Video - Philippines: Embedded with Islamic guerrillas.

Video - Hungarian gov spokesperson "Migrants are not peaceful, they carry a very clear danger"

Video - ISIS Video Addresses Refugees: You Are Committing a "Grave Sin" by Leaving Dar Al-Islam

Video - Asim Qureshi, leader of campaign group CAGE also supportive of Sharia and the Caliphate

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ISIS ‘Caliph’ descendant of the prophet now officially On U.S. Kill List.

ISIS ‘Caliph’ descendant of the prophet now officially On U.S. Kill List. HT: FreeBeacon.

President Barack Obama has authorized targeted killings of the leaders of the al Qaeda offshoot led by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi using drone strikes or special operations, as the Iraqi terrorist on Tuesday urged jihadists to conduct worldwide attacks.

A U.S. official familiar with internal Obama administration discussions on Iraq said the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS) leader and several other commanders are now on the kill list of those targeted as U.S. national security threats. The list was approved by the president and allows U.S. intelligence agencies and the military to conduct strikes against the targeted terrorists after they have been located and their identities confirmed.

CIA and White House National Security Council spokesmen declined to comment on the kill list designations.

However, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed last week that attacking IS leaders is under consideration.

Meanwhile, Baghdadi, who was declared the prophetic leader, or caliph, of all Muslims on Sunday by his group the Islamic State, issued his first public statement since January on Tuesday. He called on Muslims to extend jihad, or holy war, around the world.

Baghdadi concluded the message by urging jihadists to continue fighting and said, “If you hold to it, you will conquer Rome and own the world.”

The listing of Baghdadi and IS leaders, including military commander Abu-Umar al-Shishani and the group’s spokesman Abu-Muhammad al-Adnani, comes as the U.S. military began flying armed drone missions over Iraq.

The Predator drones, armed with Hellfire missiles, are used as “force protection” for U.S. military troops that were dispatched recently to Baghdad to bolster Iraq’s military.

However, officials said the deployment of armed drones also was done in anticipation that future intelligence operations by special operations commandos in Iraq will be used to identify and locate IS leaders and commanders for drone strikes.

The plans to attack the terror leaders were given added urgency by the early June military-style incursion into Iraq. The IS, backed by former Saddam Hussein military leaders and troops, seized Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul and other towns linking IS rebels in a swath of territory stretching from Aleppo in Syria through central Iraq and southward to areas west of Baghdad.

Analysts say IS will likely be rejected by the vast majority of Muslims who do not want a brutal terrorist as their spiritual leader. However, the danger of a new wave of international terrorist attacks by jihadists associated with Baghdadi is viewed as a major threat.

“While Baghdadi’s concerns may appear localized, his long-term objectives are most certainly not,” said Charlie Cooper, a counterterrorism analyst with the British think tank Quilliam Foundation. “Now that he has claimed the caliphate, he has effectively positioned himself as the standard-bearer of jihadism the world over.”

Baghdadi’s declaration of a caliphate and himself as caliph has been met with disdain by some analysts.

Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution specialist on the Middle East, said Baghdadi now claims to be a descendant of Islam’s founder Mohammad.

“With the announcement of a caliphate by ISIS we now have an alleged ‘true’ name for ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi,”

Riedel said. “He is ‘really’ Ibrahim ibn Awwad ibn Ibrahim Ali ibn Muhammad al Badri al Hashimi al Husayni al Qurashi. That means he is a descendant of the prophet, which is of course critical to being a caliph, and he comes from the same tribe, Qurashi, and the same family, Hashemites. This also makes him a blood relative of King Abdullah II of Jordan.”

An earlier claimant of the same title, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, was known as “Abu Omar al Hashimi al Qurashi al Baghdadi.” However, Riedel said “a drone did him in.”

“So now a man whose real name we don’t know claims to be the leader of all Muslims,” Riedel said, noting that the sole photograph of Baghdadi was provided by Iraqi intelligence, “So I doubt it really is a picture of him.”

Bill Roggio, a terrorism analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, also said Baghdadi remains shrouded in mystery.

“Much like the Taliban’s Mullah Omar, Baghdadi isn’t one to release a lot of speeches,” Roggio said. “However, ISIS/the Islamic State has released numerous statements under its official media outlets.”
Roggio said Baghdadi’s latest statement also includes a call for Muslims to travel to the Islamic State.

Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, a former Delta Force commando and undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the George W. Bush administration, said the rise of Baghdadi, who was held in a U.S. military prison for four years before being released, highlights the danger posed by the administration’s release of five Taliban commanders from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Baghdadi is a difficult target who has avoided Western intelligence for years and can be expected to limit his use of electronic communications to avoid detection, Boykin said.

Noting that Secretary of State John Kerry last month dismissed concerns about the recent release of the five Taliban leaders in exchange for captured Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, Boykin said Kerry also suggested that if the commanders returned to battle in Afghanistan they would be killed by drones.

“Oh really, Mr. Kerry?” Boykin asked. “Here we have a really bad actor [Baghdadi] who was in U.S. custody for four years and we can’t find him nor take him out.”

“So tell me why I should not be concerned about the five Gitmo thugs again,” he said. “Baghdadi is very aware of the threat to him personally from a U.S. drone strike and he is smart enough to command through limited use of electronic comms.”

Patrick Poole, a counterterrorism analyst, said Baghdadi and IS leaders are hiding from possible drone strikes but also must be on alert for attacks from rival al Qaeda groups.

“They have threats coming from at least two different directions,” Poole said. “The actuarial tables on the life of jihadist leaders really weighs against these guys, and most rise up through these jihadist groups through the typically violent death of the predecessors.”

Al Jazeera reported Saturday that armed drone strikes were recently carried out against IS terrorists in Mosul. The report could not be confirmed.

In his statement, Baghdadi said the world has been divided between two camps: Islam and “the camp of disbelief and hypocrisy.” Jihadists must battle “the camp of the Jews, the crusaders, their allies, and with them the rest of the nations and religions of disbelief, all being led by America and Russia, and being mobilized by the Jews,” he said.

He defended the use of what in the West is called terrorism. “Terrorism is to refuse humiliation, subjugation, and subordination [to infidels],” he said. “Terrorism is for the Muslim to live as a Muslim, honorably with might and freedom. Terrorism is to insist upon your rights and not give them up.”

However, the use of terrorism against other Muslims is not permitted, he stated.

Jihadists ‘selling oil to Assad’, says French Foreign Minister.

Jihadists ‘selling oil to Assad’, says French Foreign Minister. (Taz).

The Islamist movement that took the Middle East by storm two weeks ago, capturing large swaths of Syria and Iraq, is reportedly selling oil to the Syrian government, the very people they are fighting to overthrow, according to the French foreign minister.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Monday that the sale was evidence of the "confusing" nature of the escalating conflict in the Middle East in which Syrian President Bashar Assad and the jihadists are in theory on opposing sides.

"We have proofs that when ISIL has taken over oil it has sold oil to the (Assad) regime," Fabius told a news conference in New Delhi. He did not offer any more details.

Referring to how the rebels in Syria and the Assad regime use each other to derive legitimacy, Fabius said: "Officially they are combating each other but in fact they are very often helping each other."

The situation in Iraq is "very, very, very worrying," he added.

"Why? Because it is probably the first time that a terrorist group -- and a ferocious terrorist group -- is in a position, if there is no reaction, to take over the whole country, and a rich country, with enormous consequences for the region and the world," he said.

The solution is for Iraq to unite behind the government and the army to drive out the jihadists, he said.

An estimated amount of $3.2 billion is reported to have been taken from banks in Mosul, along with vast amounts of weapons and munitions abandoned by the Iraqi army in their hasty retreat from Mosul and other cities in the north.

While this group represents a very real and present danger for the security of the entire region and beyond, there is particular fear for the oil and gas producing regions of Syria and Iraq, areas now under the control of ISIL.

The continual flow of oil and gas will give the group a steady income of hard cash.

However, some experts believe that ISIL may have in fact over extended itself and now in fact face the same problem that the U.S. forces faced when they tried to pacify Iraq: capturing and holding the cities, towns and regions captured.

ISIL has managed to capture certain cities, including Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, but holding them requires large numbers One estimate places the number of fighters currently available to ISIL to be around 10,000. 

That is hardly enough to capture and hold cities. Additionally, the fighters that stormed Mosul are not all with ISIL. There are a number of rival groups, including former Baath Party cadres who are in no fashion at all Islamist, but rather see here a marriage of convenience in fighting the government of Nuri al-Malaki.

There are very good chances that the various rivalries between the different Islamists (and the secularists like the Baathists) will eventually clash as ISIL will try to impose itself as the sole authority.

Al-Baghdadi has already potent enemies such as Osama bin-Laden's successor Ayman al-Zawahiri, the new al-Qaida chief, who's orders al-Baghdadi ignored and proceeded with plans to create a caliphate.

Despite the usage of Islamic names and religious terms implied by the ISIL, there is in fact little, if any, real legitimate religious authority found in this group.

A caliphate is an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader - a caliph, or successor to the Prophet Mohammad. By decreeing himself caliph and demanding that all Muslims swear allegiance to him, al- Baghdadi is directly challenging the authority of the kings of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Morocco who respectively carry the titles of "Sherif of Mecca," Custodian of the two holy mosques," and "Commander of the faithful."

Following ISIL's Monday declaration dictating that the areas under their control are to be henceforth called the "Islamic State" and that all Muslims pledge allegiance to the new caliph and to the 'Islamic State,' strangely enough we have not heard any substantial language dealing with any theological differences that exists between the warring parties.

Yet "Caliph Ibrahim," as he now wants to be called, has no theological training. This would be the equivalent of naming an altar boy as Bishop of Rome.

An indication that there is more to this conflict than is generally explained in over-simplified terms as a conflict of opposing Sunni and Shiites, is the position adopted by Iraq's Kurds. The Kurds, who have practically established their own state in the northern part of the country, are overwhelmingly Sunni. Yet they are siding with the Shiites against fellow Sunnis. Why?

Could it be because the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant hides behind a badge of religion?

Syria - Islamic terrorists hail declaration of Islamic 'caliphate'.

Syria - fighters Islamic terrorists hail declaration of Islamic 'caliphate'. (Taz).

Militant Islamist fighters held a parade in Syria's northern Raqqa province to celebrate their declaration of an Islamic "caliphate" after the group captured territory in neighboring Iraq, a monitoring service said.

The Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot previously known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), posted pictures online on Sunday of people waving black flags from cars and holding guns in the air, the SITE monitoring service said.

The Islamic State says it wants to erase national boundaries from the Mediterranean to the Gulf and return the region to a medieval-style caliphate, Reuters reported.

Some analysts say the group is a credible threat to frontiers and is stirring regional violence while others say it exaggerates its reach and support through sophisticated media campaigns.

The group renamed itself and proclaimed its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as "Caliph" - the head of the state - on Sunday.

It also called on factions worldwide to pledge their allegiance, in a direct challenge to regional leaders and to the central leadership of al Qaeda, which has disowned it.

Pictures were posted on Twitter on Sunday and appeared to have been taken following the Islamic State's announcement. Reuters could not immediately verify the contents of the pictures independently.

The hardline Sunni Muslim group has been trying to build strong tribal support in its Raqqa bastion, the only provincial capital in Syria under rebel control.

Islamic State also controls other areas in northern and eastern Syria and across the frontier into Iraq, where it has advanced towards Baghdad from the northern city of Mosul, which it captured on June 10.

