---James Thurber

 Here is another link in the Lars Vilks murder plot from Fox news:

 A Pennsylvania woman known to authorities as "JihadJane" has been charged in federal court with using the Internet to recruit jihadist fighters to carry out murders and violent attacks overseas.

The woman, Colleen R. LaRose, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements to a government official and attempted identity theft, according to the indictment, unsealed Monday.

Sources tell Fox News the "Swedish citizen" who "JihadJane" was allegedly looking to kill is Lars Vilks, who drew one of the controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoons. There was a series of arrests in Ireland earlier Tuesday that are reportedly connected to LaRose's case.

In September of 2007 Al Qaeda offered a bounty for the murder of Viks.

LaRose and five unindicted co-conspirators are accused of recruiting men to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe and of recruiting women who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe for similar missions.

The accused co-conspirators are located in South Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the United States.

"Today's indictment ... underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face," said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division.

In June 2008, LaRose posted a comment on YouTube under the username "JihadJane," stating that she is "desperate to do something somehow to help" the suffering Muslim people, according to the indictment.

She was also know to authorities as "Fatima LaRose." The indictment describes LaRose as in her 40s.

Court documents show LaRose was first arrested by federal authorities on Oct. 16, 2009, for allegedly trying to "transfer" a stolen passport.

The indictment accuses the American-born LaRose and her unindicted co-conspirators of using the Internet to establish relationships with one another and to communicate their plans, which included martyring themselves, soliciting funds for terrorists, soliciting passports and avoiding travel restrictions, through the collection of passports and through marriage, according to a government release.

LaRose, who lives in Montgomery County, Pa., received a direct order to kill someone in Sweden, and to do so in a way that would frighten "the whole Kufar [non-believer] world," according to the indictment.

It states that LaRose agreed to carry out her murder assignment, and that she and her co-conspirators discussed that her appearance and American citizenship would help her blend.

According to the indictment, LaRose traveled to Europe and tracked her intended target online, but it isn't clear whether she carried out the mission...

I believe we would have heard if Vilks had been murdered. What is it about cartoons that sets these people off? Woof.

The comments section on Mark Signorelli's fine article reminded me of this - can't think why.

WaPo:

MARJA, AFGHANISTAN -- The newly appointed top official in Marja, Abdul Zahir Aryan, is the Afghan face of the American-led military offensive. As the lone government representative in this town, he stands at the center of the next phase of the battle: the fight to build an Afghan government that is more attractive than Taliban rule.

He could not be reached subsequently to discuss his time in prison. But the details of his case as described by U.S. officials in Afghanistan correspond to that of an Afghan man who went by Abdul Zahar while in Germany.

The account of Zahar's life and trial in Germany, as related in newspaper articles and confirmed by German officials this week, including his defense attorney, Manfred Doering, described a man with a volatile family life and a willingness to flee from justice. He arrived in Germany in 1989 after working as a Ministry of Defense driver in Afghanistan. He settled in Rodgau with at least two wives and 13 children -- including twin 18-year-old stepsons.

On Dec. 15, 1997, after beating his wife and being taken to task by his stepson for it, Zahar went to the home of a stepdaughter and stabbed the stepson in the chest and an arm, wounds that required hospitalization...

No doubt he'll survive this, but what does it say about us? The entire Afghanistan mission has become completely untenable.

AP:

KARACHI, Pakistan – The American-born spokesman for al-Qaida has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday, the same day Adam Gadahn appeared in a video urging U.S. Muslims to attack their own country.

The arrest of Gadahn is a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaida and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan, criticized in the past for being an untrustworthy ally, is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the movement's No. 2 commander.

Gadahn has appeared in more than half a dozen al-Qaida videos, taunting and threatening the West and calling for its destruction. A U.S. court charged Gadahn with treason in 2006, making him the first American to face such a charge in more than 50 years.

He was arrested in the sprawling southern metropolis of Karachi in recent days, two officers who took part in the operation said. A senior government official also confirmed the arrest, but said it happened Sunday. The discrepancy could not immediately be resolved.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The intelligence officials said Gadahn was being interrogated by Pakistani officials. Pakistani agents and those from the CIA work closely on some operations in Pakistan, but it was not clear if any Americans were involved in the operation or questioning.

In the past, Pakistan has handed over some al-Qaida suspects arrested on its soil to the United States.

Gadahn grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California, and converted to Islam at a mosque in nearby Orange County.

UPDATE: It's looking like the man they arrested is not Gadahn.

AFP:

The White House on Friday announced a "summit on entrepreneurship" to build economic ties with the Islamic world, part of President Barack Obama's outreach to Muslims.

The White House said it has invited participants from more than 40 countries over five continents for the April 26-27 conference in Washington.

"The summit will highlight the role entrepreneurship can play in addressing common challenges while building partnerships that will lead to greater opportunity abroad and at home," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Obama first spoke of the entrepreneurship conference in his signature June 4 speech in Cairo to the Islamic world.

In the closely watched address, Obama said the United States was seeking a "new beginning" with the Islamic world to rebuild relations that had sharply deteriorated over the past decade.

Obama promised at the time that he would convene a "presidential summit on entrepreneurship" by the end of 2009.

He said that the meeting would "identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world."

New York Post (with thanks to del):

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The founder of an Islam-oriented television station who is accused of beheading his wife is due in a Buffalo courtroom for proceedings in advance of his murder trial.

Muzzammil “Mo” Hassan is tentatively scheduled to stand trial later this month for the death of his wife, Aasiyah Hassan, last year.

