WORLD NEWS TREND

IPT News
October 27, 2008
http://www.investigativeproject.org/article/796

DALLAS – Cradle-to-grave social support - from kindergartens to medical supplies to aid for needy families - helped Hamas win the hearts and minds of Palestinians and vault the terrorist group to power, an Israeli security official said Monday. “Avi,” a lawyer with the Israeli Security Agency, was accepted as an expert witness on Hamas’ financial infrastructure in the trial of five men accused of illegally funneling millions of dollars to the terrorist group. He was allowed to testify anonymously for security reasons. Spectators were cleared from the courtroom before his testimony and a camera feeding the proceedings to a second courtroom was covered.

Avi described his research into Hamas’ finances and social systems in the course of Israeli investigations dating back to 2000. He prepared a Power Point presentation showing how Hamas social programs serve Palestinians throughout all phases of the life cycle. Hamas runs kindergartens, primary and high schools and universities, Avi said. They provide medical supplies and cash support for the families of men imprisoned by Israel, killed by Israeli soldiers or who died carrying out terrorist attacks.

The defendants, officials at the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), directed millions of dollars to those social committees prosecutors say were controlled by Hamas. Previous evidence and testimony showed HLF officials at rallies praising Hamas and collecting money. Defense attorneys argue the foundation merely sought to provide aid to needy Palestinians.

Hamas-run educational programs are pivotal, Avi testified, because they capture hearts and minds at the youngest ages and follow youngster through their development. But providing support to the families of martyrs and detainees is just as important, because without it, Hamas “will have difficulty recruiting new members. The families are an important factor here. Even in financial crises, the first money they collected went to the families.”

That also explains why support goes to families of martyrs and detainees who might not be Hamas members. “If you focus on only one segment of the population, you are staying very small,” Avi said.

Federal prosecutor Elizabeth Shapiro showed Avi a 1998 article from Middle East Affairs Journal, which was published by the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). The UASR was founded by Hamas deputy political chief Mousa Abu Marzook and is listed in repeated exhibits as a member of the Palestine Committee, created to help Hamas financially and politically.

Azzam Tamimi, described by Avi as an open supporter of Hamas, wrote an article called “The Legitimacy of Palestinian Resistance: An Islamist’s Perspective.” In it, Tamimi wrote that Hamas’ social institutions are so rooted in Palestinian communities that neither the Palestinian Authority nor Israel could shut them down:

“The fact of the matter is that Hamas, contrary to Israeli assessment, acts as an infrastructure to the numerous cultural, educational and social institutions in Gaza and the West Bank that render invaluable and irreplaceable services to the public. In other words, it is Hamas that gives life to these institutions and not the reverse.”

Indeed, in its early days the Palestinian Authority tried to strike “a delicate political balance” with the committees even though Hamas controlled them, Avi said. Though they were rivals, the PA did not need to fight with Hamas for popular support.

Those charities, known as zakat committees, were never open about their support for Hamas, Avi said. “They are afraid the money flow will stop,” intercepted either by Israel or other countries where donations are made. Shapiro played a tape for the jury featuring an interview with Hamas political leader Khalid Mishaal. In the tape, Mishaal boasted about his organization’s focus on taking care of the families of martyrs and prisoners.

“We have to bring happiness to the hearts of these families, just as the martyrs and these children detained in these jails, just like they brought happiness to our hearts when they practiced their struggle and made us glad by fighting the Zionist enemies.”

But Mishaal demurred when asked for specific information on where to send donations for cause because “the American ears are listening now, but look for those whom you trust and they will get the money to HAMAS.”

Hamas officials credited the social support it provides for its 2006 victory in Palestinian elections. That led to a coalition government, Avi explained, with Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas as president. But the coalition fell apart quickly and violently, with Hamas seizing total control of Gaza. In response, the Palestinian Authority “dissolved” West Bank zakat committees and reconstituted them into regional organizations stripped of Hamas representatives.

Defense attorneys asked for a mistrial after jurors were led out of the courtroom. Avi’s testimony “was so prejudicial it cannot be overcome.” HLF’s support to the zakat committees had been cast as the reason for Hamas’ electoral success and the resulting civil war, argued defense attorney Joshua Dratel.

Shapiro noted that similar testimony was allowed in the first trial last year. And, she said, defense attorneys last year argued that the PA could have acted against the zakat committees but did not.

U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis did not rule on the mistrial request. Avi is expected back on the stand when court resumes Tuesday.

Barak Ravid

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama’s positions on Iran, according to reports that have reached Israel’s government. Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France. But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate’s stance on Iran as “utterly immature” and comprised of “formulations empty of all content.”

Obama visited Paris in July, and the Iranian issue was at the heart of his meeting with Sarkozy. At a joint press conference afterward, Obama urged Iran to accept the West’s proposal on its nuclear program, saying that Iran was creating a serious situation that endangered both Israel and the West.

According to the reports reaching Israel, Sarkozy told Obama at that meeting that if the new American president elected in November changed his country’s policy toward Iran, that would be “very problematic.”

Until now, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany have tried to maintain a united front on Iran. But according to the senior Israeli source, Sarkozy fears that Obama might “arrogantly” ignore the other members of this front and open a direct dialogue with Iran without preconditions.

Following their July meeting, Sarkozy repeatedly expressed disappointment with Obama’s positions on Iran, concluding that they were “not crystallized, and therefore many issues remain open,” the Israeli source said. Advisors to the French president who held separate meetings with Obama’s advisors came away with similar impressions and expressed similar disappointment.