Islamic State also released a video called "Breaking of the Borders", promoting its destruction of a frontier crossing between the northern province of al-Hasakah in Syria and Nineveh province in Iraq, said SITE, which tracks militant websites.

Mosul, the country's largest northern city, is the capital of Nineveh. The video showed fighters from Islamic State killing Iraqi border guards.

"I say to the Islamic Ummah [community]: Now we are in Iraq. Allah, glorified and exalted ... smashed these borders, the borders of Sykes-Picot, and now the Muslim can enter Iraq without a passport," the video said, according to a transcript.

"Sykes-Picot" refers to the division of the Ottoman Empire territories in 1916 by Britain and France.

The Sunni group follows al Qaeda's hard-line ideology but place more emphasis on anti-Shi'ite sectarianism, saying Shi'ite Muslims and other rivals are heretics deserving death.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group which tracks the violence, said Islamic State fighters crucified men in the town square of Deir Hafer in the Aleppo province on Saturday for being rival rebels.
Such infighting has killed around 7,000 people in Syria this year and complicated the three-year uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Why ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is not a true Caliph according to Islamic tradition.

Why ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is not a true Caliph according to Islamic tradition. HT: Hudson.Org.

Who Selects the Caliph?

Since the death of Mohammed, the succession of power and authority in Islam has remained a source of great dispute and division among Muslims. In keeping with medieval Sunni treatises on the subject of succession, ad-Dumaiji argues that the procedures for selecting an imam or caliph for the umma (Muslim Nation) must replicate the precedents set by the Four Righteous Caliphs who succeeded Mohammed. But it is sufficient, he adds, to adhere only to the example set by the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar.6 In narrowing his focus to the precedents of the first two caliphs, ad-Dumaiji may have been motivated by a desire to minimize controversy in the selection process. But if that was his intention, he miscalculated. Even the examples of the first two caliphs are fraught with controversy: Abu Bakr’s appointment as caliph is disputed to this day, and Umar’s reign—like that of the two caliphs that followed him—was cut short by assassination. Thus the first two caliphs can hardly be cited as optimal precedents for the selection process.

Nonetheless, in treating Abu Bakr as the preferred precedent, ad-Dumaiji understands the process of caliph selection as one in which a group of the umma’s most influential leaders—a group called the “ahl ul hel wel aqd“ (literally, “those who loose and bind”)—are empowered as representatives to either appoint or to sack the caliph. Based on his understanding of Abu Bakr’s model, and after considering numerous arguments about how many influential delegates are required to actually appoint a single candidate, ad-Dumaiji concludes that a simple majority of the ahl ul hel wel aqd is adequate for a caliph’s selection to stand.7 Ad-Dumaiji additionally recommends, citing al-Mawardi’s eleventh-century treatise on the caliphate, that the ahl ul hel wel aqd should be careful to select the caliph best qualified to address the challenges of the times. The bravest candidate, for instance, should be chosen during a time of war, and the most erudite candidate during a time of doctrinal dissonance.8

Moreover, the situation discussed by the medieval scholars, whereby a ruler seizes the caliphate by force, is rejected by ad-Dumaiji as involving a usurpation of the title that does not reflect the authentic traditions of selection.9

Hence such a ruler is not a “true imam” or a “true caliph.” 

Ad-Dumaiji’s dismissive tone—he even likens this process to modern day military coups—shows his departure from earlier jurists, who made allowances for Muslim rulers who came after the Righteous Caliphs (i.e., for those who had seized power over Muslims and awarded themselves the hallowed titles of Islam despite not having followed acceptable precedent).Full post here.

Israel’s jihad is mine.

Israel’s jihad is mine.by Qanta Ahmed Times of Israel January 10, 2013

As Israel considers building a new fence to contain the Syrian conflict to the north, which fences can keep out Hamas’s even more lethal ideologies? While Gaza and the Muslim Arab world continue to claim victory in the recent Israel-Hamas conflict, for the sane observers among us, there is only ever defeat – the defeat of morality in the desecration of a great religion. While most Muslims laud Hamas and scorn Israel, for me, an observing Muslim, Israel’s war against Hamas remains my struggle – my jihad.
Israel’s eight-day operation “Pillar of Defense” sought to dismantle the Hamas apparatus from within Gaza. The predictably seamless alignment of the Muslim world against Israel was even more breathtaking than usual in the face of Syria’s 22 months of systematic genocide, one which has consistently failed to trigger unanimous Muslim protest. What does this say about us as Muslims?
We are hypocrites.
While Muslims define Israel as the enemy, we ignore Assad, and diabolically laud Hamas. Hamas is never sated – each year it devours ever more Palestinians, regardless of age or gender. If Israelis lose fewer citizens than the Palestinians in these conflicts it is for the same reason Israel exchanges more prisoners for each captive soldier: quite simply Israel values human life more than does Hamas, which relishes ground operations taking place among densely populate civilian areas.
Explaining this to Muslims in the Twitterverse, I get sharply reminded that Hamas does not have the “luxury of launch sites” that Israel enjoys. Have we lost our minds, Muslims? How can we speak of ‘launch sites’ as ‘luxuries’ while disregarding the culling taking place in Syria? Perhaps we have not lost our minds, but we have most certainly lost our religion.
As I am not one to speak for others, allow me to let Hamas speak for themselves. They are bald-faced about their mission, seeking glory through death, annunciation through annihilation:
We are ready to offer 1,000, 2,000 or even 10,000 martyrs every year. We are ready to keep offering martyrs for twenty years because we are sure we are moving in the right direction and that we will prevail in the end” (Hamas leader Khalid Al Mish’al in Gaza”
To Hamas, a Palestinian life is worth more when “martyred,” a dead child more of a blessing than one living. “The children of the kindergarten are the shaheeds [martyrs] of tomorrow,” reads a sign displayed at a Hamas-run kindergarten. The martyrdom mantra is their anthem.
While observers speculate Hamas will shortly usurp the crumbling Fatah leadership and ideologically annex the West Bank, we must remember Hamas’ raison d’etre: Islamist nihilism, a totalitarian ideology, jet-fueled on the language and images stolen from mighty Islam.
Israeli negotiators who must engage with this opponent are walking on the sharp-edged sword of Damocles and unlike Muslims, the Israelis certainly know it.
Coloring their fascism with Islam, Hamas claims religious legitimacy to openly seek destruction of the Jewish state and eradication of the Jewish people. By grafting themselves onto Into Islamic ideals – the vertebral column of that which is most sacred to Muslims – they render Islam itself heinous, representing their true ruthlessness: theirs is a willingness to sacrifice anything –including Islam – to portray Israel as evil.

The Prophet Mohammed (SAW) was once asked what he most feared for his followers. Centuries later, his response, recorded in the hadith, haunts, stating he feared those who:

…Interpret verses of the Qur’an out of context…A people that recite Qur’an….but it will not go past their throats, a people with excellent words and vile deeds. They will pass through the religion (of Islam) like the arrow passes through its quarry. They will no more come back to the religion than the arrow will come back to its course. They are the worst of human beings and the worst of all creation. They summon to the book of Allah, but they have nothing to do with it. Whoever kills them is closer to Allah than they.

This is the true nature of Hamas, which recites the Quran yet doesn’t hold it in their hearts, that “summon to the book of Allah but have nothing to do with it.” By the above, it would seem the IDF (that eliminates Hamas) is surely closer to Allah than Hamas.Read the full story here.

Video - Chief Islamic Judge of the PA, Calls to Restore Caliphate and Says: We Want to File Suit against Britain for "Crime" of Balfour Declaration.

Chief Islamic Judge of the PA, Calls to Restore Caliphate and Says: We Want to File Suit against Britain for "Crime" of Balfour Declaration.
Following are excerpts from an interview with Chief Islamic Judge of the PA Tayseer Al-Tamimi, which aired on Azhari TV on December 31, 2012.

Tayseer Al-Tamimi: The caliphate will be restored after this tyrannical rule comes to an end. This is already the beginning of the end for the tyrannical rule. The Arab revolutions against injustice, tyranny, and oppression will bring its end, and the caliphate will be restored.

What we are seeing in Egypt are birth pangs. The struggle between Islam and others, and all the conspiracies that aim at stopping the train that has already set out to liberate Jerusalem and to restore Islamic rule. Jerusalem will be the capital of the caliphate, Allah willing.

They are trying to thwart this, but they will fail, Allah willing.

[...] How did Saladin liberate Jerusalem? He mobilized his armies and invested all the nation's resources in this.

Interviewer: Is the nation ready today?

Tayseer Al-Tamimi: It is, and it has the capabilities. [The Koran says]: "Prepare what you can..." The nation has unlimited capabilities.

Interviewer: It has manpower, material power, and brains...

Tayseer Al-Tamimi: That is why I say that it is imperative to awaken the nation, because it has the capabilities. It is imperative to awaken the nation to its duty to liberate the land of Jerusalem and Palestine – the land of the Prophet Muhammad's nocturnal journal – using al its capabilities.

Interviewer: So if we cannot do so today...

Tayseer Al-Tamimi: "Prepare..." Start preparations.

This is the beginning of the end of the conspiracy that began with the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917, with the British Foreign Secretary's promise to Israel to establish a national home for them in Palestine. The implementation of this promise enabled Zionist gangs to take over Palestine. Over 78% of the Palestinian land was given to the Zionist gangs.

All the tragedies and catastrophes that befell the Palestinian people are due to Britain. Therefore we, in the Liberation and Independence Party, are seriously considering filing a lawsuit against Britain. We are in touch with the Arab Lawyers' Union and with international law experts in order to file suit against Britain in the international courts for a crime that has continued since November 2, 1917 to this day. Source: Memri.

Islam making its move for the management of the entire world community, a.k.a. "Global Caliphate ".

Islam making its move for the management of the entire world community, a.k.a. "Global Caliphate".(IRNA). Tehran – The 21st Congress of the Union of Islamic Societies opened in Istanbul today in a ceremony attended by the Secretary General the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Taskhiri. The event attended by foreign ministers, academics, religious scholars and elites from Sweden, Australia, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Syria, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Tajikistan will seek to review the recent developments in the world and explore grounds for mutual cooperation as well as solutions for the new conditions prevailing in the world.
Taskhiri presented an article themed ‘new world order and globalization; shoulds and shouldn’ts’ during the ceremony. Commenting on globalization, he explained the adverse impacts of globalization. Topics for discussion during the event includes major shortages of Islamic world for rearranging new world order, change and development in the Islamic world and transition to the new world based on justice and truth.
Problems of unjust current world order, changing prejudgments towards Islam, Islam’s main principles for the management of the entire world community, new order in transition from Imperialism to Islamic civilization are among the topics to be dealt with during the event. The 21st Congress of the Union of Islamic Societies themed ‘Islamic union and a new world’ will end on May 28.Hmmmmm.....Hosted by Turkey.....Obama's "Trusted Buddy"........You think they talked about Israel?Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                       Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan today 5.4 ! More info here.

• Japan - Nuclear disaster - Situation Update No. 141 - .Source .

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

• Acting like a dictatorship: White House tried repeatedly to exclude honest news channels from reporting on administration.(DougRoss).Mark Levin has repeatedly stated that Barack Obama is the first president in history who "thinks like a dictator". But does this statement go too far?Consider the Wiktionary definition of the word fascism, which reads as follows:

"A political regime, usually totalitarian, ideologically based on centralized government, government control of business, repression of criticism or opposition, a leader cult, and exalting the state and/or religion above individual rights."