Pretrial motions are scheduled for Friday.

Hassan’s attorney plans a defense that includes claims that Hassan was abused by his wife and emotionally out of control. But prosecutors are fighting the use of a psychiatric defense.

The Pakistan-born Hassans started Bridges TV in 2004, in part to dispel negative Muslim stereotypes.

Muzzammil Hassan was served divorce papers shortly before his wife’s slaying.
 

Thank you. It is great to be back in London. And it is great that this time, I got to see more of this wonderful city than just the detention centre at Heathrow Airport.

Today I stand before you, in this extraordinary place. Indeed, this is a sacred place. This is, as Malcolm always says, the mother of all Parliaments, I am deeply humbled to have the opportunity to speak before you.

Thank you Lord Pearson and Lady Cox for your invitation and showing my film ‘Fitna’. Thank you my friends for inviting me.

I first have great news. Last Wednesday city council elections were held in the Netherlands. And for the first time my party, the Freedom Party, took part in these local elections. We participated in two cities. In Almere, one of the largest Dutch cities. And in The Hague, the third largest city; home of the government, the parliament and the queen. And, we did great! In one fell swoop my party became the largest party in Almere and the second largest party in The Hague. Great news for the Freedom Party and even better news for the people of these two beautiful cities.

And I have more good news. Two weeks ago the Dutch government collapsed. In June we will have parliamentary elections. And the future for the Freedom Party looks great. According to some polls we will become the largest party in the Netherlands. I want to be modest, but who knows, I might even be Prime Minister in a few months time!

Ladies and gentlemen, not far from here stands a statue of the greatest Prime Minister your country ever had. And I would like to quote him here today: “Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. No stronger retrograde force exists in the World. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step (…) the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”  These words are from none other than Winston Churchill wrote this in his book ‘The River War’ from 1899.

Churchill was right.

Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t have a problem and my party does not have a problem with Muslims as such. There are many moderate Muslims. The majority of Muslims are law-abiding citizens and want to live a peaceful life as you and I do. I know that. That is why I always make a clear distinction between the people, the Muslims, and the ideology, between Islam and Muslims. There are many moderate Muslims, but there is no such thing as a moderate Islam.

Islam strives for world domination. The Quran commands Muslims to exercise jihad. The Quran commands Muslims to establish shariah law. The Quran commands Muslims to impose Islam on the entire world.

As former Turkish Prime Minister Erbakan said: “The whole of Europe will become Islamic. We will conquer Rome”. End of quote.

Libyan dictator Gaddafi said: “There are tens of millions of Muslims in the European continent today  and their number is on the increase. This is the clear indication that the European continent will be converted into Islam. Europe will one day soon be a Muslim continent”. End of quote. Indeed, for once in his life, Gaddafi was telling the truth. Because, remember: mass immigration and demographics is destiny!

Islam is merely not a religion, it is mainly a totalitarian ideology. Islam wants to dominate all aspects of life, from the cradle to the grave. Shariah law is a law that controls every detail of life in a Islamic society. From civic- and family law to criminal law. It determines how one should eat, dress and even use the toilet. Oppression of women is good, drinking alcohol is bad.

I believe that Islam is not compatible with our Western way of life. Islam is a threat to Western values. The equality of men and women, the equality of homosexuals and heterosexuals, the separation of church and state, freedom of speech, they are all under pressure because of islamization. Ladies and gentlemen: Islam and freedom, Islam and democracy are not compatible. It are opposite values.

No wonder that Winston Churchill called Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ “the new Quran of faith and war, turgid, verbose, shapeless, bur pregnant with its message”. As you know, Churchill made this comparison, between the Koran and Mein Kampf, in his book ‘The Second World War’, a master piece, for which, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Churchill’s comparison of the Quran and ‘Mein Kampf’ is absolutely spot on. The core of the Quran is the call to jihad. Jihad means a lot of things and is Arabic for battle. Kampf is German for battle. Jihad and kampf mean exactly the same.

Islam means submission, there cannot be any mistake about its goal. That’s a given. The question is whether we in Europe and you in Britain, with your glorious past, will submit or stand firm for your heritage.

We see Islam taking off in the West at an incredible pace. Europe is Islamizing rapidly. A lot of European cities have enormous Islamic concentrations. Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Berlin are just a few examples. In some parts of these cities, Islamic regulations are already being enforced. Women’s rights are being destroyed. Burqa’s, headscarves, polygamy, female genital mutilation, honour-killings. Women have to go to separate swimming-classes, don’t get a handshake. In many European cities there is already apartheid. Jews, in an increasing number, are leaving Europe.

As you undoubtedly all know, better then I do, also in your country the mass immigration and islamization has rapidly increased. This has put an enormous pressure on your British society. Look what is happening in for example Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford and here in London. British politicians who have forgotten about Winston Churchill have now taken the path of least resistance. They have given up. They have given in.

Last year, my party has requested the Dutch government to make a cost-benefit analysis of the mass immigration. But the government refused to give us an answer. Why? Because it is afraid of the truth. The signs are not good. A Dutch weekly magazine - Elsevier - calculated costs to exceed 200 billion Euros. Last year alone, they came with an amount of 13 billion Euros. More calculations have been made in Europe: According to the Danish national bank, every Danish immigrant from an Islamic country is costing the Danish state more than 300 thousand Euros. You see the same in Norway and France. The conclusion that can be drawn from this: Europe is getting more impoverished by the day. More impoverished thanks to mass immigration. More impoverished thanks to demographics. And the leftists are thrilled.

