Geert Wilders, the hero from the Netherlands who made the film Fitna and  refuses to be intimidated by jihadis, speaks in New York:

All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighbourhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It’s the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corner. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity.These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city. 

There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule. 

Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseille and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighbourhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities. In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims. Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils.  In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear “whore, whore”. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin.  In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Holocaust can in many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.  In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighbourhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves.  Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels, because he was drinking during the Ramadan. Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel. I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization…

 The war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.

 Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel, they can get everything. Therefore, it is not that the West has a stake in Israel. It is Israel.

It is very difficult to be an optimist in the face of the growing Islamization of Europe. All the tides are against us. On all fronts we are losing. Demographically the momentum is with Islam. Muslim immigration is even a source of pride within ruling liberal parties. Academia, the arts, the media, trade unions, the churches, the business world, the entire political establishment have all converted to the suicidal theory of multiculturalism. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a ‘right-wing extremists’ or ‘racists’. The entire establishment has sided with our enemy. Leftists, liberals and Christian-Democrats are now all in bed with Islam…

America may hold fast to the dream that, thanks to its location, it is safe from jihad and sharia. But seven years ago to the day, there was still smoke rising from ground zero, following the attacks that forever shattered that dream. Yet there is a danger even greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America – as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.

 

 With emotions running high on Capitol Hill, Charles Krauthammer, in Townhall, makes a constructive suggestion for solving the economic crisis, or at least alleviating some of the strong feelings about it: 

For decades, starting with Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, there has been bipartisan agreement to use government power to expand homeownership to people who had been shut out for economic reasons or, sometimes, because of racial and ethnic discrimination. What could be a more worthy cause? But it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – who in turn pressured banks and other lenders – to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That’s called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity.

Were there some predatory lenders? Of course. But only a fool or a demagogue – i.e., a presidential candidate – would suggest that this is a major part of the problem.

Was there misbehavior on Wall Street? The wheels of justice will grind. But why wait for justice? If a really good catharsis will allow a return of rationality to Capitol Hill – yielding a clean rescue package that will actually save the economy – go for it.

Capping executive pay is piffle. What we need are a few exemplary hangings. Public hangings. On television. Pick a few failed investment firms, lead their CEOs in chains through the canyons of Manhattan and give the mob satisfaction. Better still, precede the auto-da-fe – fire is highly telegenic – with 24-hour reality-TV coverage of their recantations, lamentations and final visits with the soon-to-be widowed. The ratings would dwarf "American Idol," and the ad revenue alone would make the perfect down payment on the $700 billion.

 

 The lie that Sarah Palin wants creationism taught in schools is going round the world. 

Little Green Footballs continues to try and put the record straight:

Once again, we see the mainstream media clinging to this “creationism” distortion; the fact is that Sarah Palin explicitly said she would not push to have creationism taught alongside evolution: Sarah Palin and Creationism.

“I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.”

She added that, if elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state’s required curriculum.

 

 Power Line provides this extract from Caroline Glick’s brilliant article on the importance of Sarah Palin’s speech that she would have delivered Tuesday at the protest against Ahmadinejad had she not been ‘dis-invited’, and a link to the whole article.  It’s a must-read.

In the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick assesses the damage done by the Democrats’ refusal to allow Governor Sarah Palin to participate in what would have been a bipartisan condemnation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs’ regime in Iran. It’s a pretty long essay and should be read in its entirety; here are a few excerpts:

American Jews have good reason to be ashamed and angry today. As Iran moves into the final stages of its nuclear weapons development program – nuclear weapons which it will use to destroy the State of Israel, endanger Jews around the world and cow the United States of America – Democratic American Jewish leaders decided that putting Sen. Barack Obama in the White House is more important than protecting the lives of the Jewish people in Israel and around the world.

On Monday, the New York Sun published the speech that Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would have delivered at that day’s rally outside UN headquarters in New York against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and against Iran’s plan to destroy Israel. She would have delivered it, if she hadn’t been disinvited.

Palin’s speech is an extraordinary document. In its opening paragraph she made clear that Iran presents a danger not just to Israel, but to the US. And not just to some Americans, but to all Americans. Her speech was a warning to Iran – and anyone else who was listening – that Americans are not indifferent to its behavior, its genocidal ideology and the barbarity of its regime. …

Palin’s speech was a message of national – rather than simply Republican – resolve against Iran’s nuclear weapons program and its active involvement in global and regional terrorism. She made this point by quoting statements that Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton has made against the Iranian regime. …

It was a remarkable speech, prepared by a remarkable woman. But it was not heard. It was not heard because the Democratic Party and Jewish Democrats believe that their partisan interest in demonizing Palin and making Americans generally and American Jews in particular hate and fear her to secure their votes for Obama and his running-mate Sen. Joseph Biden in the November election is more important than allowing Palin to elevate the necessity of preventing a second Holocaust to the top of the US’s national security agenda.

