Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said there is “all kinds of pressure” by the Democratic Caucus on Committee Chairman Max Baucus not to call in President Obama’s recess-appointee to run Medicare and Medicaid, Dr. Donald Berwick, for hearings, which are constitutionally mandated.

Hatch added that there “must be a reason why they don’t want him” to testify before the committee, and said he thinks it is because of the “outlandish viewpoints” that Berwick has expressed over many years.

Obama nominated Berwick to run the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) on Apr. 19. Senator Baucus never called a hearing for Berwick. On July 7, while Congress was away on the July 4 vacation, Obama recess-appointed Berwick to the CMS position.

On Capitol Hill, CNSNews.com asked Senator Hatch, “On July 1, 2008, in a speech commemorating the 60th anniversary of Britain’s single-payer health-care system, Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama’s recess-appointee to run Medicare and Medicaid said, quote, ‘Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must – must — redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate.’ Do you agree with that or disagree with that?”

Hatch said, “He’s made a lot of statements that are very controversial. Look, there’s no question he’s an excellent pediatrician, he’s a very competent doctor, he’s a professor, he’s taught medicine — but he’s made some of the most outlandish statements I’ve ever heard.

“Look, the reason we have the United States Senate, the reason we have the Senate Finance Committee, is to hold hearings so that we can look into these people and see just what should be known about them. And I think it’s ridiculous to have someone who’s going to head CMS, which is a huge part of the economy, and not have one opportunity to question him about his viewpoints.”

Hatch continued, “I mean, the Democrats have the votes to put him through. I suspect. But the fact of the matter is, is that he ought to at least have to appear before the committee, at least express himself and express himself in a reasonable way.”

Finance Committee Republicans recently wrote a letter to Chairman Baucus asking him to hold confirmation hearings on the recess-appointed Berwick, whose nomination has not yet been formally withdrawn by the White House from consideration in the Senate.

“I know that there’s all kind of pressure on Chairman Baucus by his caucus,” Hatch told CNSNews.com. “They don’t want him to testify and there must be some reason why they don’t want him to — and I suspect it’s the kind of outlandish viewpoints that he’s expressed from time to time which really need to be reviewed.”

“He may be able to explain those away and establish himself as a true leader at CMS that this country needs, but until those are explained away, there’s always going to be a cloud over him and, I think, over this administration for putting somebody into this very, very important position without having the oversight that Congress is supposed to provide,” said Hatch.

“The Constitution says advise and consent,” said Hatch. “Well, we’re supposed to advise the president and we’re supposed to consent, but only after we’ve looked at these matters and know what we’re talking about and that’s what hearings are all a part (of).”

“That’s what this important committee is all about,” he said, “and they’ve been bypassing this Finance Committee time after time after time just bringing matters to the floor without even having the, you know, the important discussions, important hearings, important reviews that this committee’s always been known for — and I don’t agree with that. I think it’s wrong.”

CNSNews.com also asked Hatch, “Do you think there was any pressure from the administration on the Finance Committee, specifically [on] Chairman Baucus not to have a hearing?”

Hatch said, “Well, it sure looks like it. I mean, look, normally you hold hearings about something, about someone nominated for a position of that dimension, that importance, and you don’t just recess-appoint somebody without having hearings or without at least having the people in this country understand what he’s all about.”

CMS’ budget is currently larger than the Pentagon’s. Hatch said the decisions Berwick will make as CMS director will “basically affect every American.”

“I mean, that’s what the committee’s for, that’s what Congress is for, and this is not some itty bitty job,” said Hatch. “This is big time, hundreds of billions of dollars every year goes through CMS and the decisions they make are going to affect basically every American in the county. So, this [a Senate committee hearing] is just something that you would say ordinarily has to happen.”

The Finance Committee’s majority press office did not return requests for comment.

You’ve seen the reports about Van Jones, President Obama’s onetime “green jobs czar,” and Cass Sunstein, his equally volatile “regulatory czar,” and Fox News show host Glenn Beck has put together a list of dozens of such appointees.

Now here’s the newest White House promotion: “Health food czar” Sam Kass.

“In a comical move even for a czar-happy president who has rewarded dozens of cronies with distinguished titles, the White House has named the Obamas’ personal Chicago cook as ‘Senior Policy Adviser for Healthy Food Initiatives,’” reports the Washington government watchdog Judicial Watch.

“It’s no joke, even though it sounds like a bad one. The Chicago chef’s rapid ascension … has been kept under the radar for the last month,” Judicial Watch said.

“Sam Kass went from being a 20-something, Windy City gourmet cook – privately paid by the Obamas to feed them – to big-time White House adviser in a matter of months,” the report said.

But it makes sense, the report said, since Michelle Obama has claimed that childhood obesity is a threat to “national security.”

According to an earlier CNSNews.com report, Michelle Obama confirmed – in talking about her White House campaign against obesity – that the condition “impacts national security” because it is a “disqualifier for military service.”

Judicial Watch said the situation is so dire, President Obama has been convinced to spend $400 million a year on “healthy foods” in low-income neighborhoods as well as revise – at a cost of $10 billion – a federal plan to provide food to poor children in school.

Such an assembly of programs “no doubt requires a trusted senior policy adviser – like Kass – who is an expert in healthy cuisine,” Judicial Watch said.

“Makes you wonder what Kass … has been putting in the Obamas’ food all these years,” the report said.

WND previously has reported on the health-care rationing czar, Don Berwick, and Internet czar Susan P. Crawford.

Also, homosexual activist Kevin Jennings was named Obama’s “safe schools” czar.

WND was the news agency that broke the first major story on Obama’s “green” jobs czar Jones.

Also, WND exposed Sunstein, Obama’s “regulatory czar,” as an advocate of a “Fairness Doctrine” for the Internet.

Science czar John Holdren also was exposed and the subject was highlighted in WND’s Top 10 stories of 2009.

The Obama appointees also were featured in a Whistleblower magazine edition called “SHADOW GOVERNMENT.”

The magazine issue introduced people “like Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioner nominee Chai Feldblum, who endorses polygamy, and AIDS czar Jeffrey S. Crowley – both openly homosexual.”