I don't know whether it is true, but in several British newspapers I read that Labour opened the door to mass immigration in a deliberate policy to change the social structures of the UK. Andrew Neather, a former government advisor and speech writer for Tony Blair and Jack Straw, said the aim of Labour’s immigration strategy was, and I quote, to “rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date”. If this is true, this is symptomatic of the Left.

Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake: The left is facilitating islamization. Leftists, liberals, are cheering for every new shariah bank being created, for every new shariah mortgage, for every new islamic school, for every new shariah court. Leftists consider Islam as being equal to our own culture. Shariah law or democracy? Islam or freedom? It doesn’t really matter to them. But it does matter to us. The entire leftist elite is guilty of practising cultural relativism. Universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians. They are all betraying our hard-won liberties.

Why I ask myself, why have the Leftists and liberals stopped to fight for them? Once the Leftists stood on the barricades for women’s rights. But where are they today? Where are they in 2010? They are looking the other way. Because they are addicted to cultural relativism and dependent on the Muslim vote. They are dependent on mass-immigration.

Thank heavens Jacqui Smith isn’t in office anymore. It was a victory for free speech that a UK judge brushed aside her decision to refuse me entry to your country last year. I hope that the judges in my home country are at least as wise and will acquit me of all charges, later this year in the Netherlands.

Unfortunately, so far they have not done so well. For they do not want to hear the truth about Islam, nor are they interested to hear the opinion of top class legal experts in the field of freedom of expression. Last month in a preliminary session the Court refused fifteen of the eighteen expert-witnesses I had requested to be summoned.

Only three expert witnesses are allowed to be heard. Fortunately, my dear friend and heroic American psychiatrist dr. Wafa Sultan is one of them. But their testimony will be heard behind closed doors. Apparently the truth about Islam must not be told in public, the truth about Islam must remain secret.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m being prosecuted for my political beliefs. We know political prosecution to exist in countries in the Middle East, like Iran and Saudi-Arabia, but never in Europe, never in the Netherlands.

I’m being prosecuted for comparing the Quran to ‘Mein Kampf’. Ridiculous. I wonder if Britain will ever put the beliefs of Winston Churchill on trial… Ladies and gentlemen, the political trial that is held against me has to stop.

But it is not all about me, not about Geert Wilders. Free speech is under attack. Let me give you a few other examples. As you perhaps know, one of my heroes, the Italian author Oriana Fallaci had to live in fear of extradition to Switzerland because of her anti-Islam book 'The Rage and the Pride'. The Dutch cartoonist Nekschot was arrested in his home in Amsterdam by 10 police men because of his anti-Islam drawings. Here in Britain, the American author Rachel Ehrenfeld was sued by a Saudi businessman for defamation. In the Netherlands Ayaan Hirsi Ali and in Australia two Christian pastors were sued. I could go on and on. Ladies and gentlemen, all throughout the West freedom loving people are facing this ongoing ‘legal jihad’. This is Islamic ‘lawfare’. And, ladies and gentlemen, not long ago the Danish cartoonist Westergaard was almost assassinated for his cartoons.

Ladies and gentlemen, we should defend the right to freedom of speech. With all our strength. With all our might. Free speech is the most important of our many liberties. Free speech is the cornerstone of our modern societies. Freedom of speech is the breath of our democracy, without freedom of speech our way of life our freedom will be gone.

I believe it is our obligation to preserve the inheritance of the brave young soldiers that stormed the beaches of Normandy. That liberated Europe from tyranny. These heroes cannot have died for nothing. It is our obligation to defend freedom of speech. As George Orwell said: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe in another policy, it is time for change. We must make haste. We can’t wait any longer. Time is running out. If I may quote one of my favourite American presidents: Ronald Reagan once said: “We need to act today, to preserve tomorrow”. That is why I propose the following measures, I only mention a few, in order to preserve our freedom:

First, we will have to defend freedom of speech. It is the most important of our liberties. In Europe and certainly in the Netherlands, we need something like the American First Amendment.

Second, we will have to end and get rid of cultural relativism. To the cultural relativists, the shariah socialists, I proudly say: Our Western culture is far superior to the Islamic culture. Don't be affraid to say it. You are not a racist when you say that our own culture is better.

Third, we will have to stop mass immigration from Islamic countries. Because more Islam means less freedom.

Fourth, we will have to expel criminal immigrants and, following denaturalisation, we will have to expel criminals with a dual nationality. And there are many of them in my country.

Fifth, we will have to forbid the construction of new mosques. There is enough Islam in Europe. Especially since Christians in Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia are mistreated, there should be a mosque building-stop in the West.

And last but not least, we will have to get rid of all those so-called leaders. I said it before: Fewer Chamberlains, more Churchills. Let's elect real leaders.

Ladies and gentlemen. To the previous generation, that of my parents, the word ‘London’ is synonymous with hope and freedom. When my country was occupied by the national-socialists the BBC offered a daily glimpse of hope in my country, in the darkness of Nazi tyranny. Millions of my fellow country men listened to it, underground. The words ‘This is London’ were a symbol for a better world coming soon.

What will be broadcasted forty years from now? Will it still be “This is London”? Or will it be “This is Londonistan”? Will it bring us hope? Or will it signal the values of Mecca and Medina? Will Britain offer submission or perseverance? Freedom or slavery? The choice is yours. And in the Netherlands the choice is ours.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will never apologize for being free. We will and should never give in. And, indeed, as one of your former leaders said: We will never surrender.

Freedom must prevail, and freedom will prevail.

