Issa: Executive Privilege Reserved For Presidential Decision-Making.

Issa: Executive Privilege Reserved For Presidential Decision-Making.(BLN).By Susanne Posel.Darrell Issa, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman, wrote a letter to President Barack Obama wherein he directly challenged Obama’s use of executive privilege, essentially hiding certain documents concerning the Fast and Furious operation.
There was a formal request that Obama provide “legal justification for the privilege claim and a list of specific documents covered by it.”

Issa explained that according to case law, “executive privilege is reserved for direct presidential decision-making.” 

By intimation, Obama is admitting to have overseen the operation by his use of executive privilege.

While Obama has asserted in public forum that he and Holder were not involved in F&F, he is essentially lying by omission.
Issa reminds Obama that either his “most senior advisers were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious … and the fallout” or he is hiding behind “a presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation.”
Holder, trying to bargain with the House Oversight Committee, offered documents in exchange for the contempt charge dropped. Holder spoke to Obama in private, wherein he told Obama to use executive privilege because the documents requested by the HOC would have “significant damaging consequences”.
Last week, Holder advised Obama to use his executive privilege card concerning the internal documents of the F&F.
Issa mentioned Board Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death and pointed out that the gun that killed Terry had been shipped into Mexico for the drug cartels by US agents.
The Terry family has been requesting for over a year and a half for the US government to hold those responsible within the government to “justice and accountability”. They recognize that it is very “disappointing that [the Terry family] are now faced with an administration that seems more concerned with protecting themselves rather than revealing the truth behind Operation Fast and Furious.”
Holder had admitted this fact in a letter written in February of 2011. Seeing Holder retracted that statement several months later, Issa cites that “lying to Congress is a crime”. All documents pertaining to that denial will be subpoenaed by the HOC; specifically correspondence between Obama’s administration and Holder between June of 2012, until the claim of executive privilege.Hmmmm.......GunWalker."These boots keep on walking, one of these days they'll walk all over you".Read the full story here.

The U.N. Speaks: The Arms Trade Treaty Will Affect “Legally Owned Weapons”

The U.N. Speaks: The Arms Trade Treaty Will Affect “Legally Owned Weapons”.(Heritage).Yesterday, the U.N. released its press kit for the July conference that will finalize the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The most interesting item in the kit is a lengthy paper by the U.N.’s Coordinating Action on Small Arms (CASA) program titled “The Impact of Poorly Regulated Arms Transfers on the Work of the UN.” This paper perpetuates the belief, on which much of the ATT is based, that the big problem the world faces is a lack of agreed standards on arms transfers. That’s wrong: The big problem the world faces in this regard is that many U.N. member states are dictatorships, supporters of terrorists, or simply incapable of controlling their own borders.
But the paper makes it clear that the job of the U.N.—as the U.N. itself sees it—is to make the case for a very broad treaty. As CASA puts it, “Advocacy efforts should be developed…through relevant reports and op-eds, messages, and statements at relevant meetings and to the press.” So watch out for U.S. taxpayer-funded funded U.N. propaganda in a newspaper near you. But in spite of its desperate efforts to rebut Second Amendment concerns, the U.N. can’t stop stepping on its own shoelaces. After proclaiming that the ATT “does not aim to impede or interfere with the lawful ownership and use of weapons,” the CASA paper goes on to say that “United Nations agencies have come across many situations in which various types of conventional weapons have been…misused by lawful owners” and that the “arms trade must therefore be regulated in ways that would…minimize the risk of misuse of legally owned weapons.” How, exactly, would the ATT do that if it doesn’t “impede” or “interfere” with lawful ownership? The U.N. would have a lot more credibility on the ATT if it didn’t imply so regularly that the problem is as much lawful ownership as it is the international arms trade.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Indonesia 5.3 and Turkey 5.4! More info here.

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

• Liveblogging the Anti-Durban Conference - Pajama's media here.

• Palestinians torch Obama photos in Ramallah.(Ynet).Palestinian protesters have denounced United States President Barack Obama for his opposition to their bid to win United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state. Dozens rallied on Thursday outside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' office in Ramallah. They held up anti-Obama signs, including one reading "Obama the hypocrite" and another claiming the American president is siding "with killers against victims." The protesters also burned photos of the US president.Obama told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that a state can only be established through negotiations with Israel. The US has said it would block the recognition request in the Security Council.The IDF and the police are gearing for the possibility that clashes will break out Friday after Muslim prayers. Police will decide later on Thursday whether to limit the entry of worshippers into the Temple Mount compound.A security source told Ynet that the alert level was very high, although the police did not have any concrete information on plans to ignite the situation. "Abbas' UN speech will be tomorrow evening, and they have no interest in inflaming the situation because problematic incidents will turn against them and prove they are incapable of running a state," the source said. "The goal is to see Friday's events end with the lowest number of casualties possible."Despite the optimistic estimates, the police view Friday as a test with a particularly explosive potential. The police will boost their forces on Friday, focusing on Jerusalem, the Jerusalem vicinity and the crossings to Israel from the territories. Another important center is the Temple Mount, where prayers could potentially develop into riots every Friday. Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch and Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino are expected to visit the area on Friday.  Despite estimates suggesting Abbas will succumb to diplomatic pressure, it appears the Palestinian Authority will go ahead with its plan to submit a bid for UN recognition at the Security Council on Friday. However, Palestinian sources estimated that if and when the proposal is rejected by the Security Council, a General Assembly debate will take place only weeks later.PLO Executive Committee Secretary-General Yasser Abed Rabbo, currently in New York, said in an interview on Thursday that the UN proposal will be submitted on Friday directly after Abbas' speech. Abed Rabbo stressed there has been no decision on an extension for the Security Council. He noted that more than 150 states will vote in favor of the Palestinian bid at the Assembly.Speaking to Ynet, a Palestinian source explained Abed Rabbo's statements saying that the Security Council president will forward the Palestinian proposal to a special committee after it is submitted on Friday. The source however noted that the US could still delay the proposal at the committee. "It very much depends on the Americans," the source said. "In Macedonia's case it took several months, whereas in Sudan's case it only took a few days." He said that if the Security Council delays the request, the Palestinians will turn to the General Assembly but could not give a timeframe. "The chances of this happening while the Palestinian delegation is still in New York this week are slim to none. I estimate the vote will take place in October or November."In his interview Thursday Abed Rabbo denied that efforts are being made for a meeting between Abbas and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but noted there was nothing wrong with such meetings. He added that Abbas had informed President Obama Wednesday on what will take place on Friday. Meanwhile, Hamas is still warning against the statehood bid. Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar said that if the international community recognizes Palestine as a UN member the Palestinians will no longer be able to engage in resistance against Israel. Another Hamas official said that Obama had given Abbas false promises and guarantees in order to maintain negotiations with Israel and prevent the Security Council bid.Read the full story here.More here.

• Elizabeth Warren: Obama Friend, Socialist, Class Warfare Practitioner.(OFB).Remember Elizabeth Warren? She was Obama's choice to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. However, she wasn't nominated because she is, among other things, an arrogant elitist liberal. In short, she's unlikable and her beliefs are un-American.These days, Warren is back in Massachusetts, attempting to defeat Senator Scott Brown in next year's election. That's where this bombshell of a video comes in :Here.

Transcript via CBS News:

Warren rejects the concept that it is possible for Americans to become wealthy in isolation.

"You built a factory out there? Good for you," she says. "But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did."She continues: "Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."These are Obama's friends. These are the ideologies he believes in.Hmmmm.....What is yours...will become mine!Read and see the full story here

• "Leopards don't loose their spots".Obama's UN Speech Continues His Diasterous Israel Policy.(YidWithLid).They say a leopard doesn't change his spots, well neither does this President. Those who though that the NY-9 election and recent polls would cause Obama to temper his one-sided policy regarding the Israeli/Palestinian dispute were very disappointing. It's not what he said that should be alarming to friends of Israel, its what he didn't say, namely that Israel needed to be recognized as the Jewish State. Oh he flirted around it sometimes, but carefully negotiated around stating it, an act of appeasement to those who would destroy Israel. It is that one recognition which keeps this 40 year dispute alive (remember before 1967 Judea, Samaria were part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt).This is what the President actually said about recognition of Israel at the UN Today. Let us be honest with ourselves: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, look out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile and persecution, and fresh memories of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they are. Those are facts. They cannot be denied. The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland. Israel deserves recognition. It deserves normal relations with its neighbors.Some will say "see he talked about the Jewish people, you can assume that's what he meant." Sadly in diplomacy as well as "Odd Couple" reruns, when you assume you make an ass of u and me.The avoidance of calling Israel the Jewish State was no accident. As recently as last month the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas declared that he would never accept Israel as a Jewish State. For the naysayers who say why should the PA have to recognize the nature of the Israel. One reason is the UN who defines it that way. The original partition resolution passed by the UN in November 1947, UN Resolution 181 calls for dividing Palestine into Independent Arab and Jewish States. Israeli Prime Minister outlined it brilliantly in his speech before Congress at the end of May. He talked about how Israel has been ready to establish a Palestinian State for decades, but there has been one hold-up.“You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state. This is what this conflict is about....They were simply unwilling to end the conflict. And I regret to say this: They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees.” My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said… "I will accept a Palestinian state." It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say… "I will accept a Jewish state."A few days before Netanyahu made his speech in the halls of Congress, President Obama gave his big Mid East peace speech. He spent much time telling Israel what she had to do, and included the controversial call for negotiations to start with recognition of Israel's return to the 1949 Armistice lines, but he didn’t address the fact that neither Palestinian President Abbas’ Fatah party and the Hamas party refuse to recognize Israel as the Jewish State. Today in front of the UN General Assembly he made the same mistake. I put forward a new basis for negotiations in May of this year. That basis is clear. It’s well known to all of us here. Israelis must know that any agreement provides assurances for their security. Palestinians deserve to know the territorial basis of their state.....We seek a future where Palestinians live in a sovereign state of their own, with no limit to what they can achieve. There’s no question that the Palestinians have seen that vision delayed for too long. It is precisely because we believe so strongly in the aspirations of the Palestinian people that America has invested so much time and so much effort in the building of a Palestinian state, and the negotiations that can deliver a Palestinian state.Again he fails to mention that the reason it has taken so long is the Palestinian refusal to accept the fact that the Jewish State of Israel has the basic right to exist. The simple truth is that with seven words, President Abbas can get what he wants "We Accept a Jewish State of Israel." Once he says that all the other issues will become much easier.But President Abbas will not make that declaration, and President Obama is satisfied with making demands of Israel while refusing to demand that the Palestinian side make the most basic of statements. Israel cannot negotiate with someone who does not believe that it should exist. And President Obama will never regain the trust of voters who support Israel as long as he continues to appease the Palestinians lack of this basic recognition.Hmmmm......You can't hide what's in your DNA.Read the full story here.