Judicial Watch has unearthed documents that confirm the President's desire to suppress dissent.[These documents show] the Obama administration, contrary to its repeated denials, attempted to exclude the Fox News Channel (FNC) from a round of interviews with Treasury’s “Executive Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg. The documents, which include email exchanges within the Department of the Treasury and between Treasury and White House staff, also provide colorful evidence of an anti-Fox News bias within the Obama White House....According to press reports, the Fox News Channel was specifically excluded from joining the pool of reporters which precipitated a backlash among the networks and a reversal by the Obama Treasury Department.According to The New York Times: “Fox’s television news competitors refused to go along with a Treasury Department effort on Thursday [October 22, 2009] to exclude Fox from a round of interviews with the executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg that was to be conducted with a ‘pool’ camera crew…”. Fox News Channel’s James Rosen reported this backlash forced the Obama administration to reconsider its position on the matter: “The Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV news network consulted and decided that none of them would interview Feinberg unless Fox was included, and the administration relented…,” reported Rosen. Ultimately, after other media representatives objected, Fox News Channel was allowed to participate in the interviews.

The Treasury Department’s official response, as detailed in back-and-forth emails uncovered by Judicial Watch, included a clear denial of any such plot to exclude Fox News from the interviews: “There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing.” Moreover, in an October 23, 2009 email to New York Times reporter Jim Rutenberg, Jake Siewart, Counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, repeated the denial that there was an effort to exclude Fox News Channel: “Call me today on your Fox-Treasury report,” Siewart wrote. “Not true that there was an ‘effort to exclude’ Fox.”However ..., internal Obama administration emails [show] that FNC was specifically singled out for exclusion. According to one October 22, 2009, email exchange between Dag Vega, Director of Broadcast Media on the White House staff, to Jenni LeCompte, then-Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs in the Treasury Department, Vega informs LeCompte that “…we’d prefer if you skip Fox please.”...In an email on the night of October 22, 2009, commenting on a report by Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier noting the exclusion of the network from the pool, Psaki writes to Compte and fellow White House colleagues, “…brett baier just did a stupid piece on it -- but he is a lunatic”.Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest bluntly described the White House’s position on Fox News Channel in an October 23, 2009, email to LeCompte: “We’ve demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews…”The Treasury Department blacked out a key email regarding its refusal to make available Treasury Secretary Geithner for an interview on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.Just as they do with the rest of the Bill of Rights, the minor-league Chicago thugs occupying the White House could care less about the First Amendment. They despise free speech; they act like petulant children when criticized; and when confronted on controversial topics, they lie -- early and often.Hmmmm.......dictatorship or democracy?Read the full story here.

• What Happened to the $2.6 Trillion Social Security Trust Fund?(Forbes).Here’s how President Barack Obama answered CBS’s Scott Pelley’s question about whether he could guarantee that Social Security checks would go out on August 3, the day after the government is supposed to reach its debt limit: “I cannot guarantee that those checks [he included veterans and the disabled, in addition to Social Security] go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”And Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner echoed the president on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday implying that if a budget deal isn’t reached by August 2, seniors might not get their Social Security checks.Well, either Obama and Geithner are lying to us now, or they and all defenders of the Social Security status quo have been lying to us for decades. It must be one or the other.Here’s why: Social Security has a trust fund, and that trust fund is supposed to have $2.6 trillion in it, according to the Social Security trustees. If there are real assets in the trust fund, then Social Security can mail the checks, regardless of what Congress does about the debt limit.President Obama’s budget director, Jack Lew, explained all this last February in USA Today.Hmmmmm..............Read the full story here.

• The Obama Downgrade,the real reason the U.S. could lose its AAA rating.(WSJ).So the credit-rating agencies that helped to create the financial crisis that led to a deep recession are now warning that the U.S. could lose the AAA rating it has had since 1917. As painfully ironic as this is, there's no benefit in shooting the messengers. The real culprit is the U.S. political class, especially the President who has presided over this historic collapse of fiscal credibility.Moody's and the boys are citing the risk of a default on August 2 as the proximate reason for their warning. But Americans should understand that the debt ceiling is merely the trigger. The gun is the spending boom of the last three years and the prospect that Washington lacks the political will to reduce it in the years to come.Congress is responsible for the way so much of this spending was wasted, resulting in little job creation and the slowest economic recovery since the 1930s. But in the U.S. political system, Presidents are supposed to be the fiscal adults. When they abdicate, the teenagers invite over their special interest friends and blow the inheritance. The President is now claiming to have found fiscal virtue, but notice how hard he has fought House Republicans as they've sought to abate the spending boom. First he used the threat of a government shutdown to whittle the fiscal 2011 spending cuts down to very little. Then he invited Paul Ryan to sit in the front row for a speech while he called his House budget un-American.Now Mr. Obama is using the debt-ceiling debate as a battering ram not to control spending but to command a tax increase. We're told the White House list of immediate budget savings, the ones that matter most because they are enforceable by the current Congress, are negligible. His offer for immediate domestic nondefense discretionary cuts: $2 billion.As for Mr. Obama's proposed entitlement cuts, they are all nibbling around the edges of programs that are growing far faster than inflation. He's offering few reforms that would make a difference in the long run. Oh, and ObamaCare is untouchable, despite its $1 trillion in new spending over the next several years, growing even faster after that.So now we have the inevitable showdown over the debt limit, which must be raised to pay for all of this spending. And Mr. Obama is blaming Republicans for being irresponsible because they won't raise taxes in return for promises of modest future spending restraint. And some people even fall for it.We've said we think it would be foolish of Republicans to walk into Mr. Obama's debt-limit trap and let him blame them for the financial fallout, including a possible credit downgrade. But this is not because we think they will deserve the blame. Even if this debt-ceiling crisis passes, the threat of a credit downgrade will continue and grow until Mr. Obama changes his policies, or Americans change Presidents.Hmmmm......Hear,hear!Read the full story here.

• Video - Jordan protests leave several injured,among them Journalists.(Al-Jazeera).  Journalists not spared as police violently end clash between protesters and government supporters in Amman.At least 10 people have been injured amid efforts by police to stop clashes between demonstrators and government supporters in the centre of the Jordanian capital, Amman.Police used batons on Friday to disperse people outside city hall, beating and injuring nine journalists.An Al Jazeera correspondent and several other journalists, including a Reuters cameraman, said they were attacked by police.The wounded included an AFP photographer and a female activist."We were beaten by police, although we were wearing special press vests," one of the injured photographers said."We thought we would be safe when we stood next to the police and away from the clashes."Fahim Karim, a New York Times reporter, was beaten by 10 policemen while a photographer who works for another international news agency said he was ordered by police not to shoot the scene.The clashes took place after about 2,000 people, including Islamists and youth groups, marched from Amman's Al-Husseini mosque to the city hall."Rulers, we want to reform the regime. We want the palace to hear the voices of Jordanians," the demonstrators chanted before they were set upon by government supporters.It was still unclear if the demonstrators would defy government warnings and hold an open-ended sit-in.Jordan has faced a protest movement demanding political and economic reforms and an end to corruption, since January.Security forces have previously prevented demonstrators demanding the removal of the government, but not King Abdullah, who appoints the cabinet and has wide powers, from assembling at main squares.Read the full story here.

• United Nations Security council gets 'devastating briefing' about Syrian nuke plant.(JPost).UNITED NATIONS - The UN nuclear watchdog brought allegations of covert atomic work by Syria before the Security Council on Thursday, but the 15-nation body took no immediate action amid divisions among key powers.The International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors voted in June to report Syria to the council, rebuking it for stonewalling an agency probe into the Dair Alzour complex, bombed by Israel in 2007.Western countries said Thursday's closed-door briefing by Neville Whiting, head of the IAEA safeguards department dealing with Syria and Iran, had made clear that Syria had a secret nuclear plant. They said the council should pursue the issue, but suggested it might not discuss it again before September.Russia and China, allies of Damascus who can veto any council action, queried whether the council should be involved, as the Syrian complex no longer exists.US intelligence reports have said the complex was a nascent, North Korean-designed reactor intended to produce plutonium for atomic weaponry, before Israeli warplanes reduced it to rubble. Syria has said it was a non-nuclear military facility.British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant told reporters Whiting had given a "devastating briefing ... from which you could only draw one conclusion -- that Syria did have at Dair Alzour a clandestine nuclear plant."Damascus had "tried to conceal the purpose of that plant ... misled the IAEA about what the purpose was and ... failed to cooperate effectively with the IAEA in following up the questions that the IAEA put to them," he said.Both Lyall Grant and German Ambassador Peter Wittig noted that the IAEA was due to produce a new report on Syria for its board of governors in September. "And then we take it from there," Wittig said.But Chinese envoy Wang Min said Beijing was "not very happy" about the council's involvement. "We should not talk about something that does not exist. There are a lot of things that happened in the past -- should we discuss all of them?" he asked.Russian envoy Alexander Pankin, asked what he had learned from Thursday's briefing, said "not much."Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said the meeting "didn't come to any conclusion because the Security Council considers only matters related to threats to peace and security, not to prefabricated, unfounded accusations against a member state of the United Nations.""The point is that there is no case for the Security Council to consider in its deliberations," he said.Hmmmmm..........Assad the 'reformer'.Read the full story here.

• Video - Congressman John Sullivan: Obama “Despicable, Sick And Twisted”.(Dollard).Read and see the full story here.

• Socialist Senator: Obama's Wrong - Social Security Checks Will Go Out If Debt Ceiling Isn't Raised.(NewsBusters).America's only admittedly socialist member of Congress said Wednesday that he disagreed with President Obama's comments concerning Social Security checks possibly not going out on August 3rd if the debt ceiling isn't raised.When Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he felt checks to seniors and disabled vets would be issued no matter what, the host of MSNBC's "The Ed Show" responded, "So you would take issue with the President on that statement, that he may have been fear-mongering in essence?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ED SCHULTZ, HOST: And Senator, what was your response to the President when he told a, an anchor in an interview he couldn’t guarantee that the checks would be there on April 3rd [sic], that he couldn’t guarantee that the Social Security checks would, would hit people’s bank accounts if we don’t take action? What’s your response to that? True or false?

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS (I-VERMONT): Well, there are differences of opinion about that. There are some who would argue, and I tend to agree, that given the fact that Social Security has a $2.6 trillion surplus, then you can figure out a way you must make sure that seniors and disabled vets get their checks.

SCHULTZ: So you would take issue with the President on that statement, that he may have been fear-mongering in essence?SANDERS: What he is saying is, look, there’s not enough money here to pay our debts. That’s true. I think, in fact, we can pay Social Security.Interesting when possibly the most liberal member of Congress goes on national television contradicting a Democrat president. That'll teach Schultz never to ask a question he doesn't know the answer to.Read the full story here.