Thank you very much.

The Sacramento Bee:

A Rancho Cordova-based insurer Monday launched what it calls the first nationally available insurance coverage designed specifically for the medical marijuana industry.

Only 14 states allow use of medical marijuana today, but Statewide Insurance Services is nonetheless offering coverage in all 50 states.

"Given the growth in the industry, I think it's only a matter of time" before other states allow medical marijuana, said Mike Aberle, a commercial insurance agent with the local firm and national director of its Medical Marijuana Specialty Division.

He added: "Now that we can offer (services) in all 50 states, we can start the minute they go legal, without delay."

Aberle said the nationwide program covers "all aspects of the industry," including medical marijuana dispensaries (MMDs for short), workers' compensation, general liability, auto insurance (motor vehicles used to transport product), equipment breakdown/damage, property/product loss (including pot spoilage) and operations related to marijuana growing...

News of AP (with thanks to GB Singh):

Three persons including an author of a book, allegedly containing anti-Islamic material, were arrested in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh, police said today.

The book, 'Crescent over the World' a compilation of articles published by M Laxmaiah alias Krantikar, a civil rights activist, contained "objectionable" material against Muslims, Khammam district Superintendent of Police Anil Kumar told PTI over phone.

The SP said police have seized 800 books in raids at different places in Khammam district since yesterday.

Another police official said, "Krantikar was arrested last night and two others-Innaiah and Subbarao-distributors of the book were arrested today and all of them were sent to judicial remand.

 

From Dutch News

A Christian cannot vote for Geert Wilders' anti-immigration party PVV, say 75% of church leaders in a poll of 1,200 ministers and church workers in the Nederlands Dagblad.

The ministers represent a cross-section of all the Netherlands' Protestant churches, representing 2.3 million people, the paper says.

One third of the people polled said there were people who supported Wilders in their communities and 5% said Wilders had a lot of support...

However, those in the comments section completely disagree. A sample:

Jesus was quite clear that we owe a duty to the state, which has to be separate from our duty and obedience to God. Therefore, not defending a state such as the Netherlands, which is essentially based on Christian principles, and letting it become an Islamic sharia hell-hole, would not just be against Christianity, but would put in mortal danger, women, ethnic minorities of faiths other the Islam, as well as homosexuals. In essence, these Christian pastors are sacrificing the above vulnerable people on the altar of the sanctimony – they don’t care if homosexuals or adulterers stoned to death.

It is clear that these vicars are taking a very narrow view of Christianity. Christianity is a very complex faith, sub-divided on many levels, and cannot be simplistically interpreted, such as sharia can. To take an example,"Thou shall not murder", would mean that no Christian faith would be able to defend itself against aggression - an example of a childish and simplistic understanding of the Bible.
 

By DaveP

 

No wonder the churches are empty. These church 'leaders' are completely out of touch.

By LDN

The perennial debate on the size of government continues:

Washington (CNN) – A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken - though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what's broken can be fixed.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted February 12-15, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the overall survey.

This song always makes me smile. The lyrics are by Johnny Mercer.

Reuters:

AMSTERDAM, Feb 23  - A Dutch Labour politician's call to keep far-right leader [must we always preface Wilders' name with the description "far right"? - RB] Geert Wilders out of a new government has stirred anger among other parties who consider the move undemocratic and likely to drive voters towards him.

Wilders and his Freedom Party have been a focus of debate since the Dutch cabinet collapsed on Saturday, as the election which could be held as early as May will be a key opportunity for the anti-immigration group to increase its influence after a stunning success at European elections last year. [ID:nLDE61J08D] 

Frans Timmermans, a member of the Labour party and minister for European affairs, said on Monday that Labour would refuse to govern in coalition with Wilders' party, and he called on other parties to consider a similar approach.

"The Labour party stands for a completely different Holland than the party of Wilders, and for that reason we cannot be in a government with him," a spokeswoman for the Labour party said. 

"He (Timmermans) dared other parties to think the same thing. Do they want to be in a government that segregates people by race and religion?"

Wilders has described the call as an "arrogant" attempt to ringfence his Freedom Party (PVV) and said it was an insult to the democratic system, telling Dutch media "the voter will seek punishment for this".

Members of other parties have also described the move as undemocratic and warned that it could push voters into the arms of Wilders, considered a maverick among the political elite.

While the socialist SP said it would not consider working in coalition with Wilders' party due to their policy differences, it criticised Timmermans nonetheless.

"This is unbelievably stupid. What Timmermans is saying is undemocratic, the voter can surely make up their own mind," said SP leader Agnes Kant in the Dutch daily Trouw. "Wilders can now say there is a barrier being built around him." 

Members of other parties also dismissed the calls, with the head of the Liberal VVD party Mark Rutte telling Dutch radio he was not ruling anyone out as a potential coalition partner and Christian Democrat party chairman Pieter van Geel describing the comments as foolish.

POISED FOR GAINS

Wilders' party comes first or second in most polls for the next election, and could win up to 24 seats in the 150-seat Dutch Parliament after becoming the second biggest Dutch party in the EU Parliament last year.

So far the CDA and VVD have left the door open to be in a coalition with Wilders. But in recent polls, just 27 percent of respondents said their reaction to a combination of the three in a cabinet would be 'positive' or 'very positive'.

Wilders, who believes that Islam is a violent religion and what he calls the Islamisation of Europe must stop, has consistently challenged the established order with his ferocious debating style, often accusing the government of cowardice.

