new intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press.

Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks are considered the most dangerous threats that could be carried out against the U.S. But those threats are also the most unlikely because it is so difficult for al-Qaida and similar groups to acquire the materials needed to carry out such plots, according to the internal Homeland Security Threat Assessment for the years 2008-2013.

The al-Qaida terrorist network continues to focus on U.S. attack targets vulnerable to massive economic losses, casualties and political "turmoil," the assessment said.

Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction remains "the highest priority at the federal level." Speaking to reporters on Dec. 3, Chertoff explained that more people, such as terrorists, will learn how to make dirty bombs, biological and chemical weapons. "The other side is going to continue to learn more about doing things," he said.

Marked "for official use only," the report does not specify its audience, but the assessments typically go to law enforcement, intelligence officials and the private sector. When determining threats, intelligence officials consider loss of life, economic and psychological consequences.

Intelligence officials also predict that in the next five years, terrorists will try to conduct a destructive biological attack. Officials are concerned about the possibility of infections to thousands of U.S. citizens, overwhelming regional health care systems.

There could also be dire economic impacts caused by workers' illnesses and deaths. Officials are most concerned about biological agents stolen from labs or other storage facilities, such as anthrax.

"The threat of terrorism and the threat of extremist ideologies has not abated," Chertoff said in his year-end address on Dec. 18. "This threat has not evaporated, and we can't turn the page on it."

These high-consequence threats are not the only kind of challenges that will confront the U.S. over the next five years.

Terrorists will continue to try to evade U.S. border security measures and place operatives inside the mainland to carry out attacks, the 38-page assessment said. It also said that they may pose as refugees or asylum seekers or try to exploit foreign travel channels such as the visa waiver program, which allows citizens of 34 countries to enter the U.S. without visas.

Long waits for immigration and more restrictive European refugee and asylum programs will cause more foreigners to try to enter the U.S. illegally. Increasing numbers of Iraqis are expected to migrate to the U.S. in the next five years; and refugees from Somalia and Sudan could increase because of conflicts in those countries, the assessment said.

Because there is a proposed cap of 12,000 refugees from Africa, officials expect more will try to enter the U.S. illegally as well. Officials predict the same scenario for refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Intelligence officials predict the pool of radical Islamists within the U.S. will increase over the next five years due partly to the ease of online recruiting means. Officials foresee "a wave of young, self-identified Muslim 'terrorist wannabes' who aspire to carry out violent acts."

The U.S. has already seen some examples of these homegrown terrorists. Recently five Muslim immigrants were convicted of plotting to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix in a case the government said demonstrated its post-Sept. 11 determination to stop terrorist attacks in the planning stages.

The Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah does not have a known history of fomenting attacks inside the U.S., but that could change if there is some kind of "triggering" event, the Homeland assessment cautions.

A 2008 Interagency Intelligence Committee on Terrorism assessment said that Hezbollah members based in the U.S. do local fundraising through charity projects and criminal activity, like money laundering, smuggling, drug trafficking, fraud and extortion, according to the homeland security assessment.

In addition, the cyber terror threat is expected to increase over the next five years, as hacking tools become more sophisticated and available. "Youthful, Internet-savvy extremists might apply their online acumen to conduct cyber attacks rather than offer themselves up as operatives to conduct physical attacks," according to the assessment.

Currently, Islamic terrorists, including al-Qaida, would like to conduct cyber attacks, but they lack the capability to do so, the assessment said. The large-scale attacks that are on al-Qaida's wishlist - such as disrupting a major city's water or power systems - require sophisticated cyber capabilities that the terrorist group does not possess.

But al-Qaida has the capability to hire sophisticated hackers to carry out these kinds of attacks, the assessment said. And federal officials believe that in the next three to five years, al-Qaida could direct or inspire cyber attacks that target the U.S. economy.

Counterterrorism expert Frank Cilluffo says the typical cyber attack would not achieve al-Qaida's main goal of inflicting mass devastation with its resulting widespread media coverage. However, al-Qaida is likely to continue to rely on the Internet to spread its message, said Cilluffo, who runs the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University.

Officials also predict that domestic terrorists in the forms of radical animal rights and environmental extremists will become more adept with explosives and increase their use of arson attacks.