According to the Israeli source, Sarkozy plans to begin intensive negotiations with the new American administration, regardless of whether it is headed by Obama or Republican Sen. John McCain, even before the new president takes office in January, with the goal of persuading him to continue the current policy on Iran.

But Sarkozy’s pessimism does not stem only from Obama’s stance; it also stems from the overall behavior of the international community toward Iran’s nuclear program, and particularly its inability to agree on a fourth round of Security Council sanctions against the Islamic Republic. This foot-dragging will make it impossible to effect a change in Iran’s nuclear policy, Sarkozy believes.

The French intelligence community believes that Iran has already obtained about 40 percent of the enriched uranium it would need for its first bomb, and that at its current rate, it will obtain the rest of the uranium it needs in the spring or summer of 2009.

However, French agencies are divided over what Iran is likely to do once it has this uranium. One view is that the Iranians will immediately make a nuclear bomb, in order to demonstrate their capability. The other is that Iran will continue enriching uranium without making a bomb - at least until it has enough enriched uranium for several bombs.

Speaking at a joint press conference with the Iranian foreign minister, former Lebanon president Emile Lahoud stressed that Iran, Qatar and Syria were Lebanon’s true friends. Lahoud also commented on his meeting with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, noting that their talks would definitely have a positive influence on the Lebanese arena. Iran’s ambassador in Lebanon has spoken of Iran’s willingness to open a branch of Tehran University in Lebanon.

3. New appointments at the Iranian Foreign Ministry: Mohammad Jalal Firouz Nia, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ director-general for Persian Gulf affairs, has been named Iranian ambassador to Italy; Mahdi Safari, head of the ministry’s Department for European Affairs, will take up the position of Iran’s ambassador in Saudi Arabia; Majid Bizmark has been named Iranian ambassador to Thailand; and Hosseyn Farahi will serve from now as director-general for ministerial affairs.

4. Ayatollah Janati, secretary of the Council of Guardians of the Constitution, has urged the governors of Iran’s provinces to make all necessary arrangements to facilitate the public’s participation in next year’s presidential election. Janati stressed that the public would participate in the elections only if it was satisfied with its leaders, adding that the majority of the Iranian people supported the regime.

5. Members of the Conservative factions in the Majlis have called on Interior Minister Ali Kordan to resign his post ahead of the no-confidence vote he faces next week.

6. Representatives of the family of Musa Sadar (who went missing in Libya) have agreed to allow Iranian film director Kamal Tabrizi to make a documentary on Sadar’s life and disappearance. The film will be called “When Musa Cried.”

7. In an address to Iranians living in the United States, Iran’s deputy president, Rahim Mashaee, again made controversial statements, commenting: “The Soviet Union fell because of the absolute dictatorial regime; but the United States is not like that and thus it will not crumble and fall.”

1. Speaking at a dedication ceremony for a new naval base on the island of Jasek, the commander of the Iranian Army’s Naval Corps, General Habibollah Sayari, said that the presence of foreign forces in the waters surrounding Iran had given rise to the need for the establishment of new military bases in the Gulf of Oman. Sayari emphasized that the new base created an additional defensive line in the eastern section of the Strait of Hormuz, adding that if required, Iran would be able to prevent all enemy vessels from entering the Persian Gulf.

2. According to Iran’s deputy chief of staff: “We are issuing a warning to the enemies of Iran… They must know that the era of bullying and sanctions against nations has come to an end. They must surrender to the justice and values of the nations. The Iranian Army and IRGC are the regime’s two powerful arms and are ready at any given time to defend the Persian Gulf.”

3. The head of the security forces’ organization that oversees compulsory military service has announced an extension of the deferment period afforded to students, noting that students who are unable to complete their studies in time will receive an extension of up to seven semesters before being drafted into the army.

1.

1. The deputy chairman of the parliamentary committee on planning and budgeting has announced that the balance of Iran’s Oil Stabilization Fund now stands at $25 billion. The deputy chairman said the drop in oil prices was to blame for the fall in the balance, and called on the country’s leaders to reduce Iran’s dependency on oil revenues. For his part, Iran’s finance minister said that the country’s foreign currency reserves were in good shape and that there was no cause for concern in this regard. The minister added that Iran’s foreign currency revenues during the first half of the year had totaled some $60 billion.

2. The deputy chairman of the Statistical Center of Iran has announced that the organization is willing and ready to calculate and announce the country’s official inflation rate. The deputy chairman clarified that the talks to determine the official source of the inflation rate were continuing and that the changes at the Central Bank had caused the delay in the announcement.

3. Iranian websites are reporting that former interior minister Pour-Mohammadi, who serves today as the government comptroller, has submitted a secret report to the Majlis on the financial and economic misdemeanors and violations of the current regime. The relevant Majlis committees are slated to review the report during the course of the week. Iran’s official news agency announced last week that the government had filed a complaint against Pour-Mohammadi, accusing him of submitting false economic data.

4. According to an expert on agricultural affairs who was interviewed by the semi-official Aftabnews website, the drought Iran is suffering is serving as an excuse for senior government officials to cover up their failed performance in the field and reason the rise in the prices of fruit, rice and other agricultural produce. The people who are defining the drought, which was expected, as a crisis are trying to cover up their mismanagement in the field of agriculture, the expert said.

