North Carolina Muslims surveilled USMC base for jihad plot

Terrorism trial centers on social media

September 21, 2011 8:40 PM

Sue Book

Facebook reeled in more than 750 million users in seven short years and now some alleged terrorist conspirators have made a federal case out of it in New Bern.
It’s not the first time legal concerns about the social media site have surfaced. But even as the clerk passed out copies of Maryland and South Carolina cases where its user pages were at issue, U.S. Eastern District Federal Court Judge Louise Flanagan told prosecuting and defense attorneys: “You are making law in this case. The Facebook issue is huge.
“I am very cautious because of the significance of this,” Flanagan said, after handing back a five-inch thick folder of Facebook printed pages to Assistant U.S. Attorney John Bowler.
Flanagan’s comments came near the close of court Wednesday in the high-profile terrorism trial of three Wake County men accused of conspiracy in the case.
She said the advertisements printed on the pages could adversely influence a juror, cause them “to make judgment calls” about the defendants as users. She expressed concern about her ruling because of the evolving nature of the social media site as it defines a user’s interests or assigns potential “friends” because of them.   
Often users are paired with products or people because of interests gathered by website visits from cookies collected by search engines and sites they visit. Sometimes these are exchanged or funneled to advertisers.
The government had attempted to enter the Facebook exchanges as part of more than 35,000 pages of evidence in the government’s case against Hysen Sherifi, Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan and Ziyad Yaghi, who were charged in a Sept. 24, 2009 federal indictment.
The three men, part of a group known as the “Tar Heel terrorists” or “homegrown terrorists,” all face charges of conspiracy to provide material support for terrorists and conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure.
Sherifi, 27, a Kosovo native who came as a refugee at age 15 during the war there and is now a permanent U.S. resident, is also charged with illegal possession of firearms and conspiracy to kill officials of the federal government.
The Facebook exchanges surfaced as part of the testimony of the government’s first witness, FBI Agent Paul Minella. Much of the evidence in the trial hinges on whether information from Facebook pages can be introduced as evidence.
Defense attorneys, particular Hassan’s attorney Dan Boyce of Raleigh, objected to the evidence as hearsay, setting in motion the court inquiry.
After excusing the jury for lunch, Flanagan heard from government attorneys about several cases they say substantiate their claim to the legitimacy of the Facebook exchanges but she still had questions and Boyce continued his objections with conflicting case law.
Flanagan said she agreed with government attorneys’ general interpretation that verifying the source of postings is similar to verifying wiretaps “but it’s somewhat different, too.”
Boyce said he objected less to using the postings he could verify with witnesses he could cross examine but continued his objection to using the Facebook postings from those for whom he will not have that opportunity.
“I’m sensitive to that aspect of the argument,” Flanagan. “I’m somewhat in agreement with what (government) counsel has said. Let’s look at the law.”
 “Pull some cases,” Flanagan said. “I want to see those cases. This may go to things like Twitter. I would benefit greatly from that.”
Wednesday morning’s testimony from Minella and cross examination by Sherifi’s New Bern defense attorney, Robert J. McAfee, showed some connection between Sherifi and Daniel Patrick “Safullah” Boyd, the man described as the “hub” of a terrorism conspiracy that led to the Middle East and Kosovo.
Boyd and his two sons charged in the indictment have pleaded guilty and await sentencing; the father faces up to life and 15 years in prison. He is expected to testify in the trial over talk and interaction between 2006 and 2009 that conspired and gave material support toward exercising a “violent jihad.”
But the FBI witness outlined undercover operations that McAfee contends lured his client into places and situations, using a former bank robber paid more than $111,000 plus a car and expenses valued at over $55,000. The money paid for the bugged apartment where Sherifi lived with the man, and the tapped telephone and hacked computer he used there.
McAfee substantiated that the informant known by codename “Jawbreaker” was also given “special benefits” after he overstayed his visa and was in the U.S. illegally.
In the beginning of Boyce’s cross examination of Minella, he substantiated that his client Hassan was not in any of the photos, wiretaps and other surveillance documents except for a summer 2007 trip to the Middle East.
Addressing Minella’s verification of Hassan’s purchase of a rifle at Dick’s Sporting Goods in March 2007, Boyce said the purchase was entirely a legal and constitutional act and that the information he provided checked out as truthful.
Afternoon testimony from the government’s second witness, Abdullah Eddarkoui, who was escorted in an out by agents, required a course for jurors in using the court’s listening technology for segments of many conversations between Eddarkoui and Boyd. Eddarkoui is Moroccan and speaks Arabic and French. He was difficult to understand and, although he spoke in open court, the public and press often could not hear him.
His testimony often came over the objections of defense attorneys but was mostly permitted by Flanagan to allow the government to begin showing how elements evolved in the conspiracy of a “violent jihad” with fellow mujahideen or “fighters for God.”
There are hundreds of hours of audio tape collected over several years.
The trial of another of the eight charged in the indictment, defendant Anes Subasic, who is defending himself, is ongoing in federal court in Greenville. The eighth defendant, Jude Kenan Mohammad, has not been apprehended.
Sue Book can be reached at 252-635-5665 or sbook@freedomenc.com.

North Carolina Muslims surveilled USMC base for jihad plot

Posted on September 23, 2011 by creeping

That, according to a Muslim informant. via NC trial focuses on plot to kill service personnel – Houston Chronicle.

NEW BERN, N.C. (AP) — Federal prosecutors played tapes on Wednesday of a North Carolina man describing his plans to organize a terrorist attack on the U.S. Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va.

The tape of Daniel Patrick Boyd, who pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges in February, was played during the trial of three men accused of plotting terrorist attacks with him.

Boyd could be heard on the recording bragging about how easy it would be for him and a team to gain access to the Marine base and kidnap or kill service members and their families.

“My father was an officer,” Boyd, who converted to Islam as a teenager, says on the tapes. “What will they say, their hero’s son cutting their head off?”

What Boyd didn’t know was that the man he was speaking to, Abdullah Eddarkoui, was a paid informant for the FBI who was wearing a wire.

The secret recording Eddarkoui made of the conversation outside Boyd’s house near Raleigh was so clear frogs could be heard croaking in the background.

Eddarkoui was a key witness Wednesday as prosecutors began building their case against three men alleged to have plotted with Boyd and his sons to attack the Marine base and targets overseas.

Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, Ziyad Yaghi and Hysen Sherifi have pleaded not guilty. A fourth defendant, Anes Subasic, has declined to have an attorney represent him and will be tried following the conclusion of the trial for the others.

FBI Agent Paul Minella, who recruited Eddarkoui to work for the government, testified that a multiyear surveillance effort used subpoenas and paid informants to collect a trove of evidence about the group, including bank records, emails, Facebook posts and audio tapes.

Boyd pleaded guilty in February to charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder, kidnap and injure persons in a foreign country. Now the man who liked to call himself “Safallah,” the Arabic word for “Sword of God,” is expected to testify for the prosecution.

