Obama Admin May Have Illegally Spent $10 Million taxpayer funds Promoting Abortion in Kenya

Obama Admin May Have Illegally Spent $10 Million taxpayer funds Promoting Abortion in Kenya.(LifeNews).

New information obtained by a member of Congress makes it appear the Obama administration has spent $10 million potentially illegally promoting a pro-abortion constitution in Kenya. Obama officials were thought to have spent $2 million but Rep. Chris Smith says that figure could exceed $10 million.

Lobbying for or against abortion is prohibited under a provision of federal law known as the Siljander Amendment annually included in the State, Foreign Operations Appropriations Act.

The amendment reads, “None of the funds made available under this Act may be used to lobby for or against abortion,” and violations are subject to civil and criminal penalties under the Antideficiency Act, 31 U.S.C. § 1341.”

Smith, the leading Republican on the House Africa and Global Health Subcommittee, and two other members of Congress have called for a probe into the Obama administration’s spending in support of a campaign to get the pro-abortion constitution approved in Kenya in August.

The three sent a May 6 letter to the Inspectors General at the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development seeking a probe.

Today, Smith’s office informed LifeNews.com that subsequent information uncovered by investigators has revealed that actual U.S. taxpayer expenditures in support of the pro-abortion constitution are estimated to exceed $10 million.

“This week I learned that U.S. taxpayer expenditures in support of the proposed constitution may exceed $10 million-five times the level we original suspected,” Smith said.

“This massive spending will undoubtedly be directed to those entities that are pressing for ratification of the proposed constitution. Such support will further enable passage of a constitution that is opposed by many pro-life leaders in Kenya, because it enshrines new rights to abortion. As such, the funding is a clear violation of federal law against use of U.S. taxpayer funds to lobby for or against abortion,” Smith explained.

He added, “Learning of significant additional U.S. donations gives even more urgency to our request for thorough and objective investigations into all State Department and USAID funded activities related to Kenya’s proposed constitution. I hope that all investigative agencies will take our request seriously and act swiftly in this matter.”

As LifeNews.com reported, US Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger called last month on the African nation’s political leaders to rally the people to pass the referendum.

Smith authored the May 6 letter with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee.

Ranneberger issued a statement praising the Kenya parliament for passing the proposed constitution and urging President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to rally support for it.

He also suggested the Obama administration would fund a national campaign to persuade the people to adopt the document.

Although the draft contains language advocating the right to life for unborn children, it contains a section with a health exception that essentially opens the nation to unlimited abortions throughout pregnancy for any reason.

Before the revised constitution can come into force, it must be approved by popular vote - expected in July or August.

“Kenya’s current constitution includes no reference to abortion and abortion is not legally permitted in Kenya except to save the life of the mother,” the pro-life Republican lawmakers said.

They added that “any expression of support for or opposition to the proposed new constitution (including by drafting, offering technical advice or providing foreign assistance of any kind that is designed to influence public approval in the upcoming plebiscite) unavoidably involves lobbying for or against abortion.”

The letter went to Gene L. Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General of the U.S. Government Accountability Office; Harold W. Geisel, Acting Inspector General, U.S. Department of State, Office of Inspector General, and to; Donald A. Gambatesa, Inspector General of the U.S. Agency for International Development.Hmmm....... Genesis 9:7 - And you, be you fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.Read the full story here.

Obama White House Marks Mother's Day By Celebrating Free Birth Control.

Obama White House Marks Mother's Day By Celebrating Free Birth Control.HT: WeeklyStandard


The White House is marking Mother's Day, which is this Sunday, by celebrating free birth control provided by Obamacare.

The White House made the declaration in a tweet today from their official Twitter account.

"Thanks to the #ACA, 1 in 3 women under 65 gained access to preventive care—like birth control—with no out-of-pocket costs. #HappyMothersDay," the unsigned tweet reads.

Thanks to the #ACA, 1 in 3 women under 65 gained access to preventive care—like birth control—with no out-of-pocket costs. #HappyMothersDay
— The White House (@whitehouse) May 10, 2013

Obama’s Grandma: ‘disobedient wives should be beaten’ and i'm against abortion!

Obama’s Grandma: ‘disobedient wives should be beaten’ and i'm against abortion!By Shoebat Foundation.You read that headline correctly. In an article by Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator, where he cited our work on Barack Obama’s familial connections to wahhabist fundraising, another significant discovery was unearthed.
In particular, Lord points to an article that appeared at the left-leaning Guardian, written by Martin Robbins. In it, Robbins relays an exchange between Obama’s step-grandmother (Mama Sarah) and a Daily Mail reporter named Julia Manning, in which Sarah asserted that wives who don’t obey their husbands should be beaten.Martin Robbins go's on in his article: Half an hour passed, and I was becoming dangerously bored. I didn't give a fuck about how often she talked to President Obama, or whether President Obama sent her a card at Christmas, or whether she was proud of President Obama, or any of the other five hundred questions with the words 'President Obama' in them, so I decided to ignore the protestations of the government translator and veer off-message.
The Kenyan constitution had been rewritten recently, triggering a huge debate over abortion rights: elective abortion is prohibited in Kenya, fueling an industrial-scale trade in illegal - often dangerous - alternatives. Aha! I thought. What better subject could there be to ask this great supporter of Kenyan women about! "Can I ask…? There's been a considerable amount of debate in Kenya recently about changes to the Kenyan constitution, particularly around family planning and abortion. Do you have any views on access to abortion services and to family planning in Kenya?" The twin microphones of my Zoom recorder picked up five long seconds of birdsong, but not the visible distress of the government translator.
Eventually, on Mama's prompting, she reluctantly translated the question. It was left to our CDC guide to relay the reply: "So she's against abortion." "She's against abortion." I echoed, half-expecting to be corrected. "And she's against family planning." "She's against family planning."
"And her reason… She says that if God gives you the reproductive ability, just reproduce, because in our circumstances the mortality rate is very high. If you limit, you lower the number that will remain. So the more the better." ... Unless of course your country's population is expanding at the rate of a million people a year, and many of them can't find jobs. Of course, it's rarely God who decides such matters in the bedroom: more than a tenth of Kenyan women report being raped by their partners, and Kenya's male-dominated parliament blocked legislation protecting women from marital rape in 2006, making it clear they didn't take the issue seriously.I was still digesting this response when Julia Manning, a pleasantly moderate blogger from the Daily Mail – asked Obama about initiatives to stop wife-beating: "There's been a program in the last few years, called 'Real Men Don't Beat Their Wives.' Has she heard of it, and has she had to counsel any men in the area on treating their wives better?"The response, rather unexpectedly, was raucous laughter. The translation was left again to our CDC guide - by this point the government translator had pointedly asked not to be photographed, and seemed to have decided that if she couldn't stop the more controversial questions, she could at least avoid any involvement with the answers.

                                “The disobedient wives should be beaten.”

“Sorry?” replied Manning, as I fished in my camera bag for some imaginary popcorn.
“The wives that are disobedient, they should be beaten.”
“They should be beaten?”
“Yeah, they should be beaten.”
“Can you ask her,” replied the admirably unruffled blogger, “what about disobedient husbands?”

Of course, Sharia law condones men beating their wives. This admission from Mama Sarah speaks to the accuracy of Musa Obama’s claims on Al-Jazeera, that Mama Sarah’s foundation is about fundraising for the wahhabist education of Kenyan students who are sent to Saudi Arabia for that education.Read the full story here.

Video - New Ad Exposes Barack Obama’s Support for Slaughter of Babies Born Alive after Failed Abortions.

HT: IsraelMatzav.

Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5: “For this reason, the first human being was created alone to teach that whoever destroys a single life is as though he had destroyed an entire universe, and whoever saves a single life it is as if he had saved an entire universe.”

Video - Krauthammer: Obama’s Position On Partial Birth Abortion Is ‘Scandalous’ And ‘Extremism’.

Saudi clerics to mull whether Syrian women can abort pregnancies from rape.

                                                  Saudi cleric, Ali al-Maliki


Saudi clerics to mull whether Syrian women can abort pregnancies from rape.(AA).Syrian women raped by gang-like militia or forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad should be allowed to undergo abortion according to a Saudi cleric. Sheikh Ali al-Maliki described rape as one of the most heinous crimes against women and one that is worse than murder. “A body’s scars can heal but scars of the soul stay,” he told Al Arabiya. His fatwa is the result of a heated debate between religious scholars in Saudi Arabia after families of rape victims from the bloody-conflict in Syria urged Islamic scholars to issue an edict allowing women to abort pregnancies that result from rape.
The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abd al-Aziz al-Sheikh, is scheduled to meet with the Council of Senior Muslim Scholars in the next two days to cast a verdict on the subject. “In my opinion the scholars in the kingdom will allow abortion in light of the calamities befallen on Syrian ... An honorable woman raped by Shabiha men cannot bear the birth of an illegitimate child,” he said. Various Islamic schools of thoughts have differing opinions on abortion which vary from a complete ban on the procedure to allowing it under specific conditions, like within a designated period of the first trimester. If, for example, a pregnancy endangers the mother’s life, she is allowed to undergo an abortion according to one school of thought.Hmmmm......"An honorable woman raped by Shabiha men cannot bear the birth of an illegitimate child,".........Any other rape is OK?Read the full story here.

“Either you kill a baby in the mother's stomach or you kill a baby after birth. There is no difference,” - PM Erdogan's abortion remark sparks row over ethics.