5. The deputy chairman of the Trade Development Organization has announced that Iran’s exports over the past year exceeded $21 billion; he stressed, however, that in light of Iran’s capabilities, this sum was not satisfactory, and urged action to increase it.

6. In an effort to advance commerce between Iran and the Netherlands, Iran has opened the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran in the Dutch port of Rotterdam.

7. The eighth meeting of the joint Syria-Iran committee on industry opened yesterday in Iran and will continue until the end of the month. The Syrian delegation is headed by the country’s industry minister.

8. Iran’s energy minister has announced that water and electricity prices will not go up this year.

9. An Iranian economics expert claims that the strike by bazaar storeowners in protest against the VAT increase was prompted by concerns on the part of the storeowners with respect to exposing their revenues for tax purposes.

10. Iranian experts have successfully developed an anesthetic machine for medical purposes. Until now, the machine had been imported.

1.

1. Human rights activists are reporting that over the past few days, the Iranian regime has adopted harsher measures against women’s rights activists and the “One Million Signatures” campaign for equal rights, noting that the activists are being subjected to increased duress, threats, arrests and the like. For its part, the Conservative-affiliated Kayhan daily has defined the campaign organizers as a group of clowns with American ties that is being guided by elements from the U.S. State Department.

2. According to reports, student activist Amir Hosseyn Fatouhi is being subjected to intense pressure from his university and has been forced to sign an undertaking to refrain from all political activity. Fatouhi was suspended from his studies in the past after participating in student demonstrations and giving an interview to the Voice of America television station.

3. The Iranian Appeals Court has upheld the 10-year jail sentence that was imposed on Kurdish minority activist Mohammad Sadiq Kaboudwand for setting up an illegal organization. Kaboudwand is still facing two additional charges of manipulating public opinion and disseminating anti-government propaganda.

4. The committee that oversees the publication of journals at Iran’s universities has slapped a ban on two Kurdish minority student publications at Zanjan University.

5. In a special raid in Tehran yesterday, security forces seized some 15,000 discs containing “immoral” and “unauthorized” movies.

6. Two drug smugglers were executed this morning in the city of Zahedan.

7. The movie, “Buddha Collapsed out of Shame,” by Iranian director Hana Makhmalbaf has captured three awards at the Melodist international film festival in Ukraine.

8. An armed robbery took place yesterday at a Tehran department store. The perpetrator was looking to steal “a milk substitute for babies” for his son.

Ned Barnett

I confess. Senator Obama’s two tax promises: to limit tax increases to only those making over $250,000 a year, and to not raise taxes on 95% of “working Americans,” intrigued me. As a hard-working small business owner, over the past ten years I’ve earned from $50,000 to $100,000 per year. If Senator Obama is shooting straight with us, under his presidency I could look forward to paying no additional Federal taxes — I might even get a break — and as I struggle to support a family and pay for two boys in college, a reliable tax freeze is nearly as welcome as further tax cuts. However, Senator Obama’s dual claims seemed implausible, especially when it came to my Federal income taxes. Those implausible promises made me look at what I’d been paying before President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, as well as what I paid after those tax cuts became law. I chose the 2000 tax tables as my baseline — they reflect the tax rates that Senator Obama will restore by letting the “Bush Tax Cuts” lapse. I wanted to see what that meant from my tax bill.

I’ve worked as the state level media and strategy director on three Presidential election campaigns — I know how “promises” work — so I analyzed Senator Obama’s promises by looking for loopholes.

The first loophole was easy to find: Senator Obama doesn’t “count” allowing the Bush tax cuts to lapse as a tax increase. Unless the cuts are re-enacted, rates will automatically return to the 2000 level. Senator Obama claims that letting a tax cut lapse — allowing the rates to return to a higher levels — is not actually a “tax increase.” It’s just the lapsing of a tax cut.

See the difference?

Neither do I.

When those cuts lapse, my taxes are going up — a lot — but by parsing words, Senator Obama justifies his claim that he won’t actively raise taxes on 95 percent of working Americans, even while he’s passively allowing tax rates to go up for 100% of Americans who actually pay Federal income taxes.

Making this personal, my Federal Income Tax will increase by $3,824 when those tax cuts lapse. That not-insignificant sum would cover a couple of house payments or help my two boys through another month or two of college.

No matter what Senator Obama calls it, requiring us to pay more taxes amounts to a tax increase. This got me wondering what other Americans will have to pay when the tax cuts lapse.

For a married family, filing jointly and earning $75,000 a year, this increase will be $3,074. For those making just $50,000, this increase will be $1,512. Despite Senator Obama’s claim, even struggling American families making just $25,000 a year will see a tax increase — they’ll pay $715 more in 2010 than they did in 2007. Across the board, when the tax cuts lapse, working Americans will see significant increases in their taxes, even if their household income is as low as $25,000. See the tables at the end of this article.

Check this for yourself. Go to http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/ and pull up the 1040 instructions for 2000 and 2007 and go to the tax tables. Based on your 2007 income, check your taxes rates for 2000 and 2007, and apply them to your taxable income for 2007. In 2000 — Senator Obama’s benchmark year — you would have paid significantly more taxes for the income you earned in 2007. The Bush Tax Cuts, which Senator Obama has said he will allow to lapse, saved you money, and without those cuts, your taxes will go back up to the 2000 level. Senator Obama doesn’t call it a “tax increase,” but your taxes under “President” Obama will increase — significantly.