• Even Republicans Rejected Info About Obama’s Socialist Past.(RedState).What would you do if you knew the top Democrat running for president was lying about his past? That is the question I was faced with in 2008. I had met the young Barack Obama while he was a sophomore at Occidental College, and I knew that his commitment to socialism was deep, genuine and long-standing. See, http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/meeting_young_obama.html

I had been a leader of the Marxist students at Occidental College myself starting in 1976 when I founded the precursor of the Democrat Socialist Alliance on campus. The young Obama I knew was a Marxist socialist who would have been quite comfortable with Communist party members like his Hawaii mentor Frank Marshall Davis, retired domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers, or active socialist politicians like Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer.The Obama I knew was nothing like the life-long, pragmatic centrist that he was pretending to be in the 2008 presidential campaign. When I talked politics with the young Obama, he expressed a profound commitment to bringing about a socialist economic system in the U.S. – completely divorced from the profit motive – which would occur, in his lifetime, through a potentially violent, Communist-style revolution. In this context, I saw my report on young Obama as a key piece of evidence suggesting a profound continuity in his belief system. See, http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/obamas_missing_link_1.html

Although I was surprised by Barack Obama’s insistence on his mainstream ideological credentials, I was shocked that my attempts to spread the news about young Obama’s Marxism failed to gain any media traction during the 2008 presidential campaign with reporters, activists, or campaign staffs. Once I saw the significance of my face-to-face observations on the young Obama, I went out of my way to get my story on record with the Orange County Register. I tried to contact, among others, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, the folks behind the Swift Boat ads, and the McCain campaign.I thought I would get a phone call back from Fox News – someone, somewhere – and I still do not understand why no one seemed to catch on to the urgency of the situation. I understand I did not have audio tape of young Obama. I did not have any photos or home movies. Nevertheless, I was extremely active in the leftist politics and counter cultural milieu of Occidental College in the 1970s. As a younger man, I had earned a Ph.D. in political science from Cornell which, I would think, gave me some credibility in measuring young Obama’s ideological convictions. I quickly saw other people who had known the young Obama were featured in various news articles. It seemed to me I should have been just another interview for any journalist, producer or campaign consultant interested in checking out my story and testing it against the facts.In frustration, I was also posting what I knew on The Caucus Blog site at the New York Times. My expectation was someone from the Times would call me and follow-up on the leads I was sending out. Here is a sample of what I was doing in October 2008 to get the word out about Obama’s Marxist ideology. See, http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/debate-expectations-talking-up-the-town-hall/?scp=20&sq=Marxist%20occidental%20obama&st=cse

I even thought of scheduling my own press conference on the campus of Occidental College through their campus Republican club. Internally, I was conflicted by the urgency of what I knew and the sense it was best for the story to break out in a manner supportive of the McCain campaign. What shocked me about my experience in the summer of 2008 is that I thought my background as a Williams College political science professor, as a small business owner, and as a visible presence in the Orange County community would allow my message to immediately go to the very top of the McCain campaign. I thought my story would be welcomed by Fox News. Since then, things have slowly gotten better. My story on the young Marxist Obama has appeared in Michael Savage’s Trickle-Up Poverty, Paul Kengor’s Dupes, Stanley Kurtz’s Radical-In-Chief and Jack Cashill’s Deconstructing Obama.Read the full story here.

• Obama's Black Support Plummets.(WhiteHouseDossier).The passion of African-American support for President Obama is falling, posing a major new threat to his prospects for reelection.According to a new ABC/Washington Post poll, the number of blacks who have “strongly favorable” views of Obama has dropped off a cliff, declining from 83 percent five months ago to 58 percent today.That blacks will support Obama in the end is unquestionable. Eighty six percent still view him at least somewhat favorably.But the Obama campaign desperately needs to bring core constituencies like African Americans to the polls in high numbers, and flagging enthusiasm will make the task more difficult and expensive.What’s more, key swing states like Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and many others have large black populations.Black leaders have been increasingly critical of President Obama for failing to stem the high and rising black unemployment rate. And Obama’s failure to weigh in on or try to prevent the execution yesterday of Troy Davis in Georgia – a black man whom some believe was may have been innocent and a victim of racism in the justice system – may hurt him as well.Hmmmm........"Pass the bill.........if you love me".Read the full story here.

• Obama Says He Wears Class Warfare Charges As A “Badge Of Honor”(WhiteHouseGov).Official transcript from last night’s speech:

. . . Nobody wants to punish success — that’s what you here when they try to respond to what should be some pretty obvious logic. Nobody wants to punish success in America. That’s what’s great about America — our belief that anybody can make if you try. Anybody can open a business, have a great idea, go out there and make millions, make billions. This is the land of opportunity. It’s why people came to New York. All I’m saying is that those who have done well, including the majority of people here tonight, we should pay our fair share in taxes. (Applause.) Contribute to the nation that made our success possible. Pass it on — pass on opportunity.And I think most wealthy Americans would agree if they knew that this would help us grow the economy and deal with the debt that threatens our future, and put people back to work.

See, I got some Amen’s right here.

AUDIENCE: Amen!

THE PRESIDENT: This is a completely unbiased sampling. (Laughter.)

Now, you’re already hearing the Republicans in Congress dusting off the old talking points. You can write their press releases. “Class warfare,” they say. You know what, if asking a billionaire to pay the same rate as a plumber or a teacher makes me a warrior for the middle class, I wear that charge as a badge of honor. (Applause.) I wear it as a badge of honor. (Applause.) Because the only class warfare I’ve seen is the battle that’s been waged against middle-class folks in this country for a decade now.Read and see the full speech here.

• Secret Fast and Furious Recordings Name Names (Holder and Burke among them).(BigGovernment).CBS News recently got their hands on secret recordings of conversations about Fast and Furious that took place between an ATF agent and a gun store owner, both of whom were located in the Phoenix area (and both of whom were thoroughly acquainted with Fast and Furious).The recordings captured agent Hope McAllister talking with Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company, at a time when Howard was noticeably worried that Fast and Furious was going to become public knowledge or be put under the microscope of a congressional investigation. Howard especially feared that Senator Charles Grassley might push for an inquiry of some kind. Thus at least four times in the recordings he can be heard mentioning Grassley, and one of those four times it’s to say someone needs to tell Grassley “to sit [his] a—down.”What’s also interesting about the recordings is that although they were made in mid-March 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder’s name comes up quite a bit. And his name doesn’t come up because they’re afraid he’s going to find out about Fast and Furious but because he was the one they were counting on to deflect attention from it.In other words, he was well aware of the operation by mid-March 2011, and this is somewhat ironic because in answering questions from Congressman Darrell Issa on May 3 he said he only learned of Fast and Furious “over the last few weeks.” This means he led Issa to believe the earliest he knew anything about the operation was sometime in April. Yet on the recordings (from mid-March), it is clear Holder was the one Howard hoped would stop the investigative momentum by responding to a letter regarding Fast and Furious from the House Oversight Committee:

HOWARD: “Holder has to respond to this tomorrow.”

McALLISTER: “Yeah, he’s gonna respond.”

HOWARD: “I know he is. And I assure you the media isn’t gonna like his response, because basically it’s gonna mirror what he’s told Grassley.”

McALLISTER: “Yeah.”

HOWARD: “He can’t deviate.” (Italics added.)

As Howard continues to express concern over what Holder will say, Agent MacAllister tries to calm him by saying she believed Holder & Co. would “come out with [something a] little more um b—-y…than they [had] in the past.”In the next portion of the recording, former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke’s name is referenced. This is where agent MacAllister admits Burke had been more tenacious in handling Fast and Furious inquiries than Holder would be:

McALLISTER: “Well if, I mean, I’ve seen a rough copy of what our U.S. attorney here has sent up. Whether or not [Holder] has the balls to actually use it or not, I doubt it. But I mean, it’s pretty aggressive. The way I see it, our local U.S. attorney is extremely aggressive. [But] when it gets to D.C. …”

HOWARD: “Who, Emory [Hurley]?”

McALLISTER: “No, the U.S. attorney.”

HOWARD: “Burke, yeah, used to work under Clinton. …Talking about [Dennis] Burke?”

McALLISTER: “Mmm hmm.”

It’s somewhat surreal to hear Holder’s name, and to come to the immediate recognition that some of his answers to Issa don’t add up.And it strikes a strange chord within one’s psyche to hear Burke’s name thrown around as the go getter and the hard hitter on Fast and Furious, and then to remember he’s the one who denied victim of crime status to the family of U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry. (God bless the family of Brian Terry.)Hopefully these recordings will pull back the sheets on this massive cover-up once and for all.Read the full story here.