“Either you kill a baby in the mother's stomach or you kill a baby after birth. There is no difference,” - PM Erdogan's abortion remark sparks row over ethics.(TZ).A statement from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressing his anti-abortion stance and opposition to C-section surgery has sparked the anger of women's rights groups and some female deputies, initiating a debate on the government's right to intervene in people's ethical choices. Addressing a conference in İstanbul on Friday, Erdoğan said no one should have the right to sanction abortion. “Either you kill a baby in the mother's stomach or you kill a baby after birth. There is no difference,” Erdoğan said. He also expressed his opposition to C-section surgery, describing it as unnatural. 
Health Minister Recep Akdağ on Saturday confirmed plans to limit the number of C-section births at Turkish hospitals. “We will impose penalties on private hospitals that have greatly increased the number of unnecessary Cesareans,” he said, speaking at a health symposium in Balıkesir on Saturday. He noted the ministry was working on new legislation to address the issue.
In his speech Erdoğan further remarked that society should be more sensitive to the issue of abortion and that “we have to be together against this,” adding that, “Every abortion is like an Uludere,” a reference to the deaths of 34 civilians in December last year in a Turkish military airstrike near the Iraqi border in the Kurdish-dominated Southeast. An investigation into the killings is ongoing, but it is claimed the civilians were mistaken for Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists by the military.
Sharing her thoughts about Erdoğan’s comments, Family and Social Policy Minister Fatma Şahin has suggested that Erdoğan’s statements should be discussed on scientific grounds. “Abortion is, of course, a right of individuals. But what the prime minister said was his personal observation. He pointed out the significance of family planning and taking necessary precautions before thinking of abortion as a solution. ...
The prime minister’s statement that ‘abortion is a murder’ is merely to emphasize that when you terminate a pregnancy, if you did not take precautions beforehand, you are violating that baby’s right to life. To those criticizing the prime minister’s statements on this issue I recommend reading World Health Organization (WHO) reports,” the minister said. Women’s rights groups and advocates reacted angrily to the statement. Habibe Yılmaz, lawyer and head of the Center for Legal Support to Women, said in a statement made to a news agency, “Making a decision regarding one’s own body -- in the realm of medicine -- is a fundamental human right. Depriving women of this right would be tantamount to restricting her right to health and the right to live a fulfilling life. The issue of voluntary miscarriages should be seen in the light of fundamental liberties.”Hmmmm.....Erdogan "The man Obama is asking advise on how to raise his daughters".Read the full story here.

Voluntary 'De-Baptism' Rising in Europe.Do you go to court or will a simple hairdryer do?

Wielding a blow-dryer, leading atheist Edwin Kagin conducted a mass "de-baptism" of fellow non-believers and symbolically dried up the offending waters that were sprinkled on their foreheads as young children. Hmmmm......"Please Lord have mercy, for they themselves do not know what they are seeking".

Voluntary 'De-Baptism' Rising in Europe.(Voanews).Sunday evening youth mass in Saint-Germain-des-Pres is overflowing with parishioners. People stand in aisles or sit cross-legged in corners of the cavernous, sixth century Paris church.Father Benoist de Sinety, parish priest at Saint Germain for the past three years, says he has always had the good fortune of seeing crowds of young people seeking their bearings or rediscovering faith. But he knows it is not the same everywhere.
Churches in France and elsewhere in Europe have been battling falling numbers, a trend evident not only in the empty pews, but in the sharp fall in baptisms. But "de-baptisms", a church's deletion of one's name from the official baptismal registry at a parishioner's request, are a recent phenomenon, and they are taking place in both Protestant and Catholic communities.
There are no official statistics, but experts and activists count the numbers of those seeking de-baptism in the tens of thousands, and websites offering informal "de-baptism" certificates have mushroomed.
Anne Morelli, who heads a center for religion and secularity studies at the Free University of Brussels, says de-baptisms, both official and unofficial, increased in 2011, particularly in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Austria. The numbers, she said, reflect public anger at the church pedophilia scandals.
Terry Sanderson, head of the National Secular Society in Britain, agrees. "I think what sparked the real desire of people to leave the church, particularly the Catholic church, were the huge child-abuse scandals that revolted so many people [that] they no longer wanted to be associated with it," he said. "That's when people started to leave in large numbers."
A decade ago, Sanderson's society posted an unofficial "de-baptism certificate" on its website, which has been downloaded more than 100,000 times to date."It was a joke to begin with, but now it has taken on a new significance because there are so many people who are anxious to leave the church that they are actually taking it seriously now, and they want some way to make their break with the church formal," he says. "Often the church won't acknowledge their desire to leave."
But Christian Weisner, a spokesman for the international grassroots We Are Church movement, points not only to a range of issues that have resulted in de-baptism, but a range methods by which people choose to sever ties to the church.In Germany, where a record 181,000 Catholics formally split from the church in 2011, some terminated their relations by legally opting out of paying state church taxes. For the first time, he says, more German Catholics cut ties to their church last year than Protestants.
"They are thinking about leaving the church and there might be one special event, like the pedophilia crisis, like a [conservative] announcement by the pope, and then they decide now is the time to go," says Weisner, referring to the fact that some Catholics oppose Pope Benedict's stances on issues like abortion, homosexuality and married priests.In France, 71-year-old Rene Lebouvier decided it was time to go a decade ago. After requesting to have his name crossed off his church's baptismal registry, he ultimately filed a lawsuit to have it legally deleted. In October, a lower court in Normandy ruled in his favor, but a local bishop is appealing the verdict. According to religion professor Philippe Portier of the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, Lebouvier's case could set a legal precedent in a country where few seek to be de-baptized."It will be the first time in Europe, and especially in France, that the church will be obliged to delete from its registers the name of churchgoers who do not want to be considered as church goers," he says.
While Portier doubts the appeals court will rule in Lebouvier's favor, France's Catholic Church will not comment on the court case.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation New Zealand 6.1 -5.8 - 5.7 - 5.2 ; Portugal 5.3 ; papua New Guinea 5.1!More info here.

• Europe - Nuclear Event in MultiCountries situation update  on Wednesday, 16 November..Here.

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog.Here.

• Canary Islands - El Hierro earthquake and volcano eruption – Update 21.  here , Live webcams here and here.

• Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians back in Cairo’s Tahrir square with Islamists in the forefront.(AlArabiya).Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians rallied Friday in Cairo’s Tahrir square with Islamists in the forefront to protest against what they say are attempts by the country’s military rulers to designate themselves as the guardians of a new Egypt. It was one of the largest rallied in Egypt in recent months.Most rallies in Tahrir have been led by liberal- or left-leaning groups. But Friday’s rally was dominated by the country’s most organized political group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which has rarely come out in full force since the protests that forced President Hosni Mubarak to step down in February.The Brotherhood had until recently avoided confrontation with the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, but now warns of escalating its protest campaign if plans to give permanent political powers to the military are not scrapped.“The army has no role in ruling people. Its only job is to protect the country. We want civilian rule chosen through democracy,” said Hani Hegazi, a 28-year old Brotherhood member who traveled by bus to Tahrir from the Delta province of el-Beheira, according to The Associated Press.Banners read: “Down with military rule. Egypt our country is not a military camp.” Some demonstrators flew the Egyptian flag, while others including ultraconservative Salafis waved a banner declaring Islam's holy book, the Quran, to be “our constitution.”The rally was called to protest a document floated by the government which declares the military the guardian of “constitutional legitimacy,” suggesting the armed forces could have the final word on major policies even after a new president is elected. The document, which includes guiding principles for Egypt's new constitution, also introduces clauses that would shield it from civilian oversight.Most of Egypt’s pro-democracy groups object to the document, calling it an attempt to perpetuate military rule past the post-Mubarak transitional period which is supposed to end with the election of a new parliament and a new president.Delivering the Muslim prayer sermon, imam Mazhar Shahin urged protesters to keep defending the goals of the revolution.“Perhaps those who rule us think we will forget our cause with the passage of time. They are deluded and mistaken,” he warned the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which took power when Mubarak was ousted.“We reject the imposition of dictates on the people, we reject Silmi’s document. No voice can drown out the voice of the people,” Shahin told the crowd.“Those who fear Islamist movements in Egypt, I tell them don’t be scared of Islam in Egypt,” Shahin said, AFP reported.“Egypt is Islamic, like it or not... We want a civic democratic state with an Islamic vision that allows people to practice their rights and democracy,” he said.In addition to the Brotherhood, Salafis, left- and liberal-leaning groups such as the April 6 movement and other youth revolutionary alliances have joined the rally, demanding a timetable for the end of military rule which began in February.They have called for marches from mosques around Egypt to major squares, dubbing it the “Friday of the Single Demand” - that demand being a clear date for the transfer of power to civilian rule. Many groups have planned to hold an open ended sit-in until a date has been set.The Brotherhood says the document reinforces “dictatorship.”Walid Farouk, 32, who wore the heavy beard and traditional robe of the ultraconservative Salafi trend, said that Egypt had seen nothing good from military rule since the army took power in 1952.“All of us are scared that the army could try to hold on to power,” he told AP. “It is time for a civilian government.”The writing of Egypt’s constitution has been a divisive issue, and details of who will write it and what it contains are at the heart of the recent rally.Some liberals have supported the idea of writing guiding principles for the constitution, fearing that a parliament controlled by Islamists would insert religious principles into the document.Hmmm....The gloves come off and the hardline Islamists rise?So much for 'moderate' Muslim Brotherhood.Read the full story here.

• Russia warships to enter Syria waters in bid to stem foreign intervention.(Haaretz).Russian warships are due to arrive at Syrian territorial waters, a Syrian news agency said on Thursday, indicating that the move represented a clear message to the West that Moscow would resist any foreign intervention in the country's civil unrest. Also on Friday, a Syrian official said Damascus has agreed "in principle" to allow an Arab League observer mission into the country.But the official said Friday that Syria was still studying the details. The official asked not to be named because the issue is so sensitive. The Arab League suspended Syria earlier this week over its deadly crackdown on an eight-month-old uprising. The 22-member body has proposed sending hundreds of observers to the country to try to help end the bloodshed. The report came a day after a draft resolution backed by Arab and European countries and the United States was submitted to the United Nations General Assembly, seeking to condemn human rights violations in the on-going violence in Syria. Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia were among Arab states that joined Germany, Britain, and France to sponsor the draft submitted to the assembly's human rights committee. In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the U.S. would sign on as a co-sponsor of the resolution. The draft demanded an end to violence, respect of human rights and implementation by Damascus of a plan of action of the Arab League. The move comes as clashes escalated in Syria and after Russia and China used their veto in October to block a Security Council resolution that would have condemned the Syrian government of President Bashir for the violence. Such a veto is not applicable in the 193-nation assembly, which will consider the issue after the human rights committee reports back to it.Read the full story here.