Senator Obama is willfully deceiving you and me when he says that no one making under $250,000 will see an increase in their taxes. If I were keeping score, I’d call that Tax Lie #1.

The next loophole involves the payroll tax that you pay to support the Social Security system. Currently, there is an inflation-adjusted cap, and according to the non-profit Tax Foundation, in 2006 — the most recent year for which tax data is available — only the first $94,700 of an unmarried individual’s earnings were subject to the 12.4 percent payroll tax. However, Senator Obama has proposed lifting that cap, adding an additional 12.4 percent tax on every dollar earned above that cap — and in spite of his promise, impacting all those who earn between $94,700 and $249,999.

By doing this, he plans to raise an additional $1 trillion dollars (another $662.50 out of my pocket — and how much out of yours?) to help fund Social Security. Half of this tax would be paid by employees and half by employers — but employers will either cut the payroll or pass along this tax to their customers through higher prices. Either way, some individual will pay the price for the employer’s share of the tax increase.

However, when challenged to explain how he could eliminate the cap AND not raise taxes on Americans earning under $250,000, Senator Obama suggested on his website that he “might” create a “donut” — an exemption from this payroll tax for wages between $94,700 and $250,000. But that donut would mean he couldn’t raise anywhere near that $1 trillion dollars for Social Security. When this was pointed out, Senator Obama’s “donut plan” was quietly removed from his website.

This “explanation” sounds like another one of those loopholes. If I were keeping score, I’d call this Tax Lie #2.

(updated) Senator Obama has also said that he will raise capital gains taxes from 15 percent to 20 percent. He says he’s aiming at “fat cats” who make above $250,000. However, while only 1 percent of Americans make a quarter-million dollars, roughly 50 percent of all Americans own stock – and while investments that are through IRAs, 401Ks and in pension plans are not subject to capital gains, those stocks in personal portfolios are subject to capital gains, no matter what the owner’s income is. However, according to the US Congress’s Joint Economic Committee Study, “Recent data released by the Federal Reserve shows that nearly half of all U.S. households are stockholders. In the last decade alone, the number of stockholders has jumped by over fifty percent.” This is clear – a significant number of all Americans who earn well under $250,000 a year will feel this rise in their capital gains taxes.
Under “President” Obama, if you sell off stock and earn a $100,000 gain — perhaps to help put your children through college — instead of paying $15,000 in capital gains taxes today, you’ll pay $20,000 under Obama’s plan. That’s a full one-third more, and it applies no matter how much you earn.

No question — for about 50 percent of all Americans, this is Tax Lie #3.

Finally, Senator Obama has promised to raise taxes on businesses — and to raise taxes a lot on oil companies. I still remember Econ-101 — and I own a small business. From both theory and practice, I know what businesses do when taxes are raised. Corporations don’t “pay” taxes — they collect taxes from customers and pass them along to the government. When you buy a hot dog from a 7/11, you can see the clerk add the sales tax, but when a corporation’s own taxes go up, you don’t see it — its automatic — but they do the same thing. They build this tax into their product’s price. Senator Obama knows this. He knows that even people who earn less than $250,000 will pay higher prices — those pass-through taxes — when corporate taxes go up.

No question: this is Tax Lie #4.

There’s not a politician alive who hasn’t be caught telling some minor truth-bender. However, when it comes to raising taxes, there are no small lies. When George H.W. Bush’s “Read my lips — no new taxes” proved false, he lost the support of his base — and ultimately lost his re-election bid.

This year, however, we don’t have to wait for the proof: Senator Obama has already promised to raise taxes, and we can believe him. However, while making that promise, he’s also lied, in at least four significant ways, about who will pay those taxes. If Senator Obama becomes President Obama, when the tax man comes calling, we will all pay the price. And that’s the truth.

Tax Rates - and the Obama Increase - $50,000/year Taxable Income

2000 Tax Tables
2003 Tax Tables
2004 Tax Tables
2010 Tax Tables - (Bush Tax Cuts have Expired)
Increase with Obama Tax Increase*

Taxable Income
$50,000
$50,000
$50,000
$50,000
$50,000

Tax: Single
$10,581
$9,304
$9,231
$10,581
$1,350

Tax: Married - Filing Joint
$8,293
$6,796
$6,781
$8,293
$1,512

Tax: Married - Filing Separate
$11,143
$9,304
$9,231
$11,143
$1,912

Tax: Head of Household
$9,424
$8,189
$8,094
$9,424
$1,330

Tax Rates - and the Obama Increase - $75,000/year Taxable Income

2000 Tax Tables
2003 Tax Tables
2004 Tax Tables
2010 Tax Tables - (Bush Tax Cuts have Expired)
Increase with Obama Tax Increase*

Taxable Income
$75,000
$75,000
$75,000
$75,000
$75,000

Tax: Single
$17,923
$15,739
$15,620
$17,923
$2,303

Tax: Married - Filing Joint
$15,293
$12,364
$12,219
$15,293
$3,074

Tax: Married - Filing Separate
$18,803
$16,083
$15,972
$18,803
$2,831

Tax: Head of Household
$16,424
$14,439
$14,344
$16,424
$2,080

Tax Rates - and the Obama Increase - $100,000/year Taxable Income

2000 Tax Tables
2003 Tax Tables
2004 Tax Tables
2010 Tax Tables - (Bush Tax Cuts have Expired)
Increase with Obama Tax Increase*