 As if in immediate reply to my last entry, Front Page Magazine today carries an article about one foresightful American who wants to take measures against the encroachment of sharia. 

International reaction was almost uniformly negative last week when news broke that Britain had officially granted Muslim Sharia courts permission to rule on everything from divorce to domestic violence. After all, in its strictest form, Sharia law requires the stoning of women accused of adultery, and the execution of converts from Islam, among other draconian punishments for offences that aren’t even considered crimes in the West. In the U.K. and abroad, pundits and politicians denounced Britain’s capitulation, but only one elected official responded with a daring proposal aimed at preventing Sharia law from gaining such a foothold in America.

That that politician was Rep. Tom Tancredo won’t surprise observers of American politics. The Colorado congressman has long been an outspoken critic of the unofficial “open-borders” policy that encourages millions of undocumented immigrants – including would-be terrorists – to enter the U.S. each year. During his short-lived presidential campaign in 2007, Tancredo repeatedly raised the immigration issue during televised debates. He also aired a provocative television ad in which he promised to “stop all visas to nations that sponsor terrorism and [to] arrest and deport any alien who preaches violence and hatred.”

The ad earned Tancredo scorn on the Left and also on some parts of the Right. Undaunted, he has now proposed a “Jihad Prevention Act” that “would bar the entry of foreign nationals who advocate Sharia law [and] make the advocacy of Sharia law by radical Muslims already in the United States a deportable offense.” In his official announcement on September 18, Tancredo observed: “This is a case where truth is truly stranger than fiction. Today the British people are learning a hard lesson about the consequences of massive, unrestricted immigration.”

“When you have an immigration policy that allows for the importation of millions of radical Muslims,” he explained, “you are also importing their radical ideology – an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the foundations of western democracy – such as gender equality, pluralism, and individual liberty. The best way to safeguard America against the importation of the destructive effects of this poisonous ideology is to prevent its purveyors from coming here in the first place.”

 

 In Front Page Magazine, Faith McDonnell writes about the reception various Christian groups are holding in New York to honor the genocidal President of Iran:

Already well-established for killing Christians, Jews, Baha’I’s, and Muslims of the wrong sort, the Islamic Republic of Iran is about to descend to a new level of repression and persecution.  A proposed penal code nearing final passage in the Iranian Parliament would, for the first time, formally institute the death penalty for “apostasy.”   The Islamists in Iran would waste no time using this law against Christian converts from Islam, members of the Baha’I faith, and Muslim activists and dissidents.  So what are Christian churches in the United States doing in response to this threat to their fellow believers?  Holding prayer services?  Not one group of mainline/pacifist churches.  They are breaking the Ramadan fast (who knew they were fasting for Ramadan?) at an Iftar with Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Terming their dhimmitude as “an invitation to an international dialogue between religious leaders and political figures,” the American Friends Service Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace, and the World Council of Churches – United Nations Liaison Office announced this by-invitation-only dinner with the Iranian leader who has denied the Holocaust took place, threatened the annihilation of Israel, and who, along with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has continued the tradition that began with the Iranian Revolution of violating the human rights of all Iranian citizens. 

Arranging the Iftar at Manhattan’s Grand Hyatt Hotel, accompanied by obsequious verbiage about “the significance of religious contributions to peace,” and “building mutual understanding between our peoples, nations, and religious traditions,” the event’s sponsoring committee is just the latest example of the pattern of Western behavior towards Islam that has been so well described and foretold in the work of Bat Ye’or and others.  In some cases, these mainline Christian leaders are toadies, hoping to avert a jihad-level catastrophe by assuming the position as submissive “People of the Book.”  In other cases, mainline Christian leaders have reached the point where the doctrines of the Christian faith (for which many Iranian Christians have been willing to die) have no meaning anymore, and all religions are equivalent.