Two of Boyd’s sons, Dylan and Zakariya Boyd, have also pleaded guilty.

Eddarkoui, a Moroccan living in the United States illegally, was working in a Durham beauty supply store in 2005 when Minella recruited him to infiltrate a Raleigh mosque and befriend Boyd, according to testimony. His FBI code name was “Jawbreaker.”

In one of the tapes made by the informant, Boyd describes a reconnaissance visit to Quantico and being surprised at how easily he could drive along streets where Marine officers lived. The fact the Virginia base is built around a town, he said, made it a better target than a more secure facility, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

“The generals’ wives, they’re jogging,” he said of Quantico. “Their children are playing.”

Boyd said it would be easy to enter the home of a general and hold him hostage.

“I’ll kick in his door and take him from his bed,” he said.

One of the defendants on trial Wednesday, Hysen Sherifi, was present for some of the taped conversations. Boyd assured the informant Sherifi would participate in an attack.

“Hysen … he will do it,” Boyd told Eddarkoui. “He won’t question anything.”

Attorneys for Hassan, Yaghi and Sherfi said in their opening arguments that the men are innocent and knew nothing of Boyd’s plans. They also worked to undermine Eddarkoui’s credibility, pointing out that he got a green card making him a legal United States resident after working with the FBI.

He was also paid nearly $111,000 by the FBI over five years and given another $55,000 for expenses that included buying a car and paying rent for a Raleigh apartment wired with secret microphones.

In a taped conversation, Boyd expressed admiration for terrorist leaders that included Osama bin Laden and said the orders he heard from jihadist leaders with recordings on the Internet were clear: “Hit everything you can that hurt America and the Jew.”

After prosecutors say he was foiled in a 2007 plot to commit terrorist attacks in Israel, Boyd turned his attention to the possibility of committing a terrorist attack at home. As an example, he gave the 1994 bombing of the World Trade Center carried out by a group of men from New Jersey.

Though Boyd feared he was under surveillance, he told Eddarkoui that the United States was still a good place to plot and execute a terrorist attack.

“Before you had to be smart,” Boyd told the government informant wearing a concealed microphone. “Now you have to be really smart.”

More via FBI informant says Triangle terrorist cell leader intent on jihad :: WRAL.com.

In audio recordings of conversations between Boyd and Jawbreaker that were played in court, Boyd talked about his intentions to attack Quantico. He spoke of how easy it would be to get on the base because it’s also a city.

“I did some preliminary reconnaissance, and what I saw was amazing. I saw the residences of all their commanding officers,” Boyd said in one recording, adding that Sherifi was in on the plan.

Jawbreaker said Boyd was intensely loyal to Afghanistan, where he traveled in 1989 to join the fight against Soviet occupation. Boyd always wanted to fight non-Muslims, the informant said.

“Every single day, it was about jihad and fighting,” Jawbreaker testified.

An FBI search of Boyd’s Willow Spring home in 2009 turned up about two dozen guns and more than 27,000 rounds of ammunition.

…

A seventh defendant, Anes Subasic, is representing himself and will be tried after the case against Hassan, Yaghi and Sherifi is finished. Their trial is expected to last five weeks.

Authorities believe another man charged in the case, Jude Kenan Mohammad, 22, is in Pakistan. A ninth member of the group, Bajram Asllani, 30, was arrested in Kosovo last year, but the U.S. doesn’t have an extradition treaty with that country.

Jude Kenan Mohammad was the name used to stir up fear, and trample liberties, this past 9/11.

How to Campaign Against a Mosque Planning Application

1. Start Your Action Group
You will need a core group within the campaign. You can’t do this all on your own!
The more you publicise the campaign, the more support you will get, and people will respond better if they can see that you are organised.
Councils also take notice of the fact that there’s an action group that people have formed on this issue. All you need to do is create a header in Word, e.g. “Action for XYZ Location”. Then assign jobs to people – doorstepping, press, organising letter-writing.
A petition can get the attention of the media, but Local Authorities often ignore them. But a very large number of signatures will get attention.
2. Hold public meetings, and invite the press
These are necessary for raising motivation and letting people know they’re not alone, and generating face-to-face loyalty.
When fixing meetings, don’t expect any help from Local Authorities. They fear the support you can generate, but won’t help. And be careful of the press, who know they can generate publicity by painting you in a bad light. Prepare statements in advance: compassion for Muslims as the first victims of Islam, but opposition to Islam and Islamic doctrine which is supremacist in nature.
3. Get writing letters to the Local Authority (letters have more weight than petitions)
This is the hard part, getting people to write letters to the Council. And then getting them to write to the Council again if the planning application is re-submitted.
You can’t write the letters for people, but you can give them grounds which they might like to include in their letters.
You have to give them contact details for the officer to write to at the Council. It takes a lot of effort to get people to write, but it’s worth it because Councils take notice of letters.
4. Legal and policy argument
It is useful to have a legal analysis of planning policy for the site, to give technical support as to why the site would be more suited to something else. This will often include traffic and congestion.
However, I think the main argument should be on principle – that there are enough mosques in the area and the country, and that Islamic doctrine is discriminatory and hate filled and, therefore, contrary to law. And that the Local Authority or Planning Inspectorate doesn’t have the power to grant planning permission for an unlawful use such as this.
It’s important to keep the campaigning side on the front foot, and the same is true of the legal side. You have nothing to apologise for, and nothing to be defensive about.
You have every right and duty to defend that tradition of law and freedom at home.

Boy Scouts of America Infiltrated by Muslim Brotherhood. Trustworthy, Loyal, and Helpful — Or Destruction of Western Way of Life?

 Articles about Islam and Islamization > Boy Scouts of America Infiltrated by Muslim Brotherhood. Trustworthy, Loyal, and Helpful — Or Destruction of Western Way of Life?

Boy Scouts of America Infiltrated by Muslim Brotherhood. Trustworthy, Loyal, and Helpful — Or Destruction of Western Way of Life?