Taxable Income
$100,000
$100,000
$100,000
$100,000
$100,000

Tax: Single
$25,673
$22,739
$22,620
$25,673
$3,053

Tax: Married - Filing Joint
$22,293
$18,614
$18,469
$22,293
$3,824

Tax: Married - Filing Separate
$27,515
$23,715
$23,504
$27,515
$4,011

Tax: Head of Household
$23,699
$20,741
$20,594
$23,699
$3,015

* When “President” Obama allows President Bush’s tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 to expire, this will amount to a de facto tax increase -

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/senator_obamas_four_tax_increa.html at October 28, 2008 - 04:21:57 AM EDT

Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

One of the biggest and most long-lasting “change” to expect if Barack Obama becomes President of the United States is in the kinds of federal judges he appoints. These include Supreme Court justices, as well as other federal justices all across the country, all of whom will have lifetime tenure.

Senator Obama has stated very clearly what kinds of Supreme Court justices he wants– those with “the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old.” Like so many things that Obama says, it may sound nice if you don’t stop and think– and chilling if you do stop and think. Do we really want judges who decide cases based on who you are, rather than on the facts and the law?

If the case involves a white man versus a black woman, should the judge decide that case differently than if both litigants are of the same race or sex?

The kind of criteria that Barack Obama promotes could have gotten three young men at Duke University sent to prison for a crime that neither they nor anybody else committed.

Didn’t we spend decades in America, and centuries in Western civilization, trying to get away from the idea that who you are determines what your legal rights are?

What kind of judges are we talking about?

A classic example is federal Judge H. Lee Sarokin, who could have bankrupted a small New Jersey town because they decided to stop putting up with belligerent homeless men who kept disrupting their local public library. Judge Sarokin’s rulings threatened the town with heavy damage awards, and the town settled the case by paying $150,000 to the leading disrupter of its public library.

After Bill Clinton became president, he elevated Judge Sarokin from the district court to the Circuit Court of Appeals. Would President Barack Obama elevate him– or others like him– to the Supreme Court? Judge Sarokin certainly fits Obama’s job description for a Supreme Court justice.

A court case should not depend on who you are and who the judge is. We are supposed to be a country with “the rule of law and not of men.” Like all human beings, Americans haven’t always lived up to our ideals. But Obama is proposing the explicit repudiation of that ideal itself.

That is certainly “change,” but is it one that most Americans believe in? Or is it something that we may end up with anyway, just because too many voters cannot be bothered to look beyond rhetoric and style?

We can vote a president out of office at the next election if we don’t like him. But we can never vote out the federal judges he appoints in courts across the country, including justices of the Supreme Court.

The kind of judges that Barack Obama wants to appoint can still be siding with criminals or terrorists during the lifetime of your children and grandchildren.

The Constitution of the United States will not mean much if judges carry out Obama’s vision of the Constitution as “a living document”– that is, something that judges should feel free to change by “interpretation” to favor particular individuals, groups or causes.

We have already seen where that leads with the 2005 Kelo Supreme Court decision that allows local politicians to take people’s homes or businesses and transfer that property to others. Almost invariably, these are the homes of working class people and small neighborhood businesses that are confiscated under the government’s power of eminent domain. And almost invariably they are transferred to developers who will build shopping malls, hotels or other businesses that will bring in more tax revenue.

The Constitution protected private property, precisely in order to prevent such abuses of political power, leaving a small exception when property is taken for “public use,” such as the government’s building a reservoir or a highway.

But just by expanding “public use” to mean “public purpose”– which can be anything– the Supreme Court opened the floodgates.

That’s not “a living Constitution.” That’s a dying Constitution– and an Obama presidency can kill it off.

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

The Obama campaign targets young children to nag parents and grandparents

Thomas Lifson

Using tactics that would get any maker of sugary cereal in trouble, the Obama campaign shamelessly targets immature minds, and incites them to manipulate their elders into voting for the Obama. Dr. Slogan’s Prescriptions has the details: The site offers many handy instructions for young Sen. Obama supporters, helping them to form the pragmatic attitude they would absolutely need in the Obama led nation. The quote is worth reading in full (for the full text the site refers to this article):

The one thing most grandparents have in common is that they have the most wonderful grandchildren in the world - so clever, so handsome, so pretty, ever so precious. Even if you are still unsure of your path in life, and even if your parents and friends occasionally wonder about you, your grandma and grandpa love you and have faith in you.

That is your weapon! “Precious” needs to get on the phone and say, “Grandpa, Grandma, I am asking you to vote for Barack Obama. This is really important to me. It’s about my future. It’s about the world I will be living in. It’s about the world I want for my future children. (They will love that one!) Please! Do it for me!”

Put some urgency in your voice. Sound very disappointed in them if they give you excuses. Come back again, even harder. “This is about my future - my ability to get a good job, to live a healthy life, to have the same (or even more) opportunities than you had to succeed. I have never felt more strongly about anything. I am begging you to vote for Barack Obama. I need you to do this for me!”

This is just a sample script. You know what it takes to get to them.

Dr. Slogan comments:

When it comes to commercial advertisement, government bodies such as FDC and FDA have been going after marketers who target children age 12 and under. Yes, it’s exactly the same age group that Sen. Obama targets so explicitly. Just last year FDC along with its European counterpart pushed Masterfoods to stop marketing of its products (e.g. Snickers, Milky Way and Twix) to kids. Apparently, from the government’s perspective, kids age 12 and under are not mature enough to figure out whether Snickers are good or bad for their health, and thus can be misled by advertising. But of course, figuring out where a presidential candidate stands on taxes, abortion, education and national security is much easier. So why would the government have any problem with that?