• Report: Arab Nations Pressing for Iran Strike by Year's end.(INN).Newly acquired intelligence reports indicate several Arab countries in the Middle East are lobbying the US to strike Iran this year, Israel's Channel 10 reported.According to the report, which is said to be making its rounds in Britain's political circles, Saudi Arabia wants the Obama administration to attack Iran's nuclear facilities before the final withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.US president has vowed to close the door on American military involvement in Iraq by year’s end, but Riyadh is reportedly afraid Iran will use the American exit to take over the country.Since 2008, officials in the Iraqi interim government have complained to Washington that both Iran and Saudi Arabia were, respectively, funding the Shiite and Sunni insurgencies that have plagued the country since the US-led invasion that toppled late dictator Sadam Hussein.Security experts say Baghdad's security forces are unprepared to confront the rival insurgencies that hold Iraq in their grip - and that Obama's dogged drive to fulfill his campaign promise may have disastrous consequences both for the region and US interests.Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies have been locked in a strategic battle with Iran for hegemony over the Persian Gulf - and have accused Tehran of seeking to destabilize the region through its ‘Shiite Diaspora.Gulf Arab leaders have sought to exert pressure on Iran and its regional allies - most notably Syrian president Bashar al-Assad - by allying themselves with Western powers opposed to Tehran's aggressive posture.They have also joined western powers in targeting Iran's nuclear program, which they see as targeting them first and foremost - rather than Israel, who Iran has threatened repeatedly with destruction.Suadia Arabia has also said, should Iran obtain nuclear weapons, Riyahd will seek them as well - raising the specter of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Analysts say this may be a lever to spur Obama to alter course from his current passive, sanctions-driven posture towards Iran.Despite this, Arab powers have been reticent to publicly call for an Iran strike - which has been a high profile part of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's diplomatic agenda.Instead, observers say, they have sought to work behind the scenes to avoid being seen as working in concert with Israel.Read the full story here.

• Van Jones on Occupy Wall Street: ‘You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet’.(TheBlaze). Van Jones offered a prediction Wednesday for those who have been watching the Occupy Wall Street movement: "You haven’t seen anything yet." The former Obama administration "green jobs czar" — an ardent supporter of the Occupy movement since its inception — said in an interview with CNN that the movement is ready to evolve into the areas of politics and policy-making, much like the Tea Party did in 2010. (Related: What connections does Beck make between Van Jones’ revolution group & Occupy Wall Street?) "You’re going to see an [R]evolution now as you go from protests, keep the protests, but now expand into politics," Jones said. "And if you thought there was an earthquake in 2010 when the Tea Party moved into politics, wait until this 99 percent movement moves over into politics. You haven’t seen anything yet." Jones said the movement is "going to be recruiting 2,000 candidates to run for office now under this 99 percent banner" as Occupy Wall Street enters "phase two." "Phase two, you move from anger to answers. You move from pointing out the problem to pointing out the solutions," Jones said. "What you’re going to see now is you have the Occupy movement at the center, that’s the beating heart." Jones said despite New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s eviction of protesters from Zuccotti Park, "you can‘t put toothpaste back in the tube and you can’t evict an idea." Hmmm........Obama's 'army' going for civil war?Read the full story here.

• Excellent News: Self-Described 'Militant Marxist-Leninist Skinhead' Heads Obama's Political Action Wing. (DougRoss).Barack Obama's personal political action wing -- don't call them modern day brown-shirts! -- is "Organizing For America", or OFA. Among OFA's leaders is a self-described "Marxist-Leninist Skinhead" who is also behind the Young Communist League.Yesterday we released a video of John Bachtell, a national board member from the Communist Party U.S.A., addressing the bongo-banging, spoiled, suburban run-aways at the #OccupyChicago tent city and an interview with a few of his “fellow travelers” in the march....Farrar, seen in the white C.P. USA shirt, is not only a Young Communist League leader, but he is also a member of Barack Obama’s Organizing for America and he organized a rally in 2009 for OFA to support President Obama’s health care bill. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) was featured guest at Farrar’s event as well....Jordan is a self-described “militant anti-racist anti-fascist Marxist-Leninist skinhead... fight[ing] along with my comrades for a better world through peace, equality, democracy and by creating a socialist America to put an end to the imperialist and capitalist aggression that has been carried out in the name of the American people.”“Another world is possible, another United States is necessary!”In other words, a prominent Obama supporter is also an advocate for the overthrow of the United States government.As an aside, can anyone tell me when it become acceptable for a member of the Democrat Party to be an avowed, militant Communist? I'm just looking for this year happened so I can figure out when this political party became infected with such a virulent strain of anti-Americanism.Hmmmm.......I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes. ~ Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full story here.

• Obama Admin Broke Law to Push Abortion in Kenya.(LifeNews).An investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), into the Obama Administration’s use of $18 million in taxpayer funds to provide funding for a group pushing legalized abortion in Kenya finds the administration broke the law.The investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, shows at least one Obama grantee openly pushed to expand abortion in Kenya despite a long-standing, annually renewed law that prohibits U.S. tax dollars from being used to lobby for or against abortion in other countries (known as the Siljander Amendment).The GAO report also reveals that a key Obama official stonewalled investigators and refused to cooperate with the GAO in its investigation of the activities initiated by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department during the 2010 constitutional referendum in Kenya.“The Obama Administration basically hired surrogates to do its dirty work of abortion promotion in Kenya,” said Congressman Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who is the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights.“U.S. policy on international constitutional reform is, by law, supposed to be abortion-neutral” Smith said. “This new report shows that at a minimum the Obama Administration ignored the prohibition with the end result being a new Kenyan constitution that vastly expands access to abortion in Kenya, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.”“That a high-ranking official in the Obama Administration, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Maria Otero, chose not to cooperate with the GAO as they uncovered procedural and funding problems begs for further investigation and review,” Smith said. “What else might they be hiding?”In May 2010, Smith teamed up with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and requested the GAO investigation. The GAO report, made publicly available on Monday, shows that the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) received $400,000 from USAID to provide analyses of the draft constitution to the Kenyans’ Committee of Experts (COE), the body primarily responsible for drafting and finalizing the constitution. The IDLO seized the opportunity to blatantly advocate for the legalization of abortion in Kenya in its communications with the Kenyans prior to the vote on the new constitution.A prior USAID report indicates the Obama administration spent $61.2 million related to the vote on the Kenya constitution, with $12.6 million going to efforts to directly promote the pro-abortion constitution.The GAO indicates that the IDLO provided advice “on the issues of fetal rights and abortion, though the draft had not mentioned either issue at this point. Specifically, the IDLO report advised that the COE might consider adding language to make clear that the fetus lacks constitutional standing, and that the rights of women under these articles therefore take priority. IDLO also provided examples of countries whose courts have held that fetal rights to life serve as a partial barrier to the ability of national legislatures to protect… the legal right of access to abortion.”In its report, GAO also quoted IDLO as advising the Kenyans that “[I]n the coming years, the Kenyan Parliament may wish to take such measures. One way to handle this would be to modify [the constitution] to make clear that a person is a human being who has been born.“The IDLO communications to the Kenyans introduced the abortion issue into the constitutional debate, ‘advised’ the Kenyans to include language in the constitution that clearly supported the legalization of abortion, and expressed opposition to later proposed language that would have restricted access to abortion,” Smith explained. “If this isn’t lobbying, what is?”With regard to the stonewalling by the Obama Administration official, Smith said “It actually comes as little surprise that Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Maria Otero, ignored repeated requests from the GAO to question her regarding her activities in Kenya.”GAO informed Smith’s office that Otero failed to respond to multiple requests for meetings.Otero, whose portfolio includes population issues, traveled to Kenya from November 29 to December 2, 2010 in her official capacity, and met with Prime Minister Odinga, senior government officials and civil society representatives. She previously traveled in Kenya with Ms. Phoebe Asyio, a commissioner on the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission and chair of the Kenyan Caucus for Women’s Leadership (CWL), who advocated for and later lauded the legalization of abortion in Kenya as a result of the new constitution.“In light of the law, Otero’s activities raise serious questions that she apparently did not want to answer,” Smith said.Political reform in Kenya was – and continues to be – an extremely important undertaking in light of the 2007 violence that claimed approximately 1, 300 lives and displaced tens of thousands more in that country.“There are justifiable concerns that the deadly upheaval could be repeated with the elections in 2012 unless dramatic reforms are in place,” Smith noted. “However, this needed reform should not be used by pro-abortion groups funded by the Obama Administration to rewrite the pro-life laws of Kenya.”Smith noted that even after its clear violation of the lobbying prohibition, the IDLO continues to receive U.S. funding to play a central role in the drafting of laws implementing the new constitution.Read the full story here.

• FBI releases 2010 Hate Crime Data.(ReligionClause). The FBI yesterday released its report on 2010 Hate Crime Statistics. (Full text of report.) Of the 6,224 single bias incidents reported in 2010, 20% were motivated by religious bias-- second only to racially motivated hate crimes which accounted for 47.3% of the incidents. Sexual orientation bias was involved in 19.3% of the single bias incidents. Of the 1,409 hate crimes offenses motivated by religious bias, 65.4% were anti-Jewish; 13.2% were anti-Islamic; 4.3% were anti-Catholic; 3.8% were anti-multiple; 3.3% were anti-Protestant; 0.5% were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.; and 9.5% involved various other religions. The 6,628 total hate crime incidents in 2010 amounted to an insignificant increase over the 6,604 incidents reported for 2009. (See prior posting.) ADL issued a press release commenting on the 2010 data and decrying the fact that numerous law enforcement agencies around the country failed to report their hate crime data to the FBI.Read the full story here.

• GE Filed 57,000-Page Tax Return, Paid No Taxes on $14 Billion in Profits.(WeeklyStandard).General Electric, one of the largest corporations in America, filed a whopping 57,000-page federal tax return earlier this year but didn't pay taxes on $14 billion in profits. The return, which was filed electronically, would have been 19 feet high if printed out and stacked.Ken Kies, a tax lawyer who represents GE, confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD the tax return would have been 57,000 pages had it been filed on paper. The size of GE's tax return has more than doubled in the last five years.Ryan used the data point to underscore the irrationality of the corporate income tax code. He also contrasted GE with UPS to make the point that the corporate income tax code doesn't make sense. "UPS paid a 34 percent effective tax rate," while its biggest foreign competitor, DHL, paid a 24 percent tax rate, Ryan said. Read the full story here.