“Then there’s Patrick Gaspard, officially the ‘director of the office of political affairs,’ but whom critics call ‘ACORN’s man in the White House.’ And defense policy adviser Rosa Brooks, a George-Soros-trained ideologue and antimilitary radical who urged the prosecution of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for ‘war crimes,’” the report said. “And FCC diversity czar Mark Lloyd, who believes the so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine’ – unanimously repealed by the FCC in 1987 – was never repealed, wants to destroy conservative talk radio, and described Marxist dictator Hugo Chavez’s rise to power in Venezuela as ‘an incredible revolution.’”

According to Beck’s compilation, the list of czars includes:

• Richard Holbrooke, Afghanistan czar
• Jeffrey Crowley, AIDS czar
• Ed Montgomery, auto recovery czar
• Alan Bersin, border czar
• David J. Hayes, California water czar
• Ron Bloom, car czar
• Dennis Ross, central region czar
• Todd Stern, climate czar
• Lynn Rosenthal, domestic violence czar
• Gil Kerlikowske, drug czar
• Paul Volcker, economic czar
• Carol Browner, energy and environment czar
• Joshua DuBois, faith-based czar
• Jeffrey Zients, government performance czar
• Cameron Davis, Great Lakes czar
• Van Jones, green jobs czar
• Daniel Fried, Guantanamo closure czar
• Nancy-Ann DeParle, health czar
• Vivek Kundra, information czar
• Dennis Blair, intelligence czar
• George Mitchell, Mideast peace czar
• Kenneth R. Feinberg, pay czar
• Cass Sunstein, regulatory czar
• John Holdren, science czar
• Earl Devaney, stimulus accountability czar
• J. Scott Gration, Sudan czar
• Herb Allison, TARP czar
• Aneesh Chopra, technology czar
• John Brennan, terrorism czar
• Adolfa Carrion Jr., urban affairs czar
• Ashton Carter, weapons czar
• Gary Samore, WMD policy czar

Fox News commentator and author Dick Morris is blasting President Obama’s recess appointment of Dr. Donald M. Berwick to head Medicare and Medicaid, saying it will “open the door” to denying life-saving care to patients.

Republicans have been sharply critical of Berwick, who is expected to play a key role in implementing the administration’s healthcare reforms. By appointing Berwick during a congressional recess, President Obama avoided the normal Senate confirmation process.

Berwick is controversial in part because he has expressed admiration for the British healthcare system. He also appears to favor some type of rationing of healthcare services.

“The decision is not whether or not we will ration care,” he told a nonprofit healthcare organization last year, “the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open. And right now, we are doing it blindly.”

Rationing “with our eyes open,” Morris says, means making cold-blooded calculations about who receives treatment.

“I’ve been particularly worried that the medical care reform act that Obama so-called would lead to rationing,” Morris tells Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella in an exclusive interview. “He kept denying it and saying it wasn’t true. Now he’s appointed someone who says he advocates rationing ‘with our eyes open.’”

Morris says Berwick favors limiting healthcare treatment for seniors, once they reach a certain age.

“There’s a ridiculous presumption being made by this administration, which is that you can reduce the healthcare spending in the United States. How absurd that is,” Morris says.

“In the next 10 years the American population will grow by 8 percent, and the population over 65 will grow by 61 percent. So we’re going to spend less on medical care when we have an aging population? Come on, give me a break, that’s not going to happen!

“We’re going to spend more. And what we need to do is make sure we don’t have to ration. We’re the richest country in the world, why should we ever be in a position of telling someone that to keep them alive for another year or two or three is too expensive? Who ever wants a bureaucrat to make that decision? And yet [Berwick] is committed to doing exactly that.”

Morris says the result will be a formula that specifies when patients no longer will qualify for treatment.

“It will literally set up a mathematical formula of what you’re permitted to use, and not permitted to use, to get a patient healthy. And that formula will force doctors to withhold lifesaving treatment, not just to prolong their lives by three or four weeks, but by several years, even a decade or more, simply because they’re too old, or somehow at fault, they smoke or they’re overweight or something like that. You’re opening the door to that kind of rationing. And he’s going to set in place a system like that.”

The way to stop that from happening, Morris says, is “by taking control of Congress, by zero funding the program.”

Also, he predicts the administration’s tactic of collecting 10 years of revenue to defray the costs of seven years of healthcare reform will prove to be a political blunder.

“But ultimately that’s going to backfire because it doesn’t take effect until 2014,” Morris tells Newsmax. “And that means … killing the health care reform bill will be one of the main issues of the 2012 election, and Obama’s going to lose on that.”

Other highlights of the exclusive Newsmax.TV interview with Morris:

• White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ recent remark conceding that Democrats could lose control of the House is part of an effort to acknowledge the obvious to “insulate Obama from that disaster, and say it really wasn’t about him.” Pointing to recent Democratic losses in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia, Morris adds: “Whenever they see an election going against them, the first thing they do is try to abandon ship.”
• Based on his analysis of recent polls, Morris believes GOP Senate candidate Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, has a “terrific chance” of beating incumbent Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in California.
• He predicts GOP Senate candidate Pat Toomey will defeat Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania. “I think Sestak hurt himself horribly when he refused to come clean for week after week after week about that federal job offer from Bill Clinton to drop out of the campaign,” Morris says.
• He said the financial reform bill making its way through Congress is defective because it doesn’t regulate investments in financial derivatives such as credit default swaps. “To call this monstrosity a financial regulation bill is ludicrous. It doesn’t regulate the main thing you have to regulate. Instead, it regulates every little consumer loan that any little community bank gives, but not the hundreds of billions of dollars bet on derivatives. It’s insane,” Morris says.
• He predicts voters will conclude the president is an out-of-touch ideologue if he continues to maintain that the stimulus package is working and the country is on the right track. Polls show people don’t believe it, Morris says.
• Morris was highly critical of Florida gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott, the former head of the scandal-plagued Columbia/HCA healthcare firm. Scott is vying against Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum for the GOP nomination for governor. Morris says that Scott, through his former company, “fleeced” money from the government. In his TV commercials, Scott assumes full responsibility of what happened at his company. Scott was never charged with a crime, and he said he personally was never investigated by the FBI.
• The administration’s law suit against Arizona’s immigration law is an effort “to try to fan resentment in the Latino community” in order to increase turnout for Democratic voters in the midterms. But Obama’s rhetoric is only narrowing his base, Morris says.