Although we should have learned by now that nothing is sacred and nothing is safe from those whose mission it is to destroy America, it’s still shocking to learn that jihadist terrorist organizations have infiltrated the Boy Scouts of America.
This is the kind of irony that can turn your stomach.
Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910, during the height of the progressive era in the United States due to concerns among some that young men were no longer learning patriotism and individualism. BSA epitomized the Christian values of America’s founding fathers for decades. Today, however, Boy Scouts of America is riddled with terrorist organizations who are recruiting and training youth — by the thousands — for their own causes.
The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic organization responsible for the creation of Hamas, has infiltrated the BSA, not only through mosques and worship centers that establish and sponsor scouting programs, but also through direct partnership with BSA.
Boy Scouts of America welcomes diverse religions and has incorporated them into its program giving scouts an opportunity to earn badges or emblems by participating in religious activities. The Islamic scouting emblems include an Allahu Akbar emblem.
Allahu Akbar (‘Allah is greater’) are the very same words shouted by many Islamic terrorists and suicide bombers in the moments just before they kill (in the name of Allah).
Almost 30 years ago, Boy Scouts of America entered into a partnership with the Islamic Council on Scouting of North America, an organization in New York that expressed a desire to promote scouting in local Muslim communities. That partnership opened the door to a dangerous and radical form of Islam, welcoming the ICSNA in to recruit and train new generations of jihadists right under our noses.
ICSNA was chaired by Dr. Muzamil Siddiqui, an Islamic scholar who served as Chairman of the Religious Affairs Committee of a Muslim Brotherhood founded organization, Muslim Students Association (MSA).
Once accepted into BSA, the ICSNA immediately began the formation of a National Islamic Committee of the Boy Scouts of America to spread Islamic scouting across the nation. An ad hoc committee was formed under the Chairmanship of Ambassador Youssouf Sylla, representative to the United Nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Almost a decade ago, Aaron Klein reported that after two days of debates on the topic of what the Islamic position should be on terrorism and jihad, the OIC couldn’t even decide whether suicide bombing constitutes terrorism or violates the Koran.
Thanks to the work of the ICSNA’s national committee, several Islamic scout units have been formed throughout the U.S. and more Muslim Brotherhood organizations, like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), were accepted into the BSA.
BSA states regarding its relationship with the Islamic Society of North America: “ISNA has had a relationship with the Boy Scouts of America for over a decade, and the ISNA secretary general recently signed the relationship document in the ISNA’s annual convention at Chicago.”
Last year, Klein reported that the Obama administration has “an extensive relationship” with ISNA and that the organization was an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas.
Klein went on to say that, according to Islam scholar Stephen Schwartz, ISNA is “one of the chief conduits through which the radical Saudi form of Islam passes into the United States.”.
For more on ISNA and its connections to the White House, read Klein’s full article here.
Muslim Brotherhood-founded organizations have a long history of inciting violence against non-Muslims. In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood has operated under the name Muslim American Society, or MAS. In 2004, the Chicago Tribune reported that the Chicago area MAS website “includes reading materials that state Muslims have a duty to help form Islamic governments worldwide and should be prepared to take up arms to do so.”
MAS reading materials also state that “until the nations of the world have functionally Islamic governments, every individual who is careless or lazy in working for Islam is sinful.”
The Tribune article goes on to report that another passage “says that Western secularism and materialism are evil and that Muslims should ‘pursue this evil force to its own lands’ and ‘invade its Western heartland.’”
MAS established their MAS Scouting Department in 2002. It is “helping to network over 30 girls and boy scout units across the U.S. working through the Boy and Girl Scouts of America.”
The MAS Scouting Department provides a network for all Islamic Scouting programs and currently claims nearly 1,500 scouts in membership.
BSA Troop 1576 at All Dulles Area Muslim Society
ISNA President, Mohammed Magid, is the Imam and Executive Director of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, known as ADAMS Center.
ADAMS identifies itself as “a membership organization registered in the State of Virginia… affiliated with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).”
ADAMS has formed and currently sponsors several active scouting programs through Boy Scouts of America.
In true Muslim Brotherhood form, ADAMS paints itself as a peaceful organization that condemns violence and discrimination. However, while one page of the organization’s website claims that they “strongly condemn and reject the actions of terrorists and terrorism,” another page proudly boasts the names and logos of several partner organizations also known to have a relationship with the Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.
The terrorist activities, investigations, and questionable affiliations of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society are extensive. Read about a few of them here.
Alarming enough is the fact that ADAMS’ former Chairman, Ahmad Totonji, was named a defendant in a lawsuit filed by numerous family members who lost loved ones in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
FrontPage Magazine’s Erick Stakelbeck writes:
Ahmad Totonji… served as Vice-President of the Saudi-funded International Institute for Islamic Thought and is also closely linked to the notorious SAAR Foundation (created by… a scion of one of the richest Saudi families). Both… organizations were raided by federal agents in December 2001 under suspicion that they were supporting Islamic terrorist groups. Totonji, in turn, was named a defendant in a $1 trillion lawsuit filed by more than 600 relatives of people who died in the 9/11 attacks.
ADAMS’ current Imam (Mohammed Magid) and former Imam (Ingrid Mattson) both attended last year’s White House Iftar with President Obama.
Imam Magid also attended this year’s White House Iftar. Oddly, his name, along with the names of two other “controversial Muslims”, did not appear on the White House’s published guest list.
Boy Scouts of America Unit 357 at the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood
One of the first Islamic Boy Scout units formed in the country was B.S.A. Unit 357, The Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, in Harlem, New York.
The Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, or MIB, is a descendant of the Muslim Mosque, Inc., which was started by El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) in 1964 after his departure from the Nation of Islam organization.
Although the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood emphatically denies any association or affiliation to the Muslim Brotherhood on its website, the activities of mosque board members, and even the language used on the website, tells a different story.
Joe Kaufman of FrontPage Magazine reported that the passage displayed on MIB’s website “is straight out of the text of the Muslim Brotherhood founder, Hasan Al-Banna’s, treatise, ‘The Message of the Teachings’.
The passage reads:
Allah is our goalThe Prophet Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah is our leaderThe Qu’ran is our constitution Jihad is our wayAnd death in the way of Allah is our promised end.
Al-Hajj Talib Abdur-Rashid, a former award-winning Islamic scout leader in Harlem, has been the religious and spiritual leader (Imam) of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood since 1989.
According to Discover the Networks, Imam Rashid was heavily influenced by black nationalism before converting to Islam and views America as a nation infested with white racism.
Imam Rashid is a member of the National Committee to Free Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (known as H. Rap Brown), a former Black Panther Party member who was convicted of attempted murder for opening fire on two police officers when they tried to arrest him for theft.
Remember, MIB (as sponsor of BSA scouts) denies any association with the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet, ironically, MIB’s own Imam, Abdur-Rashid, is Deputy Amir of the executive committees of not one, but two different Muslim Brotherhood organizations (Muslim Alliance in North America, or MANA, and the Islamic Leadership Council of New York).
Just a quick glance at MANA’s website blows a gaping hole in MIB’s denial of a Brotherhood association. One of Imam Rashid’s fellow MANA committee members is Anwar Muhaimin, Imam of the International Muslim Brotherhood in Philadelphia.
Another of Rashid’s fellow committee members at MANA is Kenny Gamble, a.k.a. Luqman Abdul Haqq, who is also involved in training up young scouts through his United Muslim Movement. Although I’ve found no affiliation with Boy Scouts of America, Gamble’s Jawala Scouts mirror BSA scouting programs, but with paramilitary training (including weapons training) that begins at age 7.
Imam Rashid is also Deputy Amir of The Islamic Leadership Council of New York, which organized a summit last September in New York to discuss the planned “Ground Zero Mosque” and “a rise in anti-Muslim sentiments” surrounding the mosque. All eleven organizations listed as attending the summit are either Muslim Brotherhood founded or affiliated. Disturbing, isn’t it, how this Imam can claim that his mosque has no affiliation to the Brotherhood?
What’s more disturbing is that at least half of the Brotherhood organizations that participated in last year’s summit are influencing thousands of children throughout the nation, through our Christian-founded Boy Scouts of America.