• House Republicans: We Trust Netanyahu More Than Obama.(NYTimes).When the Obama administration wanted to be certain that Congress would not block $50 million in new aid to the Palestinian Authority last month, it turned to a singularly influential lobbyist: Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.At the request of the American Embassy and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Netanyahu urged dozens of members of Congress visiting Israel last month not to object to the aid, according to Congressional and diplomatic officials. Mr. Netanyahu’s intervention with Congress underscored an extraordinary intersection of American diplomacy and domestic politics, the result of an ever-tightening relationship between the Israeli government and the Republican Party that now controls the House.On Tuesday, one of President Obama’s potential rivals in 2012, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, delivered a speech in New York criticizing Mr. Obama’s stance toward Israel as “naïve, arrogant, misguided and dangerous.” Mr. Perry said that he would be a guest soon of Danny Danon, the hard-right deputy speaker of the Israeli Parliament.The relationship between the Israeli government and the Republican Party has significantly complicated the administration’s diplomatic efforts to avert a confrontation at the United Nations this week over the Palestinian bid for full membership as a state, limiting President Obama’s ability to exert pressure on Mr. Netanyahu to make concessions that could restart negotiations with the Palestinians.One of the members of Congress who attended the meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in August, Representative Michael G. Grimm of New York, a Republican, said that it was carefully explained to the delegation that the money would be used for training Palestinian police officers who work closely with the Israeli government.Mr. Grimm said he felt more comfortable receiving the explanation from the prime minister than from Obama administration officials.“I think the credibility is different,” he said, “in the sense that this is his country and he certainly would not support something that would have negative effects within his country.”Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the most powerful Jewish member of Congress, said the importance of the Israeli-American security connections was driven home during their August visit, during which a bus was bombed. “We saw U.S. taxpayer dollars in cooperation between American interest and Israeli interests toward the same end,” Mr. Cantor said.“We’re in it together.”Hmmmmm......By their fruits you will know them".Read the full story here.

• Senator Hatch Introduces Senate Bill To Defund U.N. If It Recognizes “Palestine” As a State.(Washington Examiner) — Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced the Solidarity with Israel Act today, a bill that would defund the United Nations if that body votes to recognize Palestine as a state.“This vote undermines Israel’s security, and should the United Nations change Palestine’s current status, this legislation would prevent valuable American resources from funding the United Nations,” Hatch said. “Make no mistake, there will be consequences associated with efforts to undermine the security of America’s friends and allies.”The United States will veto any vote by the UN Security Council that recognizes Palestine as a state, but Hatch’s bill would pull funding if the General Assembly voted to classify Palestine as an “observer state,” which the United States cannot interdict.Read the full story here.

• Palestinian Authority Reps Handing Out Maps Of “Palestine” At U.N. That Erases All Of Israel.(INN).Palestinian Authority representatives in the United Nations are handing out maps of “Palestine” that show it in place of all of Israel, including Tel Aviv, reports David Bedein of the Israel Resource Review.Bedein, who is currently in the United States, told Arutz Sheva: “They do not want a Palestinian state, but all of Palestine. The maps they hand out in their offices include all of ‘Palestine.’ They erase Israel completely in their maps.”Mahmoud Abbas is being disingenuous about his future plans, opined Bedein. “He wants the Palestinians to supplant Israel. He disseminates lies, as if he just wants Judea and Samaria. But this is really not the position of the PLO. Unfortunately, even the Yesha Council [an umbrella group for Jewish local leadership in Judea and Samaria — Ed.] does not stress the fact that he wants all of ‘Palestine.’”Bedein expressed his sorrow over the fact that Israel supports continued US and European assistance to the PA educational system even though it continues to call for Israel’s destruction. “The state of Israel continues to side with a continuation of US funding for the UNRWA education system without attaching any conditions, that it cease calling for the destruction of Israel in its schoolbooks.”Hmmmm......Obama and Erdogan their buddies.Read the full story here.

• Nervous Breakdown? 21 Signs That Something Big Is About To Happen In The Financial World.(BlacklistedNews).By Michael Snyder -Will global financial markets reach a breaking point during the month of October? Right now there are all kinds of signs that the financial world is about to experience a nervous breakdown. Massive amounts of investor money is being pulled out of the stock market and mammoth bets are being made against the S&P 500 in October. The European debt crisis continues to grow even worse and weird financial moves are being made all over the globe. Does all of this unusual activity indicate that something big is about to happen? Let's hope not. But historically, the biggest stock market crashes have tended to happen in the fall. So are we on the verge of a "Black October"?The following are 21 signs that something big is about to happen in the financial world and that global financial markets are on the verge of a nervous breakdown....

#1. We are seeing an amazing number of bets against the S&P 500 right now. According to CNN, the number of bets against the S&P 500 rose to the highest level in a year last month. But that was nothing compared to what we are seeing for October. The number of bets against the S&P 500 for the month of October is absolutely astounding. Somebody is going to make a monstrous amount of money if there is a stock market crash next month.Hmmm......Now go and read the other 20 indicators...is the end near?Read the full story here.

• Video - U.N. Amb. Susan Rice Outraged GOP Candidates Suggest American Aid To Palestinians Be Withheld.(TheHill).United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice on Wednesday accused GOP presidential candidates of “playing politics” with Israel.Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry both suggested this week that the U.S. should threaten to withhold aid from the Palestinian Authority over its expected United Nations request for statehood.“I think Gov. Perry ought to really consider the real-world implications of that for Israel. Because the security assistance that the United States provides the Palestinian Authority benefits Israel directly and Israelis are well aware of that,” Rice said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”Perry and Romney have criticized Obama for not showing Israel enough support, with Perry calling President Obama’s policy in the Middle East "naive and arrogant, misguided and dangerous." Rice, like others in the administration, pushed back against that characterization, defending Obama’s record of commitment to “to bringing the Palestinian and Israelis to a final agreement.”Rice said, “For those who want to play politics, they’ll play politics. But the reality is Israel has had no better partner than this administration.”Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to take his bid for statehood to the United Nations Security Council this week. The Obama administration opposes the action, warning that it would undermine direct Israel-Palestine negotiations. GOP candidates Romney, Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) have blamed the Obama administration for allowing the situation to get this far.Rice said a Security Council vote on Palestinian statehood will not succeed.The White House announced Tuesday evening that Obama would meet with Abbas on Wednesday prior to Obama’s General Assembly address, likely a final attempt to dissuade Abbas from the course of action.Read and see the full story here.

• Residents Evacuated As Strato Volcano Mount Tambora Activity Increases.(MyweatherTech).The status of the Mount Tambora volcano on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa has been raised to level III (Siaga) status forcing many residents in the surrounding hillsides to evacuate to lower ground.Mount Tambora, which is responsible for the largest and deadliest volcanic eruption in recorded history, started showing signs of awakening in April. But in early August, it spewed thick white smoke 20 meters (66 feet) into the sky. Seismic activity has increased significantly during September, with between 12 and 16 earthquakes being recorded on a daily basis.An eight-kilometre exclusion zone has been set up by Indonesian authorities over fears there will be toxic gas as a direct result of the increased activity.Hundreds of families in the villages and hamlets that lay between 5 to 10 kilometers (3 to 6 miles) from the peak have decided to move after an increase in earthquakes beneath the volcano. Some farmers, however, who have spent most of their lives living on the slopes of the volcano, remain unfazed despite the warnings from authorities.The federal Disaster Mitigation Coordinating Agency (BNPB) also has met with leaders of the three districts surrounding Mount Tambora – Bima, Dompu and Sumbawa. Two villages, Pancasila and Doro Pet, are particularly vulnerable as they are located within 5 kilometres (3 miles) of the volcano’s peak which has a height of 4,300 meters (14,100 feet), making it the tallest in the Indonesian archipelago.Tambora’s eruption of April 10, 1815, killed at least 71,000 and as many as 92,000 people. Around 11,000 were killed directly by the eruption and the remaining 60,000 or more died in the aftermath from starvation and disease as the eruptive fallout ruined the agricultural crops of the region.The 1815 eruption is estimated to have had a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) value of 7, the only such explosion since the Hatepe eruption in New Zealand in 180 AD and only the fifth known in human history.The explosion of Indonesia’s Tambora volcano in 1815 had an impact on climate worldwide throughout 1816. Credit NASA / SINC. The eruption caused significant global climate anomalies such as the phenomenon known as a “volcanic winter.” In 1816, Europe and North America suffered massive crop failures and the worst famine of the 19th century due to the dust and sulfur emitted by the volcano in what became known as the “year without a summer.”Although there is a possibility that an explosion of the same scale could happen again, residents seem optimistic given that the volcano has erupted three times since 1815 but none of those events has achieved a VEI value of more than 2.Read the full story here.

• Video - Levi’s springs from Its Progressive Closet: Jeans ad Pro-Revolution w Message to Rioting MARXISTS, “GO FORTH 2011”.(PumaByDesign).

THE BLAZE

“…But if the images weren’t surprising enough, how about the narration (which is a recitation of parts of Charles Bukowski’s poem, The Laughing Heart)?

‘Your life is your life. Don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. Be on the watch. There are ways out. The gods will offer you chances. Know them. Take them. Your life is your life. Know it while you have it. You are marvelous. The gods wait to delight in you.’

 When watching the Vid the following quotes:

And all that while showing scenes of rioting. Is it not obvious what message the ad is sending?”

00:36 “You can’t beat death but you can beat death in life…sometimes..”

00:48 “You are martyrs, the Gods wait to delight in you.”

Is Levi’s promoting Satanism. At the beginning of both videos, one sees a fallen angel aka black angel, the angel of despair, thus representing Satan and evil but then Progressives have willingly accepted evil. These video are offensive in every way.No wonder the UK banned this ad. Levi Jeans is openly condoning chaos, riots, anarchy, economic and global collapse.How ironic it is that just a month ago, Levi’s postponed the release of the video in the UK for fear of causing more riots, yet they aired the American version during a football game in the United States the other night at the same moment Progressives converged upon Wall Street looking for an opportunity to create chaos?Read and see the full story here.