• Obama Owns the Debt-Ceiling Fiasco.(WSJ). It doesn't help that he's declared high-speed rail and even unspent stimulus funds as untouchable.President Barack Obama and Congress face a mess if the federal government hits the debt ceiling Aug. 2. The Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank, projects that the government will receive $172 billion in revenues between Aug. 3 and Aug. 31, but it is on the hook to spend $306 billion, leaving a shortfall of $134 billion.On Tuesday, Mr. Obama told Scott Pelley of CBS News that "there may simply not be the money in the coffers" to issue Social Security, veterans and disability checks after Aug. 3. Not so. The $172 billion in revenues collected over the rest of the month can pay the $29 billion interest charges on the national debt, Social Security benefits ($49 billion), Medicaid and Medicare ($50 billion), active duty military pay ($2.9 billion), Department of Defense vendors ($31.7 billion), IRS refunds ($3.9 billion), and about a quarter of the $12.8 billion in unemployment checks due that month. There will, however, be no cash for highway construction, no checks for federal workers or retirees, no agriculture payments, no open national parks. Interest rates are also likely to rise if U.S. debt is downgraded, adding massively to the deficit and further damaging the economy. This would be a disaster with no political winners. The president's two most recent press conferences, in which he accused the GOP of foot-dragging, convinced Republicans that he was interested in scoring political points and attracting independents, not facilitating a deal. Convening high-profile White House meetings without offering substantive concrete proposals and then having his aides leak madly (and inaccurately) to the press afterward further squandered trust. There's still time for a deal, but it could come after the Aug. 2 deadline, and after much damage has been done to America's financial standing. Then the key political question will become who gets the blame. By then, it should be obvious that the man who promised to transcend petty politics and legislative gridlock made things worse. Washington is dysfunctional. And to paraphrase the president's senior adviser, David Plouffe, Mr. Obama owns the dysfunction. The president has not only governed as a liberal—he's governed as an incompetent liberal, thereby reminding voters that electing a Republican Congress and president next year is the only way to change direction.Read the full story here.

• U.S. credit rating not worth saving, Ron Paul says.(Politico).The United States’s top credit rating is “probably not” worth saving, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said Thursday, less than a day after a major rating agency indicated it was considering a downgrade as the country hurtles toward the August 2 deadline without a deal to raise the debt ceiling.Paul, who earlier this week announced that he won’t run for reelection to Congress so that he can focus on his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, suggested in an interview on Bloomberg TV that he doesn’t see much value in the ratings of Moody’s and the two other major bond raters.“I think if you had a market evaluation on this issue, it should have marked down a long time ago,” he said.A downgraded credit rating would only amplify what is already clear to him - that the U.S. government is “insolvent,” Paul said.“We play along with this game with Social Security. We know it is insolvent. We know that if it were an insurance company, it would be in big trouble,” he said. “It is true that this rating will have an effect, but it is a short-term effect. Ultimately, the fundamentals show this country is bankrupt.”Though raising the debt ceiling would solve short-term problems, it leaves the longer term ones intact, Paul said.“Sometimes I wonder whether this is more of a political theater to build up the fear. First, we won’t be able to write the checks for Social Security and the next thing there’ll be a down rating of bonds,” he said.President Barack Obama said in an interview earlier this week that he could not “guarantee” that Social Security checks would be sent on August 3 and onward if there isn’t a deal on the debt “because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”Though Paul, a longtime critic of U.S. monetary policy who would like to see the Federal Reserve abolished and wrote a book called “End the Fed” two years ago, is doubtful about the actual value of Moody’s rating of the U.S. government, he acknowledged it could motivate congressional Republicans and the president to reach a deal on the debt ceiling.“If they do this, this will be very significant, but I think it is part of the game to make sure everyone is fearful so we continue this process,” he said, referring to the negotiations over raising the debt ceiling.“Long term, I think raising the debt limit is a negative because it delays the inevitable. It will give us much bigger problems down the road. Today and tomorrow, if Moody’s does not lower the bond rating, it will be helpful in the short run. In the long run, it will be more devastating because Congress will go back to their old habits again.”Hmmmmm......."Old habits die hard"?Read the full story here.

• Republicans' eyes on Clinton's visit for radar talks with Turkey.(TodaysZaman).US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will arrive in İstanbul today to participate in the fourth meeting of the Libya Contact Group and on Saturday will pay a long-expected bilateral working visit that had been postponed due to political turmoil in the Middle East.While in Turkey, in addition to her counterpart, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, Clinton will also meet with President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to discuss the situation in Libya and Syria and a full range of shared bilateral and multilateral issues.US senators and their staff will be watching closely to see if she pushes the agenda on an agreement to station a US missile defense radar in Turkey, an agreement many Republicans oppose, foreign policy blog The Cable reported on Wednesday.“We write with concern over recent reports that the administration may be nearing completion of a bilateral agreement with the Turkish Government to base a US AN/TPY-2 (X-Band) radar in Turkey,” wrote Republican Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and Mark Kirk of Illinois in a July 12 letter to Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta obtained by The Cable.At the NATO summit of heads of state and government in Lisbon last year, Turkey formally backed NATO plans to build a missile defense system, saying it will also contribute to national defense against the growing threat of ballistic missile proliferation.The same Turkish diplomat elaborated on Ankara's approach to the issue, recalling that within the new Strategic Concept of the Alliance, which was decided upon at the Lisbon summit, the missile defense had been accepted as a fundamental element of NATO's joint defense system.“The to-be established system will serve in a defense-oriented capacity which does not aim at any offensive against another country. Ankara attaches high importance to the fact that this defensive system will not only make a contribution to the NATO countries' security but will also contribute to regional and global security and efforts for disarmament in general,” the diplomat said.“The work done within the alliance for improving the NATO missile defense system is continuing within this context. By their very nature, consultations concerning this issue are also being held among the allies. Turkish-US talks on this issue are being held as part of consultations among the allies within the framework of the NATO missile defense system, which will also include the United States' Phased Adaptive Approach,” the diplomat added.The Cable, meanwhile, reported that the senators want the radar to be based in either Georgia or Azerbaijan, arguing that these two countries are better locations for defense against a missile attack from Iran.“But more broadly, they are concerned that Ankara will place a number of onerous restrictions on the radar, such as demanding that no data be shared with Israel. The senators have also accused Turkey of violating US sanctions against Iran, which they said calls into question their reliability as a partner in organizing a missile defense system aimed at Tehran,” The Cable said.Hmmmmm......A scary thought came to my mind," efforts for disarmament in general" is this aimed at Israel?Does turkey want the shield against Israel?Read the full story here.

• "The laws don't apply to me"?Obama Election Campaign Admits to Violating FEC Election Laws.(Ghostfighters).Obama’s election campaign manager Jim Messina admitted in a video released on July 13th that they have been collecting foreign funds for Obama’s 2012 election campaign and the DNC, to the tune of $86 Million. This is clear violation of the FEC laws for campaign funding.The Logan Act, which states…

§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments.

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.1 Stat. 613, January 30, 1799, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953 (2004).

Here’s the video in which Messina says : Obama has raised in this quarter $86 million.GLOBALLY! GLOBALLY! GLOBALLY! This must go to the FEC and we should send this to Rep Issa immediately.They are either that stupid or they just don’t give a damn!At about 3:25 he says globally we raised.Read and see the full story here.

• Israelis “bug” President Obama to release Pollard. Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA – July 13, 2011[IMRA: The following anecdote which was shared with IMRA by a first-hand  source, raises some question about the degree of seriousness that is being attached to the numerous requests that have been made to President Obama for the release of Jonathan Pollard. Pollard is languishing in an American prison in his 26th year of a life sentence.]At a recent kosher fundraising dinner party for President Obama’s reelection campaign where donations started at $20,000.00 and up, a well-connected American Jewish activist (who brought in serious money that night) merited a few minutes of private time with the President. Here is how their conversation went:

The activist asked the President, “Are you going to free Jonathan Pollard?

The President responded, “Are they bugging you too?”

The activist replied, “Yes, the Jewish community is bugging me.”

The President declared, “The Israelis are bugging me too.”

The activist explained, “Pollard is an important issue in the Jewish Community today. We all feel its time for him to be released.”

The President was silent.

The activist pressed on, “I raised a lot of money for tonight’s event and many of those who gave me money only gave it to me on the condition that I ask you the question about Pollard.”

There was no response from the President.The conversation was closed.Hmmmm.......Sounds like the debt talks?Read the full story here.

• Japanese firm cuts ties with Iran over crane executions.(Ynet).Crane manufacturer says it has ended business relations with Islamic Republic after Los Angeles Times report reveals Tehran used cranes for public hangings. A Japanese heavy machinery manufacturer said it has cut business ties with the Iranian government following a report that its cranes have been used for public executions. The company's announcement came several days after United Against Nuclear Iran President Mark D. Wallace published an op-ed in Los Angeles Times where he names the Japanese Tadano company as one of several companies exporting cranes to Iran."In response to Iran's brazen attempts to intimidate and terrorize its own people, United Against Nuclear Iran has launched a Cranes Campaign. The goal is to educate crane manufacturers worldwide about the Iranian regime's clear misuse of their products and how such use can tarnish their brand image," Wallace wrote.As part of the campaign, United Against Nuclear Iran published on its website a list of seven international manufacturers exporting cranes and other heavy equipment to Iran, along with pictures of the cranes being used for public executions.Crane-hanging has become a common in the Islamic Republic. According to the op-ed, "Amnesty International estimates that as many as 13 people had been hanged in public by the end of April, compared to a total 14 in all of 2010. In a number of instances, those executed have been left hanging high in the air on construction cranes for all to see." Wallace called on the international community to bring to an end "this kind of barbarism and highlight more broadly the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran."Hmmmmm......Perhaps give Iran another seat at the UN?Read the the full story here.

• Shoah forum raises awareness on mass graves.(Ynet).Mass graves in Eastern Europe 'lay forgotten, unmarked and unstudied for decades' because of Communist rule and Holocaust denial, says one of scholars attending symposium in Bucharest.Dozens of scholars and historians from across Europe and the US attended a symposium earlier this month on Holocaust mass graves in Eastern Europe to raise awareness in countries where little information on the subject was available under communism. Paul Shapiro from the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum said well over one million Jews were murdered in Eastern Europe before the Nazi concentration camps were operational. He said the mass graves "lay forgotten, unmarked and unstudied for decades" because of Communist rule and Holocaust denial. The event in Romania's capital – the first of its kind in a former communist country – coincided with the commemoration of 70 years since about 12,000 Jews were killed in northeastern Romania under the pro-fascist regime of dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu. Participants at the symposium came from France, Germany, Ukraine, the US and Romania. Last year, researchers in Romania discovered a mass grave in a forest near the town of Popricani, close to the northeastern city of Iasi where the 1941 pogrom took place. The grave contained the bodies of 36 people, including women and 12 children. Shapiro said "at Iasi, thousands of Jews were murdered on the streets of the city by Romanian authorities and civilian collaborators, with some German participation, within sight of the non-Jewish population of the city." He added that "the killings elicited no negative reaction by the population." Shapiro believes that the Iasi pogrom could be seen as "the signal that mass murder of Jews on the streets, in plain sight, in public, was possible, and that all Jews, not just men who might bear arms to resist, should be killed and simply thrown into mass graves, to be forgotten forever." "Is it by chance that just three to four weeks later official Nazi policy changed to call for the murder of all Jews - men, women, children and the old?" he said. The discovery near Iasi last year offered evidence of pogroms against Jews in the region, where official history taught that Germans were the sole perpetrators of the Holocaust. About 280,000 Jews and 11,000 Roma, or Gypsies, were killed during the pro-fascist regime of dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu, who was Romania's prime minister from 1940 to 1944 and was executed by the communists in 1946. About 6,000 Jews live in Romania today. During communist times, the country largely ignored the involvement of Romania's leaders in wartime crimes. The country's role in the Holocaust and the deportation of Jews were minimized by subsequent governments after communism collapsed in 1989. In 2004, after a dispute with Israel over comments about the Holocaust, then-President Ion Iliescu assembled an international panel led by Nobel-prize winner Elie Wiesel to investigate the Holocaust in Romania. Read the full story here.