He set up his own party after he was forced out of the VVD, and has lived under guard since 2004, when a Dutch-Moroccan killed filmmaker and Islam critic Theo van Gogh.

He has rallied support amongst many Dutch people who are uncomfortable with the rapid changes in their country, and has filled the void left by populist Pim Fortuyn who had called for an end to immigration before he was gunned down in 2002.

At our symposium last year, Jerry Gordon headed a panel that discussed the immigration problems specifically related to Somalis in America. Jerry's article on al-Shabaab and Somalis in America is here and Thomas Allen's article which specifically discussed Somalis entering the US illegally through Mexico is here. This comes from the Washington Examiner (with thanks to Mark Krikorian):

Authorities are searching for 270 Somalis believed to have entered the U.S. illegally with the help of a Virginia man who admitted contacts with an Islamic terrorist group.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent said his agency had yet to locate any of the suspected illegal immigrants.

According to an affidavit filed in Alexandria's federal court, Anthony Joseph Tracy told authorities that he came in contact with the Somali terrorist organization Al-Shabaab, which announced an alliance with al Qaeda earlier this year.

ICE Agent Thomas Eyre testified during a hearing that authorities are "concerned" about the 35-year-old's dealings with the group.

In an e-mail, Tracy reportedly wrote, "i helped alot of somalis and most are good but there are some who are bad and i leave them to ALLAH," the affidavit said.

He has been held without bail. Tracy's attorney, Geremy Kamens, declined to comment for this story.

Eyre testified that authorities had not yet tracked down any of the Somalis whom Tracy allegedly helped travel to the U.S. The affidavit says Tracy's e-mails, combined with information on Facebook, show that the Somalis have spread across the country and are living in New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Minnesota and Arizona.

Eyre indicated authorities are trying to find the Somalis and determine whether they're associated with Al-Shabaab. An ICE spokeswoman said she could not comment on an ongoing investigation. The Somalis are believed to have entered the United States through the border with Mexico after making a circuitous trip from Kenya to Dubai to Moscow to Cuba to South America to Mexico and then the U.S., Eyre testified.

Vanessa Parra, a spokeswoman for Refugees International, estimated the trip could cost as much as $30,000. "It would be difficult for most Somalis to get that kind of money," she said.

Tracy, who moved to Kenya in April from Winchester, is accused of helping the Somalis move to the United States by getting them travel visas to Cuba through contacts he had at the Cuban Embassy, court documents said. The visas were issued using fraudulent information Tracy allegedly provided his contacts. Authorities say Tracy knew that the U.S. was the Somalis' intended final destination.

Josh Gerstein at Politico follows up on his earlier report:

The Obama administration is expressing its confidence in Rashad Hussain, an attorney with the White House counsel’s office whom President Barack Obama recently named U.S. envoy to the Islamic Conference, despite Hussain's acknowledgement last week that he made ill-considered statements in 2004 about Bush-era terrorism prosecutions.

“Were you misled? Do you maintain confidence in this man the president wants to be his delegate to the Islamic Conference?” Fox News’s Wendell Goler asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs at the daily briefing Monday afternoon.

“We continue to have confidence,” Gibbs said. “This is an individual that has written extensively on why some have used religious devices like the Qur'an to justify this [terrorism] and why that is absolutely wrong. And has garnered support from both the left and the right so we obviously have confidence.”

The holy Qur'an is just a religious device to mislead the believers in...the holy Qur'an? Am I missing something here? What is a religious device anyway? It sounds vaguely smutty.

Hussain initially said he had no recollection of comments he was reported to have made in 2004 portraying the Bush administration’s treatment of Palestinian academic and alleged terrorism supporter Sami Al-Arian and the handling other terrorism cases as “politically-motivated persecutions.”

However, after POLITICO obtained an audio recording of the event, Hussain acknowledged that he made the comments and that he had earlier approached a magazine about removing them, which it did.

“I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well-formulated,” Hussain said.

Gibbs also repeated another part of Hussain’s statement where he said he had “full faith in the outcome of” Al-Arian’s criminal case, which resulted in him being sentenced to 57 months in prison after pleading guilty to a single felony count of aiding Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A trial in the case resulted in acquittals on some charges and the jury deadlocked, though largely favor in acquittal, on other counts.

Al-Arian is presently in home detention as he awaits trial on a separate indictment for contempt of court stemming from his refusal to testify before a grand jury investigating Islamic groups in Virginia.

From AP (with thanks to del):

ANKARA, Turkey – Turkish police detained about 50 military commanders Monday for allegedly planning to blow up mosques in order to trigger a military takeover and overthrow the Islamic-rooted government.

The nationwide sweep highlighted the ongoing struggle between the secular establishment and the Islamic-oriented government — and left many wondering if the military no longer called the shots in a nation accustomed to viewing it as the pillar of the secular state.

The detention of 49 senior military officers, according to CNN-Turk television — including members of the elite class known as "Pashas," a title of respect harking back to Ottoman times — proved, at the very least, that such officials are no longer untouchable.

Turkey's secular military has ousted four governments since 1960, demonstrating its influence and place of power since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk created the republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.

Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc on Monday expressed regret over the 1961 hanging by coup leaders of a prime minister and two of his ministers. But he said that those days are over and that Turkey now was going through a normalization process.

"We could not even dream about things that we see happening now," Arinc told CNN-Turk television Monday. "Things will get better when those who were never accountable for their deeds begin to account for them."

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declined to comment Monday on the raids, saying they had been carried out on prosecutors' orders.

"It would not be appropriate for me to talk about an issue that is already handled by the judiciary," Erdogan said during a visit to Madrid...