Broward County Republicans deny a Muslim Brotherhood front group (CAIR) leader membership in the party’s executive committee

FLORIDA: The crowd cheered wildy as Broward County Republicans deny a Muslim Brotherhood front group (CAIR) leader membership in the party’s executive committee

Posted: September 27, 2011 | Author: barenakedislam | 

Republicans, who changed their rules to publicly vet Nezar Hamze and then vote on his application by secret ballot, said they didn’t oppose him because he was a Muslim, but because he is associated with the Terrorist Front Group CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), whose Washington-area affiliate was an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal terrorism trial.

Thank you, BNI readers, I know all your emails and phone calls helped in securing this more than appropriate decision.

Miami Herald  (H/T Annie) Hamze, director of CAIR Florida, said his local group hadnothing to do with the suspect activities in Washington. (Of course he did, indirectly, he belongs to the same organization that funds Islamic terror groups like Hamas overseas) He said CAIR advocates for civil rights for Muslims, who have been unfairlytargeted ever since 9/11. (And he is a liar, too. Nothing unfair about targeting the people most likely to be terrorists)

“I’m aligned with Republican values. And I want to serve the party,” said Hamze, who earlier told a reporter that any effort to block him was the result of anti-Islamic “bigotry.” (Yes, we hate stealth jihadists and hope you will change your party affiliation immediately)
At times, when he addressed the packed room at the Sheraton Suites in Fort Lauderdale, a few members shouted out among the crowd of about 300. “Terrorist!” said one man. “Let him speak!” said another.
Members of Broward’s Republican Party said Hamze was making a mockery of their rules and was trying to become a member as a publicity stunt.
“I don’t have a positive impression of Mr. Hamze. I don’t think he will be an asset to our party,” said Scott Spages, who is involved in programs concerning radical Islam at his church, Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale.

Nezar Hamze defending members of a local mosque who were arrested on charges of sending money to the Taliban in Pakistan. He also tells media that Shari'a law is not a threat to America.

In the end, the Broward Republican Executive Committee voted 158-11 (Who are the 11 who voted for him? Kick them out too) to block him from committee membership. He can still attend meetings, but only as a member of the public. “Wow,” he said afterward. “If I had realized it would be like that, I wish they had just sent me a letter saying I was denied.” (Oh, no, it was much more fun to see the outrage on your face)
One Broward Republican member, blogger Javier Manjarres, objected to the process. “They singled him out,” Manjarres said. “It was a set up.” (No, Hamze was the set-up – a muslim terrorist supporting plant)

Hamze's nasty exchange with Allen West at Town Hall Meeting

Aside from questioning his motives, there was also a dispute about how long he had been a Republican. Party Vice Chair Collen Stolberg said Hamze became a registered Republican only in August and that before then he was registered with no party affiliation. (Told you it was a set up to infiltrate the GOP)
Of the 11 applicants for the party, only Hamze was rejected — the first time anyone in the room could recall that happening in a county where Republicans complain about how outnumbered they are by Democrats. Prior to deciding the new-member applications, a Republican successfully moved to change party rules and require that applicants say how long they’ve been a Republican and to take five minutes worth of questions for the crowd.
Hamze called it “The Hamze rule.” (And you can be sure it will be applied to any other muslim)
A new litmus test was then born: Do you support Rep. Allen West? The tea-party Republican has repeatedly denounced Islam and clashed with Hamze. So has Joe Kaufman, chairman of the group Citizens Against Hate and the vice-chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition of South Florida. “Are you willing to support Congressman Allen West… as a Republican?” Kaufman said loudly in the microphone. “Will you denounce terrorism? And your organization has been named a terrorist organization.” (EXCELLENT. A test that should be given to all GOP presidential candidates as well)

Hamze said he couldn’t comment on the politics of CAIR because it’s a non-profit non-partisan (Non-partisan? Oh that’s rich) group. He later said he denounces terrorism and that he’s not involved in any terrorist activities. (That’s what they all say, they all lie)
Hamze said he was considering filing a complaint with the Republican Party of Florida because the county party’s constitution says that a “vacancy shall be filled” by a qualified Republican — that is, one who is a registered Republican who lives in the county. (Knock yourself out)
But the constitution also says that a vacancy “shall be filled by majority vote.” And he lost that badly. Before the meeting, a group circulated a petition bashing Hamze.
After the vote, Broward Executive Committee Chairman Richard DeNapolis said simply: “Mr. Hamze, your membership has been denied.”

READ & WATCH MORE ABOUT HAMZE:

omg-terrorist-front-group-cair-trying-to-infiltrate-the-gop-in-florida-and-the-gop-is-ready-to-accept-this

oh-boo-hoo-terrorist-front-group-cair-representative-blubbers-over-examples-of-intolerance-toward-muslim-students-in-broward-county-schools

omg-allen-west-takes-on-cair-islamist-and-kicks-his-butt

allen-wests-response-to-request-that-he-cut-ties-with-anti-islam-extremists

if-we-didnt-know-what-terrorist-front-group-cair-had-in-store-for-us-we-might-fall-for-this-guys-taqiyya-lies-deception

florida-locked-loaded-and-gunning-for-sharia-law

Execution Imminent Of Iranian Pastor Who Refuses To Renounce His Christian Faith…

Execution Imminent Of Iranian Pastor Who Refuses To Renounce His Christian Faith…

Keep this man in your prayers.

(CNSNews.com) — An Iranian pastor who refuses to renounce his Christian faith could be hanged as soon as Wednesday, after a trial court ruling this week upheld his death sentence for “apostasy.”
Religious freedom advocates are calling urgently for governments to take up the case of Youcef Nadarkhani, a 32-year-old evangelical first sentenced to death late last year. If the sentence is carried out he will be the first Iranian Christian known to have been executed for his faith in 21 years.
Nadarkhani embraced Christianity at the age of 19, and since his Supreme Court appeal last June, proceedings focused on the question of whether he was a practicing Muslim at the time.
According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), although a court subsequently determined that he was not a practicing Muslim adult when he became a Christian “the court has decided that he remains guilty of apostasy because he has Muslim ancestry.”
Back in court on Sunday and Monday this week, Nadarkhani faced renewed pressure to disavow his faith, on pain on death. CSW cited sources close the case as saying two more sessions have been scheduled, for Tuesday and Wednesday — and “if he continues to refuse, he will be executed thereafter.”