• Pentagon Successfully Tests Flying Bomb.(INN).The Pentagon held a successful test flight of a flying bomb that travels faster than the speed of sound on Thursday, AFP reported.The bomb will give military planners the ability to strike targets anywhere in the world in less than a hour, the report said.The “Advanced Hypersonic Weapon,” or AHW, was launched by rocket from Hawaii and proceeded to glide through the upper atmosphere over the Pacific “at hypersonic speed” before hitting its target on the Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands, a Pentagon statement said.Kwajalein is located about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii. The Pentagon did not say what top speeds were reached by the vehicle, which is maneuverable.Hypersonic speeds are classified by scientists as those that exceed five times the speed of sound -- 3,728 miles (6,000 kilometers) an hour, AFP said.A Pentagon spokeswoman told the French-based news agency the test aimed to gather data on “aerodynamics, navigation, guidance and control, and thermal protection technologies.”The U.S. Army’s AHW project is part of the “Prompt Global Strike” program which seeks to give the U.S. military the means to deliver conventional weapons anywhere in the world within an hour.The timing of the test may raise some eyebrows, in the wake of the recent controversy regarding Iran’s nuclear program.In its latest report, the IAEA said last week that it was able to build an overall “credible” impression that Iranian were engaged in carrying out “activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.”Iran has dismissed the report as “baseless.” Nevertheless, there has been wide speculation of a military attack on Iran which might be launched by Israel.Recent reports suggested that the U.S. might also support a strike on Iran’s nuclear program: The Obama administration is reportedly considering arming Qatar with huge bunker buster bombs, raising the possibility of an American-Israel-Arab attack on Iran.Read the full story here.

• Phoenix Europe - How the EU Can Emerge from the Ashes.(Spiegel).The old European Union didn't work, that much has been made clear by the ongoing debt crisis. But many in Europe think there is now a clear path to a new, more integrated -- and smaller -- bloc. What must happen first? Greater democracy and less nation-state sovereignty. Read the full story here.

• Israel to help Kenya fight al Shabaab militia.(DefenceWeb).Israel is willing to help Kenya fight al Shabaab militia in Somalia, the Kenyan Prime Minister’s office has said.The BBC says that during Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s visit to Israel the Kenyan government received backing from Israel to “rid its territory of fundamentalist elements.”In a statement, Odinga's office quoted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying that "Kenya's enemies are Israel's enemies"."We have similar forces planning to bring us down. I see it as an opportunity to strengthen ties."Odinga said that Israel could help Kenya’s police detect and destroy al Shabaab’s networks in Kenya. He also said that Israel needed to supply vehicles for border patrols and maritime surveillance equipment to curb piracy off the East African coast."We need to be able to convincingly ensure homeland security," Odinga said.Netanyahu as promising to help build a "coalition against fundamentalism" in East Africa, incorporating Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Tanzania.Israel's President Shimon Peres had promised to "make everything available" to Kenya to guarantee its security within its borders."Consistently, Kenya has shown a very positive attitude towards Israel and Israel is ready to help," the statement quotes Peres as saying.Kenya mounted an air and ground offensive against al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab in Somalia a month ago after a string of kidnappings and cross-border raids it blamed on the group.Kenya is the latest country to entangle itself in the affairs of its anarchic neighbour which has suffered two decades of civil war. Kenya has long cast a wary eye at its lawless neighbour, awash with weapons and mired in conflict since the overthrow of a dictator in 1991.The region's biggest economy is so worried by the anarchy in Somalia, where first warlords then Islamist insurgents have stepped into a political vacuum, that it has quietly supported the birth of a semi-autonomous Somali province dubbed 'Jubaland', comprising the three Somali regions bordering Kenya.The status of Jubaland, also sometimes called Azania, is not clear. Somalia's government says it does not support the Jubaland initiative.Kenya's military has denied its incursion was carefully planned for years with a view to annexing Somali territory that could act as a buffer zone between the two countries.The military says it wants to eliminate the threat of al Shabaab, which has hit Kenya's crucial tourist industry, and help the Western-backed Mogadishu government which has been fighting the militants since 2007.The African Union said on Monday its peacekeeping force in Somalia, AMISOM, would receive an extra 1,150 troops from Burundi and Djibouti by mid-December, taking the total to around 11,000 -- near the 12,000 authorised by the United Nations.The peacekeepers have prevented al Shabaab from expelling the government from its foothold in the capital. "For the first time, we are now realistically envisioning the (government) extending its political reach and authority beyond Mogadishu," AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Ramtane Lamamra told reporters in Addis Ababa.After a fairly smooth advance, the Kenyan forces fighting al Shabaab have camped near several rebel strongholds, but have had no serious clashes with the insurgents, and have not seized any significant bases.Read the full story here.

• Egyptians back in Tahrir against army’s ‘supra-constitutional’ plans.(AlArabiya).Thousands of Egyptians were massing in Cairo’s Tahrir Square early on Friday for a mass rally against the military rulers’ proposed “supra-constitutional principles” that seek to shield the army from public scrutiny.Liberal and Islamist group, including the powerful Muslim Brotherhood movement, announced they would hold the rally after the government went ahead with its plan to draft overarching constitutional principles.Tents were pitched and sound stages set up as protesters returned to Tahrir square, the epicenter of an uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak from office in February, in what they said was an attempt to put “the revolution back on track.”“There will be a big revolution tomorrow,” said a protester demanding rights for Egyptians killed and wounded in the revolution.The government’s draft drew fire from most quarters for including clauses that removed the ruling military’s budget from parliamentary oversight and allowed the military final say on military-related laws.The government revised the draft, but the Islamists, who organized a mass protest in July against such a charter, have rejected the very idea of a document that would limit parliament’s authority to draft the constitution.“The protest on Friday is to reclaim power from the army and oppose Silmi’s document,” said Mohamed Fathi from the youth group the Front to Protect the Revolution.Salafi parties and movements, who follow orthodox Islamic teachings, were the earliest to galvanize support for the Friday protest, with the Muslim Brotherhood and a number of liberal parties following suit.“Our demands are the revolution’s demands ... our sit-in is open until we leave,” said protester Abdulla Ibrahim.Any extended protest by demonstrators camping in Tahrir square could potentially destabilize preparations for a parliamentary vote due on Nov. 28.Political groups have demanded the military council announce a clear timetable for handing power over to an elected civilian government with a deadline for presidential elections no later than April 2012.Read the full story here.

• Egyptian Salafist figure storms student concert, reignites debate over Music in Islam.(AlArabiya).The debate over music in Islam, forbidden or sanctioned, has resurfaced in the Egyptian media after popular Egyptian Islamic Salafist scholar Hazem Shoman stormed the stage of a concert last Tuesday, telling the audience that what they were watching was sinful.Students at Nile Academy campus in the city of Mansoura were surprised when Shoman took the stage of Hisham Abbas’ concert “advising” them that music is “haram,” or forbidden in Islam, and that they should not be watching or listening to it.The students reportedly responded with chants against the scholar, and in order to prevent the escalation of the situation, the academy’s vice president Mohamed Abdel Ghaffar and other officials interfered and persuaded Shoman to vacate the venue.In a TV interview by Nile channel, Shoman later said that he was “shocked” to enter the concert hall and see female dancers mixing with men.He said that he decided to give “advices” to the concert’s youth whom he described as responsive to his concerns. According to him, the concert was later canceled after the withdrawal of a “sizeable group of the attendees.”Khalid Saeed, a spokesman for the Salafi Front, hailed Shoman’s “good behavior” but said Shoman only represented himself as an individual Salafi advocator. But Saeed told the electronic al-Ahram newspaper that the concert is “unacceptable” and that it was “full of sins” with both genders mixing. Prominent Islamic figure Salim al-Awa, likewise, said Shoman’s behavior was his own and did not represent any religious or political bloc in the country and that whether singing is forbidden in Islam was still an unresolved issue among the clerics and scholars. Awa said that there was no evidence in the Quran or in the teaching of the prophet that singing is “haram,” but he said there was “evidence” that anything that leads to committing sins should be banned.Read the full story here.

• Syria - France says too late for Syrian regime; Turkey warns of civil war.(AlArabiya).French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Friday that “it is now too late” for the Syrian regime to remain in power because it failed to implement necessary reforms. Meanwhile, Turkey warned that the conflict in Syria risks turning into a civil war.“We believe that the (Syrian) regime was not willing to implement a reform program and now it is too late,” Juppe said after a meeting with the Turkish parliament’s foreign relations committee head, Volkan Bozkir.Hours earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, pointing to the new attacks by army defectors, said, “There is a risk of transforming into civil war. It is now the right time to stop this massacre, and therefore the Arab initiative is important.” The Arab League has given Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a deadline to halt his “bloody repression” of anti-regime protests or risk sanctions.Al Arabiya correspondent in the Moroccan capital Rabat, hosting an Arab League meeting on Syria, reported that the Assad’s regime has accepted the Arab call without giving further details.“If it is not successful of course there is always a risk of civil war or high level tension in Syria,” Davutoglu added.Up until now the Turkish diplomat said it has been “difficult to call it a civil war because in civil war there are two parties attacking each other.“But in this case usually civilians are being attacked by the security forces.”The eight-month revolt in Syria has turned increasingly violent, with the Free Syrian Army, made up of army defectors, mounting a daring attack this week against a military intelligence base near the capital and the opposition becoming more militarized.Davutoglu also said that Turkey was prepared to help the opposition Syrian National Council to develop its relations within Syria and with the international community.“At this stage it is important that the (opposition council) has access to the international community, the Syrian people, and that it has a solid base as an organization of the Syrian people,” he said.Syrian security forces shot dead at least five protesters on Friday and wounded tens when they fired live ammunition to disperse protests against the Syrian president after Friday prayers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.Among those killed was a 14 year-old protester in the southern city of Deraa. The rest of the deaths occurred in the Damascus suburb of Erbin, the central city of Homs and the countryside of the city of Hama to the north, said the Observatory.Read the full story here.

• Iranian official calls for better cooperation against terrorism.(TodaysZaman).An Iranian lawmaker has called for better cooperation between Turkey and Iran against terrorism, which he said requires “a serious fight, regardless of where it is staged,” as he surprisingly hailed growing relations between the nations with the hope that Iran and Turkey would fulfill their true potential in the future.“Our true potential exceeds what we currently make of it. Relations are good, but they could be better,” the head of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, told the Anatolian news agency on Thursday before he departed for a visit to Turkey, where he will meet with Turkish officials and discuss bilateral and regional relations later in the day.Boroujerdi spoke of great opportunities ahead for Iran and Turkey, suggesting that the countries had more common than diverging interests. Turkey and Iran are neighbors with a remittent relationship in the volatile Middle East, and diplomatic relations between the regional powers have cooled with regard to Turkey's cooperation on a bilateral and regional level with the US, a country Boroujerdi regarded as “the Great Satan.”Touching on the US role in the Middle East, the Iranian official suggested that the nations of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region could secure the region through cooperation with each other, and there would be “no need to lean on the walking cane of the US,” Anatolia reported.Turkey and Iran are both combating terrorism seeking autonomy in their countries, and share intelligence regarding the activities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its Iranian offshoot, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK). Commenting on the common terrorism problem of Turkey and Iran, the official noted that the two countries were cooperating through a mutual security committee for years to find a solution to the problem, and suggested that a serious fight was needed to overcome terrorism wherever it was staged.On Thursday, Boroujerdi met with President Abdullah Gül in Ankara and had a meeting with the chairperson of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, Volkan Bozkır, with whom he discussed bilateral relations between the countries and ways of countering terrorism and illegal drug trafficking. The Iranian official, speaking to reporters after his meeting with Bozkır, also noted that the foreign trade volume between Turkey and Iran stood at $12 billion, and that it would reach $15 billion by the end of the year, as he expressed that the two countries would like to see that figure at $30 billion next year.Hmmmm......"Sanctions that 'bite', good thing the US and Turkey take the lead in the fight against terrorisme?Read the full story here.