Morris calls the administration’s accusation that the Arizona law will lead to racial profiling “ridiculous.” he says.

“It’s ludicrous to take this as racial profiling,” says Morris, “But it’s exactly Obama’s strategy. He’s increasingly becoming the president of 30 percent of America, and disregarding the other 70 percent.”

Not only does Todd Gaziano (Congressional appointee on the United States Commission on Civil Rights) claim that the 2008 Election Day voter intimidation charge against the Philadelphia New Black Panther Party was ‘open and shut’, but that Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandez ordered, ‘Never bring another lawsuit against a black or other national minority, apparently no matter what they do.’

White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs has evaded answering the question of whether President Barack Obama agrees with Dr. Donald Berwick, his newly appointed director of Medicare and Medicaid, who has insisted that health-care systems must redistribute wealth.

“Excellent health care is by definition redistributional,” Berwick said in a speech delivered on July 1, 2008.

When asked directly at the July 7 White House press briefing whether Obama agreed with this, Gibbs would not answer the question. Instead, he parried it with jocular statements about the provenance of the quote.

On July 8, CNSNews.com sent Gibbs an email that included a link to aYouTube page on which is posted a video of the portion of Berwick’s July 1, 2008 speech in which Berwick made the comment. Gibbs was also provided with a transcript of the relevant segment of the video and a copy of the July 26, 2008 edition of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) which published a written adaptation of Berwick’s speech.

Berwick gave the July 1, 2008 speech to honor the 60th anniversary of the National Health Service, Britain’s government-run single-payer health care system.

“You could have had a monstrous insurance industry of claims and rules and paper-pushing instead of using your tax base to provide a single route of finance,” said Berwick in the video recording of the speech that CNSNews.com provided to Gibbs. “You could have protected the wealthy and the well, instead of recognizing that sick people tend to be poorer and that poor people tend to be sicker. And that any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must—must–redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional. Britain, you chose well.”

Gibbs was again asked–in the July 8 email–whether President Obama agreed with Dr. Berwick that “excellent health care is by definition redistributional”?

Gibbs again did not answer.

On Wednesday, Obama made Berwick the director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) through a recess appointment.

Obama had sent Berwick’s nomination in April to a Senate that has a 59-seat Democratic majority. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat whose committee had jurisdiction over Berwick’s nomination, had not yet scheduled a confirmation hearing on the nomination.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, has control over scheduling floor votes on presidential nominations.

In a White House statement announcing the recess appointment, Obama charged that the confirmation of Berwick and two other nominees he was naming by recess appointment at the same time had been delayed in the Democrat-controlled Senate by unnamed persons for “political purposes.” “It’s unfortunate that at a time when our nation is facing enormous challenges, many in Congress have decided to delay critical nominations for political purposes,” he said.

Because Obama’s made this recess appointment while Congress was out for the July 4th holiday, the Democrat-controlled Finance Committee no longer needs to hold a confirmation hearing on Berwick before the November elections and Senate Majority Leader Reid does not need to schedule a vote on the nomination this year. But, under the express language of Article 2, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution, Berwick’s recess appointment must “expire by the end of the next session”—meaning Berwick must leave office by the end of 2011 unless the Senate puts him through the constitutionally required confirmation process in the intervening time.

On July 1, 2008, Berwick gave his speech at Wembley stadium in England celebrating England’s single-payer health care system which was then in its 60th year. In the speech, Berwick praised Britain for choosing to have a government-run health care system and made his remarks that to be “just, equitable, civilized and humane” a health care system “must” redistribute wealth, and that “excellent health care is by definition redistributional.”

The portion of Berwick’s speech that includes this statement was postedon YouTube by the Heartland Institute on May 12, and that same day nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin played the audio of the relevant portion of the speech on his program. Berwick’s statement that “excellent health care is by definition redistributional” has been available online in both video and audio form ever since then.

A few weeks after Berwick delivered the speech in 2008, a written adaptation of it was published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in its July 26, 2008 edition. In the written version, Berwick repeated his praise of Britain’s government-run, single-payer health-care system as well as his assertion that a “just” health-care system must redistribute wealth. The language of the written version that Berwick published in BMJ, however, was somewhat streamlined from the spoken words he used at Wembley.

“You could have a giant insurance industry of claims, rules, and paper pushing instead of using your tax base to provide a single route of finance,” wrote Berwick. “You could have protected the wealthy and the well instead of recognizing that sick people tend to be poorer and that poor people tend to be sicker, and that any healthcare funding plan that is just must redistribute wealth. Britain, you chose well.”

On Wednesday, July 7, 2010, the day that the White House announced that President Obama was bypassing the Senate confirmation process and giving Berwick a recess appointment to run Medicare, CNSNews.com asked White House Spokesman Gibbs during the White House press briefing whether the president agreed with what Berwick said about redistribution at Wembley.

“Among the controversial comments that he’s made in the past that would have come out in a Senate confirmation hearing are that ‘excellent health care is’—‘excellent health care by definition is redistribution,” said CNSNews.com. “Some of the others were mentioned. Does the president actually agree with that comment?”

In response, Gibbs noted that two past Republican CMS directors supported Berwick’s nomination.

“Look, this is somebody who is uniquely and supremely qualified to run an agency that is important to our government, it’s important to seniors, it’s important to implementation of the new health care law,” said Gibbs. “And this is somebody supported not just by Democrats but by, as I said earlier, Tom Scully and Mark McClellan, who ran this agency–both of whom ran this agency for George Bush.

“But does the President agree with the previous statement?” asked CNSNews.com.

Gibbs then remarked that the question of whether Obama agreed with his Medicare director was a political game.

“I know that this is the exact type of political game that the American people have come to understand dominates Washington and doesn’t actually make their health care more affordable,” he said.

Gibbs then declined to say whether comments by Berwick about rationing and redistribution would be troublesome in an election year if they were aired during a Senate hearing.

“You just read comments,” said Gibbs. “Is there like a secret comment book that somehow you got that nobody else got, and you just read a couple of them to me–and somehow they wouldn’t have come out? Did he say things like, ‘rationing happens today; the question is who will do it’? Did he say that? Did he say that?”

Gibbs said that that comment was actually made by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, who was a fierce critic of the health-care law that President Obama signed in March.