• Obama Calls for All Countries to Stand Up for Rights of Gays and Lesbians in Address to UN General Assembly.(Towleroad).From President Obama's speech to the UN General Assembly today: 

And to make sure our societies reach their potential, we must allow our citizens to reach theirs. No country can afford the cancer of corruption. Together, we must harness the power of open societies and open economies. That is why we have partnered with countries from across the globe to launch a new partnership on Open Government that helps ensure accountability and empower citizens. No country should deny people their rights, the freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but also no country should deny people their rights because of who they love, which is why we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere. And no country can realize its potential if half its population cannot reach theirs. This week, the United States signed a new Declaration on Women’s Participation. Next year, we should each announce the steps we are taking to break down the economic and political barriers that stand in the way of women and girls. This is what our commitment to human progress demands.Hmmmm.......A pitty his best buddy erdogan has a different opinion:"Access to gay organizations’ sites barred in Turkish Parliament".Read the full story here.

• U.S. Lawmakers Will See Gruesome Reality of China’s One-Child Policy.(CNSNews).A congressional hearing Thursday on China’s “one-child” policy will include documented cases of coercion and abuses by Chinese population control officials, accompanied by graphic images of abused victims and damaged or demolished homes of policy “violators.”The information was compiled by a Chinese national and will be submitted by women’s rights advocate Reggie Littlejohn, as part of her testimony before the U.S. House Foreign Relations subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights.Others testifying before the hearing, led by subcommittee chairman Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.Y.), include Chai Ling, founder of All Girls Allowed, a group opposing the one-child policy, as well as two Chinese victims of forced abortions.The hearing marks the 31st anniversary of the launch of China’s controversial population limitation policy, which the communist government says has prevented more than 400 million births since being introduced.Read the full story here.

• Dutch Euro-parliamentarians Blast Turkey.(Expatia).The conservative VVD, senior partner in the Dutch coalition government, has launched a fierce attack on Turkey in the European Parliament.The leader of the VVD delegation, Hans van Baalen, said Turkey had disqualified itself as a potential EU member state with remarks made on Sunday by its deputy prime minister, Besir Atalay. He warned that Turkey would freeze its ties with the European Union if Cyprus occupied the rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of 2012 as planned.MEP Van Baalen pointed out that Turkey has been illegally occupying northern Cyprus since 1974 and has blocked every attempt at reconciliation between the Greek and Turkish communities. Turkey also refuses to normalise relations with the Greek part of the island.The VVD wants the European Commission to ask the Turkish government to explain this behaviour.Turkey has for many years been a candidate for EU membership but negotiations have been difficult, partly because of Ankara’s stance on Cyprus.Hmmmm.....Is it contagious to be around Geert Wilders?Read the full story here.

• US President Obama cares about Turkey; Congress angry.(TodaysZaman).A lengthy meeting between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Barack Obama in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, confirms the progress made over the last year between the two countries after the row over Iran's nuclear ambitions.The Obama administration apparently takes Turkey into serious consideration in crafting its foreign policy, as evidenced by the fact that the meeting was called for by the American side. US presidents rarely grant meetings at the UN assembly, attended by nearly 200 leaders. Dr. Bülent Alirıza from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) notes that Obama has a very exclusive relationship with Erdoğan and that he views the Turkish prime minister as an ideal partner in improving ties with the Islamic world. A recent article in The New York Times mentioned that Obama and Erdoğan have spoken on the phone nine times in the past year and that only British Premier David Cameron has had the opportunity to communicate with the US president as frequently.The hot issue for discussion in the meetings and phone calls between Erdoğan and Obama, including the most recent one in New York, is Israel Syria.The Obama administration has given the green light to the lease or sale of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to Turkey, pending approval by the US Congress. The Turkish side is hopeful that there will be no problem with this deal, despite visible opposition and anger in Congress. On this matter Erdoğan says that the American side will work to resolve the Predator issue. However, analysts and experts are not optimistic, given Congress’ known conservative stance. Meanwhile, reports indicate that negotiations on stationing a certain number of drones in Turkey subsequent to the US withdrawal from Iraq are making progress. It has been argued that, technically, Congress is not authorized to block this initiative.(King Obama Again sidestepping Congress).In a letter addressed to President Obama, 12 Democratic and Republican senators supporting Israel called on him to back Israel in the UN summit, adding that they were uncomfortable with Erdoğan’s anti-Israel discourse after the publication of the Palmer Report. In the letter, they also stressed that the US would not remain indifferent to any attempts to delegitimize Israel in international venues. In a separate letter to Obama, drafted by seven senators before his meeting with Erdoğan, it was argued that Turkey has moved to a policy of enmity and confrontation with Israel, and Obama was asked to initiate a diplomatic offensive against Turkey to reverse the process.Unlike the previous administration, Obama views Turkey as a leader in its region, says expert Mathew Duss from the Center for American Progress (CAP). Duss also notes that Washington believes that Erdoğan is seeking to promote his image in the region through opposition to Israel. However, it appears that Obama did not raise this issue in the meeting. The American administration, welcoming Turkey’s decision to approve the installation of a radar system in Kürecik, Malatya province, as part of a NATO anti-missile shield project, offered its thanks to the prime minister at the meeting. Meanwhile, the Turkish delegation reportedly urged the US side not to refer to the installation as American radar, which is confusing in technical terms and offensive to the Turkish government.In a press statement made after the meeting, Erdoğan, while acknowledging that the radar system was made in the US, noted that it would be under NATO command. Washington seems opposed to Turkey’s demand not to communicate the intelligence to be collected through the system to Israeli authorities.Hmmmm......Turkey dictating US policy.Read the full story here.

• Obama's buddy sends Turkish warships towards Cyprus in oil exploration dispute.(TodaysZaman).Turkish warships have set out for the Mediterranean at a time when Turkey and Greek Cyprus are deadlocked over possible deposits of oil and natural gas off the coast of the island.Three warships set sail from İstanbul through the Dardanelles, heading for the Aegean, the Cihan news agency reported on Wednesday. The warships’ activity was interpreted as a sign that Turkey is ready to live up to its pledge and prepare for its own drilling in the company of warships in the debated waters around Cyprus.According to Greek Cypriot presidential advisor Ertan Ersan, Chief of General Staff Necdet Özel and Turkish Land Forces Commander Gen. Hayri Kıvrıkoğlu said that Turkey would start drilling within a week, Turkish media reported on Wednesday. Özel reportedly indicated that “the Greek Cypriots would not dare to escalate the tension,” as he proposed that Turkey would start drilling since it is the country’s right to do so. Kıvrıkoğlu expressed the belief that Greek Cypriots would not make “a crazy move that would escalate the crisis.” Ersan had talks with the generals earlier this week.The countries have been exchanging warnings since the Greek Cypriots announced during the summer that they were planning to conduct oil and gas exploration in the seabed Turkey considers disputed territory, but the actual kickoff for the Greek Cypriot drilling that came on Monday proved the debate could turn into a crisis that might even involve a military showdown.The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) announced on Tuesday that it was setting up a monitoring committee that would observe developments on a Greek Cypriot oil platform that was set up recently and is expected to yield results within a few weeks. The committee is expected to issue daily reports on exploration activities while Turkish warships and aircraft keep the zone under surveillance with respect to Greek Cypriot territorial rights.“The drilling process has been started by Noble Energy on the basis of the agreement with the Republic of [Greek] Cyprus,” Greek Cypriot deputy government spokesman Christos Christofides was quoted as saying by Reuters on Tuesday, confirming that the Greek Cypriot administration feels justified in carrying out the drills unilaterally.“By ignoring the rights and interests of the Turkish Cypriots they are sabotaging the search for a solution based on the principles and framework accepted by the United Nations,” İrsen Küçük, the Turkish Cypriot prime minister, was quoted as saying in the same report.The platform of US-based Noble Energy was set up over the weekend, deepening the crisis between the Turkish and Greek sides, as Turkey vowed to cooperate with the KKTC to sign its own continental shelf delineation agreement in the event the other side of the island went ahead with its drilling project. Turkey considers seabed deposits oil and natural gas a common wealth for the entire island, both communities of which have been engaged in UN-led reunification talks that are expected to be finalized by October.However, the hydrocarbon debate seems to have undermined both parties’ readiness for a just solution to the separation that goes back almost four decades.Cyprus has been divided between Turkish and Greek sides since 1974, when the Turkish military intervened in an Athens-backed coup to reunite the island with Greece. Although the KKTC is recognized as a state only by Turkey, Greek Cyprus has enjoyed the benefits of EU membership since 2004 and is readying for its term in the EU rotating presidency in the summer of 2012.Intergovernmental bodies headed by the UN expect the two communities to come to an agreement on reunification before the Greek Cypriot presidency of the EU begins in July 2012. Turkish officials consider the presidency ample reason to freeze negotiations with the European bloc if a solution is not devised by then.Hmmmm.....No wonder Obama and Erdogan had such smiling faces at the UN,lets start a war with Israel?Read the full story here.

• Pakistani Court Orders Ban On Facebook, Websites Over Blasphemous Content.(Memri).The Lahore High Court has ordered the Pakistani ministry of information and technology to block access to all websites for spreading religious hatred, according to a Pakistani daily.Justice Azmat Saeed, however, made it clear that no search engine, including Google, would be blocked, according to a report in The Express Tribune daily.The order came on a petition seeking a permanent ban on social networking website Facebook for allegedly hosting a competition featuring blasphemous caricatures of Islamic figures, the report noted.Requesting that Facebook and other such websites be "permanently banned," the petitioner said that Islamic values were being derogated in the name of freedom of information and consequently hurting the feelings of millions of Muslims. According to the report, Muhammad & Ahmad, a public interest litigation firm, filed the petition on behalf of Advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique.Read the full story here.