• Iranian Revolutionary Guards drug ring funding terror?(YNet).The revenues of an Iranian-run global narcotics network is being transferred to terrorist organizations, London-based The Times newspaper quoted former Revolutionary Guard officials as saying on Friday. According to the sources, members of the elite guard took over the Islamic Republic's drug smuggling industry, and are using the revenues – estimated to reach dozens of billions of dollars – to build a solid support base for global crime networks and terror organizations acting against the West.The report noted that hundreds of people are executed in Iran annually for drug smuggling and drug possession, as part of the administration's hard-line policy against narcotics. However, behind the stage, the Revolutionary Guard is engaged in an extremely profitable business that is fueled by the smuggling of heroin, opium and methamphetamines.The report was published on the heels of a recent controversy surrounding the suspected involvement of the Revolutionary Guard's elite unit – the Quds Force – in the assassination attempt of the Saudi Ambassador to the United States.Sources in Washington, who claimed that the Iranians planned to blow up a New York restaurant while the Saudi ambassador was dining there, said that the narcotics ring leaders were also planning to expand their smuggling routes to North America.The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) identified at least one Revolutionary Guard commander directly involved in drug trafficking from Afghanistan through Iran, the sources told The Times. The Iranian sources named two other seniors officials who they claimed were involved in the smuggling ring, including the Revolutionary Guard's Tehran District Commander Abdullah Araqi, who is suspected of developing close relations with the eastern European underworld. According to the report, the Iranians are using ships and planes to transport drugs to Albania, Bulgaria and Romania, and from there to western Europe. "We were told that the drugs will destroy the sons and daughters of the West, and that we must kill them. Their lives are worth less because they are not Muslims," a former Revolutionary Guard member told the paper. The revenues funneled from the drug industry, the sources claimed, ars used to fund various Iranian military projects, including the development of missiles and weaponry, but is mostly aimed at "exporting the Islamic revolution" – a code name for sowing imbalance in other countries by supporting radical Islamist factions, including Hezbollah, the Islamic Jihad and Hamas.Hmmmm...... "Their lives are worth less because they are not Muslims'.Compare to a US President that says:"I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."Read the full story here.

• Jerusalem mosque at Mount of Olives expanding illegally,despite evidence it has expanded to State-owned land.(YNet).The Ras el-Amud mosque, situated on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives, has been illegally expanded by 217 square meters (about 2,335 square feet) over the past year, Ynet reported Thursday.Construction work at the mosque began in October 2010. While the main structure was built on private property, the additions were constructed illegally on State-owned land. The initial preparations for the additional construction began – not coincidentally – during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish holiday season, when city inspectors normally don’t enforce the law. Following repeated complaints lodged by the area's residents, in June 2011 the City of Jerusalem ordered that construction at the site be halted. However, construction continued, and during this time the structure was connected to a water supply network and internal walls were erected.Michael Frankburg, legal counsel for Jerusalem District Police, said that the construction at the mosque was limited to internal renovations, but photos presented to him by residents indicated that three new structures were built at the site. Aryeh King, chairman of the East Jerusalem Public Complaints Bureau, said "it is a shame that all the law enforcement agencies are helpless, especially when this is about such an important site as the Mount of Olives."When Jews build in central and west Jerusalem, (the City) is very strict with them. It's a shame that the Prime Minister's Office, which is aware of this severe construction infringement, is in no hurry to enforce a law it is so quick to enforce when it comes to Jews who have built their homes on lands they have purchased in the West Bank," he added. Jerusalem Police said the case was under the municipality's jurisdiction. It said in a statement that as soon as it became evident that construction at the mosque violated a work stoppage order issued by the City, officers were dispatched to the site and made certain construction was halted. The City of Jerusalem said it would start legal proceedings against the mosque. Hmmmm....They destroy illegal Jewish settlers their houses don't they?Read the full story here.

• Egyptian Islamists Attack Christians Mourning Murder of 27 Copts.(INN).Muslim attackers have thrown rocks and broken glass at a Coptic Christian march in Cairo, injuring 10, witnesses told Reuters.Marcher Hossam Victor says about 400 Christians marched through the Cairo neighborhood of Shubra Thursday to mark the end of 40 days of mourning after sectarian clashes that killed 27 people, most of them Christians.During the march, attackers threw stones, bricks and broken glass on the marchers from a six-floor apartment building, Victor said. Clashes broke out and 10 people were injured, two of them seriously.Victor said the attackers were supporters of ultraconservative Islamist candidates in Egypt’s upcoming parliamentary elections.Sectarian clashes have become more common since the uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February.During the anti-Mubarak riots that marked the opening of the so-called Arab Spring in Egypt, the country’s community of Coptic Christians came under attack by armed gangs of Islamists.At least two Coptic churches were also burnt down during the uprising — one with ten people inside. Additionally, on New Year’s Day a bombing in a Coptic church killed 21.Cairo's caretaker junta has, to date, attempted to maintain the tolerant status quo of the Mubarak era, but Thursday's violence has raised concerns about the security of Egypt's Coptic Christians.Islamists are expected to make significant gains in polls scheduled to begin on November 28.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• HT:Frontline. Flying Cheap is it safe? A decade ago aircraft repairs were mostly done by the airlines flying the planes. Today, carriers are outsourcing the bulk of heavy maintenance. Should we worry? A co-production with the Investigative Reporting Workshop.In a follow-up to the hard-hitting investigation of the regional airline industry, FRONTLINE sets its sights on another growing trend -- the outsourcing of major airline repair work to foreign-based maintenance operations, from China to El Salvador, and to U.S.-based contractors who keep costs low by using unlicensed mechanics. FRONTLINE correspondent Miles O'Brien investigates reports of undertrained mechanics, foreign workers who can't read the English language repair manuals, inadequate FAA oversight and the use of unauthorized airline parts.Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Uproar in Germany over Anti-Israeli, Anti-Semitic Turkish Film Due for Release on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.An uproar has erupted in Germany over the upcoming launching of the Turkish film "Valley of the Wolves: Palestine," about Turkish commando team which goes to Israel to track down the Israeli military commander responsible for the Gaza flotilla raid. The film's intended release date in Germany, January 27, coincides with International Holocaust Remembrance Day.German politicians have condemned both the film and the date chosen for its release. PM Kerstin Griese, of the Social Democratic Party, criticized the film for inciting to violence and fomenting anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic sentiment. MPs Philip Missfelder of the Christian Democratic Party and Jerzy Montag of the Green Party said its release on January 28 disrespected victims of the Holocaust. The latter added, however, that the film could not be banned unless it breached the law, because, unless illegal, "sickening things [could] be shown in Germany.A spokesman for the film's distributors, the Cologne-based Pera Film, said the company had been unaware of the sensitivity of the date.Hmmmmm.....The hatred of Israel by theTurks is even bigger than that of the Palestinians.Get Turkey out of NATO!Read the full story here.

• Developping!Egypt protesters clash with police. Police fire tear gas at anti-government demonstrators in Cairo as thousands call for ouster of president Hosni Mubarak.Unconfirmed sources(twitter) say police opend fire with live bullets,one person killed.Inspired by Tunisian demonstrators, thousands of Egyptian protesters on Tuesday gathered in Cairo and other major cities, calling for reforms and demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, Al Jazeera's correspondents have reported.The anti-government protesters, some hurling rocks and climbing atop an armoured police truck, were chanting slogans against Mubarak, who ruled the country for three decades.Downtown Cairo came to a standstill with protesters chanting slogans against the police, the interior minister and the government, in scenes that the capital has not seen since the 1970s.Demonstrators marched toward what Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh called the "symbols of their complaints and their agony," the headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party, the foreign ministry and the state television.But police responded with blasts from a water cannon and set upon crowds with batons and acrid clouds of tear gas to clear demonstrators crying out "Down with Mubarak'' and demanding an end to the country's grinding poverty.Earlier on Tuesday, Rageh reported from the protests, calling them "unprecedented" in the leniency showed by security forces who allowed demonstrators to march through the capital.The Egyptian government had earlier warned activists hoping to emulate Tunisian pro-democracy protesters that they faced arrest if they went ahead with Tuesday's mass demonstrations, which some labelled the "Day of wrath".Black-clad riot police, backed by armoured vehicles and fire engines, have been deployed in a massive security operation in Cairo, with the biggest concentrations and likely flashpoints, including: the Cairo University campus, the central Tahrir Square and the courthouse where protesters are said to be gathering. Coinciding with a national holiday in honour of the police, a key force in keeping president Mubarak in power for 30 years, the outcome in Egypt on Tuesday is seen as a test on whether vibrant Web activism can translate into street action.Organisers have called for a "day of revolution against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment"."Activists said they wanted to use this particular day to highlight the irony of celebrating Egypt's police at a time when police brutality is making headlines," reported Rawya Rageh, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Cairo."In fact, the call originated from a Facebook page initially set up to honour a 28-year-old man from Alexandria who activists say was tortured to death by police."Witnesses are telling us that there are hundreds on the streets. This is an indication that the protests seem so far to be larger than the usual protests that have taken place here in Egypt over the past few years."Read the full story here.Video here.