“Actually, that was Paul Ryan. That was Paul Ryan,” said Gibbs.

In fact, in an interview published on Feb. 2, 2010, Ryan told Ezra Klein of The Washington Post: “Rationing happens today! The question is who will do it? The government? Or you, your doctor and your family?”

In June 2009, in an interview with Biotechnology Healthcare, Dr. Berwick made his own remark about rationing–in the context of government-funded health-care.

“We can make a sensible social decision and say, ‘Well, at this point, to have access to a particular additional benefit [new drug or medical intervention] is so expensive that our taxpayers have better use for those funds,’” said Berwick. “We make those decisions all the time. The decision is not whether or not we will ration care–the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open. And right now, we are doing it blindly.”

Under the health-care law signed by President Obama, American earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level ($88,200 for a family of four in 2010) will receive federal subsidies to buy health insurance, but they will be required to buy a government-approved plan in a government-regulated exchange.

Senate Finance Chairman Baucus was critical of Obama’s use of a recess appointment to circumvent the Senate confirmmation process for Berwick. “I’m troubled that, rather than going through the standard nomination process, Dr. Berwick was recess appointed,” Baucus said in a statement.

“Senate confirmation of presidential appointees is an essential process prescribed by the Constitution that serves as a check on executive power and protects Montanans and all Americans by ensuring that crucial questions are asked of the nominee–and answered,” Baucus said.

Here is the text of the email inquiry that CNSNews.com sent to Gibbs on July 8, 2010:

Robert:

At Wembley stadium on July 1, 2008, in a speech commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the National Health Service, Great Britain’s government-run single-payer health care system, Dr. Donald Berwick said the following:

“You could have had a monstrous insurance industry of claims and rules and paper-pushing instead of using your tax base to provide a single route of finance.You could have protected the wealthy and the well, instead of recognizing that sick people tend to be poorer and that poor people tend to be sicker. And that any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must—must–redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional. Britain, you chose well.”

If you would like to watch Dr. Berwick make these comments with your own eyes, a video of this portion of his remarks has been posted on You Tube.

The July 26, 2008 edition of the British Medical Journal published a written adaptation of the speech, where Dr. Berwick expressed the same view in somewhat streamlined language. In the BMJ article, Dr. Berwick said:

“You could have a giant insurance industry of claims, rules, and paper pushing instead of using your tax base to provide a single route of finance.You could have protected the wealthy and the well instead of recognising that sick people tend to be poorer and that poor people tend to be sicker, and that any healthcare funding plan that is just must redistribute wealth.Britain, you chose well.”

I have attached a PDF of this article for your reference. (The Berwick article starts on the third page of the PDF.)

Here is my question: Does President Barack Obama agree with Dr. Donald Berwick’s assertion that “[e]xcellent health care is by definition redistributional”?

We are publishing a story this afternoon at 2 p.m.

Thanks for your help.

Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com

Here we go again. I’ve long reported on the danger of illegal alien sanctuary city policies embraced by woefully misguided (at best) and criminally reckless public officials seeking to appease the open borders lobby. One of the countless casualties of this deadly pandering was Houston PD officer Rodney Johnson, who shot and killed during a traffic stop in 2006 by an previously deported illegal alien protected by Houston’s sanctuary law. His widow, Josyln, continues to speak out against continued non-enforcement policies — and she is livid that the Houston police chief willnow be joining the Obama administration:

The widow of a Houston police officer killed by an illegal immigrant said Sunday that the policies left in place in her city by a top immigration official in the Obama administration continue to put officers in danger.

That official, former Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt, is taking a job to oversee partnerships between federal and local officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. However, during his tenure in Houston he resisted enforcing immigration law and criticized ICE’s key program that draws on local law enforcement’s support. Hurtt is now facing a lawsuit over those policies filed by Joslyn Johnson, whose husband, Rodney, was killed in 2006 by a once-deported illegal immigrant who had been arrested three times.

Joslyn Johnson, herself a sergeant in the Houston force, told Fox News that the policies that kept local officers from checking the immigration status of suspects remain in place and pose a risk to her and her colleagues.

“It has remained the same. It has not changed,” Johnson said.

Johnson is suing to seek a change in policy so that federal immigration databases are widely available to local departments. Johnson’s original court petition — naming Hurtt as well as the city and the police department — claimed that the department’s failure to discover the gunman’s immigration status and report him to federal authorities enabled him to stay “at large” in the country.

These open-borders sympathizers endanger us all — and it will only prompt more of an Arizona-style backlash in other states and cities across the country.

“Illegal alien sanctuary” or rule of law community: It’s your choice.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin its hearing today on [Obama's] nomination of Elena Kagan to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Kagan is no stranger to the confirmation process; in fact, she devoted one of her few academic writings entirely to the subject,writing:

The Senate’s consideration of a nominee, and particularly the Senate’s confirmation hearings, ought to focus on substantive issues; the Senate ought to view the hearings as an opportunity to gain knowledge and promote public understanding of what the nominee believes the Court should do and how she would affect its conduct.

Kagan’s law review article specifically criticized recent confirmation hearings as “a vapid and hollow charade, in which repetition of platitudes has replaced discussion of viewpoints and personal anecdotes have supplanted legal analysis.” Instead, Kagan advocated that senators insist “on seeing how theory works in practice by evoking a nominee’s comments on particular issues – involving privacy rights, free speech, race and gender discrimination, and so forth – that the Court regularly faces.” Kagan even suggested that nominees with thin records (and Kagan’s record can definitely be considered “thin,” since she has no judicial experience, few academic writings, and virtually no litigation experience prior to her current post as Solicitor General), should face a heavier burden when answering senators’ questions. So what “substantive issues” should senators press Kagan on to see how her “theory works in practice”?

The First Amendment: As Solicitor General, Kagan asserted before the Supreme Court that government could ban political pamphlets. The core of the First Amendment is the protection of political speech. So not only does such a position therefore violate common sense, but its logic could be used to ban Thomas Paine’s Common Sense or other landmark political treatises, particularly if their authors were so foolish as to publish them through a non-profit corporation. Does Kagan believe that the First Amendment permits the government to ban pamphlets and books?