Posted by ZIP on Tuesday, September 27, 2011, at 1:37 pm 

Ground Zero Mosque

Narain Kataria on implications of mosque near
ground zero for New York.

Jihadi Media Joins Facebook

Jihadi Media Joins Facebook

IPT News
June 10, 2011

http://www.investigativeproject.org/2958/jihadi-media-joins-facebook

Jihadi media organizations are forming Facebook pages to bypass restrictions on terrorist organizations, and to pass on videos, pictures, and documents to followers. While Facebook bans inciting violence or hateful content, jihadi media groups slide underneath the restrictions because they are poorly known.
"Watch here live the battle yesterday at Mogadisho as the tanks of the kufaar [disbelievers] burn," says a post on the new Facebook page of Al-Kataib Media Foundation, a division of the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab. The post also features a video of an al-Shabaab spokesman who "talks to the reporters at the front line of the jihad," provides a link to download the clip, and encourages them to "share it with your brothers and sisters."
Other posts on the Al-Kataib page glorify al-Shabaab's campaign of suicide bombing, while 'notes' provide detailed accounts of daily battles.
Alongside unofficial pages dedicated to terrorist organizations, al-Kataib's page suggests that jihadi media can recruit and indoctrinate directly from the world's largest social network. The media groups of al-Qaida and al-Shabaab have pages, while popular jihadi blog Ansar al-Mujahideen operates two closed discussion groups.
Facebook won accolades for its role in fueling peaceful, popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa known as the Arab Spring.
However, in the same way that social media has mobilized positive change in Arab nations, it has also given a boost to terrorist organizations. Hamas recently launched a new social media campaign, using Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube to lift its public profile.
The exploitation of Facebook by terrorists remains a serious concern of American intelligence. "Social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook can be used by terrorist groups to expand networks and exchange real-time information, enabling operatives to organize and act quickly," says a March 2011 Congressional Research Service report on terrorist use of the internet. "These tools can not only spread propaganda, but can also host embedded malicious software in links and applications that can corrupt an unsuspecting user's electronic device."
"YouTube channels and Facebook pages of Taliban and Al Qaeda supporters may radicalize Western-based sympathizers, and also provide a means for communication between these 'lone wolf' actors and larger organized networks of terrorists. The decentralized nature of the Internet as a medium and the associated difficulty in responding to emerging threats can match the franchised nature of terrorist organizations and operations."
A Facebook page for As-Sahab media, al-Qaida's propaganda arm that produces "documentary-quality films, iPod files and cellphone videos," underscores the threat. "Every three or four days, on average, a new video or audio from one of al-Qaeda's commanders is released online by as-Sahab, the terrorist network's in-house propaganda studio," the Washington Post reports. The Facebook page captures many of these videos by terrorist leaders Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and American Adam Gadahn, and presents them with subtitles in foreign languages like Turkish.
Another page is dedicated to Masood Azhar, the leader of Pakistani terrorist organization Jaish-e-Muhammad. It features videos from Azhar's organization and from another banned Pakistani group, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.
Social networking sites have a profound influence on their users, as in all social contact. Theories such as the "Three Degrees of Influence Rule," state that everything we do or say ripples through our social network, having an impact on our friends, their friends, and their friends' friends. Studies illustrate that people are likely to experience the emotions and embrace the ideas of those who surround them, including on social networking websites like Facebook.
Thus social networks have a profound effect on radicalization. "If these [emotions and social trends] can spread through social networks, why not the volatile mix that leads to terrorism — anger, fear, hatred, religious fervor," asks counterterrorism expert Maria Ressa, in the Jakarta Post. "Mapping the social networks of Al Qaeda and JI show it does."
Al-Qaida has "evolved into a social movement that continues to attract new groups and new recruits," Ressa says. "Studies of the social networks of Al Qaeda and its Southeast Asian arm, Jemaah Islamiyah, show they continue to spread violent jihadi ideology like a virus." The participation of jihadi media provides wannabe jihadis with support from actual terrorists, making them part of the jihadi social network.
This is particular true in the past few months, where high-level assassinations have decapitated some leaders of al-Qaida. Their leaders remain the idols of the movement, with their videos and publications forming the basis of Facebook pages. But activists on web forums and Facebook remain the lifeblood of the movements, as producers and consumers of the vast media network that fuels jihadist thought.

Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2958/jihadi-media-joins-facebook

Gunwalker’s Body Count Grows

Gunwalker’s Body Count Grows, Along with the Obama Administration’s Cover-Up

It seems like only a matter of time before administration officials face felony indictments for their role in Operation Fast and Furious.

September 21, 2011 - 12:00 am - by Bob Owens

 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa was brutally frank in a Tuesday morning conference call with new media representatives dedicated to the ongoing Gunwalker scandal.

The California Republican kicked off the call with a brief statement reporting that Marisela Morales, Mexico’s attorney general, now says that at least 200 Mexican deaths can now be traced to weapons from the gunwalking program.That number has been revised significantly upward from earlier unofficial claims of approximately 150 deaths attributed to Operation Fast and Furious guns.
The revelation of the increased body count comes less than 24 hours after the Los Angeles Times published a story that rightly describes the actions of the Obama administration as an unresolved betrayal.
This betrayal — and Morales pulled no punches in using that exact word — is being ignored by the majority of the U.S. mainstream media, which vacillate from pretending that Gunwalker was just a minor law enforcement snafu to echoing White House-orchestrated attempts to smear the Oversight Committee chairman and obstruct the investigation.
The question-and-answer period that followed Chairman Issa’s statement focused narrowly on Operation Fast and Furious, with only one reporter slipping off-topic to ask a quick question about the breaking Solyndra scandal.
Perhaps the most important clarification to come out of the call was confirmation that the Oversight Committee does indeed intend to call for a special prosecutor once they have completed their own investigation, which they optimistically would like to have wrapped up by the end of the year. Chairman Issa was quick to point out that finishing the House investigation by the end of the year hinged upon a transparent and timely release of information from the executive branch, including the federal law enforcement agencies involved and the Obama White House.
The White House has thus far refused to divulge any of the documentation the congressional investigators have asked for, and the administration’s political appointees are stymieing all attempts to get information out of the Justice Department, Homeland Security, and other involved agencies. Rep. Issa seemed quite aware that his goal of resolving the congressional investigation in 2011 was going to be obstructed by an administration in full cover-up mode.
Issa also revealed that the reason a special prosecutor has not yet been brought in to investigate the plot is that once a special prosecutor begins to investigate, the Oversight Committee has to stop its own inquiry. The committee wants to be certain that they have explored every avenue and leave no source or witness uninvestigated before turning over the case. He also pointed out that a special prosecutor will be a Department of Justice employee investigating his own employer. Thus, Issa wants to be certain that they have enough knowledge to hold the prosecutor accountable.
I had the unique opportunity to ask Chairman Issa a point-blank question that seems to trouble so many people following this scandal.
After reiterating that every law enforcement agent that has been asked about Operation Fast and Furious has said that there is no way that it could have been a viable law enforcement operation, I asked Chairman Issa if there was any evidence of another reason for the implementation of Operation Fast and Furious and the other alleged gun-walking operations.
“This was dumb, it was useless, and it was lethal,” was the soundbite most of us will take away from the call in answer to that question, but his longer answer — which I regret I do not have a transcript of — is far more telling.
Nothing in his response could be construed to mean that Rep. Issa thought Operation Fast and Furious was a legitimate law enforcement operation. And if it does not appear to have been implemented as a legitimate law enforcement operation, then we are left with the possible alternative that the goal of the operation was both illegitimate and unlawful.
Issa put it rather bluntly: “The administration wanted to show that guns found in Mexico came from the United States.”
He elaborated a bit when he noted that while he wouldn’t presume to know the precise goals of Operation Fast and Furious, it certainly did seem to tie in with the narrative the Obama administration was trying to push — that U.S. guns were turning up at Mexican crime scenes. That allowed, the suggestion hanging in the air was that a goal of the Administration was indeed a “Reichstag fire” designed to support a narrative that has been publicly woven by Attorney General Holder,  Secretary of State Clinton, Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano, and President Obama himself on multiple occasions.
One reason to assert the prominence of U.S. firearms in Mexico would be an attempt to once again bring forth an “assault weapons” ban like the failed 1994 law that sunset in 2004.
While the Oversight Committee investigation is far from over and a special prosecutor’s investigation hasn’t even begun, it is beginning to appear that the evidence and testimony being compiled so far indicate that the Obama administration was willing to break federal laws and get hundreds of people killed in Mexico and the United States in order to fabricate conditions that would help them implement their domestic gun control policies.
If so, it is entirely unethical and illegal, and it seems like only a matter of time before administration officials face felony indictments for their role in Operation Fast and Furious and perhaps the other alleged gun-walking operations that make up the Gunwalker scandal.
If that is indeed the path this scandal takes, the question may need to be asked whether U.S. justice is enough for the co-conspirators, or if  Attorney General Morales should be given the opportunity to prosecute Obama administration officials in Mexico for actions that have left so many of their citizens dead and injured.