• UK - Film on dangers of Asian sex gangs commissioned by Government agency... then withheld for three years!A specially commissioned film warning young girls of the dangers posed by Asian sex gangs is yet to be seen in schools after almost three years, it was revealed today.My Dangerous Loverboy, a 20-minute drama ordered by UK Human Trafficking Centre in 2008, was intended to be seen by 13 and 14-year-old girls across Britain.It tells the story of an under-age girl whose older Asian boyfriend lures her into parties where drug and alcohol abuse are rife before selling her for sex with older men.Officials feared teenage girls were increasingly at risk of become victims of such crimes, concerns that have recently been backed by a string of convictions.However, after a series of delays blamed variously blamed on technical difficulties and budget problems, the film has only been seen by a small number of youngsters in test screenings.The screenings brought great acclaim for the drama which was hoped would make a real difference to the then almost unpublicised issue of Asian sex gangs.Sheila Taylor, chief executive of Safe & Sound Derby, told The Times newspaper that 'the bureaucracy and technical problems associated with this project have been deeply frustrating for all involved.'The UKHTC has denied the delay was due to fears about racial sensitivities.In the film, set in an unnamed northern town, 14-year-old Jade regularly bunks off school and is charmed by Raz, 27.He separates her from friends, giving her a mobile phone as she enjoys the parties and fast cars that he is involved with.At one such party he urges her to 'be nice' to a man he says is a record producer, and keen to oblige she does. The teenager then descends into being trafficked from town to town where she is sold to older men for sex.David Dillnutt, head of UKHTC said the film was being developed for use in schools soon.He added: 'Since 2009, My Dangerous Loverboy has been well used by frontline professional, including police officers and child support workers, who are in a position to spot warning signs and help prevent child exploitation taking place.'The UK Human Trafficking Centre and its partners, who commissioned the film, hope that in addition to encouraging early intervention, it will give victims confidence to come forward and help bring their abusers to justice.'The film has been shown at numerous national, regional and local conferences and seminars, film festivals and other events throughout the UK by a range of different organisations.'Further enhancements have now been made to develop it into an educational package for use in schools.' Read the full story here.video here.

• HT:What'sUpWithThat.Browner out at the White House – Hansen bites back.The plot thickens: White House aides Monday were mum about what would happen to the Office of Energy and Climate Change except to declare that Browner, a former Senate staffer to Al Gore, believed energy issues would remain front and center for the president.One wonders now if Obama will even mention climate during the State of the Union Address Tuesday night. With jobs and economy taking front and center and Browner’s announcement right before SOTUA, government climate initiatives may be relegated to the back-burner. We’ll have to wait and see.New York Times. Dot Earth. NASA’s Hansen Pushes Obama for a Carbon Cost and a Nuclear Push.Hansen also slammed President Obama for buckling to advocacy groups who impede progress on nuclear power, rather than being a “responsible leader” and authorizing a major new programme of building new nuclear power stations.Despite frequently proclaiming global warming to be an existential threat to humanity, Romm has hindered the move to low emissions energy by waging a campaign against nuclear power, which – as Hansen notes – has “the best safety record of any major industry”. Why is Romm ignoring the advice of the scientists he himself champions? Is it science, or is it politics?Read the full story here.

• HT:SultanKnish.In the Crosshairs of the Speech Police.In the weeks since the Arizona massacre, the media has revealed a preoccupation with language almost as intense as the one that motivated her shooter. Loughner's obsession with Congresswoman Giffords seems to have begun in 2007 when she mockingly replied to his question, "How do you know words mean anything?" And Loughner's killing spree has touched off the media's obsession with that same question, leading a CNN anchor to apologize for using the term "crosshairs".It was almost as if the media had come down with a lighter version of Loughner's fixation on grammar as a tool of mind control. If only they could properly censor the language, no one would have to die or go on shooting sprees. Somehow if we refuse to use the word 'crosshairs', no one will ever wind up in anyone else's crosshairs. It's as if the use of the word creates the idea, rather than the word being only another means of describing an idea.But controlling language is not the same thing as controlling minds. Orwell's 1984 depicted a totalitarian regime which controlled language in order to prevent forbidden ideas from finding expression. Since then (1948 not 1984) the left has obsessively tried to politicize language. There are entire seminars on the political uses of language. Newscasts are dotted with politically correct terminology, homeless, differently abled, custodial worker-- yet has changing language actually changed attitudes?Loughner and the media both agree that words can control men's minds. The media's descent into the madness of the speech police reflects a multichannel schizophrenia of their own. The belief that their words create reality. And in the crosshairs of the speech police, criminals become the victims of language, and language becomes the target.Read the full story here.

• Renewed Push to Give Obama an Internet "Kill Switch".A controversial bill handing President Obama power over privately owned computer systems during a "national cyberemergency," and prohibiting any review by the court system, will return this year. Internet companies should not be alarmed by the legislation, first introduced last summer by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), a Senate aide said last week. Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "We're not trying to mandate any requirements for the entire Internet, the entire Internet backbone," said Brandon Milhorn, Republican staff director and counsel for the committee. Instead, Milhorn said at a conference in Washington, D.C., the point of the proposal is to assert governmental control only over those "crucial components that form our nation's critical infrastructure." Portions of the Lieberman-Collins bill, which was not uniformly well-received when it became public in June 2010, became even more restrictive when a Senate committee approved a modified version on December 15. The full Senate did not act on the measure."Declaration of National Cyber Emergency"The revised Lieberman-Collins bill, dubbed the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, works this way: Homeland Security will "establish and maintain a list of systems or assets that constitute covered critical infrastructure" and that will be subject to emergency decrees. (The term "kill switch" does not appear in the legislation.) Under the revised legislation, the definition of critical infrastructure has been tightened. DHS is only supposed to place a computer system (including a server, Web site, router, and so on) on the list if it meets three requirements. First, the disruption of the system could cause "severe economic consequences" or worse. Second, that the system "is a component of the national information infrastructure." Third, that the "national information infrastructure is essential to the reliable operation of the system." At last week's event, Milhorn, the Senate aide, used the example of computers at a nuclear power plant or the Hoover Dam but acknowledged that "the legislation does not foreclose additional requirements, or additional additions to the list." A company that objects to being subject to the emergency regulations is permitted to appeal to DHS secretary Janet Napolitano. But her decision is final and courts are explicitly prohibited from reviewing it. President Obama would then have the power to "issue a declaration of a national cyberemergency." What that entails is a little unclear, including whether DHS could pry user information out of Internet companies that it would not normally be entitled to obtain without a court order. One section says they can disclose certain types of noncommunications data if "specifically authorized by law," but a presidential decree may suffice.For their part, Lieberman and Collins say the president already has "nearly unchecked authority" to control Internet companies. A 1934 law (PDF) creating the Federal Communications Commission says that in wartime, or if a "state of public peril or disaster or other national emergency" exists, the president may "authorize the use or control of any...station or device." In congressional testimony (PDF) last year, DHS Deputy Undersecretary Philip Reitinger stopped short of endorsing the Lieberman-Collins bill. The 1934 law already addresses "presidential emergency authorities, and Congress and the administration should work together to identify any needed adjustments to the act," he said, "as opposed to developing overlapping legislation." Hmmmm......Democracy or dictatorship?Read the full story here.

• HT:TheAmericanDream.No Jobs, No Hope, No Future: 27 Signs That America’s Poverty Class Is Rapidly Becoming Larger Than America’s Middle Class.In the America that most of us grew up in, most Americans considered themselves to be part of the "upper middle class", the "middle class" or "the lower middle class". Yes, there have always been poor people and homeless people, but they were thought to be a very small sliver of the population. Well, today all of that is dramatically changing. America's emerging "poverty class" is exploding in size at the same time that America's middle class is rapidly disappearing. You won't hear it on the mainstream news, but the truth is that the United States has lost ten percent of its middle class jobs over the past decade. Only the top 5 percent of income earners in the U.S. has had their incomes increase enough to keep up with the rising cost of living over the past 40 years. The truth is that today there are a whole lot of people aggressively jostling for the small number of good jobs that are actually available and each year millions more Americans are being squeezed out of the middle class. The number of Americans that are financially dependent on the U.S. government continues to set new records month after month. The number of Americans that are participating in the labor force continues to go down. The sad reality is that the "American Dream" that so many Americans used to take for granted is being ripped away from us. If you still believe that the United States is guaranteed to always have a very large, very prosperous middle class then you really need to read the statistics listed below.If you told most Americans ten years ago that in 2011 over 43 million Americans would be on food stamps hardly anyone would have believed you.But yet here we are.Read the full "Change" story here.

• And the Debt Bomb Ticks On.With his approval rating moving up to 50 percent and higher in some polls, the pundits are all agreed. President Obama has turned the corner. He is now the winter-book favorite in 2012.How, two months after his "shellacking," did he do it?First, by taking the wheel from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, cutting a deal to extend the Bush tax cuts, bringing aboard Bill Daley, and separating himself from the demonizers of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck as moral accomplices in the Tucson massacre.Second, Obama has been the beneficiary of bullish news.Undeniably. Yet, consider. The federal deficit for the fiscal year 2011, which ends Sept. 30, is projected at between $1,200 billion and $1,500 billion.Thus, the $100 billion in cuts the firebrands are pushing, and few think they will get, add up at best to 8 percent of the deficit and 2.5 percent of the $3.87 trillion budget Obama proposed.Thus, at best, this Congress will only slightly reduce the rate of speed at which we are heading toward a debt default.The last few days have brought other news bearing on the debt bomb hanging over the Western world.Now, facing trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, House Republicans are balking at agreeing to raise the debit limit of $14.3 trillion, though the national debt just crossed the $14 trillion mark.Are the happy days really here again?Hmmm......"Together we thrive" over the cliff?Read the full story here.

• HT:StrategyPage.Iraq Prepares For War With Iran.January 25, 2011: The Iraqi Army is hustling to get ready to deal with Iran, by the time the last 50,000 U.S. troops leave at the end of the year. Increased oil production, and oil prices, has made it possible to recruit more troops, and equip more combat divisions. Particularly noteworthy is the creation of Chemical Defense Regiments, with the goal of one of these units being assigned to each combat division over the next few years. The only neighbor known to have chemical weapons is Iran. Iraqi diplomats spend a lot of time trying to improve relationships with Iran, but just in case things go south, the Iraqi military is preparing for the worst. While Iraq has sought to obtain a lot of American weapons, particularly tanks, artillery and combat aircraft, it's been easier, and faster, to get Russian type gear from Russia or East European nations. A lot of this stuff is newly made, but most of it is Cold War surplus. These vehicles and artillery are cheap, a lot of older Iraqis are familiar with them, and they are as good as anything the Iranians have.By the end of the year, the army will have about 230,000 troops. They will not be as well as equipped as during Saddam Hussein's tenure (1960s-2003), but they are better trained. This is important, because Iraqi troops have long been the least effective in the Arab world, largely because of poor leadership. The war with Iran in the 1980s changed that, but Saddam purged most of the competent new leaders, soon after, as he feared they would lead a coup against his disastrous rule (he was probably right.)Read the full story here.