• Satellite UARS on collision course with Earth on September 23, 2011.(Space).NASA doesn’t know where it will impact?A dead NASA satellite will plummet to Earth on Friday (Sept. 23), and while the U.S. space agency doesn’t know exactly where pieces of the massive spacecraft will hit, one thing is certain: North America is in the clear.NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, is set to make an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere on Friday. However, it is still too early to tell exactly where the 6.5-ton spacecraft will fall. Scientists will likely have a much better idea of where the debris will land about two hours before the impact, NASA officials said.Scientists at NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office estimate that at least 26 large pieces of the bus-size satellite will endure the scorching heat of re-entry. Approximately 1,170 pounds (532 kilograms) of material are expected to reach the ground, NASA officials said. Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Solomon Islands 5.1  ! More info here.

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

• London riots Live reporting  Here.

• London riots.(TheBigPicture).Two nights of rioting in London's Tottenham neighborhood erupted following protests over the shooting death by police of a local man, Mark Duggan. Police were arresting him when the shooting occurred. Over 170 people were arrested over the two nights of rioting, and fires gutted several stores, buildings, and cars. The disorder spread to other neighborhoods as well, with shops being looted in the chaos. Collected here are images from the rioting and the aftermath. -- Lane Turner (26 photos )See the full extent here.

• Report: US to tell Assad he must go.(Ynet).State Department sources say Washington's efforts to reason with Assad over; White House expected to present new hard-line policy on Syria. The Obama administration is preparing to explicitly demand the departure of Syrian President Bashar Assad and hit his regime with tough new sanctions, US officials said on Tuesday, signaling that American efforts to engage the Syrian government are finally over.The White House is expected to lay out the tougher line by the end of this week, possibly on Thursday, according to officials who said the move will be a direct response to Assad's decision to step up the ruthlessness of the crackdown against pro-reform demonstrators by sending tanks into opposition hotbeds. President Barack Obama and other top US officials had previously said that Assad has "lost legitimacy" as a leader and that he either had to spearhead a transition to democracy or get out of the way. They had not specifically demanded that he step down. The new formulation will make it clear that Assad can no longer be a credible reformist and should leave power, the officials said. At the same time, the Treasury Department is expected to expand sanctions against Assad and his inner circle. Although the officials would only speak anonymously, the State Department on Tuesday telegraphed the planned shift in policy, saying the administration's two-year attempt to work with Assad, pull Syria out of Iran's orbit and transform it into a regional partner for peace and stability is over. "You can't have any kind of partnership with a regime that does this kind of thing to innocents," spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters."In the case of Syria, the message from 2009 was: If you are prepared to open Syria politically, if you are prepared to be a reformer, if you are prepared to work with us on Middle East peace and other issues we share, we can have a new and different kind of partnership," she said. "And that is not the path that Assad chose."Hmmmm......Yeah.... Hillary: "Assad is a reformer".Read the full story here.

• Democratic Sens. Murray, Baucus, Kerry Named To Debt Super Committee.(ThinkProgress).Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has reportedly tapped Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA), John Kerry (D-MA), and Max Baucus (D-MT) to join the super committee created by the deal that raised the federal debt ceiling. The super committee is charged with crafting a deficit reduction package by Thanksgiving; seven of the 12 members have to approve the plan to send it to the full Congress.Hmmmm......Seem i was right a couple of days ago saying Kerry would be part of the "Super Congress",now what?Dispose of  the hobbits and terrorists?Read the full story here.

• Republican Congressman: Obama Impeachment “Needs To Happen”.(PoliTex) — A brief exchange between US Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville and a local Tea Party member is drawing attention this morning as Burgess advocated pursuing impeachment proceedings against President Obama.As we first reported last night, the impeachment talk came up while Burgess was speaking to the NE Tarrant Tea Party Monday night. Burgess spent much of the evening defending his decision to vote for a debt ceiling deal earlier this month that many Tea Party conservatives hated.When one attendee suggested that the House push for impeachment proceedings against Obama to distract the president and keep him from getting things done, Burgess was immediately receptive. He said Obama backed away from using the 14th amendment to raise the debt ceiling without Congressional approval because of concerns about getting impeached. He added that there’s also some people who believe Obama violated the War Powers Act when he pursued military action in Libya.“It needs to happen, and I agree with you it would tie things up,” Burgess said. “No question about that.”I asked Burgess about the exchange afterward.“We need to tie things up,” he repeated. “The gentleman was right. The longer we just allow damage to continue unchecked, the worse things are going to be for us…People will talk about it.”Read the full story here.

• Markets to Obama: shut up!(WashingtonTimes).With the stock market facing a historic meltdown, Americans could at least expect the president to be on time for a speech intended to inspire confidence. But those tuning in Monday at 1 p.m. eastern expecting to hear Mr. Obama address the rolling national financial crisis instead saw a live feed of casually dressed techies joking around in front of the presidential podium. After twenty five minutes of waiting for Mr. Obama to show up, the markets resumed tanking. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid four points a minute before Mr. Obama arrived. It gained a few points back at first, but ten minutes into his remarks the Dow broke through the 11,000 point floor. In the 20 minutes after he finished speaking the Dow slid 200 points. The market closed having lost 634 points. It was a vote of no confidence.  Mr. Obama saying that the U.S. political system was “dysfunctional.” Who would invest in a corporation whose chief executive describes the company’s management in such terms? Never fear, Mr. Obama said Americans have always risen to the challenge with entrepreneurship, innovation and hard work. Given Mr. Obama’s insistence on increasing the number of costly government regulation, his blame-the-rich approach to economics, and burdensome, job-killing health care plan, no president has done more damage to this spirit of enterprise. Mr. Obama said that “this is the United States of America… We always have been and always will be a Triple-A country.” If only we had a Triple-A leader.Hmmmm......Hear,Hear!Read the full story here.

• Syria defies world reproach,tells medling Turkey to mind it's own business, orders new raids.(Ynet).Syrian President Bashar Assad told Turkey's foreign minister on Tuesday that Damascus will "not relent in pursuing terrorist groups", Syrian state news agency said. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met with Assad on Tuesday morning, and urged him to end the prolonged crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, which have so far claimed over 1,600 lives.A Syrian source said Tuesday that a mission comprising of Brazilian, Indian and South African delegates will be arriving in Syria on Wednesday, in yet another attempt to convince Damascus to negotiation with the protesters and end the violence.The visit by Davutoglu was meant to signal Ankara's growing discomfort vis-à-vis Damascus' brutality. The Turkish FM reportedly warned the Syrian president that he could risk "Saddam-like" isolation if he does not halt his crackdown on Syrian protesters.The Arab world has already signaled Assad that its patience is wearing thin: The Arab League issued an official censure of his actions, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain have recalled their envoys to Damascus, and the Grand Imam Ahmed el-Tayeb of the Cairo-based Al-Azhar Sunni institution has stated that the bloodshed in Syria "has goon too far."Unfazed, the Syrian army launched raids on restive areas Tuesday, defying the growing international reproach over the regime's brutality.Activists said tanks stormed villages outside the besieged city of Hama and two towns in Idlib province, which borders Turkey. There was heavy machine-gun fire and reports of at least three deaths in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, which also has been a flashpoint in recent days.  The reports were confirmed by the LCC and the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Right. In an editorial published Tuesday, the Al Baath newspaper of Syria's ruling Baath party said the regime was hopeful that Turkey and the Gulf Arab nations will "quickly correct their stands."On Monday, Assad replaced his defense minister with the army chief of staff, saying Gen. Ali Habib was being removed from his post because of health problems. Hmmmm.....Gen Ali Habib who got killed the same night.As i said before how far is Turkey willing to go concerning Iran?Read the full story here.

• AIG Sues Bank Of America For $10 Billion Over 'Massive Mortgage Fraud'.(BlacklistedNews). It's getting ugly. BofA will need at least $100 billion to avoid bankruptcy. Ken Lewis' retirement SIV (BAC stock) is trading sharply lower (currently down 17%) dragging down all financials.(Reuters) - The insurer American International Group Inc (AIG:nyse) is suing Bank of America Corp (BAC:nyse) to recover more than $10 billion of losses from a "massive fraud" on mortgage debt, deepening the morass of litigation faced by the largest U.S. bank.AIG, still largely owned by taxpayers after $182.3 billion of government bailouts, is the latest of a growing number of investors filing lawsuits seeking to hold banks responsible for losses on troubled mortgages that contributed to the financial crisis.The AIG complaint, being filed in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, accuses Bank of America and its Countrywide and Merrill Lynch units of misrepresenting the quality of mortgages placed in securities and sold to investors.Reuters obtained a copy of the complaint. AIG is preparing similar lawsuits against other large banks.Read the full story here.

• Herman Cain Slam Obama: ‘That’s Not Leadership!’(TheOtherMcCain).DENISON, IowaRepublican presidential candidate Herman Cain today denounced as “pathetic” the response of President Obama and other Democrats to the recent downgrade of U.S. credit.“Today, the president, Senator [John] Kerry and other Democrats now want to blame somebody for the credit downgrade – other than themselves,” Cain told a standing-room only crowd at Crunk’s Café here. “They control the Senate. They control the White House. Obama’s Treasury secretary [Tim Geithner] is in charge of the Treasury. Now they are trying to blame the Tea Party movement for the downgrade. How pathetic is that? That’s not leadership, folks – that’s not leadership.“Hmmmmm.......Aaaaah Blasphemy.Read and see the full story here.