Barack Hussein Obama and all Muslim Nations move closer to making criticism of Islam (aka free speech) an international crime

Posted: September 3, 2011 | Author: barenakedislam |

Apparently doing a website like this will soon be a crime if our Muslim-in-Chief and the Organization of Islamic States get their way. And you deniers out there still don’t believe Obama is a Muslim? HAH!

National Review (H/T Annie) An unprecedented collaboration between the Obama administration and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC, formerly called the Organization of the Islamic Conference) to combat “Islamophobia” may soon result in the delegitimization of freedom of expression as a human right.

The Obama regime is taking the lead in an international effort to “implement” a U.N. resolution against religious “stereotyping,” specifically as applied to Islam. To be sure, it argues that the effort should not result in free-speech curbs. However, its partners in the collaboration, the 56 member states of the OIC, have no such qualms. Many of them police private speech through Islamic blasphemy laws and the OIC has long worked to see such codes applied universally. Under Muslim pressure, Western Europe now has laws against religious hate speech that serve as proxies for Islamic blasphemy codes.

Last March, U.S. diplomats maneuvered the adoption of Resolution 16/18 within the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC). Non-binding, this resolution, inter alia, expresses concern about religious “stereotyping” and “negative profiling” but does not limit free speech. It was intended to — and did — replace the OIC’s decidedly dangerous resolution against “defamation of religions,” which protected religious institutions instead of individual freedoms.

But thanks to a puzzling U.S. diplomatic initiative that was unveiled in July, Resolution 16/18 is poised to become a springboard for a greatly reinvigorated international effort to criminalize speech against Islam, the very thing it was designed to quash.

Citing a need to “move to implementation” of Resolution 16/18, the Obama administration has inexplicably decided to launch a major international effort against Islamophobia in partnership with the Saudi-based OIC. This is being voluntarily assumed at American expense, outside the U.N. framework, and is not required by the resolution itself.

On July 15, a few days after the Norway massacre, Secretary of State Hijab Hillary Clinton co-chaired an OIC session in Istanbul on religious intolerance. It was there that she announced the initiative, inviting the OIC member-states’ foreign ministers and representatives to the inaugural meeting of the effort that the U.S. government would host this fall in Washington. She envisions it as the first in a series of meetings to decide how best to implement Resolution 16/18.

In making the announcement, Clinton was firm in asserting that the U.S. does not want to see speech restrictions: (CRAP) “The resolution calls upon states to ‘counter offensive expression through education, interfaith dialogue, and public debate . . . but not to criminalize speech unless there is an incitement to imminent violence.’”(But who decides what incitement is?)

With the United States providing this new world stage for presenting grievances of “Islamophobia” against the West, the OIC rallied around the initiative as the propaganda windfall that it is. It promptly reasserted its demands for global blasphemy laws, once again sounding the call of its failed U.N. campaign for international laws against the so-called defamation of Islam. It has made plain its aim to use the upcoming conference to further pressure Western governments to regulate speech on behalf of Islam.

The OIC’s understanding of the upcoming meetings is that they will “aim at developing a legal basis for the U.N. Human Rights Council’s resolution which [will] help in enacting domestic laws for the countries involved in the issue, as well as formulating international laws preventing inciting hatred resulting from the continued defamation of religions.”(No, ONLY Islam)

In an August 17 op-ed on the initiative, OIC secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu was enthusiastic. He expressed concern that “anti-Islam and anti-Muslim attitudes and activities, known as Islamophobia, are increasingly finding place in the agenda of ultra-right wing political parties and civil societies in the West in their anti-immigrant and anti-multiculturalism policies,” and that “their views are being promoted under the banner of freedom of expression.” This parallels the old Soviet-bloc attack on the First Amendment as an official sanctioning of racism.

Citing a familiar litany of examples — “the publication of offensive cartoons of the Prophet six years ago that sparked outrage across the Muslim world, the publicity around the film Fitna and the more recent Qur’an burnings” — Ihsanoglu was emphatic that “no one has the right to insult another for their beliefs or to incite hatred and prejudice” and that “freedom of expression has to be exercised with responsibility.”

In a separate OIC news report, Ihsanoglu raised the stakes further. He warned against the “institutionalization of the phenomenon of Islamophobia through the involvement of the European extreme right in government institutions and political action.”

Amb. Zamir Akram, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative on behalf of the OIC to the HRC, commented regarding the initiative that the OIC would not compromise on “anything against the Quran, anything against the Prophet and anything against the Muslim community in terms of discrimination.”

As for reciprocity — for example, reforming the Saudi national curriculum that continues to teach students to “kill” Jews, “fight” polytheists, view Christians as “enemies,” and spread Islam through “jihad” — there probably won’t be any.