• Vowing Revenge for Osama bin Laden's Killing, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Commanders Vie for Control; Hakimullah Mehsud's Control Waning As TTP Splits.(Memri).Following the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden in a U.S. operation in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, there are indications that leading commanders of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, or the Movement of Pakistani Taliban) are vying for control of the organization, while TTP Emir Hakimullah Mehsud's grip on the organization may be waning. In recent weeks, Maulana Waliur Rehman, who is the TTP's Emir for the Mehsud tribal region of Waziristan, and Umar Khalid Khorasani, the TTP's Emir for Mohmand Agency, have released several media statements, indicating attempts by them to assert control on the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Also, a leading Taliban commander, Fazal Saeed Haqqani, recently announced that he is breaking away from the TTP, the umbrella alliance of Taliban commanders, and cited differences with the TTP leadership for his decision to quit.

On July 5, 2011, a Pakistani media report which quoted anonymous Taliban commanders and Pakistani intelligence officials noted that Hakimullah Mehsud has been in isolation for more than a year,and is rapidly losing control over the TTP. "Hakimullah might soon be faced with more rebels from within the TTP after last week's defection by one of his top commanders [Fazal Saeed Haqqani]," the report said.

A militant commander, who was not identified in the report, said: "It looks as though he [Hakimullah Mehsud] is just a figurehead now. He can hardly communicate with his commanders in other parts of the tribal areas … he is in total isolation. Only a few people within the TTP know where he is.Although Pakistani military officials claim credit for Hakimullah Mehsud's isolation, the locals in the Pakistani tribal region say that this his isolation is "more likely due to" anger among tribesmen over the U.S. drone attacks, who think that these attacks would not take place if the militants leave the area, according to the report.Perhaps the most convincing sign of dissension within the TTP came in late June when Fazal Saeed Haqqani, the Taliban commander for Kurram Agency, announced that he had broken away from the Hakimullah Mehsud-led TTP. Fazal Saeed Haqqani, who claimed that he has received offers of support from militants from various regions of Pakistan, announced the launch of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Islami (TTP-Islami), a new militant organization.

According to the report, Fazal Saeed Haqqani, who is reportedly 39 years-old, also claimed that about 800 armed fighters are under his command. Haqqani has studied at the Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa at Akora Khattak, a town in the Nowshera district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. This Islamic seminary at Akora Khattak is run by Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leader Maulana Samiul Haq, and is known for training a generation of Pakistani militant commanders. After Fazal Saeed Haqqani's departure, the Hakimullah Mehsud-led TTP appointed Maulana Zahir as the TTP's commander for Kurram Agency. "The defection [of Fazal Saeed Haqqani] took place within days after unknown attackers killed a spokesperson [Shakirullah Shakir] for the TTP's Fidayeen-e-Islam group – the suicide bombing squad," a Pakistani media report noted, adding: "The killing of Shakirullah Shakir, a key figure of the TTP, in Mir Ali town of North Waziristan has raised questions over how influential Hakimullah still is in the region."A tribesman, who was not identified in the report, described the impact of Fazal Saeed Haqqani's departure in the following words: "It was like a slap in the face for him [Hakimullah Mehsud]. Nobody could have imagined such things [e.g. the killing of Shakirullah Shakir] here sometime back." The report added: "A day after Haqqani's announcement to split, a group of the Taliban from Khyber Agency attacked their counterparts from Orakzai [district] in what appeared to be another sign of growing friction within the TTP and lack of a centralized and coordinated leadership."

It is possible that Fazal Saeed Haqqani may be enjoying some support from the Pakistani military. While announcing his break from the TTP, Fazal Saeed Haqqani declared that his new organization TTP-Islami will not launch suicide attacks in Pakistan, noting that he has been against suicide bombings from the beginning, and on various occasions has called on the TTP leadership to halt such strikes in Pakistan.Importantly, Fazal Saeed Haqqani's operational area was Kurram Agency, a district where the Pakistani military last year allowed the Haqqani Network to create a new safe haven, as Pakistan has been under U.S. pressure to carry out an operation in North Waziristan, the traditional base of Haqqani Network. The Haqqani Network, the second largest militant group among the Taliban in Afghanistan, is believed to be supported by the Pakistani military intelligence.

Umar Khalid Khorasani, the TTP's commander for Mohmand Agency, is not known to have released videos or statements in recent years. However in June 2011 he took the extraordinary step of granting an exclusive video interview to the British news agency Reuters. Answering questions regarding his mission and Osama bin Laden's killing, Umar Khalid Khorasani outlined his targets: "God willing our fight against America is continuing, inside Pakistan as well as outside Pakistan. When we launch our attacks, we will prove that we can hit American targets outside Pakistan also, because it is our enemy. Our attacks against it will continue.""Even if some rapprochement is reached in Afghanistan, our ideology, our aim, our struggle is for the removal of the British system that still exists in Pakistan. It does not matter whether there is peace or war throughout the world, our struggle for the implementation of the Islamic system in Pakistan will continue," he added.Umar Khalid Khorasani has dispelled Western policymakers' thinking that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban), the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Afghan Taliban), and Al-Qaeda are separate organizations. In an exclusive article titled "The Group of 40 Thieves" in the magazine, he accused the "Western media and the international media working under its influence" of engaging in covering up the biggest news story of the day – that "the U.S. has been defeated in Afghanistan."

Describing the Pakistani ruling class as "The Group of 40 Thieves," Umar Khalid Khorasani observed: "This group of 40 thieves cares not for the country or its people; it cares only for money… And there is another group… the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency [Inter-Services Intelligence – ISI]; first of all they are worried about the [security of] nuclear weapons and the secular image of Pakistan. They think that if the religious sentiments remain dominant, then they will be isolated internationally, and their nuclear program will become a target of the superpowers."

"Jews and Christians will never be pleased with you until you become one among them," Umar Khalid Khorasani said, quoting the Koran. Describing the Pakistan Army and intelligence agencies as apostates for supporting the U.S., the TTP commander said that the supporters and enemies of the Pakistani military once thought that the Pakistani soldiers are fighting for the U.S. "But," he added, "in my opinion, this view is being proved weak, because in reality the rulers of Pakistan, political parties, and the military itself are Islam's worst enemy."Umar Khalid Khorasani also stated that the Taliban's objective is the establishment of a worldwide Islamic caliphate of which Pakistan will be a branch, noting: "It is too much to expect fraternity to Islam from such a [Pakistani] army of an Islamic country. It will keep fighting Muslims, demolishing mosques and madrassas, delivering Muslim sons and daughters to the U.S… But if they are thinking that they will finish the Taliban, it is foolish thinking, because the U.S. has surrendered with all its army and arsenal; Russia surrendered; and Britain accepted defeat… The day is not distant when there will be pure Islamic sharia in Pakistan, and Pakistan will be a branch of the same Islamic khilafat [caliphate]."Hmmmmmm........Houston we have a problem?Read the full story here.

• Iran - Isa Saharkhiz Writes Letter from Prison to UN Special Rapporteur.(Persian2English).Isa Sahahrkhiz, a prominent journalist and one of the founders of the Society for the Defense of Press Freedom in Iran has written a letter from Rajai Shahr prison to the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur Dr. Ahmad Shaheed, urging him to take immediate action and travel to Iran.Isa Saharkhiz was violently arrested in July 2009 and consequently suffered broken ribs. He was later tried and, sentenced to three years in prison for “Insulting the Supreme Leader and the regime”, banned from all political and journalistic activities for five years, and prohibited from leaving the country for one year.Translation of the letter from Isa Saharkhiz to the UN Special Rapporteur

Dear Mr. Shaheed,With greetings,

I, Isa Saharkhiz, one of the political prisoners arrested after the 2009 coupe election, have not been allowed to exercise my legals right of prison furlough for needed medical treatment, after having served half of my prison sentence.

Mr. Ahmed Shaheed,

The news of your appointment as the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur to Iran was heartwarming for me and many other political prisoners. We hope that you will be our voice in informing the public of the deplorable conditions of the prisons in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Mr. Ahmed Shaheed,

What is happening now in the Islamic Republic prisons is a crime against humanity and not any less than Stalin’s inhumane treatment of prisoners in the forced labor camps of Siberia.This treatment is not solely limited to the political prisoners, but the situation for the general prisoners is no less disastrous.

You have probably heard of the horrible death of Hoda Saber who died while on hunger strike after being beaten by prison officials. Prior to that, you must have heard of Mohsen Dokmechi’s death.You probably also are somewhat aware of my medical situation and are aware that they will not even allow me to be hospitalized for my needed medical treatment. I will not go into the details of my medical case.My purpose for writing this letter is to remind you that such a dire situation exists and that another tragic event may occur at any moment. It is apparent to me and my fellow inmates that the strategy and objective of the authorities is “to kill the protesting prisoners silently and gradually”.

They have made a deliberate decision to destroy us and have planned a silent death for us, because they fear our survival even behind these walls and bars.

You, in the name of humanity and because of the responsibility that has been bestowed upon you, are obligated to use everything in your power and act immediately to inform the public of the heinous [crimes] that occur behind these walls.I hope you realize the value of time in this matter and know that any delay in taking action will result in the deaths of more political prisoners.Therefore, I urge you to take action immediately and travel to Iran without any further delay. If the authorities prevent you from visiting with the political prisoners, that will only show another disgraceful act by a regime that is built on the foundation of lies.Isa Saharkhiz- July 2011. Rejai Shahr prison.Read the full story here.

• Pakistani Security Analyst Examines Hizbut Tahrir's Role in Recruiting Pakistan Army Officials to the Cause of Establishing Islamic Caliphate.(Memri).Following the recent arrest of serving Pakistan Army officer Brigadier Ali Khan and four majors over their connections to the Islamist organization Hizbut Tahrir (HT) Pakistan, there is growing concern in Pakistan that the Islamic militants in the country may have penetrated deep inside the Pakistani military.Hizbut Tahrir is an international movement of Islamists who seek to establish an Islamic caliphate worldwide by recruiting educated and professional Muslim youth to their cause. Concern about Hizbut Tahrir's influence among the Pakistani military officers grew in the wake of the May 22 militant attack on PNS Mehran, the Pakistan Navy headquarters in Karachi. It is believed that the PNS Mehran naval airbase attack was aided by officers within the Pakistan Air Force.In a recent article titled "The Hizbut Tahrir Threat," Muhammad Amir Rana, a noted Pakistani commentator on security issues, argued that Hizbut Tahrir has "an anti-constitutional and anti-democratic outlook and agenda." Rana, who is editor of the research journal "Conflict and Peace Studies," warned: "Most analysts tend to watch madrassas and popular mass movements for signs of radicalization. The danger with HT is ever more serious and often overlooked because it is not always visible and does not conform to stereotypes."Read the full story here.

• Arab League Sec.-Gen. Objects to U.S. Statements Against Assad.(Memri).In response to statements by U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has lost his legitimacy, Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Al-Arabi said that he opposes verbal attacks on Syrian leaders.Al-Arabi added that no one has a right to determine that the president of any country has lost his legitimacy, except for the people who elected him.After meeting with Al-Assad, Al-Arabi said that there is no pressure on the Arab League to make a decision on Syria similar to the one made on Libya.Read the full story here.

• Mecca great deals for real estate agents as abandoned buildings and estates are possessed by jinns.(Arabnews).MAKKAH: There are widespread rumors among Makkawis claiming some abandoned buildings and estates are possessed by jinns.According to the widely circulated gossip, residents of these buildings located in various districts of the holy city, especially on the outskirts, say they vacated their dwellings after supernatural forces had harmed them.There are divergent views among local residents with regard to the rumors. However, most of their views seem to confirm the existence of something mysterious at these buildings.These have forced the owners of a number of such buildings and plots of lands to sell them at much lower rates.There are also reports that some realtors are allegedly behind these rumors.Local resident Muhammad Bazaid said it was easy to identify abandoned buildings that are allegedly possessed.“Some buildings and estates in the city are known to be possessed by jinns. People used to say that,” he said, while noting that this situation is being exploited by some realtors.“They are behind spreading of these rumors and are thus instrumental in lowering prices of these properties. They then try to buy them at prices much lower than the market value,” he said.Hmmmm........"Who you gonna call?Ghostbusters?Read the full story here.