MIAMI (AP) - In her 88 years, Florence Siegel has learned how to relax: A glass of red wine. A crisp copy of The New York Times, if she can wrest it from her husband. Some classical music, preferably Bach. And every night like clockwork, she lifts a pipe to her lips and smokes marijuana.

(...)

"For the longest time, our political opponents were older Americans who were not familiar with marijuana and had lived through the 'Reefer Madness' mentality and they considered marijuana a very dangerous drug," said Keith Stroup, the founder and lawyer of NORML, a marijuana advocacy group.

"Now, whether they resume the habit of smoking or whether they simply understand that it's no big deal and that it shouldn't be a crime, in large numbers they're on our side of the issue."

Each night, 66-year-old Stroup says he sits down to the evening news, pours himself a glass of wine and rolls a joint. He's used the drug since he was a freshman at Georgetown, but many older adults are revisiting marijuana after years away.

"The kids are grown, they're out of school, you've got time on your hands and frankly it's a time when you can really enjoy marijuana," Stroup said. "Food tastes better, music sounds better, sex is more enjoyable."

The drug is credited with relieving many problems of aging: aches and pains, glaucoma, macular degeneration, and so on. Patients in 14 states enjoy medical marijuana laws, but those elsewhere buy or grow the drug illegally to ease their conditions...

It's just a matter of time.

Andy McCarthy kindly cross-posted his National Review work with us when we were just getting started and he was still free lance. We reviewed his book, Willful Blindness here. Benjamin Weiser writes:

He was the lead prosecutor 15 years ago in one of the country’s biggest terrorism trials: a group of men led by a blind Egyptian sheik had plotted to blow up the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and other city landmarks.

“Are you ready to surrender the rule of law to the men in this courtroom?” the prosecutor, Andrew C. McCarthy, told the jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan in a closing argument. Ultimately, the 10 defendants were convicted.

But last Dec. 5, Mr. McCarthy, who is no longer in government, joined a group of speakers outside the same courthouse rallying against the Obama administration’s decision to bring Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to Manhattan for a civilian trial.

“A war is a war,” Mr. McCarthy declared. “A war is not a crime, and you don’t bring your enemies to a courthouse.”

In the debate over how and where to prosecute Mr. Mohammed and other Sept. 11 cases, few critics of the Obama administration have been more fervent in their opposition than Mr. McCarthy, a 50-year-old lawyer from the Bronx who had built a reputation as one of the country’s formidable terrorism prosecutors.

Now he has a different reputation: harsh critic of the system in which he had his greatest legal triumph.

Mr. McCarthy has relentlessly attacked the administration for supporting civilian justice for terrorism suspects. He has criticized the military commissions system and called for creation of a national security court. After the arrest of the suspect in the Christmas bomb plot, he wrote, “Will Americans finally grasp how insane it is to regard counterterrorism as a law-enforcement project rather than a matter of national security?”

To his detractors, he is just another partisan commentator whose views can be easily dismissed. “When I read his stuff, I say, ‘Is he running for office, or does he want a show on Fox?’ ” said Joshua L. Dratel, a defense lawyer who has represented many terrorism defendants. “I can’t figure it out.”

But his supporters argue that his background distinguishes him from pundits on the left and the right. “It certainly adds credibility to what he has to say,” said Michael B. Mukasey, attorney general under President George W. Bush and also the presiding judge in the 1995 trial of the sheik.

Debra Burlingame, an organizer of the December rally, whose brother, Charles F. Burlingame III, was the pilot of the hijacked plane that was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, said: “He’s done a lot of heavy lifting on our behalf. This fight gets very tiring, and Andy is one of those people that truly inspires and keeps me going.”

(...)

Through a spokesman, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. declined to comment about Mr. McCarthy. When asked about him during an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee in November, Mr. Holder replied that he was there “to talk about facts and evidence, real American values, and not the kinds of polemics that he seems prone to.”

“I’m not worried about Mr. McCarthy,” Mr. Holder said.

You should be, Mr. Holder, you should be.

It will be interesting to see how early elections might effect Geert Wilders' trial. The blunt spoken MP will be running to take Balkenende's place and Wilders' Freedom Party is the most popular according to opinion polls. This is from AP with thanks to del:

AMSTERDAM – The Dutch coalition government collapsed Saturday over whether to extend the country's military mission in Afghanistan, leaving uncertain the future of its 1,600 soldiers fighting there.

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende announced that the second largest party in his three-party alliance is quitting, in a breakdown of trust in what had always been an uneasy partnership.

Balkenende made no mention of elections as he spoke to reporters after a 16-hour Cabinet meeting in The Hague that ended close to dawn. However, the resignation of the Labor Party — which has demanded the country stick to a scheduled withdrawal from southern Afghanistan — would leave his government in the minority, and political analysts said early elections appeared inevitable.

Balkenende said his center-right Christian Democratic Alliance would continue in office together with the small Christian Union, and would "make available" Labor's cabinet seats. But he did not spell out his intentions.

The coalition, elected to a four-year term, marks its third year in office on Monday.

"Where there is no trust, it is difficult to work together. There is no road along which this cabinet can go further," Balkenende said...

Josh Gerstein writes at Politico

President Barack Obama’s new Islamic envoy, Rashad Hussain, changed course Friday – admitting he made sharply critical statements about a U.S. terror prosecution against a Muslim professor after initially saying he had no recollection of making such comments.

“I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well-formulated,” Hussain said, referring to a 2004 conference where he discussed the case.