Kifah Zaboun

Ramallah, Asharq Al-Awsat- It is no secret that the line adopted by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories contradicts that of the Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip. Their disagreement dates back to the time when they were first established in the late 1980s and has clearly manifested itself in the Palestinian street, institutions, universities, associations, and prisons. By simply raising a political or religious discussion among the members of both movements, one can realize that they disagree over everything. A well-informed Palestinian source have asserted to Asharq Al-Awsat that “the dispute between Hamas and Islamic Jihad reached its peak when Hamas tried to take over mosques belonging to the Islamic Jihad in Gaza and tighten the noose on its leader in Damascus and prevent them from establishing any relations with other states in the region.”

According to the source which spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity, “Hamas seeks to benefit solely from Sunni and Shiite support. In order to achieve this goal, Hamas has made great efforts to convince Sunni states that Islamic Jihad members are adopting Shiite Islam.”

“Hamas has also made an effort to convince Iran, which is a Shiite state, that it has power over the land and Islamic Jihad as well.” The source added.

The Palestinian source noted that “the dispute between Hamas and the Islamic Jihad is old.” and that “it started years ago as a result of Hamas accusing Islamic Jihad members of adopting Shiism and spreading it in Palestine to the advantage of Iran. There was questioning in this regard at the highest echelon of the Islamic Jihad.”

The source made clear that such accusations against the Islamic Jihad have declined recently as a result of Hamas embracing Iran, adding that, “today, Hamas has fallen into the arms of Iran, which is providing it with more support than it is providing for the Islamic Jihad. This is despite the fact that the Islamic Jihad’s relationship with Iran is older and was stronger than Iran’s [current] relationship with Hamas. Consequently, the tune that the Islamic Jihad is Shiite is being played less often.”

the source also revealed that, “up until recently, Hamas had claimed in front of Sheikh Yusuf al- Qaradawi that Islamic Jihad members were converting to Shiism. On one occasion, they deliberately published a photo of Ramadan Shalah, an Islamic Jihad official, visiting Khomeini’s grave. This caused tension in the relationship between Shalah and Khalid Mishal, head of Hamas’s Political Bureau.”

“What seems strange is that at that time, Hamas elements were visiting Iran in secret. Also, soon after, Mishal visited and recited Surat [chapter of the Koran] Al-Fatihah at Khomeini’s grave.” The source added.

Despite Hamas’s confirmation that it has a well-established relationship with Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian source emphasized that, “Hamas is upset because it considers that the Islamic Jihad movement is outbidding it through the line it is pursuing, manifest in its continued resistance and its refusal to participate in the legislative election or to join a Palestinian Government.”

However, official sources from the Islamic Jihad told Asharq Al-Awsat that, “We adopt a fixed position on everything, but Hamas’s position is changing. In 1996 they said that it was illicit to participate in the elections, and then they nominated themselves. (Deposed Prime Minister) Ismail Haniyeh ran for the legislative election the first time an election was held. Hamas said that he was a dissenter. Haniyeh formed a new party then withdrew from the elections. They are erratic.”

The Islamic Jihad sources went on to say, “as a result, people trust the Islamic Jihad more, thus causing problems with Hamas. In Gaza, mosques are divided. Everyone knows that this mosque belongs to Hamas and that mosque belongs to the Islamic Jihad.” In the West Bank, the situation is similar to that in Gaza. Islamic factions, in particular, are competing to control mosques, which are transformed into bases for party propaganda. Islamic Jihad is complaining that Hamas is working toward imposing its control even on the West Bank.

The sources pointed out that “In Al-Shuja’iyah, they [Hamas elements] raided Islamic Jihad mosques and dismissed imams and muezzins belonging to Islamic Jihad and replaced them by Hamas-affiliated imams. However, the high-level of tension that such actions created forced Hams to return control over these mosques to Islamic Jihad after direct intervention by Fatah leaders.”

The source continued that, “In the past, disputes affected everyone. However, recently, they were limited to the supporters of both factions as a result of them mixing together. Nevertheless, disputes have once again worsened on the level of high commands. The [controversial] issue that has been raised recently involves the failure to invite Islamic Jihad Secretary General Shalah and movement leader Anwar Abu-Taha to attend the sixth annual conference on Jerusalem in Qatar, which was organized by the Al-Quds International Institution.”

The Al-Quds International Institution, which is based in Beirut, said that “Shalah and Abu-Taha are founding members.” Despite the institution’s denial that it overlooked their invitation, the Islamic Jihad sources said that “Shalah and Abu-Taha were not invited because Hamas cancelled out their names and replaced them with the names of Hamas leaders.” adding that, “No Islamic Jihad leaders attended the conference, at a time when everyone, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP], was present there. The goal is clear. It is manifest in distancing the Islamic Jihad from Sunni states like Qatar, thus becoming the only party to receive Qatari support.”

The sources affirmed that “the conference has ruptured relations between Shalah and Mishal.” But that disputes were heading towards a resolution.

Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed
Asharq Alawsat

There is no comfortable solution for the Palestinians to repair their domestic affairs other than the leaders abandoning their ambitions to lead. This is a fact that has been known for a long time. However, the problem is how to convince all these leaders when it’s apparent how happy Hamas is with its sovereignty over Gaza, and its readiness to give everything to preserve it; the same applies to the others. The fact is that the Palestinian president has proposed a negotiations’ plan that offers an opportunity for a Palestinian Government without parties or leaders, because he proposed the formation of a technocrat government, i.e. ministers would be experts and not politicians or party members. Therefore, the government would be neither a Fatah nor a Hamas government, and the Palestinians would live in happiness and amicability, and would dedicate themselves to the achievement of two important issues: the first is managing their daily affairs, and the second is leaving the leaders to work on designing a peace plan for themselves, and also a peace plan with the Israelis.

I cannot imagine that this idea, which is assumed to satisfy everybody because it respects everybody, will be approved easily unless Hamas understands that there is only a short way to go on the road along which they are proceeding. Hamas has lived a difficult life, and has tried everything in order to establish a permanent position for itself on the ground; this includes a peace plan that is very generous to the Israelis, with the exception that it calls the plan a truce for 18 years in which it relinquishes Jerusalem, the refugees, and the borders in exchange for the Israelis to leave the Palestinians to fight each other while they live in peace without interference. At the time Hamas held a truce with Israel, it tried to engage in skirmishes with the Egyptians, and to drag them into a confrontation with the Palestinians and the Israelis; this attempt nearly succeeded in changing the map and not only the government in Gaza.

Now Hamas has three options that can give it something better than an isolated government. Either it accepts simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections, and leaves it to the Palestinian people in the beginning of the New Year to decide who will be president and who will be prime minister; accepts a technocrat government that in reality represents a major concession by Abu-Mazin who will suffer from the exclusion of his politicians who are ministers from it; or as a last resort accepts the extension of the presidential term of Abu-Mazin for another year so that the election of the new president takes place at the same time as the elections for the Legislative Council.

Most probably the majority of Hamas members will accept all the three solutions if their leadership gives them the opportunity to choose. However, Hamas will not accept this, or rather cannot accept this, because its decision is neither in the hand of Haniyeh, Khalid Mishal, or any other senior leader, but it is in the hand of Damascus and Tehran. These two capitals will sell out the decision-making of Hamas as part of the first concessions demanded by the European or other negotiators. This is because practically Hamas is a cheaper card compared to Lebanon, or to the Israeli nuclear program.

I have heard an individual affiliated to Hamas admitting that they are worried because of the public auction in Syria, and they expect at any moment to be asked to leave for somewhere else away from Damascus. If this were to happen, it would be in the interest of Hamas, because it would restore its control to it, and would allow it to indeed negotiate according to its program on whose basis it fought the Palestinian elections in the beginning, before its decision was hijacked, and its steps became incompatible with its program. Hamas now is in a truce with Israel, at war with Fatah, reconciled with the Iranians, and in a hostile state toward the Egyptians and the Gulf countries.

Salena Zito
Sunday, October 26, 2008

Share the wealth.
Those three words should send shudders down the spine of any hardworking, over-taxed, get-government-out-of-my-pocketbook American.
Yet the image and rhetoric of Barack Obama has buried his progressive government-knows-best philosophy.
Obama’s eloquence and his propensity to rarely make a mistake have made him the candidate that more Americans trust with the economy, according to many opinion polls.
Allan Meltzer, an economist at Carnegie Mellon University, says that when it comes to the economy, the other guy is better for the country.
Meltzer says John McCain “has a better health plan in several respects. It promotes competition, provides choice, and avoids nationalizing health care.”
On taxes, he says, McCain’s plan to reduce corporate tax rates is a much-needed reform. “That’s much better than pumping up spending for a few quarters by giving away $1,000 per taxpayer,” he explains.
McCain’s plans are responsible populism, a good fit across party lines, especially during unsettling economic times. Too bad no one is picking up what he is putting down.
This country is generally an optimistic nation. People want to move up the economic ladder. That’s been an American credo since our creation, and anything that sounds as if it will stifle America’s entrepreneurial spirit runs contrary to who we are.
So it stands to reason that it is truly extraordinary that voters would consider Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress as the best team to fix today’s economic crisis — because, the fact is, they created it.
Columnist Orson Scott Card, himself a Democrat, put it in perspective last week when he wrote that the financial crisis was completely preventable. Card pointed out that congressional Democrats blocked any attempt to prevent it; when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and congressional Republicans of enacting financial deregulation that caused the crisis, no one in the media called her on that lie, Card complained.
Absent in the daily-news narrative is that, as a senator, McCain tried to avert this mess and to get others in Congress to regulate lending responsibly.
Once again, the McCain message is buried, either by the daily political sideshows or by the brilliant way Obama’s campaign has “flooded the zone” with its message: A vote for McCain is a vote for four more years of failed Bush policies.
Some of the blame goes to McCain, too; he has been ineffective on the national stage at explaining his plan.
In a phone interview last week with the Trib’s David M. Brown, McCain was asked to explain some of the fundamentals of what he would do to fix this mess. He emphasized job creation, making sure that people do not lose their homes so that their neighborhoods’ values continue to grow, and investing in our own natural resources, especially coal.
He proposed doubling the federal tax exemption of every child and family. He said his fundamentals also include keeping taxes low and stopping Washington’s spending spree.
All of it is a very appealing yet responsible populist message — the polar opposite of Obama’s “spread the wealth” message.
McCain’s plans are about equal opportunity, not equal outcomes; he does not propose that politicians have some inherent right to confiscate our hard-earned incomes and to give those to others. Individual effort should be rewarded, not penalized.
That’s the essence of the “American dream” — it’s why millions of people around the globe fight to become citizens of this country. Anyone who works hard enough can make it. We’re not a country bound by bloodlines or centuries of tradition; we’re a country that is bound by an ideal.
Yet the Obama-Biden way is all about equal distribution. That much was evident in one of Obama’s presidential-debate responses: Asked why he supports increasing capital-gains taxes, when cutting them has been shown to increase revenue, he replied that it is a “fairness” question.
McCain has become “John the Populist.”
Too bad too few hear him.