• Belgium: Moroccans against use of children in Palestine campaign.(IslaminEurope).Via Le Vif/L’Express (with help from the Philosemitism blog):A Belgian-Moroccan group (Union of Belgian-Moroccan Associations, CABM) published a letter condemning the "Welcome to Palestine" campaign, whose Belgian delegation included 5 minors, including at least three Belgian-Moroccan girls (aged 14, 15, and 17).One of the authors of the letter and president of CABM, Hassan El Bouharrouti, told Le Vif/L’Express that his daughter (17) was dragged into this adventure by her mother, though he had warned the police, the border police and the Israeli embassy. He accused the organizers of cultivating hate and antisemitism, when there are still battles to fight in Belgium against racism and social exclusion.Excerpts from the letter: We condemn in the strongest terms the use of minors in the International Mission of Solidarity with the Palestinian people on July 8 2011, in which a Belgian delegation participated. The appeal by the organizers to anybody over the age of 9 seems to have elicited no response on this point from the signatories, which included several politicians, academics and associations.In Belgium minors should never have been exposed to any risk whatsoever while participating in a mission that clearly part of a provocation and confrontation with the State of Israel. This showdown doesn't serve the Palestinian cause which is at the heart of this mission. However, it contributes to fueling antisemitism in the Belgian-Moroccan community. Wanting to make minors into righter of wrongs is absolutely irresponsible on the part of the parents whose role it is to ensure the protection and development of their children, and not to send them on a suicidal antisemitic operation (...)The participants, mostly Belgian-Moroccans, were able to participate in this mission after they collected the necessary funds. Each participant paid 500 EUR for the ticket and 300 EUR for pocket money. Questioned, the Belgian authorities did not see fit to prevent the departure of minors to Israel. They awaited the reaction of the Israeli authorities who finally ensured their security by sending them back to Belgium. We appeal to the responsibility of the Belgian authorities to ensure that minors will not be asked to participate in any operation aimed at exploiting them for political means in a conflict likely to endanger their life or security. We appeal to the subsidizing authorities to guarantee that no funds will be granted for financing such operations for minors.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                       Morning Posting.

• Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.

• Libya Live Blog - April 19. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Syria Live Blog - April 19 Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world low seismic activity in Japan  today between 4.5 and 4.7! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 92.On 19.04.2011 at 08:16 GMT+2
  
  Workers at the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan are removing highly radioactive water from a reactor turbine building, a key step towards restoring cooling systems, the government said. The 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit the north-east coast of Japan on March 11 knocked out power systems at the plant, causing cooling systems to fail and triggering a series of explosions. To prevent a nuclear catastrophe, crews have pumped thousands of tonnes of seawater and later freshwater into the reactors and pools, creating a massive amount of radioactive runoff, some of which has leaked into the ocean. About 10,000 tonnes of highly radioactive water will be transferred from the turbine building of reactor No. 2 to a treatment facility inside the plant for processing, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said. NISA spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said the operation would allow emergency crews battling to stabilise the plant to "pour more water into the reactor in order to gradually decrease the amount of water dousing". "We expect to purify and remove salt from water transferred to the waste treatment facility so it can be poured into the reactor core again." The move is necessary in order to start work to restore cooling functions at the nuclear plant, where workers have found turbine buildings, trenches and shafts submerged in highly radioactive water. Tens of thousands of people living near the plant have been forced to evacuate their homes as radiation has leaked into the air, soil and sea. Embattled operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said on Sunday that it hoped to reduce radiation leaking from the plant in three months and to achieve "cold shutdowns" of all reactors within six to nine months.
  
  
  Situation Update No. 91 - On 19.04.2011 at 03:30 GMT+2.
  
  No deaths have been caused by the incident at the nuclear plant, though Japanese authorities have ordered people who live near the plant to evacuate because of the danger posed by radioactive particles that have been emitted from the plant. On Monday, safety officials said that remote-controlled robots and the workers controlling them have recorded high levels of radiation inside and around two reactor buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northern Japan. The tsunami damaged the plant's cooling systems unnerving hundreds of thousands of people. The U.S.-built robot probes measured radiation doses as high as 57 millisieverts inside the housing for reactor No. 3 and up to 49 millisieverts inside the No. 1 reactor building, Japan's Nuclearhttp://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/admin/event_update/step3.php?cid=29877 and Industrial Safety Agency reported. Levels found between the double doors of the airlocks of the reactor buildings were much higher -- 270 millisieverts in the case of reactor No. 1 and 170 millsieverts in No. 3, the agency said. By comparison, the average resident of an industrialized country receives a dose of about 3 millisieverts per year. Emergency standards for plant workers battling the month-old nuclear disaster limit their annual exposure to 250 millisieverts, while a CT scan produces just under 7 and a chest X-ray delivers a one-time dose of about .05 millisieverts. Doses above 100 millisieverts can increase the long-term risk of cancer, while 1,000 millisieverts can produce radiation sickness.
  
  There was no immediate explanation for the much-higher radiation levels recorded in the airlocks, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, the safety agency's chief spokesman. The robots were inserted Sunday in an attempt to determine the conditions inside the No. 1 and 3 reactor buildings, which were blown apart in massive hydrogen explosions in the first days of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. The cooling systems for Fukushima Daiichi reactors 1-3 were knocked out by the March 11 tsunami that struck northern Japan, causing the reactor cores to overheat, spewing huge amounts of radioactive contamination across the surrounding area. Nishiyama said running the "Packbots" in reactor No. 3 was difficult because of the amount of debris scattered around the building, but engineers found the building was dry and the temperatures were normal. In unit 1, the robot found a high level of humidity, the explanation for which was not known Monday night. The robots were inserted the same day that the plant's owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, announced a six- to nine-month plan to restore normal cooling systems and shut down the damaged reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. Japan's government has designated the situation a top-scale nuclear disaster. Nishiyama said he did not know whether the data recorded Sunday would affect the timetable laid out by Tokyo Electric, which had been under pressure to lay out a timetable to resolve the crisis. No data has yet been reported from the No. 2 reactor, which is believed to be leaking an undetermined portion of the 6-7 cubic meters (1,600-1,800 gallons) of fresh water being pumped into it every day. The plan laid out Sunday would bring an end to that improvised solution, which has left workers scrambling to find places to contain the vast amounts of contaminated water that have flooded the basements of the units.
  
  Situation Update No. 90 - On 18.04.2011 at 12:33 GMT+2.
  
  Remote-controlled robots and workers controlling them have recorded high levels of radiation inside and around two reactor buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, safety officials said Monday. The U.S.-built robot probes measured radiation doses as high as 57 millisieverts inside the housing for reactor No. 3 and up to 49 millisieverts inside the No. 1 reactor building, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency reported. Levels found between the double doors of the airlocks of the reactor buildings were much higher -- 270 millisieverts in the case of reactor No. 1 and 170 millsieverts in No. 3, the agency said. By comparison, the average resident of an industrialized country receives a dose of about 3 millisieverts per year. Emergency standards for plant workers battling the month-old nuclear disaster limit their annual exposure to 250 millisieverts, while a CT scan produces just under 7 and a chest X-ray delivers a one-time dose of about .05 millisieverts. Doses above 100 millisieverts can increase the long-term risk of cancer, while 1,000 millisieverts can produce radiation sickness. There was no immediate explanation for the much-higher radiation levels recorded in the airlocks, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, the safety agency's chief spokesman.Source : Here .

• Obama’s Ultimate Insult to the Jews on Pesach.(AtlasShrugs).In Obama's dissolute Passover message, the infiltrator praises the rise of Islamic annihilationists in the Middle East. You can't make this stuff up. He can't help himself, that is how sick his soul is.The idea that Obama would equate the rise of the Jew-hating Muslim Brotherhood across Egypt, Bahrain, and the whole of the Middle East and North Africa with the Jews' four-hundred-year struggle for freedom from slavery and relentless persecution can only be described as wicked, vicious.

Obama, the Interpreter of the Message of Passover Israel National News.

Passover recalls the bondage and suffering of Jews in Egypt and the miracle of the Exodus, but U.S. President Barack Obama says its message is reflected in Muslim uprisings.In his annual message, prior to his third straight participation in the Passover Seder, President Obama stated, “The story of Passover…instructs each generation to remember its past, while appreciating the beauty of freedom and the responsibility it entails. This year that ancient instruction is reflected in the daily headlines as we see modern stories of social transformation and liberation unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa.”No other people have so consistently oppressed, brutalized, and humiliated the Jews as the Muslims have over the past 1,400 years.Having constructed a link between the Arab uprisings and Chosen People's experiencing the miracles of the Creator that led them out of Egypt and towards the receiving of the Ten Commandments, the President concluded, "As Jewish families gather for this joyous celebration of freedom, let us all be thankful for the gifts that have been bestowed upon us, and let us work to alleviate the suffering, poverty, injustice, and hunger of those who are not yet free.”For good measure, he also added the Hebrew term “Chag Samayach,” which means “Have a happy holiday.”Hmmmm.......every righteous Jew or Christian should refuse to vote for this 'person'.Read the full story here.

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

• Libya death toll 'touches 10,000'.(Al-Jazeera).Opposition claim comes as UN gets humanitarian access to Misurata and efforts are on to evacuate those stranded.Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull managed to reach Misurata aboard an aid ship and found a city living under the threat of bombardment and with growing shortages of food, water, fuel and electricity.At least 20 people died while queuing for bread when Grad rockets rained down on them, our correspondent said. Many residents have taken refuge in mosques and schools."There is no safe place left here," a woman from Sudan told Al Jazeera.Many black African migrants have been living in tents on the road outside the port awaiting rescue for weeks."Right now we don't know what is going to happen. We are afraid we are going to die here," Ghanaian Kusi Thomas said.UN sanctions, designed to constrain Gaddafi, have prevented rebels from selling oil to raise funds themselves.So far, the rebels have only been able to export small quantities of oil with the help of Qatar.Frattini said Rome remained opposed to sending ground troops to Libya, although the European Union said it is a move they are considering.The European Union (EU) says that it is prepared to send up to a thousand soldiers to Libya if requested by the United Nations, on what Catherine Ashton, the European Union's Foreign Policy Chief, says will be "strictly a humanitarian mission".Read the full story here.