• HT:ElderOfZion.Hamas imam: "Please, Allah, kill all the Jews".Richard Millett watched a new two-hour anti-Israel documentary claiming that Israel targeted children in Gaza. The film is now being shown on college campuses. It included this lovely clip.Read and see the full story here.

• Obama won't endorse raising retirement age or reducing Social Security benefits.President Obama has decided not to endorse his deficit commission's recommendation to raise the retirement age, and otherwise reduce Social Security benefits, in Tuesday's State of the Union address, cheering liberals and drawing a stark line between the White House and key Republicans in Congress.Over the weekend, the White House informed Democratic lawmakers and advocates for seniors that Obama will emphasize the need to reduce record deficits in the speech, but that he will not call for reducing spending on Social Security - the single largest federal program - as part of that effort. Liberals, who have been alarmed by Obama's recent to shift to the center and his effort to court the nation's business community, applauded the decision, arguing that Social Security cuts are neither necessary to reduce current deficits nor a wise move politically. Polls show that large majorities of Americans in both parties - even in households that identify themselves as part of the tea party movement - oppose cuts to Social Security."The commission said nothing surprising about Social Security. The options they recommended are perfectly reasonable and balanced. If the president wasn't willing to embrace these sort of changes, he shouldn't have appointed a commission to find solutions. What did he expect?" Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the nonprofit Concord Coalition, which advocates for balanced budgets, said in an e-mail."I'm increasingly concerned that both parties are content to have a knock-down-drag-out fight over waste, fraud and abuse," Bixby said. "It's a fiscal sideshow, but very safe territory before a presidential election. Very depressing."Hmmmm....It seems there are politicians who would even kiss an Skunk's bottom if it would yield votes? Read the full story here.

• HT:SeeingRed.“Honor killing” trial begins in Phoenix.Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 49, an Iraqi immigrant intentionally drove his vehicle into his 20-year-old daughter, Noor Almaleki and Amal Khalaf her boyfriend’s mother, as the two walked through a parking lot. After running them over, he backed up and ran over them again. Noor was in a coma for two weeks before she died.This horrific, premeditated 2009 crime in which the Muslim father intentionally killed his own daughter and seriously injured another woman, was filed as a first degree murder case, but apparently not one worthy of the death penalty. Although Almaleki admitted his role in the murder, he pled not guilty. The Arizona Republic reported that a plea deal was considered earlier this month. Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugged writes: Honor killing should be a capital crime. Islamic honor killing is on the rise in the West. These barbaric crimes should be stamped out, not sanctioned. They should be dealt with in the harshest terms. Instead unemployed trucker Faleh Hassan Almaleki faces life in prison if a jury finds him guilty of this vicious “honor killing“and hit and run of two. No death penalty was sought.Why?Incredibly, Almaleki’s public defender, Billy Little, asked the judge to take special precautions to ensure the prosecution wouldn’t wrongly seek the death penalty because Almaleki is a Muslim. Little requested that the court “provide some level of assurance that there is no appearance that a Christian is seeking to execute a Muslim for racial, political, religious or cultural beliefs.”No American court should tolerate brutal and premeditated murder out of political, religious and cultural considerations. The message to Muslim girls who are threatened by honor killing is that American courts will offer them no refuge.Hmmmm....America must say NO TO SHARIA LAW and dishonor killings!Read the full story here.

• "Life Or Death in Iran's Prisons".Amnesty : Iran hangs two activists detained during the 2009 unrest.Amnesty International has condemned the executions of two political activists who were arrested in September 2009 during mass protests following Iran’s disputed presidential election..Ja’far Kazemi and Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaei are reported to have been hanged this morning at Tehran’s Evin Prison. Both men had been convicted of moharebeh (enmity against God), “propaganda against the system” and having contacts with a banned opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).Their hangings are the latest in a wave of executions which has seen the Iranian authorities execute at least 71 prisoners since the beginning of this year – an average of more than 20 each week. Thousands more prisoners are on death row.“We are appalled by the executions of Ja’far Kazemi and Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaei, as we are appalled by the continuing use in Iran of this most cruel and extreme penalty,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.“Like so many other victims, neither of these men received a fair trial.According to some reports, Ja’far Kazemi was tortured for months by his interrogators at Evin Prison to force him to make a televised “confession” but he refused to do so.He and Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaei were tried together. They are believed to have been sentenced to death in April 2010 and to have had their appeals rejected in July and September.Before they were arrested both men had visited members of their families who live in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, where some 3,400 members and supporters of the PMOI live in exile. Ja’far Kazemi’s son lives at the Camp, which is located some 60km north of Baghdad.Read the full story here.

• US awards $300,000 to four Turkish projects to empower women.Four Turkish projects aimed at increasing women’s and girls’ access to education and healthcare and combating all forms of violence against women and girls were awarded a total of $300,000 from the US Secretary of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues in the implementation of its first small grants initiative program. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer, appointed by US President Barrack Obama, spoke at a press conference yesterday in İstanbul. During the announcement of recipients of the grants, she said they had received many valuable project proposals.“I wish we could have funded even more projects because we had so many project proposals,” Verveer said, adding that 38 countries had been awarded funding for 57 projects.One of the four Turkish organizations is the Mother and Child Education Foundation (AÇEV), which received approximately $95,000 to implement its “Raising Young Girls” project to benefit 2,550 young girls in İstanbul and Diyarbakır over the next 16 months.Representing AÇEV, Çiğdem Kağıtçıbaşı said their programs in early education, family education and adult literacy have been exemplary since the organization was founded in 1993.The Foundation for the Support of Women’s Work (KEDV), established in 1986, was granted $100,000 for its “solar cooker” project. Şengül Akçar from KEDV said they will work with local women’s cooperatives to implement the solar cooker project, which is aimed at reducing dependency on fossil fuels, providing economic advantages to women and providing benefits for those implementing the solar cooking project.Two more projects received funding from donations to the US State Department by the Avon Foundation. One was the Hüseyin Özyeğin Foundation, which was awarded approximately $50,000 to implement its program “Empowering young women against violence.” Aslı Bekmen from the foundation said the funds will be utilized in the provinces of Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa, Bitlis and Muş for seminars at six dormitories for girls housing 1,148 students.The fourth grant was $50,000 for Anadolu University’s (AÜ) education projects for journalism students on the issue of gender. İncilal Cangöz from AÜ said their purpose will be to raise awareness of the language journalists use in their reporting of gender-related topics. She said they plan to educate 40 students from five universities and produce educational DVDs and books on the issue to be distributed at journalism schools.Verveer’s visit to İstanbul will also include the inauguration of the US State Department sponsored “Invest for the Future: Women Driving Economic Growth Conference” -- a three-year program geared towards improving the economic situation for women across Southern and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The conference on Jan. 24-26 will bring together 125 women business owners from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece and Turkey in İstanbul to learn about innovative ways women entrepreneurs can grow their businesses. The program is being implemented in partnership with the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey.Hmmmmmm......KEDV  A "Solar cooker?AÇEV who works together with Harvard?Coincidence Mr president?Read the full story here.

• Russia - Two terrorists involved in Domodedovo blast, both killed.Two terrorists were involved in a suicide bomb attack at Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport that killed 35 and injured up to 180 on Monday, a law enforcement source said.Both died in the explosion that ripped through the international arrivals zone at 4:32 p.m. (13:32 GMT), as friends and taxi drivers were meeting arriving passengers.The blast was equivalent to 5 kilograms of TNT and the bomb was packed with metal objects to cause maximum damage. Earlier reports said that the bomb was equivalent to 7 kg of TNT."The blast occurred when a suspected female terrorist opened a bag. She was accompanied by a man whose head was ripped off by the explosion," the source told RIA Novosti."It cannot be ruled out that the terrorists wanted to leave the explosive device in the hall but the bomb was detonated inadvertently or by a remote control device," he said."The terror attack was done according to a scheme that is used by terrorists from the North Caucasus region," he said. "The [2004] blasts at the Rizhskaya subway station and other explosions in the Moscow metro [2010] were carried out similarly, when the terrorists were accompanied by militants."Reports suggest the terrorists were driven to the airport, Moscow's busiest, by an accomplice.The bombing was the worst terror attack since two female suicide bombers from the volatile North Caucasus republic of Dagestan blew themselves up at two of the capital's subway stations last March, killing 40.Police have hinted the latest outrage may be linked to the Islamist radicals in the North Caucasus.Three suspects are being sought over the bombing.Hmmmm....Makes me wonder...If female terrorists blow themselves up ,do they also get 72 virgins?Read the full story here.

• Sen. Sessions on Obama Initiatives: ‘Can’t See How We Could Possibly Spend More Money’.ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: President Obama is leavening his calls for fiscal restraint for targeted “investments” aimed at helping the economy – including new spending on areas such as education, infrastructure, and job creation.But the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, told us on ABC’s “Top Line” today that he doesn’t foresee supporting even limited expansions in government spending.“I can't see how we could possibly spend more money at this point,” said Sessions, R-Ala. “Start new programs perhaps -- if some were reduced or eliminated, you might reorder money, and I'd be open to that. But we'd really have to have at least, I think, this year, a 10 percent reduction in spending.”“Ryan has done a fabulous thing. He's developed a plan that goes 60 years, and he deals with Social Security and Medicare, a lot of those changes don't take place until in the distant years in the future,” Sessions said. “But his whole plan and approach is fabulous, we need to be listening to it. The president needs to be engaging it, just those kinds of serious discussions, and from what I'm hearing he's still talking about ‘investments’ which is a code word for spending. We've got to get off that road -- we can't go 30 miles an hour down the road just because we [were doing] 60. It’s the wrong road, so we get on the right road to a solvent America. This will be the best thing for our economic growth.”We also checked in with Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. Van Hollen said the president is pursuing “two paths” – one of fiscal discipline, and another with targeted investments “to get jobs moving again in this country.”Read the full story here.