Hussain’s reversal came after POLITICO obtained a recording of his presentation to a Muslim students’ conference in Chicago, where he can be heard portraying the government’s cases towards professor Sami Al-Arian, as well as other Muslim terrorism suspects, as “politically motivated persecutions.” Al-Arian later pled guilty to aiding terrorists.

The comments touched off criticism from conservative commentators, who questioned whether someone who held those views should represent the United States in the Muslim world.

Initially, Hussain, 31, said through a White House spokesman that he didn’t recall making the statements. Hussain also suggested that another speaker on the panel, Al-Arian’s daughter Laila, made the comments about her father.

But after POLITICO provided the quotes and others from the recording to the White House Friday, Hussain said in a statement: “As a law student six years ago, I spoke on the topic of civil liberties on a panel during which I responded to comments made about the al-Arian case by Laila al-Arian who was visibly saddened by charges against her father. I made clear at the time that I was not commenting on the allegations themselves. The judicial process has now concluded, and I have full faith in its outcome.”

The White House declined to say Friday whether the statements or the controversy affected Obama’s confidence in Hussain.

Hussain also answered another question surrounding his comments – why they were removed from the website of a magazine on Middle East issues that published a brief account of the panel back in 2004, attributing the statement about “politically motivated persecutions” to Hussain.

It was Hussain himself, he said Friday, who contacted the publication to complain about the story.

“When I saw the article that attributed comments to me without context, leaving a misimpression, I contacted the publication to raise concerns about it. Eventually, of their own accord, they modified the article,” Hussain said of the article in the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs.

During the panel discussion on civil rights at a Muslim Students Association conference in Chicago, Hussain asserted that Al-Arian’s prosecution involved significant abuses.

“The case that Laila just reminded us of is truly a sad commentary on our legal system. It is a travesty of justice, not just from the perspective of the allegations that are made against Dr. Al-Arian. Without passing any comment on those specific allegations or the statements [that] have been made against him, the process that has been used has been atrocious,” Hussain said, according to the recording.

In his presentation, Hussain, then a student at Yale Law School, was careful to insist that he was not offering a view on Al-Arian’s innocence or guilt on charges that he served as a top leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the U.S. But Hussain said the treatment of Al-Arian fit a “common pattern….of politically-motivated prosecutions where you have huge Justice Department press conferences announcing that a certain person is a grave threat to American security.”

In the recording, Hussain’s indictment of the government’s legal practices toward Muslims goes further than Al-Arian’s case, leveling a detailed critique of more than a half-dozen prominent anti-terrorism cases and several key provisions of the Patriot Act. 

Hussain refers to some provisions of the Patriot Act as “horrible” and called “dangerous” an aspect of that law that allows intelligence-related surveillance to be used in criminal cases. Most lawmakers, including many Democrats critical of the Patriot Act, have said the provision has proven valuable, because it removed a wall that made it difficult for those pursuing investigations of international terror or spying operations to share information with criminal investigators. Hussain did express support for other aspects of the law, including a provision permitting so-called roving wiretaps.

An Indian-American Muslim raised in Texas, Hussain is a deputy associate White House counsel who was also closely involved in shaping the major address the president delivered in Cairo last June, explaining Obama’s views to the Muslim world. In announcing Hussain’s appointment last week as the U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the president called Hussain “an accomplished lawyer and a close and trusted member of my White House staff.” Hussain traveled to Saudi Arabia and Qatar earlier this week with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Hussain’s allies have defended him against claims he is soft on terror by pointing to a think tank study he co-wrote arguing that U.S. policy should emphasize that terrorism is antithetical to the teachings of Islam.

At the time Hussain spoke in 2004, the government's treatment of Sami Al-Arian was a cause celebre among Arab-American and Muslim activists, as well as many civil libertarians generally. Al-Arian was accused of raising funds for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but his trial in 2005 ended with some acquittals and a hung jury on other counts. The former University of South Florida computer science professor later pleaded guilty to one count of aiding a terrorist group and was sentenced to 57 months in prison.

Adding to the controversy about Hussain’s comments on “political motivated persecutions” is that they were deleted from a report on the conference that first appeared in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a magazine on the region with articles from the Arab and Muslim perspectives.

In the current version of the story on the Washington Report’s website, there is no reference to Hussain’s comments, or even that he appeared at the 2004 conference. But earlier, cached versions of the same story do include the comments – initially adding to the mystery of why they were taken out and at whose request. The discrepancy was first noted in a story last Sunday in the Web-based Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.

A Washington Report editor initially said the author of its article requested the change because Laila Al-Arian’s comments had been misattributed to Hussain. However, in an email to POLITICO, the author, Shereen Kandil, stood by her reporting and denied she ever made such a request.

In addition, both Laila Al-Arian and Kandil, who now works in the Obama administration at the Environmental Protection Agency, said they were never consulted before the passages referring to Hussain were deleted. The deletion took place sometime between October 2007 and this year, according to the Internet Archive, although the version available in Nexis was never modified.

The changes made some three years or more after his speech have led to speculation that Hussain was sanitizing his record to smooth his path to a White House legal post. However, the strident criticism he offered of the Justice Department’s handling of various alleged terrorism cases raises the possibility that his remarks could have posed a problem when he was applying for work at Justice in 2008. He joined the agency in the last year of the Bush administration as a trial attorney handling civil cases against the government, a Justice spokeswoman said.

While the audio shows that Hussain did utter the phrase “politically motivated persecutions” in the midst of his discussion about Sami Al-Arian, another comment Kandil attributed to Hussain, describing Al-Arian as being “used politically to squash dissent,” is not audible in the recording POLITICO obtained, which cuts off before any question-and-answer period.