• HT:BigGovernment.Talk About Heavily Edited! Where Is The Full Recording Of Obama’s Open Mic Moment?Does anyone out there know where we can find a copy of the full recording of His Presidency’s comments to donors in Chicago, made accidentally over an open mic?We have only been able to find select “heavily edited” moments from the recording.CBS broke the story by releasing the following short clip containing just Obama’s comments about the Republicans thinking he is stupid, and His Presidency’s comments on Paul Ryan : But where is the audio of the section where the President of the United States of America referred to some Americans as “slugs?”He did opine that some employees “are slugs and not trying to do their job. But that’s true of any large institution.”If His Presidency of the United States referred to a group of Americans as “slugs” and it was recorded, that is news and we deserve to hear it. At least so that we might judge for ourselves just how much insight his comments provide on his assessment of the American people. For all we know, it sounds better than it reads, but it reads pretty bad.Here is the audio of the section where the President of the Untied States laments that there is not enough revolutionary spirit in Qatar because they are too economically successful:There’s no big move towards democracy in Qatar,” Obama said. “But you know part of the reason is that the per capita income of Qatar is 145,000 dollars a year. That will dampen a lot of conflict,” he added.You would be forgiven for concluding that His Presidency would like to people of Qatar to suffer economic hardship, cynically, so that there would be more fertile ground for revolution. Can you imagine the headlines if President Bush had said the same thing about any one of the Socialist death camps like Cuba or Venezuela?But returning to the subject at hand, why is CBS only releasing a “heavily edited” version of this tape? And why aren’t all the media experts and critics demanding the full release of the complete recording?We certainty concede that we might simply be looking in the wrong place, or that we are ignorant as to when the recording ended and the first hand reports began, but we would sure like to know where the FULL UNEDITED RECORDING of His Presidency’s comments can be found.It seems like every time certain bloggers and video activists release damning candid material, the media elites demand the full recordings as a form of journalistic purity test.Live up to your own code ABC, CBS, NBC, Etc… Release the full recording and transcript of His Presidency’s potentially damning comments.Hmmmm......Who's the Voice behind the teleprompter?Read the full story here.

• 'Quartet may recognize Palestinian state'.Foreign diplomats warn that if Netanyahu fails to present new peace plan soon, superpowers may officially endorse Palestinian state in 1967 border, with east Jerusalem as its capital.American and European diplomats warned that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fails to present a new peace initiative soon, the Quartet may be compelled to recognize a Palestinian State in the 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital, the Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday.According to the report, Netanyahu is under mounting pressure to unveil a new plan that would jump-start the deadlocked negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.If the prime minister does not deliver, the Quartet members – which include the United State, Russia, The European Union and the United Nations – may opt to resume the peace process by officially endorsing a Palestinian state. "The Israelis are facing a bit of pressure with the way things are proceeding," a western diplomat stationed in Israel told the newspaper. "People are starting to look to the US for some kind of action," he added. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hinted last week that the international community may apply pressure on both sides in order to promote a settlement to the longstanding conflict, which she said was as pressing as ever given recent developments in the Arab world."The status quo between Palestinians and Israelis is no more sustainable than the political systems that have crumbled in recent months," Clinton said during a speech at the US-Islamic World Forum in Washington.Analysts have claimed the US postponed a Quartet meeting, which was scheduled to take place in Berlin last week, due to Washington's reservations vis-à-vis the European peace initiative.Hmmmm......Who would have guessed that Obama would stab Israel in the back?Happy Pesach indeed Hussein!What could go wrong?Read the full story here.

• Could Your Shotgun Soon be Outlawed? Maybe, If the ATF Has Its Way.(TheBlaze).What’s the definition of a “shotgun?” According to Dictionary.com it’s “a smoothbore gun for firing small shot to kill birds and small quadrupeds, though often used with buckshot to kill larger animals.” For the gun enthusiasts, that’s only partly true, as there is also the option of using slugs. But what if there’s another addition that will soon be added to the definition? How about, illegal.In a series of fascinating, and eerie, posts over at the blog Beregond’s Bar (and linked on Redstate.com), author “Tom” pens a four-part series on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and their new campaign to change the definition of the term “shotgun.” A change, based on a recent study,* that could soon make some of them illegal. But as Tom points out, the implications for all guns are chilling.

Part 1, which focuses on changing the term “sporting use” in order to ban certain shotguns:

The Obama administration is seeking once again to do via regulation what they would never be able to do via legislation. This time shotguns are in the crosshairs, specifically certain popular imported weapons.Sporting use is one of the three main thrusts of gun control efforts in America. The other two are racism and those who openly advocate complete bans except for military and police. (The complete ban advocates often hide under cover of sporting use, but that and the racist history of gun control are topics for another day.

Sporting use was how the original distinction was made about what weapons would be subject to a special tax in the National Firearms Act (NFA) in 1934, and again in Title II of the Gun Control Act of 1968. The congressional power to tax was used selectively to make ownership of weapons the government didn’t like burdensome and expensive. This was gun control via the back door, as even the ATF admits. As would become the pattern, politicians found that actually dealing with crime and criminals was difficult and expensive. Blaming guns and passing a law to look like they were doing something about it was much simpler.

Part 2, which notes that the administration and the ATF’s definition of “sporting use” includes a list of things that cannot apply to such use. Things that are common in hunting and self-defense.Hmmmm.......Goodbye 'Standing militia' hellooooo dictatorship?Read the full story here.

• HT:BigPeace.King Demands Answers from Holder: Why Did DOJ Drop Muslim Brotherhood Prosecutions?Muslim Brotherhood front groups– like CAIR, ISNA, NAIT and others– will now have a new reason to hate Peter King. Today, the House Homeland Security Committee chairman is demanding to know why Eric Holder’s Justice Department decided not to go after the numerous unindicted coconspirators named in the largest terrorist financing trial in American history, US v Holy Land Foundation.

King’s tough statement comes on the heels of two revealing investigative reports by Big Peace’s Patrick Poole at Pajamas Media. (See both Andy McCarthy at The Corner and Frank Gaffney here at Big Peace for more.) Poole’s inside source believes that Holder, Obama or other well-placed White House decision-makers were afraid of going after Muslim Brotherhood fronts like CAIR, ISNA and NAIT because of embarrassment caused by their own agencies’ dealings with these very same groups.

Even more shocking: allegedly, the FBI may have wire-transfers from one such unindicted coconspirator group directly to Hamas. However, this group owns the deeds to a massive number of America’s mosques. The prosecution of this group would potentially place the US government in the very politically “sensitive” position of– at least temporarily– holding the deeds to Islamic centers and mosques around the country. This is many bridges too far for the likes of the Obama administration. After all, who’d be left to dine with the president during iftar?Here’s Rep. King’s press release below the fold. Let’s hope he gets to the bottom of this soon:

Washington, D.C. (Monday, April 18, 2011) – ­U.S. Rep. Peter T. King (R-NY), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, has demanded an explanation from Attorney General Eric Holder as to why he decided not to prosecute the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), its co-founder Omar Ahmad, and other named unindicted co-conspirators in the Hamas terror finance case, United States v. Holy Land Foundation. The other unindicted co-conspirators include the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust.In a letter to Holder, King wrote: “I have been reliably informed that the decision not to seek indictments of the Council on American Islamic Relations (“CAIR”) and its co-founder Omar Ahmad, the Islamic Society of North America (“ISNA”), and the North American Islamic Trust (“NAIT”), was usurped by high-ranking officials at Department of Justice headquarters over the vehement and stated objections of special agents and supervisors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas, who had investigated and successfully prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation case. Their opposition to this decision raises serious doubt that the decision not to prosecute was a valid exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”I request that you provide answers to the following questions:

What are the reasons for the Department’s decisions not to prosecute CAIR, ISNA, NAIT and Mr. Ahmad, who is a CAIR co-founder and former head of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States?

Who made the final decision not to prosecute? Who, if anyone, from the Executive Office of the President, consulted with, advised, or otherwise communicated with the Department of Justice, in electronic, oral or written form, regarding the Department’s decision to not seek indictments of CAIR, ISNA, NAIT and Mr. Ahmad?

How does and will the Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation address the potential for CAIR, ISNA, or NAIT to engage in terrorism financing? What policies with regard to those organizations have you implemented to address that threat?

I believe that in order to maintain the credibility of the Department, there should be full transparency into the Department’s decision. Please respond to this letter by April 25, 2011. If you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact Kevin Carroll at (202)226-8417.Sincerely,PETER T. KING - Chairman.Hmmmm......Now that's going to produce a lot of high wind.Read the full story here.

• Obama Empire Strikes Back on My PJM ‘Holdergate’ Reporting: We Blame Bush!!!(PajamasMedia).Now House Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder inquiring about the details of our report. In the letter dated Friday, April 15, King asks for Holder’s reasons for dropping these terror finance prosecutions.In his letter, he goes beyond my own reporting and states that the DOJ decision was made:

…over the vehement and stated objections of special agents and supervisors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas, who had investigated and successfully prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation case.

But now we’re starting to get wind of the Obama administration’s response. Fearful that this could easily turn into “Holdergate,” the administration is trying to spin its way out of this potential morass by returning to an old standard: WE BLAME BUSH!!That’s right. The excuse they are currently floating to their friends in the establishment media to explain the decision not to prosecute CAIR officials and the other Islamic leaders implicated in the Holy Land Foundation case (all of whom had been named unindicted co-conspirators) is that the Bush administration chose not to prosecute them in 2004 and they were just reaffirming what John Ashcroft had decided way back when.There are considerable problems with Holder’s fallback position — though admittedly it will be enough of a bone for the administration’s lapdogs in the establishment media to chew on to attack my “vast right-wing” reporting.The first obstacle with blaming Bush for this decision is that according to my high-ranking DOJ source, the decision made by Ashcroft and his Bush administration successors was not to never prosecute the CAIR officials and other Islamic leaders, but that they would go after them now, choosing to prosecute the case systematically as they do in many other federal prosecutions.Here’s what my source said:

It was always the plan to initially go after the [Holy Land Foundation] leaders first and then go after the rest of the accomplices in a second round of prosecutions. From a purely legal point of view, the case was solid. Jim Jacks [the U.S. attorney in Dallas who prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation executives] and his team were ready to go. There’s a mountain of evidence against all of these groups that was never introduced during the Holy Land trial and it is damning. We’ve got them on wiretaps. That’s exactly why many of these leaders and groups were named unindicted co-conspirators in the first round of prosecutions. [emphasis added]That’s quite different from what the Obama administration is now trying to float. They’re now claiming that the Bush administration never intended to prosecute any of the co-conspirators. But there’s a considerable gap between “not now” and “not ever.” Hopefully members of Congress won’t be so quick to fall for the bait and will demand proof that this was the Bush administration’s plan all along.Secondly, it seems a little odd that the Obama administration, which, mind you, was elected after campaigning vigorously that the Bush administration had been guilty of politicizing the Department of Justice, would fall back on the alleged decisions of that same administration.Fortunately, however, it doesn’t seem that Congress is going to be so quick to let the matter drop. According to a few sources on the Hill I spoke with late Monday, they believe that this attempt to pin the blame on Bush in this looming “Holdergate” scandal reeks of desperation. So they don’t intend to back down. Let’s hope that’s the case.Read the full story here.

• It's All Coming Apart. (AmericanThinker)By Monty Pelerin.Despite Government propaganda and manipulated statistics to the contrary, our economy continues to deteriorate. For every "green shoot" highlighted by the Government and its lackey media, multiple contra-examples are cited by independent analysts. To continue to deny reality risks credibility. Perhaps that is why S&P, arguably a sock-puppet of Wall Street, on Monday made its announcement regarding the financial condition of the US. As reported by the Wall Street Journal: Standard & Poor's Ratings Services Inc. cut its outlook on the U.S. to negative, increasing the likelihood of a potential downgrade from its triple-A rating, as the path from large budget deficits and rising government debt remains unclear.Fitch and Moody's have not yet seen fit to change their ratings. Preservation of the little credibility the ratings agencies have left will force them to follow in the course of time.Massive amounts of debt must be liquidated. But confidence also must be restored. Doug Casey characterizes our economic climate thusly:

We are in a financial no-man's land. "Investing" is problematic because of a deteriorating economy, unpredictable and increasing regulation, rising interest rates and wildly fluctuating prices.