This initiative is shaping up to be one-sided. As Akram said, “The Resolution 16/18 was driven more by the kind of discrimination in Europe and the West in general against Muslims.” He added: “I don’t think any country in the Muslim world is deliberately discriminating against minorities.” Ihsanoglu took a similar tack, writing that “the Islamic faith is based on tolerance and acceptance of other religions. (HAH!) It does not condone discrimination of human beings on the basis of caste, creed, color, or faith.” In his op-ed, Ihsanoglu also declared that “the OIC has never sought to limit freedom of expression.” (Everything about Islam is about limiting freedoms)

Having won the latest round in the ideological contest for individual rights and freedoms at the United Nations this past March, the Obama regime is now gratuitously establishing a new “transnational” forum to essentially re-litigate the matter with a body that is openly hostile to such freedoms. This forum’s agenda is to be structured so that freedom of expression will be put on trial and inevitably condemned by most forum participants as, itself, a human-rights violation. In raising OIC expectations that “anti-Islam and anti-Muslim attitudes” will be dealt with under soon-to-be-drafted “implementation” procedures, the administration is riding a tiger.

In his 2009 Cairo speech, President Obama said, “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam whenever they appear.” There are a number of problems with this statement: One is that it encourages the diplomatic folly that is this conference.

What Obama does not want you to know about Gaddafi

CIA and U.S. Government worked closely with Gaddafi's regime (and even helped him write his speeches)

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:13 PM on 3rd September 2011

American intelligence co-operated closely with Muammar Gaddafi's regime, according to reports based on documents found in Libyan government offices.
The papers allegedly show that the U.S. sent terrorism suspects at least eight times for questioning in Libya despite the country's reputation for torture.
They reveal new details of the close relationship between the two countries, including how CIA officers helped Gaddafi write a speech to show him in a positive light.

Close relationship: The documents include a speech written for Gaddafi by the CIA (file picture)

The documents were discovered in the Tripoli offices of former head of Libyan intelligence Moussa Koussa and also include talks between British intelligence organisation MI6 and the Gaddafi regime.
Reports of such cooperation have surfaced before, but the documents provide new details on the ties between Western countries and Gaddafi's regime.

Many of those same countries backed the NATO attacks that helped Libya's rebels force Gadhafi from power.
One notable case is that of Abdel-Hakim Belhaj, commander of the anti-Gaddafi rebel force that now controls Tripoli.
Belhaj is the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a now-dissolved militant group with links to al-Qaeda.

New regime: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Libyan National Transitional Council chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil and head of Libya's rebel National Transitional Council Mahmoud Jibril attend a bilateral meeting in Paris September 1 2011

Belhaj says he was tortured by CIA agents at a secret prison, then returned to Libya.
Two documents from March 2004 appear to be American correspondence to Libyan officials to arrange Belhaj's rendition.
Referring to him by his nom de guerre, Abdullah al-Sadiq, the documents say he will be flown from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Libya and asks for Libyan government agents to accompany him.
It also requests American 'access to al-Sadiq for debriefing purposes once he is in your custody.'
'Please be advised that we must be assured that al-Sadiq will be treated humanely and that his human rights will be respected,' the document says.

Discovery: The documents were found in an abandoned government building (file picture)

Another document in a folder marked CIA seems to be a speech drafted for Gaddai just before Christmas in 2003.
The one-page speech appears intended to depict the Libyan dictator in a positive light.
It concluded: 'At a time when the world is celebrating the birth of Jesus, and as a token of our contributions towards a world full of peace, security, stability and compassion, the Great Jamhariya [revolutionary name for Libya] presents its honest call for a WMD-free zone in the Middle East,' referring to weapons of mass destruction.
Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, which found the documents, called the ties between Washington and Gaddafi's regime 'a very dark chapter in American intelligence history, and it remains a stain on the record of the American intelligence services that they cooperated with these very abusive intelligence services.'
In Washington, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood declined to comment on any specific allegation related to the documents.
'It can't come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats,' she said. 'That is exactly what we are expected to do.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033333/CIA-U-S-Government-worked-closely-Gaddafis-regime.html#ixzz1Wwqr7z5A

Was Al-Awlaki involved in 9/11? House investigate U.S. born Al-Qaeda cleric's links to suicide hijackers

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:16 AM on 16th August 2011

U.S. investigators are looking into the possibility radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was overlooked as a key player in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
In a letter obtained by Fox News, congressman Peter King of New York wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder saying investigators believe it is more than coincidence the American cleric had contact with three of the five hijackers who flew a plane into the Pentagon on September 11.
Extracts from the letter confirm the House Homeland Security Committee are investigating: 'To what extent Anwar al-Awlaki wittingly or unwittingly facilitated the plot of the 9/11 hijackers.'

Investigated: Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born cleric linked to al-Qaeda in Yemen speaking from an undisclosed location

While they are also trying to establish: 'To what extent al-Awlaki was an al Qaeda operative, offering support to acts of terrorism prior to 9/11.'
The revelation indicates that the full story behind the terrorist attacks on September 11 may not have been uncovered yet.
The documents, seen by Fox News also alledge that: 'Given the greater collection of intelligence and integration of pertinent data since the attacks of 9/11, I believe that al-Awlaki may have played greater roles in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, as well as other terrorist plots, than those of which we have been previously aware.

'Accordingly, I request the full assistance of the Department of Justice in carrying out this inquiry.'

Al-Awlaki is said to have inspired attacks by Muslims inside the U.S - including the Fort Hood, Texas, shootings in 2009, which left 13 dead

U.S. born radical al-Awlaki is widely believed to be the mastermind behind a number of terror atrocities and the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
AQAP is estimated to number about 300 militants with strongholds in a number of remote mountain regions.
It is thought to be behind numerous attacks on government targets and is said to have inspired attacks by Muslims inside the United States - including the Fort Hood, Texas, shootings in which an Army psychiatrist is accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32.
It's also thought the group has twice smuggled explosives aboard aircraft headed to the United States.

Al-Awlaki's chilling plans for a Mumbai-style terror attack on Britain were were also previuosly uncovered.
Chilling email exchanges between an undercover Sun reporter and al-Awlaki - widely tipped to succeed Osama bin Laden as Al Qaeda leader - outlines the various options open to extremists who want to launch an attack on British soil.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2026495/Was-Al-Awlaki-involved-9-11--House-investigate-U-S-born-Al-Qaeda-clerics-links-suicide-hijackers.html#ixzz1VAZMU8yE

HEY MUSLIMS! If you want to stop Islamophobia, STOP behaving like muslims

Posted: August 15, 2011 | Author: barenakedislam |

UK muslims asking people to sign a petition against Islamophobia. But they’re only asking muslims to sign.

One muslim man has the right idea. He tells them that muslim women covering their faces is a stupid idea because it scares people.