Hussain’s remarks about Al-Arian appear to have been extemporaneous, but he seemed to have prepared in advance his denunciation of the Bush administration’s handling of other terrorism-related detentions and prosecutions.

Hussain cited:

--The court martial of Capt. James Yee, a Guantanamo chaplain initially suspected of treason and later charged with adultery. All charges were eventually dropped.

--The case of Jose Padilla, who was held without charge for more than three years as an enemy combatant on suspicions of trying to detonate a radiation-laced “dirty bomb” in the U.S. In 2006, more than a year after Hussain spoke, Padilla was charged in a terrorist plot unrelated to the dirty bomb allegations. He was convicted by a jury in 2007 and sentenced to 17 years in prison.

--The imprisonment of Yaser Hamdi, who was captured in Afghanistan, held as an enemy combatant and released to Saudi Arabia weeks after Hussain spoke.

--The prosecution of an imam and a pizzeria owner in Albany, N.Y., for conspiring with an informant in a fictitious plot to use a missile launcher to attack a Pakistani diplomat. The men were convicted in 2006 and sentenced to 15 years in prison, thought their lawyers claimed the pair were entrapped.

--The prosecution of a Somali man, Nuradin Abdi, in 2004 for plotting to blow up a shopping mall in Columbus, Ohio. He pled guilty in 2007 to conspiring to support terrorism and was sentenced to ten years in prison.

--The imprisonment of an Oregon lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, who was jailed for more than two weeks in 2004 as a material witness on suspicion of involvement in the Madrid train bombings that year. He was never charged with a crime, received an apology from the FBI which said it misidentified his fingerprints, and brought a lawsuit which led to a reported $2 million settlement from the government in 2006.

--The prosecution of four men as alleged members of a Detroit-based Al-Qaeda “sleeper cell” plotting an attack. Two of the men were convicted on terror charges in 2003, but the convictions were thrown out at the government’s request after evidence emerged of prosecutorial misconduct and an unreliable informant. The prosecutor was charged criminally with concealing exculpatory evidence, but later acquitted.

Hussain went on to tell the audience at the event, held roughly two months before the 2004 election, that electing Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) as president could stem the tide of such cases.

“The Attorney General and the President have the complete discretion to bring these cases. If they decide that these cases shouldn’t be brought, these cases will not be brought,” Hussain said.

“When people ask me what is the difference between George Bush and John Kerry, John Kerry may not be the most popular candidate amongst Muslims but there’s a fairly strong possibility that the politically motivated prosecutions that are brought forth by the Justice Department” would cease, Hussain said.

While some evidence of Al-Arian's connections to Palestinian Islamic Jihad has been public since 1995, the strongest proof of Al-Arian's ties to PIJ emerged from surveillance that first became public during the trial that took place in 2005, after Hussain spoke.

At the end of that six-month trial, Al-Arian’s backers celebrated after jurors acquitted him on eight counts and could not reach a unanimous verdict on nine others. As the government geared up for a possible retrial, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to a single count of providing support to a terrorist group. The judge in the case branded Al-Arian as a "liar" and a "master manipulator" who had tricked many in his Florida community.

Al-Arian later undertook a hunger strike over demands that he testify before a grand jury in Virginia. He was eventually indicted again in a federal court there for his refusal to testify. He is now in home detention awaiting trial on contempt-of-court charges.

In his speech, Hussain revealed another link that may have left him sympathetic for Al-Arian. Hussain indicated he was acquainted with Al-Arian’s son Abdullah, while both were college students in North Carolina.

Hussain told the audience that he was on hand when Abdullah Al-Arian was abruptly removed by the Secret Service from a White House meeting in June 2001, prompting a walkout by Muslim leaders. President George W. Bush later apologized for the incident, which a spokesman called “wrong and inappropriate.”    

Paul writes at Powerline:

Byron York reports that nine Obama Justice Department appointees represented or advocated for terrorist detainees before joining the Justice Department. The admission comes in answer to a question posed last November by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley.

Holder did not disclose the names of the nine. Two are already known: Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal represented Osama bin Laden's driver and Jennifer Daskal previously advocated for detainees at Human Rights Watch. According to Holder, all nine are eligible to work on general detainee matters, even if there are specific parts of some cases they cannot be involved in.

No one familiar with the legal community will be surprised by Holder's disclosure. Among many liberal lawyers, representing terrorist detainees has come to be viewed as a badge of honor. (When a lawyer in the Bush Justice Department demurred, he was widely condemned.) For some liberal lawyers who represent corporations, providing free legal services to terrorist detainees is proof that they became lawyers to help the "oppressed" after all; not just to help corporations squirm out of difficulty.

In my view, it isn't dishonorable, under most circumstances, for non-military lawyers to assist in representing terrorist detainees before a military tribunal. But the urge to do so is evidence of a mindset that, if transported to the Justice Department, would tend to produce bad policy and legal decisions with respect to dealing with terrorism and terrorists.

Like going after CIA agents whose interrogations of terrorists helped protect the country against attack; trying the 9/11 mastermind in New York City; and reading the Miranda warning to a freshly captured terrorist.

Vijay Kumar, who was profiled at NER in 2008, is a Republican running for Congress in Tennessee’s 5^th Congressional District. He was the first candidate in America to run on an anti-Sharia platform, and is a die-hard Constitutionalist advocating small government, fiscal responsibility, and an end to the income tax.