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

The duty of Jihad has to be defined accurately, but also in a way that can easily be grasped by auditors, so that it does not exclude, but clearly includes, all of the current instruments that Muslims employ to further Jihad. The initial smokescreen, or deception, offered both by Muslims and by such non-Muslim apologists as Karen Armstrong and John Esposito, was to suggest, or even insist, that the very recent, and most secondary, definition of “Jihad,” formulated primarily by some “reforming” Muslims in the last century (at a time when Muslims were weak, and in apparent disarray), was the widely-accepted one. But this has been impossible to sustain, given the widespread use by Muslims themselves – now copiously quoted at such sites as MEMRI, and in newspaper and radio and television accounts – of the real meaning of Jihad.

And what is that meaning? To repeat: Jihad is a duty, incumbent on all Muslims, to strive to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam, all over the world. In the earliest days of Islam, those obstacles would be military in nature: Muslims invade a land possessed by non-Muslims, fight to conquer them, and then to impose Muslim rule over them, and to offer them the choice of death, conversion, or life as dhimmis under such rule. But in the modern world, when non-Muslims still possess overwhelming military superiority, it is not “qitaal” or combat in the traditional sense that is the main instrument of Jihad. Rather, even when it comes to the use of violence, the preferred method is the kind of attack on non-military targets, designed to instill terror, that we have no difficulty calling terrorism. Such attacks — on airplanes, on busses, on schools, on subways, on office-buildings, on hospitals – are explained away or justified by Muslims, as perfectly acceptable variants on traditional “qitaal” or combat. And since Infidels have more powerful armies, terrorism is seen as merely a way of equalizing things, and not itself morally unacceptable. Still other Muslims, while feigning to denounce a vague “terrorism,” always leave open, in their failure to define what constitutes “innocents” or “civilians,” the acceptance of terrorism as a method. And indeed those very infrequent and pro-forma “denunciations” no longer fool as many as they once did, so often have those loopholes been pointed out – and too many Muslims among those denouncing terrorism have been found to support it in one way or another.

But the definition of Jihad must be ample enough to include all the other instruments, aside from qitaal or terrorism, that are used with such effectiveness today. These instruments of Jihad include the deployment of the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da’wa (the Call To Islam, which means the attempt to convert as many susceptible Infidels, among the economically and psychically marginal, as possible), and demographic conquest, which consists of both the deliberate, and the non-deliberate (but just as effective and dangerous) overbreeding of Muslims in Infidel lands. That increase in numbers leads, as Boumedienne of Algeria said in 1974 at the U.N., to a conquest “through the wombs of Muslim women.” The generous benefits of Infidel nation-states allows Muslim women not to work (though non-Muslim women do), to have large families, and to take full advantage, and then some, of all the benefits – free and excellent medical care, free education, free or heavily-subsidized housing, and generous family allowances – that appear tailor-made for the large Muslim families who are busy, in their own way, increasing inexorably the Muslim presence, and therefore perceived and real power, all over the Bilad al-kufr, the Lands of the Infidels. This is accompanied by continued large-scale immigration of Muslims. And instead of halting this immigration and constructing policies designed to limit the size of Muslim families, or at least not to be so generous with support, and even to promote policies that may make it more difficult, or at least not quite so easy, to conduct Muslim life in a non-Muslim environment, the Western world so far, now that it recognizes a problem, appears incapable of soberly drawing up the measures that it has every right to employ to protect its own legal and political institutions, the conduct of art and science, and the development of individual liberties so threatened by the collectivism of that Total Belief-System that some, too easily call a “religion,” which is to say – Islam.

So, if you are asked to provide an intelligible and comprehensive definition of the word “Jihad” provide this:

Jihad is the duty incumbent upon all Muslims, to participate, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, to engage in the “struggle” (which is what “Jihad” means) to remove all obstacles to the spread, and then to the dominance, of Islam. It can take the form of combat, or qitaal. It can take the form of terrorism, It can take the form of the Money Weapon, which Saudi Arabia alone has supplied, or distributed, to the troubling tune of nearly one hundred billion dollars over the past few decades, to support mosques, madrasas, armies of Western hirelings, and every sort of pro-Islam propaganda, from textbooks in the schools, to those interfaith-healing racketeers who ply their smiling trade, some of them naïve, and some of them knowing exactly what they are doing. It can take the form of carefully-targeted campaigns of Da’wa, especially in prisons or among the psychically marginal. These people go off on their Spiritual Searches and finally allow their personal mental Greyhound to stop at the station marked Islam, where they got off that bus, never to get on again.

And finally there is demographic conquest, which has to be halted and then reversed, through measures that are perfectly acceptable ethically and morally, and that, in a rightly-ordered world, and among Infidels less willfully determined not to recognize the dangers that are daily mounting, would have been undertaken long ago.