• Pro-Palestinian groups plan largest Gaza flotilla ever.Convoy of ships is expected to arrive in Gaza on the anniversary of the Israeli raid on the "Mavi Marmara," in May.International pro-Palestinian groups are preparing a massive flotilla of ships to the Gaza Strip in the spring, to coincide with the first anniversary of the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara in late May, organizers said on Monday.The convoy will be named “Freedom Flotilla 2” and is expected to include delegations from close to a dozen countries including, for the first time, vessels from the US and Canada.According to the organizers, the various groups are in the process of raising money, buying vessels and recruiting volunteers.Dror Feiler, an Israeli- Swedish musician and artist who lives in Stockholm – and one of the organizers behind the new flotilla – said that the flotilla would try to reach Gaza on May 31, the same day that the Israel Navy stopped the Turkish flotilla last year.The coalition behind the new blockade-busting effort includes the Turkish IHH and the Free Gaza Movement, both of which were involved in the May flotilla. It is demanding “an immediate and complete lifting of the closure, including a lifting of the travel ban as well as the ban on exports from Gaza.”According to Feiler, the new flotilla will include activists from Norway, Spain, the US, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Indonesia and Malaysia.Read the full story here.

• New trends in Halal retailing in North America.The halal retail market in North America is brimming with opportunities and creative retailers are experimenting in numerous ways of capitalizing it. An often overlooked but growing trend is the emergence of large super-market style stores which are open until late night or for twenty four hours. Despite facing a slew of hurdles these businesses have grown and expanded.In Toronto Iqbal Foods has become a landmark and a hit not only with Muslims but also non-Muslim consumers. Open until midnight it attracts customers from throughout the Greater Toronto Area and beyond. Unlike the Queens case, Nayab and Iqbal Foods have faced little opposition because the areas in which they opened were already dominated by the immigrant population. Devon Avenue is a well known South Asian hub. Thorncliffe Park, where Iqbal is located, is a dense neighborhood with highrises populated mainly by Muslims.Hmmm......Merriam-Webster Dictionary "Dominate" Synonyms: conquer, overpower, pacify, subdue, subject, subjugate, subordinate, vanquish.Read the full story here.

• Top Senate Budget Republican not ruling out government shutdown.Washington (CNN) – Most Republicans demanding to slash federal spending won't entertain the idea of taking a possible standoff with President Obama so far that the government shuts down.But the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee told CNN Monday he's not ruling out that possibility "if the President just stonewalls – refuses to pass anything that will be responsible."In 1995, when Republicans controlled all of Congress and a spending stalemate resulted in a government shutdown, President Clinton went on to win re-election.Most Republicans remember that as a politically disastrous move they don't want to repeat. Sessions says there was an upside – the country's fiscal condition did get better."It worked out good for the country. We had three years of balanced budgets that would never have happened had they not fought that hard in Congress so I think that Congress does have to fight," said Sessions.Sessions said he is worried that the "gulf" between what Republicans want in spending cuts and what President Obama will tolerate may be too hard to bridge."It does appear that the president is a man of the left. He believes in government - he's still talking about it now – investments, which are spending programs," said Sessions.Hmmmmm.....If he really wanted to destroy America would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• Russian Bear protects BP against a takeover.Almost three years ago, Bob Dudley fled Russia. Now he's going back in a big way. Dudley was the chief executive of TNK-BP, a joint venture between the British oil giant and a Russian company to produce oil from Siberia. Today, of course, Dudley runs BP itself.The company recently announced a stock swap in which BP will get a 9.5 percent stake in Russia's state-owned oil company, Rosneft, and Rosneft will get 5 percent of BP's common stock.The deal, which Russia's deputy prime minister valued at about $8 billion, gives BP access to the Russian Arctic, perhaps the world's greatest potential untapped oil reserves, and it gives Rosneft access to Western capital. For BP, though, the deal has an added benefit. For the past six months, the company has been working to shore up its finances in the wake of its disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.Back in the summer, BP faced the threat of a hostile takeover, because, as I wrote at the time, the value of its assets was greater than its market value.Now, nine months after the Deepwater Horizon accident, BP's U.S. shares are within striking distance of their pre-disaster level. Last week they traded more than 75 percent above their low of $27.02 in late June. Even so, takeover rumors have persisted. BP's weakened stock price, combined with rising oil prices, made it a cheap way for another major to bolster its reserves at a bargain price, the theory went.The Russian deal pretty much quashes any chance that another oil major would make a hostile offer for BP, because any buyer would have to deal with the Russian government.Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell have struggled with Russian investments because of that country's hostile business climate.For BP, though, the Rosneft stock swap is a devil-you-know sort of deal. In 2003, the company became the biggest foreign investor in Russia by setting up the 50-50 joint venture with TNK.The equal ownership stakes, though, meant neither side was really in charge, and the Russian oligarchs who control TNK accused Dudley of managing the venture to benefit BP at their expense. The oligarchs, for example, wanted to expand internationally, but BP's directors shot down the idea, presumably because the venture might compete with BP's own interests abroad.The Rosneft deal could indeed prove lucrative just on its merits. In the meantime, it's better than any poison pill takeover defense BP's board could cook up.Hmmmm.....Hiding behind the Russian bear?Read the full story here.

• HT:NewZeal.When Obama Talks like Reagan, Remember Mark Rudd's Warning Words.It is clear that President Barack Obama is going to move his rhetoric to the center, even to the right, as he positions himself for 2012. After all he can hardly talk further left can he?But as the beguiling one talks like Ronald Reagan, we should all keep an eye on his actions.We should also remember this analysis from former Weather Underground terrorist Mark Rudd, written just after the 2008 elections;Obama is a very strategic thinker. He knew precisely what it would take to get elected and didn't blow it. He used community organizing methods to mobilize a base consisting of many people who had never voted before or who regularly don't vote....But he also knew that what he said had to basically play to the center to not be run over by the press, the Republicans, scare centrist and cross-over voters away. He made it.So he has a narrow mandate for change, without any direction specified. What he's doing now is moving on the most popular issues -- the environment, health care, and the economy. He'll be progressive on the environment because that has broad popular support; health care will be extended to children, then made universal, but the medical, pharmaceutical, and insurance corporations will stay in place, perhaps yielding some power; the economic agenda will stress stimulation from the bottom sometimes and handouts to the top at other times. It will be pragmatic... Read Obama's first book, "Dreams from My Father." The second section is the story of his three years doing community organizing in Chicago. It's some of the best writing on organizing I've ever seen. That's all it's about, the core of the book. Obama learned many lessons of strategy and patience... This is no stupid guy... Had any of the stupid Republicans read his books, they never could have said, "We don't know who this guy is." You know every thought he's ever had.Hmmmmm......"They don't trust me because of my middle name"And a million other things?Read the full story here.

• Black Pro-Life Leaders: Santorum ‘Absolutely Right’ to Wonder How Obama Could Support Abortion. Black pro-life leaders say they agree with former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who in an interview with CNSNews.com last week, referred to President Obama's African-American heritage and said he found it “almost remarkable” that the president could be pro-abortion.The former senator touched off a media storm when he said that he agreed with the argument Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., made in his 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” that a just law is a manmade law that comports with the natural law or the law of God, and that he finds it “almost remarkable” that a black man like President Barack Obama would want to deny legal recognition for the human rights of an unborn child.“I have to agree with him and say that I find it remarkable, also,” Day Gardner, president of the National Black Pro-Life Union in Washington, D.C., told CNSNews.com. “In light of the fact that coming out of slavery, we were not considered full human beings. We were treated as no better than pack mules, working in fields, without any rights at all.”During the one-hour-and-40 minute interview, Santorum said that, when asked during the 2008 campaign by Pastor Rick Warren "at what point" a baby "gets human rights," President Obama was wrong to answer “(T)hat is above my pay grade.”Santorum then said: "(T)he question is--and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer -- is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well, if that person, human life, is not a person, then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, no, we are going to decide who are people and who are not people."“It’s very interesting that the ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ was referenced,” Childress said. “In that same letter, Martin Luther King references infanticide or child-killing as evil. So what Martin Luther King calls evil, Barack Obama and this administration calls good -- because all of their policies have more or less facilitated the growth or the intrusion of abortion in our community and our legislation a hundred fold.” "Unfortunately Barack Obama, undoubtedly, is a facilitator for black genocide. What’s the irony of that? Well, Barack Obama himself is black.”“We look at the conditions in which Barack Obama was born himself, his mother endured, and took on the challenges that were given her and did not choose to kill the child that was in her womb," said Childress. "She was abandoned by her father. She did not have any certain dwelling place. She was unquestionably unsure about her financial stability, and yet she chose to have Barack – and as, we can see, this has turned out to be something that became a historic decision to have him -- because this man is the first black president of the United States."“Just because I’m born in Bedford-Stuy or born in the projects and my mother is single and 16 and doesn’t have an education, you don’t have the right to cut off my pursuit of happiness," said the pastor. "You don’t have that right. The Declaration says you don’t have that right. The Constitution says that these rights are for ‘us and for our posterity’ – our future children."Hmmm.....Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. Martin Luther King, Jr.Read the full story here.

• Charles Aznavour called on Israel to officially recognize Armenian 'genocide'.Turkey pursues “cave anti-Semitism”, Aznavour says.World renowned French chansionnier Charles Aznavour called on Israel to officially recognize Armenian 'genocide', perpetrated under Ottoman Empire in 1915, Kol Israel radio reports.Speaking at the ceremony of International Award of Jerusalem University on January 23, Aznavour said “cave anti-Semitism” has been observed in Turkey in recent years, which took obvious anti-Israeli positions on all Middle East problems, Nashe.orbita.co.il reports.Source.

• Turkey urges Canada not to adopt new 'genocide' resolution.Turkish Parliament Speaker meets Canadian counterpart.Turkish Parliament Speaker Mehmet Ali Shahin has urged Canada to change its policies recognizing Armenian genocide claims, requesting that the country’s Parliament not adopt more resolutions on the same issue in April.“Our wish is not [to see] new problems this April,” Shahin said during a joint press conference with his visiting Canadian counterpart, Noel Kinsella.The Canadian Parliament recognized the 1915 killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire as genocide in 2004. The parliamentary recognition was later approved by the government as well, prompting severe reaction from Turkey. However, because the Canadian government later softened its comments on the issue, relations have improved between the two in recent years.Noting that nearly 50,000 Turkish citizens are living in Canada, Shahin said: “They are civilized humans who contribute to the stability and the development of Canada. I want to believe that the Canadian government and its officials will not make a move that could hurt Turkish citizens.”Hmmmmm......Keep silent .....or else what?Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.'Abbas: If We Fail in the U.N., We Will Take an "Inconceivable" Decision.PA President Mahmoud 'Abbas said that September 2011 was the deadline by which the U.N. must respond to Palestinian appeals regarding the peace process. If these appeals were rejected, he said, the Palestinian leadership would take a decision of which nobody could conceive.Hmmmm......They might leave and go and live in Iran?Read the full story here.