• Obama Killed Osama, And Then Ignored His Own Advice.(BigPeace).By Dave Reaboi.John Nolte at Big Hollywood picked up something interesting from a Maureen Dowd column. The Obama administration, it seems, has granted an unusual amount of access to the team behind The Hurt Locker (writer Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow) for an upcoming campaign-season film about the mission to kill Osama bin Laden.As Nolte point out, the timing of the film’s release has not been missed at the White House. Look for Hollywood to be a willing participant in this elaborate Obama re-election commercial, which is intended to remind voters of an increasingly desperate president’s only shining hour.In addition to the desperate obvious ‘October surprise’ quality of this stunt, the cynicism revealed by the White House’s active facilitation of this film is breathtaking. It tells us something important about the Obama White House, and its readiness to abandon its most dearly-held beliefs and even its worldview on the alter of political expediency.On nearly every issue, the president and others from his administration (not to mention the media) lecture us on the need to be sensitive to the feelings and self-image of the Muslim world. This time, however, the White House believes a bounce in the final weeks before the conclusion of a tough re-election campaign is more important than (as the president himself put it, “spiking the football” by antagonistically) reminding the world who was responsible for Bin Laden’s death.Regardless of the merits or failings of the Obama administration’s concern for the feelings of the Muslim world, cooperating with the filmmakers displays an inconsistency that should not go by unremarked upon. Sometimes this hypersensitivity, when translated into policy, is laughably unserious– like the re-tooling of NASA to “reach out to the Muslim world.” After killing Bin Laden, Obama himself insisted America keep its celebrations subdued and decline to “spike the football,” even going so far as to protect the dignity of the arch-terrorist’s corpse so as not to antagonize the ‘Arab street.’More insidious, however, is the compromises the Obama administration is willing to make on issues of free expression when criticism of Islam comes into play. A lone man in Florida threatening to burn a koran was enough to to imperil American national security half a world away, both Obama and his chief general said. Obama’s State Department, too, is increasingly embracing the Shariah-adherent definitions of free speech promoted by the Organization of the Islamic Conference– which plans to enforce blasphemy of Islam. Of course, American free speech is circumscribed by the threat actual violence from a Muslim world even its biggest apologists implicitly concede is highly combustible.If the delicate emotions of the Muslim world– manifested in the degree to which they’re ready to cause violence and mayhem worldwide– are enough to circumscribe the First Amendment of the Constitution, shouldn’t it also discourage a movie about killing a famous Muslim? But alas, not hurting the feelings of Muslims by showing ‘Crusader’ soldiers killing a Mujahid in cold blood (on Pakistan’s Islamic soil) is trumped by the importance of Obama’s reelection.Last month, a Zogby poll revealed that the antipathy of much of the Muslim world to Barack Obama can be traced to the killing of Bin Laden. As Alana Goodman summarized the report at Commentary, “In all six countries surveyed – Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia – the majority of respondents said killing bin Laden made them “less favorable toward the U.S.’”What could possibly “spike the football” any more than a flashy action film, blasted into the homes and theaters of that very same Muslim world, still smarting from Obama’s triumphant dispatch of the world’s most wanted terrorist?All this fuss and trauma to the Muslim world can be averted with a little tweaking, by making Bin Laden into a villain designated as acceptable in Hollywood, a Serbian terrorist or a anti-government Tea Party type.Hmmmm......And so Obama joins the ranks of leaders gloryfying themselves , the Cult of personality leaders like Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Hirohito, Mao Zedong, Kemal Atatürk, Nicolae Ceauşescu, Mátyás Rákosi, Saparmurat Niyazov, Ho Chi Minh, Muammar Gaddafi, Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il, François Duvalier and Juan Perón to name a few.Read the full story here.

• Video - Krauthammer: Obama Blames Tea Party, God ... "Everybody Except Him".(RealClearpolitics).Charles Krauthammer: "I was sort of stunned by his appearance today. I said: ‘Why did he go out there?’ He went out there with the Dow at minus 400. And after he spoke, it went down to minus 600. He looked weak, plaintive and small. "I mean weak and plaintive because he comes out there and he blames, of course the Tea Party, Europe, Japan and the Middle East, probably God because he’s the author of earthquakes. Everybody except him."Read and see the full story here.

• "Fast and Furious" Goes All the Way to the White House.(HumanEvents).By A.W.R. Hawkins.By now, “Gunwalker” and “Fast and Furious” have both entered the national lexicon. And although the amount of information known about the operations varies from person to person, the majority of Americans know they have something to do with the selling of guns to “straw purchasers” in the U.S., who were supposed to smuggle the guns into Mexico and put them in the hands of cartel members, who were then to be arrested.What most people seem not to know is who exactly was behind the Gunwalker and Fast and Furious operations. Was it the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives)? Yes. Was it also Attorney General Eric Holder? Well, there’s no doubt he was instrumental in Gunwalker, and it’s now known that his chief of staff was briefed on Fast and Furious. So how about President Obama? What did he know? According to information that has surfaced during ongoing investigations by Rep. Darrell Issa (R.-Calif.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R.-Iowa), it’s certain that knowledge of Fast and Furious went all the way to the White House.Of course, Obama says he knew nothing about either Gunwalker or Fast and Furious, although the President set aside $10 million for the operations in February 2009 via the stimulus package, and talked about “gun tracing” and “gun enforcement policies during a joint press conference in Mexico City with Mexico President Felipe Calderon in April 2009” (which was the same month in which Holder gave a speech in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he bragged of the implementation of Gunwalker).But although neither Obama or Holder have claimed they had knowledge of the operations until quite recently, both are now actively doing their best to “[stonewall] the oversight committee investigation” that is trying to get to the bottom of this mess. Of Obama in particular, Issa has said, “President Obama has been keen to talk about who didn’t know about the program and who didn’t authorize it. These answers will not suffice. The American people have a right to know, once and for all, who did authorize it and who knew about it.”It doesn’t take long to connect the dots on this one. We have a president who funded these programs, who talked to Mexican President Calderon two months later about tracing guns, and whose National Security Director for North America received communications from ATF Special Agent Newell regarding the operations. The Justice Department is littered with people who knew about the program, and nearly every federal law-enforcement agency besides the Secret Service was involved.The President gets away with laughing off the fact that “shovel-ready jobs” weren’t as shovel-ready as he thought they were. But there’s no way he should be allowed to laugh this one off.Hmmmm......Gunwalker"These boots will keep on walking".Read the full story here.

• Is Medicare Sustainable?(Cato).By David Boaz.A letter in the Washington Post from Dale Everett of Ashburn, Va., makes a point about the sustainability of our entitlements programs:

At 80, I am a “poster boy” for what is wrong with Medicare and Social Security. I worked full time from 1950 until 1993, when I retired. I paid the maximum amount annually required by law. My payment from Social Security in 1993 was $1,170 per month, and it now exceeds $1,500. I paid $47,377 into the fund and have so far received more than $288,000 from it.

As for Medicare I paid $14,350 into the fund from 1966 to 1993. I have been very healthy but had cancer several years ago and a craniotomy five years ago. The costs of those exceeded $1 million. Even minor surgery would far exceed what I paid to the fund.

Please tell me how such a system can be sustained. Both programs need to be overhauled now. No one should believe that he has paid for and earned the right to such payments.Read the full story here.

• Soros Rumored To Be Investor Who Made $10 Billion On Trade U.S. Credit Rating Would Be Downgraded.(DailyMail) — A mystery investor or hedge fund reportedly made a bet of almost $1billion at odds of 10/1 last month that the U.S. would lose its AAA credit rating.Now questions are being asked of whether the trader had inside information before placing the $850million bet in the futures market.There are mounting rumours that investor George Soros, 80, famously known as ‘the man who broke the Bank of England’, could be involved.He made more than $1billion on currency speculation when the British pound left the Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday in 1992.The latest bet was made on July 21 on trades of 5,370 ten-year Treasury futures and 3,100 Treasury bond futures, reported ETF Daily News.Now the investor’s gamble seems to have paid off after Standard and Poor’s issued a credit rating downgrade from AAA to AA+ last Friday.Whoever it is stands to earn a 1,000 per cent return on their money, with the expectation that interest rates will be going up after the downgrade.Hmmm........Nope it's not the Teaparty terrorist hobbits.Read the full story here.

• Issa Subpoenas NLRB for Boeing Documents, Internal Communications.(Heritage).Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, issued a subpoena to the National Labor Relations Board on Sunday requesting documents that he said the board had failed to provide of its own accord.The documents involve the NLRB’s controversial suit against Boeing, which seeks to block the airline giant from relocating a production facility from Washington State to South Carolina. The NLRB claims the move – to a right-to-work state – constitutes retaliation against the International Association of Machinists union. Boeing insists that it is purely a business decision.The subpoena orders the NLRB to provide all documents and internal communications relating to Boeing or the IAM from January 1, 2009 to present by noon on Friday. Issa claims that the committee requested those materials in May, but had not received them from NLRB.“NLRB’s action in the case against Boeing has the potential to create a job-killing precedent just as U.S. manufacturers are working toward economic recovery,” Issa said in a statement on Monday. “That a Washington, D.C.-based bureaucracy could dictate the work location and parameters for a world-leading company is unprecedented in a global economy and hobbles a leading American job creator at a time of economic vulnerability.”The Labor Department did not return a request for comment by press time.Read the full story here.

• The Mullahs will pick up the pieces.(Nervana).It is almost impossible to predict how Syria might emerge after Assad. Many hope for a stable, democratic state. Though, instability, civil war and an Islamic state are also real possibilities. Regardless of the outcome, the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria will have an enormous impact on the wider Middle East particularly on Iran.The heat of the Syrian volcano will be felt in Tehran far more than in Beirut, Amman and Istanbul. The Mullahs who stood by Assad for decades already faces daunting challenges today, and those challenges will multiply and grow in the near future and on several fronts.