Perhaps it would be worth it to hold your nose and dine with the devil if it meant an opportunity to speak out about Iran’s repression and persecution, to be a voice for those who are suffering, and to demand that Islam offer reciprocity for the freedom of religion and decency of treatment that Muslims have received from Christians, Jews, and Baha’is.  With Iran on the verge of a new level of repression, and religious minorities in Iran facing a new level of siege because of the proposed apostasy penal code, an American Christian leader is needed to speak with courage and forthrightness over a dinner plate.  To use the phrase that mainline liberal church leaders are so fond of when it comes to attacking George Bush, a prophetic voice to speak truth to power.   Ahmadinejad will hear such voices, but he will not hear them in the posh dining rooms of the U.S. mainline church leaders.  He will hear them in the prison cells and court rooms of Iran. 

 Investor’s Business Daily believes that this time government is intervening in the right way to help solve the economic crisis: 

Like so many others, we believe that government should largely remove itself from functioning markets. But in a case such as this, where a market has been seriously damaged due to regulatory excess, an obligation exists to help undo the damage.

That’s the case now with the subprime crisis and housing collapse, both largely due to decades of congressional incompetence.

With world credit markets seized up and little to show for piecemeal U.S. efforts to deal with the growing financial panic, Paulson and others on the Bush financial team late last week shifted course, crafting a systematic answer to the markets’ meltdown.

This was leadership writ large… 

His controversial decision to create a new financial entity, modeled broadly on the 1980s-era Resolution Trust Corp., may just spell an end to this financial crisis. Congress, which has mostly sat on the sidelines during this crisis, should approve it right away.

Unlike the RTC, which owned actual properties, the new agency that Paulson’s Treasury is creating will buy up the impaired mortgage-backed securities and hold them for resale when the market turns favorable again.

For ailing financial markets, this was welcome tonic. At this point they care less about details of the agency than limiting the contagion of the subprime crisis so it will no longer contaminate global banks and investors’ balance sheets. Mission accomplished.

That’s why markets rallied so strongly Thursday and Friday, with the Dow industrials ahead 779 points, or 7.3%, and the Nasdaq up 175 points, or 5.8%. Bourses in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Hong Kong, among many others, also rebounded sharply.

Paulson’s move will have deep, and perhaps lasting, impacts on global markets. Foreign central banks had virtually thrown their hands up in despair over their inability to deal with the crisis. But in just three days, Paulson and other top finance and regulatory officials in the Bush administration cobbled together a world rescue.

In addition to Paulson’s new entity, Bernanke’s Fed extended $180 billion in credit to practice that had contributed to the growing financial crisis.

These U.S. moves should erase the doubts that existed both in the suites of global market makers and in the kitchens and living rooms of Main Street, U.S.A., over whether the American government would fiddle while the world economy burned.

Just this week, Germany’s Der Spiegel headlined a story: "The World As We Know It Is Going Down." Well, it isn’t. Thanks to Paulson and Co., America has reasserted global leadership at a time when many thought it was lost.

It finds fault with Barack Obama’s analysis and his 4-point remedy. His would be the wrong way.  

And what would Obama do instead? We’re beginning to find out. In a four-point action plan Obama presented on Friday, he goes beyond "hope" and "change" oratory and moves on to what really matters to him: the big-government spending he’s been selling all election.

And here’s what Obama proposes:

• Point one, Obama calls for subsidies to "working families" to beat high food and energy prices. The problem: High food and energy prices won’t be helped by subsidies, but by more supplies. The real solution is to force a Democratic Congress to allow domestic drilling for oil. Thus far, Obama isn’t even "present" on that one.

• Point two, dubbed "mutual responsibility and reciprocity," calls for banks to subsidize bad borrowers to "protect homeowners and the economy." This would eliminate personal responsibility. Demagoguing false details — such as about bankers getting golden parachutes, instead of 25,000 of them losing their jobs — Obama insists the solution is simple: Banks shouldn’t foreclose on delinquent home buyers. Obviously, he hasn’t heard of how bad loans drained Japan’s economy of its vitality for a decade.

• Third, Obama seeks "new oversight and regulations of our financial institutions." That means forcing new bureaucracies and regulations into the private sector, the very phenomenon that has made navigating our health care industry such a delight.

• Fourth, Obama seeks to empower unelected foreign entities to the same "globally coordinated (rescue) effort." But Bernanke and Paulson have already done the heavy lifting, as the rest of "the world" has done next to nothing. One more global bureaucracy won’t make America’s financial system any healthier.

Obama makes a final point by blasting the failure of "common-sense regulation and oversight," to the financial system.