The Second Amendment: As a law clerk, Elena Kagan recommended that the Supreme Court not even hear a claim that the District of Columbia’s complete ban on handguns violates the Second Amendment — a claim that recently succeeded at the Court. The sole reasoning that she provided for denying the claim: “I’m not sympathetic.” Kagan was also intimately involved in gun-control policies in the Clinton White House, working to reclassify certain hunting rifles as assault weapons and to ban their importation. In Kagan’s notes obtained from the Clinton Library, she even lumped the National Rifle Association together with the KKK as “bad guy org[anization]s.” Does Kagan stand by her recommendation to reject access to the Supreme Court to someone denied his or her Second Amendment rights by a complete ban on handguns? Considering that she has argued that the government can ban political pamphlets, does she also believe that the Constitution permits the government to ban all guns, as well?

Social Issues vs. National Security: As dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan restricted military recruiters’ access to campus. Kagan’s actions, which were based upon a court of appeals decision that did not even apply to Harvard, violated the Solomon Amendment. It was only after the Department of Defense threatened to cut off Harvard’s funding that Kagan granted military recruiters customary access to campus. What legal authority did Kagan have to disregard the Solomon Amendment and restrict the access of military recruiters to campus? Does Kagan think it was appropriate to limit the ability of the military to recruit on campus at a time when the United States is fighting two wars?

Foreign Law vs. the U.S. Constitution: In a letter to Senator Arlen Specter (D–PA) during her Solicitor General confirmation hearings, Kagan wrote, “There are some circumstances in which it may be proper for judges to consider foreign law sources in ruling on constitutional questions,” such as the Eighth Amendment. This position seems consistent with Kagan’s approach as dean of Harvard Law School, where she led the effort to change the first-year curricula to mandate the study of international law while maintaining constitutional law as an elective course. This practice of looking at foreign law to change U.S. law raises grave questions about U.S. sovereignty and is frequently used selectively by justices who cite to practices that favor their desired outcomes.As a justice, would Kagan cite to foreign law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution?

When President Barack Obama outlined his criteria for appointing a replacement for retiring-Justice David Souter, he said he would seek: “someone who understands justice and isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book, it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives … I view that quality of empathy of understanding and identifying what people’s hopes and struggles as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes.” Kagan has similarly written that it is the Supreme Court’s mission to “show a special solicitude for the despised and the disadvantaged.” At a time when this White House has shown an utter contempt for the rule of law in favor of their own political allies (e.g. Chrysler bailout, oil drilling moratorium, BP shakedown, etc.) it is now more important than ever that senators ensure Kagan is capable of putting aside her personal preferences, applying the law as it is written, and dispensing justice without regard to the parties before her.

Side Note: Robert Alt, Senior Legal Fellow and Deputy Director, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week regarding Kagan’s nomination hearing. For more information, visit OrderInTheCourt.org.

Quick Hits:

• Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), the longest serving U.S. senator, died this morning at a Fairfax, Va., hospital at the age of 92.
• At a campaign stop outside of Milwaukee, Wis., on Friday, Vice President Joe Biden called the manager of a custard shop a “smartass” after the manager of the store asked him to lower taxes.
• At the G-20 summit in Toronto, President Obama urged other nations to increase their deficit spending while other nations pledged to halve their deficits.
• According to Gallup, conservatives not only maintained their historic gains from 2009 but added to it, with the percentage of Americans now describing themselves as either very conservative or conservative rising to 42% in the first half of 2010.
• Using the House Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill this week, UPS and its big labor allies in Congress will attempt to raise FedEx’s labor costs by making it easier for unions to organize FedEx employees.

More from The Heritage Foundation:

As the confirmation hearings of Elena Kagan got underway at 12:30, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions (R-AL), lost no time getting to the heart of the concerns that are raised by Elena Kagan’s nomination by President Obama to the Supreme Court:

Ms. Kagan has less real legal experience of any nominee in at least fifty years. It’s not just that she has never been a judge. She has barely practiced law, and not with the intensity and duration from which real understanding occurs. Ms. Kagan has never tried a case before a jury. She argued her first appellate case just nine months ago. While academia certainly has value, there is no substitute for being in the harness of the law, handling real cases over a period of years…

What Ms. Kagan’s public record does reveal, however, is a more extensive background in policy and politics, mixed with law. Ms. Kagan’s college thesis on socialism in New York seems to bemoan socialism’s demise there. In her master’s thesis, she affirmed the activist tendencies of the Earl Warren Court, but complained that they could have done a better job of justifying their activism…

During her White House years, the nominee was the central figure in the Clinton-Gore effort to restrict gun rights—and, as the dramatic 5-4 decision today in McDonald shows, the personal right of every American to own a gun hangs by a single vote…

Ms. Kagan was also the point person for the Clinton Administration’s efforts to block Congressional restrictions on partial-birth abortions. Indeed, documents show she was perhaps the key person who convinced President Clinton to change his mind, from supporting to opposing legislation that would have banned that horrible procedure…

During her time as Dean of Harvard, Ms. Kagan reversed Harvard’s existing policy and kicked the military out of the recruiting office in violation of federal law. Her actions punished the military and demeaned our soldiers as they were courageously fighting two wars overseas…

In her first appellate argument, Ms. Kagan told the Court that the speech and press guarantees in the First Amendment would allow the federal government to ban the publication of pamphlets discussing political issues before an election. I would remind my colleagues that the American Revolution was—in no small part—spurred on by just such a political pamphlet, Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.” To suggest that the government now has the power to suppress that kind of speech is breathtaking.

Also as Solicitor General, Ms. Kagan approved the filing of a brief before the Supreme Court asking that it strike down provisions of the Legal Arizona Worker’s Act, which suspends or revokes business licenses of corporations which knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, even though Federal law expressly prohibits such hiring. She did this even after the liberal 9th Circuit had upheld the law…

She clerked for Judge Mikva and Justice Marshall, each a well-known liberal activist judge. And she has called Israeli Judge Aharon Barak—who has been described as the most activist judge in the world—her hero. These judges don’t deny activism; they advocate it. And they openly oppose the idea of a judge as a neutral umpire…

In the wake of one of the largest expansions of government power in history, many Americans are worried about Washington’s disregard for limits on its power…Even today, President Obama advocates a judicial philosophy that calls on judges to base their decisions on empathy and their “broader vision of what America should be.” He suggests that his nominee shares that view…Americans want a judge that will be a check on government overreach, not a rubber stamp.