The Domestic Front:

Perhaps the worst nightmare for the Mullahs is the implications on the domestic front. The psychological impact of the fall of Assad may inspire many in Iran to reignite a second green revolution. This is a red line for the Mullahs that must be avoided at all costs, and they would not hesitate to ruthlessly crush any rebellion. The Green movement is also watching the Arab spring, and they may learn a thing or two from their neighbors, the huge decline in the economy recently can also help their cause. However, it is essential to remember that the power base of the Mullahs and their revolutionary guards is probably still strong with no indication of any erosion, yet!

The Syrian Front:

With the potential loss of the massive Iranian investments in Syria, the economic impact of the fall of Assad could be enormous. However, the political impact would be devastating. By losing Syria, Iran would lose its strategic depth and gateway to the Arab world. How the Mullahs will respond to this serious blow? That remains to be seen.Judging by their past responses, the Mullahs would probably resort to a quick policy of damage limitation and exploitation of any instability. The details will depend on events on the ground in Syria. Chaos, civil war, even a military quo is the Iranians’ best outcomes, as it this would give them more scope to maneuver in exploiting the situation to their advantage and allow them rebuild their links with the newly emerging power groups within Syria and to continue smuggling weapons to Hezbollah. Ironically, a stable, democratic Syria would be Iran’s worst nightmare and a Sunni Islamic regime would not be good either.

The Lebanese Front:

 By throwing in its lot with Assad, the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah stands to lose a lot following the departure of its ally. Whilst it is certainly true that Hezbollah’s center of gravity is within Lebanon, and it is independent of Assad’s regime, however, the destruction of their main bridge with Tehran will have massive implications for Hezbollah’s policies over years to come. In fact, it is no exaggeration to suggest that Hezbollah views the collapse of the Baath regime in Syria as an existential threat.

How Nasrallah will respond? Can he succeed in maintaining his power?No one can predict the future but at least we can discuss his options, Nasrallah will have a potentially three options.Read the full story here.

• NATO Envoy: Military Planning Against Iran and Syria is Underway.(SHTF).Last month we reported that the Pentagon has issued a warning order to ‘Prepare for War’.According to Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to NATO, it’s not just Israel and the Pentagon that are getting ready to expand the middle east theater:Rogozin said in an interview with Russia’s Izvestia daily newspaper published on Friday that the NATO was pursuing a long-reaching goal of preparing an attack on Iran, adding that the alliance intends to change governments whose views do not coincide with those of the West.“The noose around Iran is tightening. Military planning against Iran is underway. And we are certainly concerned about an escalation of a large-scale war in this huge region,” Rogozin added.The Russian envoy further pointed out that Syria and later Yemen could be NATO’s last steps on the way to launch an attack on Iran.This comes as there are speculations that Israel is preparing for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities to divert attention from Palestinian efforts to join the United Nations.Source: Press TV (August 6, 2011)

If Russia is to be believed (and be assured that Mr. Rogozin would not be giving interviews without prior consent from Mr. Putin and President Medvedev) the missile defense shield being built by the EU is designed not to defend against missiles from Iran, but to prepare for an attack: Washington has said its nuclear missile defense plans were designed to prevent any possible missile strikes from Iran or North Korea.“The missile defense system is not purely a defensive system,” envoy Dmitry Rogozin said. “There are serious and authoritative experts in Russia and in other countries who fear that the creation of a European missile defense system, officially assigned the task of blocking a threat from Iran, may in fact be a pretext for preparing an attack on Iran.”Source: Ria Novosti (July 28, 2011)

Iran is in play, but first Syria and Yemen may need to be addressed. Rogozin claims that this, too, is becoming reality: NATO is planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad with a long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran, Russia’s envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said.The UN Security Council condemned on Wednesday ongoing violence in Syria and urged the country’s authorities to stop using force against peaceful protesters, while saying the current situation in the country has not yet called for NATO interference.”[This statement] means that the planning [of the military campaign] is well underway. It could be a logical conclusion of those military and propaganda operations, which have been carried out by certain Western countries against North Africa,” Rogozin said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper published on Friday.Source: Ria Novosti (August 5, 2011)We can ignore this as pure speculation and conjecture, or we can consider that this is how World Wars have started in the past. The chess pieces moved around on the board for over a decade before World War I became reality. The same was true for World War II.What we may be witnessing now is the prelude to a third war that will encompass most of the world. If Iran is attacked it is difficult to predict how the Chinese and the Russians will respond, but considering their position on Libya, they won’t be happy about it. Couple that with trillions in their reserves that will be hyperinflated away and the battle for critical resources like oil, water and food, and we have a recipe for disaster.Hmmmmm......It seems like September will be an extremely hot month.Read the full story here.

• German Interior Minister:'German Identity Is Shaped by Christianity'.(Spiegel).In a SPIEGEL interview, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich discusses the motives of Norwegian killer Anders Breivik, calls for an end to anonymity on the Internet and explains why Islam is not part of German identity.

SPIEGEL: On your first day in office as German interior minister, you famously said that the idea that Islam is part of Germany is something "that cannot be proved by history." Would you say this again, after Oslo?

Friedrich: Oh, come on, those two things have nothing to do with each other! I was talking about the issue of Germany's identity. This identity is shaped by Christianity and the Enlightenment, not by Islam. I don't have to qualify that.Read the full interview here.

• IAF Deploys Drones Over Northern Gas Fields.(ArutzSheva).Following Iran's backing of the Hizbullah terror organization's claims to gas fields Israel is developing off its northern coast.Israel has deployed drones to keep watch on gas fields off its northern coast, fearing attack by the Hizbullah terror organization from neighboring Lebanon, AFP reported on Tuesday.The fields lie in a part of the Mediterranean claimed by Israel for gas exploration and production, but Lebanon says the fields lie within its territorial waters."The decision to deploy drones was made in order to maintain a 24-hour presence over the site," the paper said, adding that the air force was equipped with the locally made Heron drone, which has special electro-optics designed for maritime work.According to reports the IAF started aerial surveillance after a warning last month from Hizbullah, which in 2006 fought a deadly war with the Jewish state in which it used anti-ship missiles."The Israeli enemy cannot drill a single meter in these waters to search for gas and oil if the zone is disputed... No company can carry out prospecting work in waters whose sovereignty is contested," the Shiite group said.The Hizbullah threat came after Israel's cabinet approved a map of the country's proposed maritime borders with Lebanon and submitted it to the United Nations, which has been asked to mediate in the dispute.The map conflicts with one submitted by Lebanon to the UN last year, which gives Israel less territory. The two countries are technically at war and will not negotiate face to face.The two biggest known offshore fields, Tamar and Leviathan, lie respectively about 80 kilometers (50 miles) and 130 kilometers (81 miles) off Israel's northern city of Haifa.Tamar is believed to hold at least 8.4 trillion cubic feet of gas (238 billion cubic meters), while Leviathan is believed to have reserves of 16 trillion cubic feet (450 billion cubic meters).In June an Israeli company announced the discovery of two new natural gas fields, Sarah and Mira, around 70 kilometers (45 miles) off the city of Hadera further south.Hmmmm.....As i said September will be very hot.Read the full story here.

• King Abdullah's strong statement denouncing Syria's use of brutal force has won the hearts of Saudis and expatriates alike.(ArabNews).Top officials in Saudi Arabia including Shoura members, heads of Islamic organizations and academics lent their support Monday to the call made by the king to stop the bloodshed in Syria and initiate necessary reforms to ensure peace in the strife-torn country."Syrian President Bashar Assad has lost the legitimacy to rule," said Hamza Khoshain, a member of the Shoura Council, in Riyadh on Monday. "King Abdullah has sent a clear message to the Syrian regime by recalling the Saudi ambassador for consultations and by asking Damascus to rectify the situation as soon as possible."He lent his strong support to the Kingdom's call for Syria to shun violence and said the situation was being aggravated in Syria because of some outside elements, which are playing nasty roles to destabilize the country.""What is happening in Syria is not acceptable for Saudi Arabia," King Abdullah said in a written statement released Monday. "Syria should think wisely before it's too late ... and enact reforms that are not merely promises but actual reforms."Saleh Al-Wohaibi, secretary-general of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), said "the WAMY was deeply concerned over the torture and the killings of innocent people in Syria." He said the Syrian regime had failed to ensure peace, security and good governance."In fact, King Abdullah's advice to Syria comes within the framework of the Kingdom's foreign policy, which is based on the Islamic brotherhood, services to mankind, and care for neighbors," said Abdullah Al-Mosarraf, chief of the Al-Riyadh Schools, a chain of schools supervised by Riyadh Gov. Prince Salman."King Abdullah cares not only for Saudi Arabia, but for all Muslims across the globe and all mankind on this planet."Speaking of a possible boycott of the Syrian regime and its oil and gas exports, Ehab A. Al-Harbi, an Arab businessman, warned that such measures could be taken if the international community including the GCC and the Arab League agrees."Syria produces some 380,000 barrels of oil a day, much of which is exported to Europe, including Germany," he said.Al-Ghamdi expected more Arab countries to follow suit and stand against the oppressive actions of the Syrian government.Hamdan Al-Harbi, a journalist working for Okaz Arabic daily, said the king's statement would embarrass Arab regimes that have so far kept silent about events unfolding in Syria. "The king's statement came after an escalation of violence in Syria, especially during the holy month of Ramadan," he said.Abdul Qader Kilani, a Syrian journalist working in the Kingdom, wondered how long the Arabs would stay silent. He hoped that King Abdullah's strong statement would contribute to mobilizing support for the Syrians.Yasser Adlabi, another Syrian working in the Kingdom, said his compatriots would not forget the king's strong and bold statement supporting them. "He was the first Arab leader to call for protecting the rights of Syrian people. I am happy to learn that such a statement came from Saudi Arabia, whom the Syrian people hold in high esteem," he added.Hmmmm.....A very hot September is approaching.Read the full story here.