Mr. Casey's negatives are enough to stop business investing, hiring, and growth dead in their tracks.Contrary to the way that economics is taught, there is no such thing as an economic machine where a "pump can be primed" or the economy can be "stimulated." All there are millions of individuals all making decisions designed to enable them to navigate through life. For most, their primary objective is the financial and physical security of themselves and their families. In scary economic times, these decisions are affected. In order to right the economy, the fear and uncertainty imposed by existing and future government mandates and actions alluded to by Mr. Casey must be removed. Doing so will not be easy, for more is in play than Mr. Casey's short quote suggests. There are at least five considerations that should be of concern to all of us:

1. An Incompetent President - The President is inexperienced and incompetent. He is likely a fraud, as evidenced by his guarded and unknown past. He is incapable of leadership, honesty, or management. Virtually every one of his policy initiatives has been harmful to the economy and country. His intentions are clear; the degree to which he will be able to drive us further down the Road to Serfdom is not.

2. An Incompetent Political Class - The political class attained power via Santa Claus economics, providing gifts to constituents in return for votes. Both parties are guilty. Politicians have conditioned themselves and their constituents to "free-lunch" governance. Few know how to govern in any other fashion. Most are indistinguishable from prostitutes -- vote for me and I will do "that" for you. Both parties want to preserve the welfare-warfare State, disagreeing merely on the means of doing so.

3. An Incorrect Paradigm - The Keynesian model of spend and spend has been good for politicians but disastrous for the economy. Over time, it has encouraged loose credit, overspending, and living beyond our means. The failures are obvious to all but Statists and so-called Keynesian economists. The political class cannot stop "free lunches" without suffering severe political consequences. Hence, the abuses will continue until resources are exhausted. Like Rome of old, we will soon run out of bread and circuses.

4. An Unhappy Ending - Current economic problems cannot be mitigated or solved without incurring another Great Depression. Whether it is preceded by a deflationary collapse or a hyperinflationary blow-off is moot. The ending is inevitable and as more people understand this ending, they take more extreme steps to protect themselves -- spending ratchets back, savings increases, and businesses refuse to engage in new investment or hiring.

5. A Dangerous Prelude to the Ending - Government is insolvent. It would be bankrupt without Federal Reserve Quantitative Easing. As a cornered, wounded animal will do anything to survive, so will Government. Does that mean confiscatory tax rates, capital controls, IRA investments forced into Treasury Bonds, "excess profits" taxes, a national sales tax, etc., etc.? It could mean any or all of these and more. Government will not roll over. It will do whatever it can to continue, regardless of how illegal, immoral, unethical, or harmful it may be for the country. John Maynard Keynes referred to "animal spirits." Alan Greenspan used the term "irrational exuberance." Both expressions acknowledged the importance of expectations and anticipations. The five factors listed above are not universally known or accepted. As they become more evident, the dismal level of animal spirits and exuberance will sink even lower. There can be no recovery under such conditions.The charade that government can solve this problem may continue for a while. So might the notion that the government cannot go bankrupt. Yet both beliefs are false and will be seen to be so. Spending, hiring, and investment will be unresponsive to anything the government may or can do. The myth of government is breaking down around the world. For those with 20-20 vision, the Emperor is already seen sans clothes.Read the full story here.

• Brazil: Iranian cleric recruiting for Islam…in time for the World Cup and the Olympics.(Faustasblog).Brazil will be hosting the World Cup in 2014, and the Olympics in 2016. Meantime, Mohsen Rabbani, an Iranian cleric who is wanted by Interpol in connection with two terrorist attacks in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 that killed 114 people, is in charge of converting young Brazilian men to Islam and training them in Iran.Reinaldo Azevedo blogs at Veja (link in Portuguese) that once converted to Islam, the young Brazilian men will travel to Iran, all expenses paid, with the official objective of “religious instruction.”Rabbani is considered one the two masterminds of the Buenos Aires attacks, and is also wanted for his involvement in terrorist acts of 2006, according to Veja’s report “Now based in Iran, he continues to play a significant role in propagating extremism in Latin America”, said Alberto Nisman, chief investigator at the Argentinian Public Ministry special unit for terrorism.Veja reports that three groups of Brazilians have traveled to Iran for “religious instruction.” The participants are hand-picked by Rabbani.Hmmmm....Why does the shooter of the Rio Shool come to mind?Ah yes he was a recent Islamic convert!Read the full story here.

• The President’s “matching deficit reduction” claim is off by a trillion dollars (or more).(KeithHennessey).In his weekly radio address the President said : Now, one plan put forward by some Republicans in the House of Representatives aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years.… That’s why I’ve proposed a balanced approach that matches that $4 trillion in deficit reduction.In the radio address the President did not give a timeframe for his $4 trillion in deficit reduction. He did in his budget speech last Wednesday, however : So today, I’m proposing a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 12 years.$4 trillion in deficit reduction over 12 years does not “match” $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. It’s not even close.The twelve year timeframe is a red flag. Federal budgets are measured over 1, 5, and 10 year timeframes. Any other length “budget window” is nonstandard and suggests someone is playing games.The President and his team have not yet provided sufficient detail for us to know precisely how his $4 trillion of deficit reduction is distributed over this 12 year window, but we can make some back-of-the-envelope guesses to get a feel for the magnitudes involved.It’s fairly easy to see what’s going on here. The President decided on about $3 trillion of deficit reduction over 10 years, maybe a little less. He wanted to claim that he was “matching” the Ryan plan in deficit reduction, but was just achieving that same goal in a better way. Matching Republican deficit reduction is a lynchpin of the President’s fiscal argument. He was short by a trillion dollars or more, so he and his team decided to measure his proposal over a different timeframe and hope no one would notice. They lengthened the window by which they would measure the President’s deficit reduction until they matched the $4 trillion over 10 years in the Ryan plan and came up with 12 years.Yes, these conclusions are based on my assumption of the President’s proposed deficit reduction path. We will see if anyone who challenges that assumption wants to provide their own alternate path that leads to a fundamentally different conclusion. We will also see if the Administration provides us with their actual deficit reduction path.The President’s new budget plan provides insufficient detail to support his claim of $4 trillion of deficit reduction over 12 years. But if we stipulate that amount, it is likely that the President’s new budget proposal would result in $1 trillion more debt over the next ten years compared to the House-passed Ryan plan, and maybe more.The President was therefore wildly incorrect when he said, referring to the House-passed Ryan budget plan, “I’ve proposed a balanced approach that matches that $4 trillion in deficit reduction.”Hmmmm......Don't listen to what i say, but notice what i do?Read the full story here.

• Obama Accused of 'Dereliction of Duty' for Refusing to Defend Marriage Law.(CNSNews.com) – Ed Whelan, former Department of Justice legal counsel in the George W. Bush administration, testified on Friday that President Barack Obama’s refusal to have his Justice Department defend the “Defense of Marriage Act” in federal court is a “dereliction of duty” and part of an ongoing effort to advance homosexual marriage.“The Obama administration's decision to abandon defense of DOMA reflects a sharp departure from the Department of Justice's longstanding practice of defending congressional enactments,” said Whelan, who is president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center.Whelan said the Obama administration “has subordinated its legal duty to its desire to please a favored and powerful political constituency, and it is eager to obscure from the public its stealth campaign to induce the courts to invent a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”Speaking at a “Defending Marriage” hearing of the House Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee on Apr. 15, Whelan explained that the Obama administration was, in fact, using a legal strategy to advance its homosexual agenda.Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said in opening the April 15 hearing that he believed gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender interest groups influenced Obama’s decision on DOMA.“The president and his administration had a duty to defend the Defense of Marriage Act but powerful constituencies of the president did not want to president to defend it and, unfortunately, politics trumped duty,” Franks said.Hmmmm........" and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States"?Read the full story here.

• U.S. artist's controversial 'Piss Christ' attacked by vandals in France.A controversial piece of art which shows a crucifix bathed in urine has been vandalised in a gallery in southern France.Police are today searching for the vandals who targeted the piece in Avignon just hours after 800 protesters held a demonstration against it.The work by U.S. artist Andres Serrano - called 'Piss Christ' - is supposed to make a statement about the misuse of religion.But when the part taxpayer-funded 1987 piece - which has also been described as 'blasphemous' - first went on display in the U.S. it was so controversial that it sparked a fierce debate about whether art should be publicly funded at all.Mr Serrano's work has previously been targeted by vandals while on display in Sweden and Australia.Police said two people tried to enter the museum late on Sunday morning carrying a can of paint spray and a chisel in their jackets.A guard removed the objects - just as a third person took a hammer to the piece.The attacker struggled with a guard, but helped by an accomplice, managed to escape, police said.French culture minister Frederic Mitterand described the incident as an 'attack on the freedom of creation'.Staff had closed early on Saturday because of the protest.A worker, who asked to remain anonymous, said that they had also received death threats.'Several people have called saying, "If you open, you're dead",' one museum worker said.'We're nervous and we have asked for protection from the police.'It was unclear whether the attack was linked to the earlier demonstration.Serrano made the controversial work by placing a crucifix in urine and blood, and it has drawn criticism in the past from some Christian groups.Young far-Right Christian activists from the General Alliance Against Racism and the Respect of the French and Christian Identity are taking the Collection Lambert to court tomorrow to try to have the crucifix photograph removed from the exhibit.The group denounced the photograph on its website, saying it 'insults and injures Christians at the heart of their faith'.Hmmm....."The Lord works in mysterious ways"?Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Khamenei Advisor To Saudi Arabia: You Too Will Be Attacked.Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and former commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has condemned the entrance of Saudi forces into Bahrain. Hinting at the entrance of U.S. troops into Saudi territory, he warned Saudi Arabia that the day would come when Saudi Arabia itself would fall victim to an attack like that in Bahrain.Hmmmm.....It seems the snakes are out of the bag?Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Palestinian Legislative Council Deputy Speaker and Hamas Senior Official: The Revolutions in the Arab World – A Prelude to an Islamic Caliphate.

Q: "How does the PLC view the wave of youth revolutions sweeping the Arab street?"

A: "There is no doubt that the [practices of the Arab dictatorships] – the violation of people's dignity, the denial of their rights, the denial of justice and liberty, the spread of oppression and of moral and financial corruption, the holding of elections as a [mere] formality, followed by the announcement of [the ruling party's] victory by imaginary margins, and the usurpation of power by force – are what aroused the rage of the Arab peoples and caused them to rise up in order to restore their liberty and rights. In Egypt, considered the most important country in the Arab and Islamic world, there are the Camp David Accords, which have kept the Egyptian people in fetters, and there is [the issue of the natural] gas, which is sold to the Zionist citizen at a cheaper price than to the Egyptian citizen. An analogy can made to what happened in Tunisia and Libya... As a legislative council, we support the peoples who rebelled against the corrupt regimes, and the restoration of liberty and justice.

"I would like to say that these [revolutions] are [merely] a prelude to the Islamic Caliphate... [whose establishment] the Prophet [Muhammad] foretold in the hadith: 'You will have the prophecy, according to Allah's will. Then will He put an end to it, according to His will. And then there will be a Caliphate by way of prophecy, according to the will of Allah... And there will be a biting kingdom [i.e., an oppressive rule], according to the will of Allah... [and then] a kingdom of coercion, according to the will of Allah... Then there will be a Caliphate by way of prophecy,' etc. The [term] 'kingdom of coercion,' as the hadith [commentators] explained, refers to the dictatorships that oppressed, cheated, killed, and destroyed. These were [created by] Western and American industry, which paved the way for the plundering of all the [Muslim] ummah's resources – its oil and its agriculture. I hope that this awakening heralds the establishment of a Caliphate by way of prophecy, according to the will of Allah..."Read the full story here.