Today’s decision on the Second Amendment by the Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago, in which Justice Sotomayor joined with the minority in trying to deny the Second Amendment rights of the American people in direct contradiction to her sworn testimony at her confirmation hearing, shows how important the Kagan hearing is. At her own confirmation hearing, Sotomayor disingenuously claimed that she understood “how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans.” Senator Leahy, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary, then said that he could “not see how any fair observer could regard her testimony as hostile to the Second Amendment personal right to bear arms, a right she has embraced and recognizes.” Unfortunately, Sotomayor appears to have forgotten how important the right is that she supposedly “embraced and recognizes” in the short time she has been on the Court and decided it was not quite fundamental enough to be a vital component of American liberty..

But this is just one example of why intensely questioning Kagan on all of these issues is vitally important to preserving this nation as a republic and protecting the liberties of its people. Confirming an activist, liberal judge who believes that the Supreme Court should act as super-legislature that imposes its view of social policy on the country would be an unmitigated disaster that would further imperil the Constitution and the rule of law.

The Obama administration has announced its appointment of 13 White House fellows – and the first person featured on its short list is a Muslim attorney who specializes in Shariah-compliant transactions.

“This year’s White House fellows are comprised of some of the best and brightest leaders in our country,” Michelle Obama said in the June 22 announcement. “I applaud their unyielding commitment to public service and dedication to serving their community.”

White House fellows spend a year as full-time, paid assistants to senior White House staff, the vice president, Cabinet secretaries and senior administration officials.

Samar Ali of Waverly, Tenn., is the first name appearing on the White House list. She is an associate with the law firm Hogan Lovells – a firm that claims to have advised on more than 200 Islamic finance transactions with an aggregate deal value in excess of $40 billion.

According to Ali’s biography posted on the White House website, “She is responsible for counseling clients on mergers & acquisitions, cross-border transactions, Shari’a compliant transactions, project finance, and international business matters. During her time with Hogan Lovells, she has been a founding member of the firm’s Abu Dhabi office.”

Hogan Lovells lists Ali’s experience “advising a Middle Eastern university in the potential establishment of a Foreign Aid Conventional and Shari’ah Compliant Student Loan Program and advising a Middle Eastern client in relation to a U.S. government subcontract matter.”

“Our team members are at the forefront of developments in the Islamic finance industry,” Hogan Lovells boasts. “We help set standards for the sector. We have also advised on numerous first-of-their-kind transactions, such as the first convertible Sukuk, the first equity-linked Sukuk, the first Sharia-compliant securitization, the first international Sukuk al-mudaraba and Sukuk al-musharaka, the first Sukuk buy-back, and the first Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) guaranteed Islamic project financing.”

Ali also clerked for Judge Gilbert S. Merritt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Judge Edwin Cameron, now of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

Promoting Islam and Shariah

The White House notes that Ali also led the YMCA Israeli-Palestinian Modern Voices for Progress Program and is a founding member of the first U.S. Delegation to the World Islamic Economic Forum. Ali was listed as a member of the British delegation to the World Islamic Economic Forum in 2009 and as a U.S. delegate in 2010.

Shariah Finance Watch blog noted, “[I]t was at the World Islamic Economic Forum where key leaders declared Shariah finance to be “dawa” (missionary) activity to promote Islam and Shariah.”

In fact, the president of Indonesia, H. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, delivered a March 2, 2009, keynote address to Islamic leaders at the World Islamic Economic Forum in Jakarta during which he called for Islamic banks to do “missionary work in the Western world.”

“Islamic banking should now be able to take a leadership position in the banking world,” he said. “Islamic banks have been much less affected by the financial meltdown than the conventional banks – for the obvious reason that Shariah banks do not indulge in investing in toxic assets and in leveraged funds. They are geared to supporting the real economy.”

He added, “Islamic bankers should therefore do some missionary work in the Western world to promote the concept of Shariah banking, for which many in the West are more than ready now.”

‘We didn’t consider terrorists to be Muslims’

Ali received her law degree from Vanderbilt Law School and served as the first Arab-Muslim student body president at Vanderbilt. She has interned for the Islamic International Arab Bank in Amman, Jordan.

According to Vanderbilt Law School, Ali’s mother immigrated to the U.S. from Syria, and her father is Palestinian. He left the West Bank town of Ramallah at age 17.

America.gov reported that Ali said her parents taught her to “never forget where we came from and to never forget where we are now.”

“I will always be Arab and I will always be American and I will always be Muslim,” she said.

Ali spoke out at a campus memorial service days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“In my opinion,” she told the Washington File, “Al-Qaida is trying to ruin Islam’s reputation and we are simply not going to let them win this fight. If someone has a political agenda, they need to call it what it is, and not disguise it in the name of a religion or use the religion to achieve their political goals. This is simply unacceptable.”

While she said she grieved the loss of thousands of American lives, Ali told the File she grew concerned about whether Americans would assume that she, as a Muslim and Arab-American, approved of those attacks.

“Thus, I was worried that many of my fellow citizens, would not realize that just because my friends and I are Muslims and Arabs, did not mean that we were part of or even agreed with the terrorists who caused September 11,” she said. “We didn’t even consider the terrorists to be Muslims. I was worried that people would confuse Islam with Osama Bin Ladin and his agenda, that they would confuse his agenda as the agenda of all believers in Islam.”

Creeping Shariah

Shariah already is moving into some elements of American society, with a lawsuit pending over U.S. government involvement in a financial institution that accommodates Shariah requirements in its business operations.

WND also reported in November 2008 that the Treasury Department sponsored and promoted a conference titled “Islamic Finance 101.”

Islamic finance is a system of banking consistent with the principles of Shariah, or Islamic law. It is becoming increasingly popular, having reached $800 billion by mid-2007 and growing at more than 15 percent each year. Wall Street now features an Islamic mutual fund and an Islamic index. However, critics claim anti-American terrorists are often financially supported through U.S. investments – creating a system by which the nation funds its own enemy.

In his July 2008 essay, “Financial Jihad: What Americans Need to Know,” Vice President Christopher Holton of the Center for Security Policy wrote, “America is losing the financial war on terror because Wall Street is embracing a subversive enemy ideology on one hand and providing corporate life support to state sponsors of terrorism on the other hand.”