As economy burns, David Cameron flies his British tennis coach out and retires his Italian one or the depression of 2011

As economy burns, David Cameron flies his British tennis coach out and retires his Italian one

By Nick Pisa and Brendan Carlin
Last updated at 1:49 AM on 7th August 2011

The world economy may be teetering on the edge of a precipice. But on his summer holidays in Tuscany, David Cameron has other things on his mind - such as improving his forehand smash.
The Prime Minister is combining his two-week family break in a luxury 18th Century villa with tennis lessons from professional coaches.
No 10 last night confirmed that a coach had just flown out from the UK to the £10,000-a-week mansion that the Camerons are sharing with family friends.

Taking it easy: While the world economy shuddered, the Camerons relaxed in the sun

But Downing Street declined to say whether the coach would be teaching Mr Cameron, insisting he was the partner of the nanny to one of the other families staying with the Prime Minister.
A No 10 source also said the tennis expert had not been flown out at Mr and Mrs Cameron’s expense.

More...

• France and Italy stand by to bail out biggest banks as euro crisis worsens
• The world's lost its banker - and we'll pay

But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that, while Barack Obama desperately fought to avoid financial meltdown in the US, tennis has been very much on the agenda for the Prime Minister and his friends.
They have spent the first part of the holiday having two hours of coaching every morning from local tennis instructor Alberto Francalanci.
As the coach himself disclosed yesterday, he has not been asked to come back for the second week. Mr Francalanci said: ‘I was booked for the first week only as I was then told they had someone coming over from England to do the second week of tennis lessons.

Coach: Cameron is 'not a bad player' says Alberto Francalanci

‘I was told that the coach coming out from England was the boyfriend of one of the nannies - it could have been Mr Cameron’s own nanny but I’m not sure.’
Mr Cameron famously bested Nick Clegg eight games to six in a Coalition duel at Chequers last summer and was captain of Brasenose College tennis team when he was at Oxford University.
The Italian coach said it was clear Mr Cameron was ‘not a bad player - you could tell he had played a bit and his technique wasn’t bad at all.
‘His children had a go as well but they were not too keen.’
Mr Cameron took some time off from his holiday last night to discuss the global economic crisis with President Sarkozy of France. And No 10 last night stressed he was in constant contact with Downing Street staff and keeping fully informed of events.
Paparazzi photographs published last week by Italian newspapers, which The Mail on Sunday has chosen not to show, reveal that Mr Cameron has a slight beer belly and appears to have been piling on the pounds. He is seen larking and joking around by the villa’s swimming pool as the children look on.
On Tuesday last week, Mr Cameron and his party went out for a three-course dinner at the Chiavi D’Oro restaurant in nearby Arezzo where they enjoyed bacon and tomato pasta and steak in a truffle sauce.
Mr Cameron paid the bill and, unlike last week, is understood to have left a tip.

We've been here before. Not 1929, but 1931. And that's not good...

By GWYN PRINS

Eye off the ball: U.S. President Barack Obama fumbled during his handling of the crisis

It is certainly a blow to President Obama’s reputation that Standard & Poor’s has downgraded the U.S.’s AAA rating.
He fumbled the Congressional politics of this, as well as his deficit spending.
But the news has been factored in and discounted already. It will fray nerves maybe, but for the rest of us, interbank deals will go on using U.S. Treasury Bonds, even if the U.S. pays some more. Dented prestige is not fatal, so calm down, dear.
Is there really something to worry about in the financial maelstrom this weekend?
Let us recall that it took two years for the Wall Street Crash of 1929 to become the Great Depression. After the initial crash in October, the market rallied for several months, before embarking on an even more shattering decline in the spring of 1930.
The Depression became global in 1931 when the French, fearing that the Germans were planning to expand their ever closer union with Austria, pulled their funds out of the Austrian Credit-Anstalt, which started a run on that bank in the May.
In fact, Credit-Anstalt was stuffed with bad loans, but it was also regarded as too big to fail. Austria guaranteed the bank, which made it a sovereign debt crisis, and, to keep going, Credit-Anstalt went to the Bank for International Settlements, which offered too small a loan, too late. This is when the lender of last resort stepped in. Partly to rebuke the French for playing politics with money,
Governor Montagu Norman of the Bank of England extended a 50million Austrian Schilling line of credit, rolled over weekly until the August when the bank had to call it in.
Suddenly it was clear that the Bank of England could no longer be the lender of last resort, and with no one else willing, the gold standard system began to crack up.

Historic event: The Great Depression of 1931 became global two years after the Wall Street Crash

In revenge, the French had started to convert their Sterling deposits to gold at a rate that exceeded the capacity to ship the stuff to Paris. Over the summer, the pressure on Sterling mounted and the Coalition (National) government proposed severe measures.
In September, in response to threats of a pay cut, there was a mutiny in the Royal Navy at Invergordon - and, just days later, Britain went off the gold standard. The French went on calling in their gold, but the damage was done. Of course it couldn’t happen again. Could it?
On July 21 this year, the leaders of the eurozone cheerfully announced another of their deals to end all deals.
They ratcheted the next move towards a European debt union in order to resolve the debt crisis in a peripheral economy, Greece.
They thereby added to the case before the German Constitutional Court which, like an unexploded grenade, has yet to rule on the legality of all this for the principal paymaster, Germany; and then they took themselves off on their summer holidays.
Since the recent heart attack on the markets, the roaring return of the eurozone crisis has now reached out from the smaller peripheral PIIGS (Greece, Ireland and Portugal) to the bigger PIIGS (Spain and especially Italy), and has caused President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso to write to the holidaying leaders in their various resorts.

Wrong move: European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet

Naturally, Barroso blamed the national parliaments for not ratifying the bail-out deal before buzzing off to the beach, and also for not making it big enough to bail out Italy.
To help things along, on Thursday Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, melodramatically told the world ‘you will see what we do’.
The markets took this as confirmation that the ECB would start to buy Spanish and Italian bonds to cool their rates, but bizarrely, Mr Trichet bought Portuguese and Irish bonds. The markets panicked.
All the familiar 1930s signs of a full-blown collapse of confidence appeared, with economic nationalism in the air and the threat of protectionism not far behind.
In the 1930s, that cycle shut down world trade. And the motor only really started up again when production for the Second World War kick-started the American economy. This is not a nice recollection, but a necessary one. War and financial mayhem do not live in different towns. They are usually semi-detached.
‘The ECB is spitting in the wind,’ commented Professor Willem Buiter, Citigroup’s chief economist and a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee. It must either come in big - which we know it can’t - to buy Italian and Spanish bonds, or, as Buiter added, ‘accept the biggest banking crisis since 1931’.
Mr Barosso should really have sent just two hoary old sayings in his letter to the hapless holidaymakers. The first is that those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. The other is that you should never try to play politics with currencies: they always bite you back.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023317/As-economy-burns-David-Cameron-flies-British-tennis-coach-retires-Italian-one.html#ixzz1UJZ3PyVz

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