He ought to bring this up with fellow Democrats in Congress. In the 1990s, Rep. Barney Frank blocked key reforms even as he took campaign cash from banking interests. In 2004, President Bush attempted to revive the reforms, but Democrats blocked them.

Today’s bank crisis isn’t due to the inherent evil of the private sector, as Obama claims. It’s due to Democratic leaders who were bought off by political donations and hostile to reform.

Obama, curiously enough, is one of the top recipients of cash from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Small wonder, then, that his main election argument would expand the scope of government by using the banks’ subprime woes as leverage.

 

 Neal Boortz confirms that the economic crisis was caused by socialist politicians, like Barack Obama, not by an ‘unregulated’ free market.

Political correctness won the day. Washington made it clear to banks and other lending institutions that if they did not do something .. and fast .. to bring more minorities and low-income Americans into the world of home ownership there would be a heavy price to pay. Congress set up processes (Research the Community Redevelopment Act) whereby community activist groups and organizers could effectively stop a bank’s efforts to grow if that bank didn’t make loans to unqualified borrowers. Enter, stage left, the “subprime” mortgage. These lenders knew that a very high percentage of these loans would turn to garbage – but it was a price that had to be paid if the bank was to expand and grow. We should note that among the community groups browbeating banks into making these bad loans was an outfit called ACORN. There is one certain presidential candidate that did a lot of community organizing for ACORN. I won’t mention his name so as to avoid politicizing this column.

These garbage loans to unqualified borrowers were then bundled up and sold. The expectation was that the loans would be eventually paid off when rising home values led some borrowers to access their equity through re-financing and others to sell and move on up the ladder. Oops.

Right now this crisis is being sold to the American public by the left as evidence the failure of the free market and capitalism. Not so. What we’re seeing is the inevitable result of political interference in free market economics. Acme bank didn’t want to loan money to Joe Homebuyer because Joe had a spotty job history, owed too much money on his credit cards, and wasn’t all that good at making payments on time. The politicians told Acme Bank to figure out a way to make that loan, because, after all, Joe is a bona-fide minority-American, or forget about opening that new branch office on the Southside. The loan was made under politicial pressure; the loan, with millions like it, failed – and now we are left to enjoy today’s headlines.

So … why aren’t you reading the whole story in the mainstream media? Come on, are you kidding me? Do you really expect the media to blame this mess on deadbeat borrowers and political interference in the free market when it is so easy to put the blame on greedy lenders and evil capitalists? Remember … there’s an election going on. One candidate is decidedly anti-capitalist. Do the math.

 Here is the lowdown on ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which has a significant share in culpability for the sub-prime disaster – as mentioned in the preceding post.

The report explains that Acorn is:

 Implicated in numerous reports of fraudulent voter registration, vote-rigging, voter intimidation, and vote-for-pay scams during the 2004 election. 

 An Investor’s Business Daily editorial makes it clear who is responsible for the financial crisis, and why:  

The risk-taking was her [Pelosi’s] idea — and the idea of all the other Democrats, along with a handful of Republicans, who over the past 30 years have demonized lenders as racist and passed regulation after regulation pressuring them to make more loans to unqualified borrowers in the name of diversity.

They were the ones who screamed — "REDLINING!" — and sent banks scurrying for cover in low-income neighborhoods, where they have been forced to lower long-held industry standards for judging creditworthiness to make the subprime loans.

If they don’t comply, they are threatened with stiff penalties under the Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA, a law that forces banks to make home loans to people with poor credit risks.

No fewer than four federal banking regulatory agencies are responsible for enforcing the law. They subject lenders to racial litmus tests and issue regular report cards, the industry’s dreaded "CRA rating."

The more branches that lenders put in poor neighborhoods, and the more loans they make there, the better their rating. Those lenders with low ratings can not only be fined, but also blocked from mergers and other business transactions needed to expand.

The regulation grew to monstrous proportions during the Clinton administration, obsessed as it was with multiculturalism. Amendments to the CRA in the mid-1990s dramatically raised the amount of home loans to otherwise unqualified low-income borrowers.

The revisions also allowed for the first time the securitization of CRA-regulated loans containing subprime mortgages. The changes came as radical "housing rights" groups led by ACORN lobbied for such loans. ACORN at the time was represented by a young public-interest lawyer in Chicago by the name of Barack Obama.

Banks and other lending institutions should not be the servants of government. They should be in business to make a profit. In the end, the perversion of their purpose harmed the whole economy, and the worst sufferers are precisely those that the misdirection of their function was supposed to help.