• Report shows rise in restrictions on religion.(Ynet). Nearly third of world's population lives in countries where it is becoming more difficult to freely practice religion, private US research group says. Jews, who make up less than 1% of world's population, see restrictions or harassment in 75 countries. Nearly a third of the world's population lives in countries where it is becoming more difficult to freely practice religion, a private US research group reported on Tuesday. The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life said government restrictions and public hostility involving religion grew in some of the most populous countries from mid-2006 to mid-2009. "During the three-year period covered by the study, the extent of violence and abuse related to religion increased in more places than it decreased," according to the report "Rising Restrictions on Religion." Only about 1% of the world lives in countries that saw more religious tolerance during those years, it said. The Pew Center review of 198 countries found those deemed restrictive or hostile in the previous report were growing even more so, while the opposite was found for those with more religious tolerance. A substantial rise in public hostility toward religious groups was seen in China, Nigeria, Thailand, Vietnam and Britain, while government restrictions rose substantially in Egypt and France.The countries most restrictive or hostile toward certain religions included India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Iran, China, Myanmar, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam, Nigeria and Bangladesh – although most of these did not show much change in the three years. People were killed, physically abused, detained, imprisoned, displaced from their homes, or had their property destroyed for religious reasons by governments in 101 countries in the year ending mid-2009, compared to 91 a year earlier, the report said. Such violence rose in more countries than it declined over the three years. Mob violence involving religion occurred in 52 countries as of mid-2009, compared to 38 a year earlier. Religious hatred or bias led to violence by private citizens groups in 142 countries, nearly three-quarters of the 198 included in the study, and about the same as of mid-2008. "Religion-related terrorist groups were active in 74 countries," and violence was seen in half of these, in the year through mid-2009, the Pew Center said. Christians and Muslims, the world's two largest religious groups, were harassed in the most countries. Other religions also saw harassment, but Jews, who make up less than 1% of the world's population, saw restrictions or harassment in 75 countries. In five European countries – Britain, Denmark, Russia, Sweden and Bulgaria – religious tension focused on the rapidly growing Muslim population, but there was some rising anti-Semitism and antagonism toward minorities such as Jehovah's Witnesses.Read the full story here.

• Underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's Defense Gets Aggressive.(InvestigativeProject).Accused underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab wants his terrorism trial moved out of Michigan and wants a federal judge to keep statements he gave to FBI agents kept away from jurors.In a series of motions filed Friday, an attorney assisting the Nigerian national with his defense hinted at misconduct by FBI officials. According to one motion, they interviewed Abdulmutallab in a hospital room over the objection of medical staff, who said he was under the influence of a painkiller called fentanyl. In addition, wrote attorney Anthony Chambers, agents failed to read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights.In a separate motion, Chambers acknowledged Abdulmutallab "made incriminating statements" during plea negotiations with federal officials, after they promised nothing from those talks would be used against him at trial. It's not clear whether prosecutors plan to use any such statements when the trial begins in October. The motion seeks to ensure that cannot happen."Allowing the government to use these statements at trial will violate the government's agreement with Defendant," Chambers wrote.The motion to move the trial cites the intense publicity surrounding the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. Abdulmutallab was detained by fellow passengers after a bomb sewn into his underwear started smoking but failed to detonate.He suffered burns as a result, requiring hospitalization and pain medication.In yet another motion, Chambers asked for access to grand jury records, which rarely are released, because he claims federal agents made "inconsistent statements" in different reports and witnesses may have "embellished facts and contradicted their own reports" during grand jury testimony.The motion did not offer examples.Read the full story here.

• ACORN’s Campaign Against Money Mart May Lead to Violence and Blackmail.(CanadaFreePress).By Matthew Vadum .Pressure. Protests. Picketing. This is how it begins.The Canadian branch of the U.S.-based organized crime syndicate ACORN is gearing up to extort Money Mart, a check cashing and payday loan company.In greater Vancouver, British Columbia, ACORN has been leading a shakedown campaign against the supposedly exorbitant fees Money Mart charges to transfer money to dangerous, corrupt, politically unstable, kleptocratic Third World hellholes like Somalia and Kenya where people get murdered for a single dollar.It’s standard operating procedure at the radical activist group ACORN.If Money Mart doesn’t cough up protection money, ACORN will intensify its actions against the company. (In the U.S., ACORN used to employ President Obama as a community organizer.)ACORN’s corruption and brutal, in-your-face tactics prompted investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the U.S. Congress to accuse ACORN of carrying out “a nationwide strategy of tax fraud, racketeering, money-laundering and manipulating the American electorate.” Their report accuses ACORN of evading taxes, sloppy accounting, defrauding donors, defrauding the U.S. government, filing false statements, obstructing justice, and plundering employee pension funds.John Hewitt, CEO of Liberty Tax Service, felt ACORN’s wrath when it staged a violent protest against his company in 2005. More than 100 angry ACORN members showed up at Liberty’s Virginia Beach headquarters.ACORN accused the company of charging excessive interest rates on the refund anticipation loans it offers to income tax filers. “All of sudden, four bus loads of homeless people pull up in front of our headquarters here in Virginia Beach,” Hewitt said.“They came pouring into the building like a Mongolian horde. There was screaming and fighting. One employee was bitten and another was scratched. They both had to go to the emergency room.” The demonstrators were arrested and the company filed a legal complaint but withdrew it later because it would have been too expensive to pursue, Hewitt explained.The company agreed to pay an ACORN affiliate $50,000 a year. “To me, it’s just to stop them from harassing us,” said Hewitt. “Even though I felt dirty by paying them money, I said, you know, it’s a business decision.”Liberty Tax Service is just one of ACORN’s many victims in the United States.ACORN now has offices in Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, and Vancouver.Canada: you’ve been warned. Read the full story here.

• Turkish athlete claims she was hit for wearing shorts on public bus.(HuriyetDaily).Volleyball player Nurcan İbrahimoğlu, 19, claimed she was hit on an Istanbul public bus in July for wearing shorts, daily Vatan reported Tuesday.İbrahimoğlu took a bus from the Bahçeköy neighborhood to the Levent district on July 28, just a few days before the holy month of Ramadan was set to start on Aug. 1.She said she sat on a seat wearing basketball shorts and stretched her legs out toward the aisle.A male passenger reportedly hit İbrahimoğlu's feet while walking past her and sat next to her despite other available seating. İbrahimoğlu asked the man to apologize for hitting her feet. The man in turn yelled at İbrahimoğlu, saying, "You cannot sit on this bus, stretching out your naked legs, you are corrupting the morals of the people," and called her "insolent."İbrahimoğlu responded by saying he was the one being insolent, which prompted the man to punch her in the face, splitting her lip. Passengers on the bus calmed the situation but stopped İbrahimoğlu from calling the police to prevent any "trouble," Doğan news agency, or DHA, reported.The assailant then asked the passengers if anyone saw him hitting her, to which nobody replied.İbrahimoğlu claimed she went to Ayazağa Police station the next day to file a complaint, but no one paid attention to her. She later went to the forensics department at the Şişli courthouse to get a battering report, but she was not given one on grounds that "she had no broken bones or stab wound."Hmmmm.....When if ever will Turkey act against the violence towards women in their country?Read the full story here.

• New Tibetan leader sworn in as prime minister.(TodaysZaman).A Harvard-trained legal scholar was sworn in on Monday as new head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, taking over from the Dalai Lama as leader of his people’s fight for freedom.The Dalai Lama, 76, announced in March he would be giving up his political role as leader of the Tibetan exile movement, though he would remain the spiritual leader for Tibetan Buddhists. Lobsang Sangay, who was elected in April by tens of thousands of Tibetans in exile, was surrounded by hundreds of Buddhist monks and nuns as well as the Dalai Lama as he took the oath of office in the northern Indian city of Dharmsala, where the exile administration is based. Sangay has vowed to follow the Dalai Lama’s approach of seeking increased autonomy for Tibet within China. China refuses to recognize Sangay’s authority. “We will continue the Middle Way policy. We are also willing to negotiate with the Chinese government anytime, anywhere,” Sangay told a huge crowd that gathered for the ceremony at the Tsuglakhang temple. Sangay said he would work to fulfill the vision of the Dalai Lama to create a truly secular democratic society. “Tibetan leadership is far from fizzling out. ... We are here to stay,” Sangay said.Scores of Tibetans playing traditional musical instruments and hundreds of children, men and women cheered as the Dalai Lama accompanied the new leader to the temple for the brief ceremony. Later, the crowds applauded as the Dalai Lama hugged and blessed the new leader after the ceremony. Sangay’s election as the Kalon Tripa, or prime minister, marks many firsts. He was born in the eastern Indian town of Darjeeling and has never visited Tibet. He is also the first secular leader to take over the political leadership of the Tibetan community. The Dalai Lama, the 14th in a line of men said to be the living incarnation of Chenrezig, a Buddhist god of compassion, says he needed to resign as political leader because he feared chaos would erupt after his eventual death, when the Chinese government and Buddhist monks are certain to argue over the identity of his successor. “Now, that danger is no longer there,” he said in an earlier interview with The Associated Press.Read the full story here.

• Iraqi Hizbullah Threatens Missile Attack On Kuwait.(Memri).Iraqi Hizbullah [an Iran-supported terrorist group] has, according to the Kuwaiti daily al-Rai al-Aam, threatened to fire three surface-to-surface missiles at Kuwait – at Abdallah Port, at "the heart of Kuwait," and at the Kuwaiti parliament.It said that the missiles will be fired if Kuwait continue with the construction of the controversial Mubarak Port close to the Iraqi border.Read the full story here.