Holton referred to Islamic finance, or “Shariah-Compliant Finance” as a “modern-day Trojan horse” infiltrating the U.S. He said it poses a threat to the U.S. because it seeks to legitimize Shariah – a man-made medieval doctrine that regulates every aspect of life for Muslims – and could ultimately change American life and laws.

Some advocates claim Islamic finance is socially responsible because it bans investors from funding companies that sell or promote products such as alcohol, tobacco, pornography, gambling and even pork.

However, many Islamic financial institutions also require industry participants to adhere to tenets of Shariah law. According to Nasser Suleiman’s “Corporate Governance in Islamic Banking, “First and foremost, an Islamic organization must serve God. It must develop a distinctive corporate culture, the main purpose of which is to create a collective morality and spirituality which, when combined with the production of goods and services, sustains growth and the advancement of the Islamic way of life.”

Three nations that rule 100 percent by Shariah law – Iran, Saudi Arabia and Sudan – hold some of the most horrific human rights records in the world, Holton said.

“This strongly suggests that Americans should strenuously resist anything associated with Shariah.”

Tenets of Shariah

In his essay, “Islamic Finance or Financing Islamism,” Alex Alexiev outlined the following tenets of Shariah taken from “The Reliance of the Traveler: The Classic Manual of Sacred Law”:

• A woman is eligible for only half of the inheritance of a man
• A virgin may be married against her will by her father or grandfather
• A woman may not leave the house without her husband’s permission
• A Muslim man may marry four women, including Christians and Jews; a Muslim woman can only marry a Muslim
• Beating an insubordinate wife is permissible
• Female sexual mutilation is obligatory
• Adultery [or the perception of adultery] is punished by death by stoning
• Offensive, military jihad against non-Muslims is a religious obligation
• Apostasy from Islam is punishable by death without trial
• Lying to infidels in time of jihad is permissible

‘Useful idiots’

Alexiev wrote that many Islamic financial institutions claim Shariah-Compliant Finance “derives its Islamic character from the strict observance of the ostensible Quranic prohibition of lending at interest, the imperative of almsgiving (zakat), avoidance of excessive uncertainty (gharar) and certain practices and products considered unlawful (haram) to Muslims …” However, he said, “[E]ven a casual examination of the reality of Islamic finance today reveals it to be a bogus concept practiced by deceptive ploys and disingenuous means by practitioners that are or should be aware of that, but remain predictably silent.”

Shariah finance institutions have funded militant Islamism for more than 30 years. Alexiev cited Islamic Development Bank’s hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Hamas in support of suicide bombing. Bank Al-Taqwa and other banks and charities run by Saudi billionaires have funded al-Qaida activities.

Additionally, Shariah law mandates that Muslims donate 2.5 percent of their annual incomes to charities – including jihadists. When 400 banks regularly contribute to such charities, potential financial sums can be virtually limitless.

If Western banks endorse Shariah, they will “end up becoming what Lenin called useful idiots or worse to the Islamists,” Alexiev wrote. “And it is a very thin line between that and outright complicity in the Islamist agenda.”

President Barack Obama’s nominee to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2^ndCircuit,  Robert N. Chatigny, did legal work as a private defense attorney in 1992 for convicted serial killer Michael Ross and then, in 2005, as a federal district judge, led a proceeding that resulted in a delay in Ross’ execution. Chatigny says he forgot about the earlier work and should have recused himself from the matter.

“Had I recalled it, I would have recused myself,” Chatigny wrote in a questionnaire last month for the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In 1992, Chatigny reviewed motions filed on behalf of Ross and exchanged a letter with Ross, work that did not involve direct representation of the killer. In early 2005, however, as a U.S. District judge in Connecticut, Chatigny led a conference call with attorneys and pushed Ross’ lawyer to do more to delay Ross’ execution, which the lawyer did after Chatigny bullied him over the phone, even threatening, “I’ll have your law license.”

An ethics complaint was subsequently filed that year against Chatigny by state prosecutors concerning his actions in the Ross case and Chatigny was eventually cleared of wrongdoing.

Many legal critics and Republicans think that Chatigny took extraordinary measures to halt the Ross execution in 2005. In committee hearings on Chatigny’s nomination to the 2^nd Circuit, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said of the issue, “I don’t think this is a matter that’s going to lightly go away.”  Also, Sen. Tom Coburn said, “I just wonder why you think your behavior in this case–which is pretty extraordinary–why that behavior would warrant a promotion to a much more senior court.”

Last week, nonetheless, Chatigny’s nomination cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party line vote, 11-7-1, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) abstaining, and all of her Democratic colleagues on the committee voting to send Chatigny’s nomination to the full Senate.

Concerning the Ross case, the record shows that Chatigny’s earlier work in the case was uncovered only after the state prosecutors had filed the ethics complaint against the judge with the Second Circuit review panel. As part of that inquiry, they learned that Chatigny, while in private practice, had reviewed a motion on behalf of Ross filed by the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.

Chatigny testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in May of this year that in 1992 he reviewed a motion that someone else had prepared. He later told the committee he had exchanged letters with Ross.

In a written response to questions from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chatigny wrote, “I recalled my prior involvement only after one of the complainants amended his initial complaint to include a claim based on my prior involvement. Until then, I had no recollection of it.”

Ross had been convicted in 1987 and sentenced to death for the killing of four teenage girls; he boasted of raping and killing four other women. His 2005 execution would be the first in Connecticut in 40 years.

In late 2004, Ross had dropped all appeals and was ready to be executed. However, the state’s public defender’s office argued that Ross was not competent to drop his appeals. Ross then fired his public defenders and hired a private attorney, T.R. Paulding, who had the unusual role of defending his client’s right to be executed.

When the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that Ross was competent to drop his appeals, the public defender’s office brought its case to U.S. District Court in January 2005, with Chatigny presiding. Chatigny ruled in favor of the public defender.

One of the prosecutors asked Judge Chatigny in open court about any objections he might have to the death penalty.

In regards to that, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked, “Do you understand why one would find it difficult to believe that, even after the State’s Attorney questioned your partiality, you still failed to remember your involvement in one of the most notorious death penalty cases in the state’s history?”

Chatigny’s written response said, “Yes, I understand that a person unfamiliar with the facts regarding my prior involvement might question my failure to recall it. But the truth is I did not recall it. Had I recalled it, I would have recused myself.”

Weeks later, on Jan. 28, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chatigny’s ruling, clearing the way for Ross’ execution that very day. It appeared the execution would proceed as scheduled.

However, Chatigny told Paulding in a conference call before the high court ruled that Ross “never should have been convicted, or if convicted, he never should have been sentenced to death,” and went on to tell Ross’ lawyer, “You better be prepared to deal with me” and, “I’ll have your law license.” So, Paulding asked to postpone the execution.

After a six-day competency hearing, a state Superior Court judge ruled in April 2005 that Ross was competent to forgo his appeals. Ross was subsequently executed on May 13, 2005, and pronounced dead at 2:25 a.m.

During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on April 28, Chatigny told senators his involvement in the Ross case “didn’t extend beyond essentially acting as local counsel for my friend for the purpose of filing an application to file a motion” and “some very limited research.” He later said Ross sent him a letter and he responded with a letter in July 1992 stating he was no longer involved in the matter.

In the Judiciary questionnaire, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) asked, “Did you receive any orders following your filing an application to file a motion? If so, how many and for how many years?”

Chatigny said, “Yes. Soon after the amicus application was filed, I received an order granting the application. I do not recall receiving any other orders. However, my former firm’s file relating to the amicus application, when retrieved from storage by my former partner in 2005, contained service copies of various documents filed in the case in 1992, 1993 and 1994. I do not recall seeing any such documents at any time and do not believe I did see them.”

In the midst of the 2005 Ross controversy, Republican members of the Connecticut state legislature, both House and Senate, signed a letter to then-U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), asking for an impeachment inquiry into Chatigny’s actions.

“By failing to respect and comply with the law, and by failing to act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary, Judge Chatigny may have violated the code of conduct of United States’ judges,” the Republican lawmakers said in the letter.

“Obviously, Congress was not interested in taking action in 2005,” Rep. Arthur O’Neill, the ranking Republican on the state legislature’s joint Judiciary Committee, told CNSNews.com last week. “But the standard for removing a judge for misconduct, and the standard for not promoting a judge are quite different.”

O’Neill predicts that Chatigny will be approved on a party-line vote by the full Senate because his nomination made it through the Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote.

“Judge Chatigny overstepped his bounds and was clearly biased and opposed to the death penalty,” O’Neill said. “He pushed past the line a federal judge should have gone, bordering on abuse of power.”

A scholar and charity head appointed to President Obama’s White House Fellowships Commission is closely tied to the Muslim leaders behind a proposed controversial Islamic cultural center to be built near the site of the 9/11 attacks.

The White House fellow, Vartan Gregorian, is president of Carnegie Corp. of New York.

Gregorian also serves on the board of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. The museum is reportedly working with the American Society for Muslim Advancement, or ASMA, whose leaders are behind the mosque, to ensure the future museum will represent the voices of American Muslims.

“[The 9/11 museum will represent the] voices of American Muslims in particular, and it will honor members of other communities who came together in support and collaboration with the Muslim community on September 11 and its aftermath,” stated Daisy Khan, executive director of the ASMA.

The future 9/11 museum’s oral historian, Jenny Pachucki, is collaborating with ASMA to ensure the perspective of American Muslims is woven into the overall experience of the museum, according to the museum’s blog.

Khan’s husband, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is the founder of ASMA as well as chairman of Cordoba Initiative, which is behind the proposed mosque to be built about two blocks from the area referred to as Ground Zero.

With Gregorian at its helm, Carnegie Corp. is at the top of the list of ASMA supporters on the Islamic group’s website.

Carnegie is also listed as a funder of both of ASMA’s partner organizations, Search for Common Ground and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. Gregorian was a participant in the U.N. body’s first forum, as was Rauf.

Rauf is vice-chairman on the board of the Interfaith Center of New York, which honored Gregorian at an awards dinner in 2008.

World domination

Gregorian, born in Tabriz, Iran, served for eight years as a president of the New York Public Library and was also president of Brown University. He is the author of “Islam: A Mosaic, Not A Monolith.”

According to a book review by the Middle East Forum, Gregorian’s book “establishes the Islamist goal of world domination.”

A chapter of the book, “Islamism: Liberation Politics,” quotes Ayatollah Khomenei: “Islam does not conquer. Islam wants all countries to become Muslim, of themselves.” Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, is quoting stating it “is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

Gregorian himself recommends for Muslims a system he calls “theo-democracy,” which he defines as “a divine democratic government” that, according to the book review, “would have a limited popular sovereignty under the suzerainty of Allah.”

Rauf, meanwhile, has caused a stir with his proposed $100 million, 13-story Islamic cultural center and mosque near the corner of Park Place and West Broadway – about two blocks from Ground Zero.

Just last week, WND reported Rauf refused during a live radio interview to condemn violent jihad groups as terrorists. Rauf repeatedly refused on-air to affirm the U.S. designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization or call the Muslim Brotherhood extremists.

The Brotherhood openly seeks to spread Islam around the world, while Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction and is responsible for scores of suicide bombings, shootings and rocket attacks aimed at Jewish civilian population centers.

During that interview, Rauf was also asked who he believes was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

“There’s no doubt,” stated Rauf. “The general perception all over the world was it was created by people who were sympathetic to Osama bin Laden. Whether they were part of the killer group or not, these are details that need to be left to the law-enforcement experts.”

Rauf has been on record several times as blaming U.S. policies for the Sept. 11 attacks. He has been quoted refusing to admit Muslims carried out the attacks.

Referring to the Sept. 11 attacks, Rauf told CNN, “U.S. policies were an accessory to the crime that happened. We (the U.S.) have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. Osama bin Laden was made in the USA.”

Madeline Brooks, a reporter who attended a sermon this year by Rauf, quoted the Islamic leader as stating “some people say it was Muslims who attacked on 9/11.”

Rauf’s 2004 book had two different titles – one in English and the second in Arabic. In the U.S., his book was called, ‘What’s right with America is what’s right with Islam.”

The same book, published in Arabic, bore the name, “The Call from the WTC Rubble: Islamic Da’wah from the Heart of America Post 9/11.”