Yes, but the picture is so much more pleasant when they don’t allow all that pesky evidence to get in the way. “Muslim Aid: Hopeless Charity Commission whitewashes yet another Islamist group,” by Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph, December 17 (thanks to David): The Charity Commission, Britain’s most ineffective regulator,…
Jihad Watch
Posts Tagged: Evidence
18
Dec 10
UK’s Charity Commission finds links of Islamic charities to jihad terror groups “unsubstantiated” — by ignoring mountains of evidence
3
Dec 10
Report: Ethics Committee Probing If Financial Committee Withheld Evidence
The House ethics committee is probing why the House Financial Services Committee failed to fully comply with its promise to turn over all documents related to an investigation of subcommittee chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the Washington Post reports.
After wrapping up their ethics investigation of Waters this summer and preparing for trial in October, the investigators learned about an e-mail that they considered important to their examination of Waters’s efforts to help a troubled bank tied to her husband.
Four officials, congressional staff members, and others familiar with the probe confirmed on Thursday that her trial was postponed two weeks ago in part to explore the delay in not turning over that e-mail and to examine whether other evidence was withheld.
The newspaper also reported that committee members are “concerned that the Waters investigative team did not have access to all the records, in part because they did not press for them diligently enough. Others on the staff have expressed concern that evidence may have been inappropriately withheld.”
Barney Frank, chairman of the committee, said on Tuesday that he wasn’t aware of the concerns about the documents.
“When I received the Ethics Committee’s 2009 request, I instructed my staff to turn over every document in personal office and committee files. I have every reason to believe they did that,” Frank told the newspaper.
The House ethics committee is under intense scrutiny itself following the dismissal of two lawyers who worked on the case against Waters. The California Republican has questioned the integrity of the committee and its investigation.
Documents related to the investigation of Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), who was censured on the floor of the House last night, did not appear to indicate that the two suspended lawyers — Morgan Kim and Stacy Sovereign — worked on the Rangel case.
[Ed. note: this post was edited after publication.]
3
Dec 10
More evidence at least some of the Carmel fires are arson
From JPost:
Coastal District Police Commander Roni Attia said Friday that two arson suspects were apprehended in the North, near Kiryat Bialik.
The suspects were allegedly attempting to rekindle a fire in the forest with the use of Molotov cocktails. Police are not connecting the arsonists at this stage to the massive fires in the Carmel and Atlit but rather to the fire which broke out earlier at the Tzur Shalom area of Kiryat Bialik.
Attia added that arson is suspected in a number of separate fires, including Kiryat Bialik and Kiryat Tivon.
Earlier on Friday, police found a bike, a bag, and a wig inside near a fire center in Tzur Shalom, leading them to believe that the fire was caused by an arsonist or arsonists.
Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told the Post that there are 3 fire centers – Tzur Shalom, the Atlit – Tirat Hacarmel area, and the Carmel hillsides. In one, Tzur Shalom, north of Haifa, “we located suspicious items pointing to arson. As for the other two major fires, it is too early and the incidents are to large in scale to know their causes at this stage.” The death toll in the fires rose to 42 on Friday, according to Army Radio.
Now, who would want to do something like that?
Could it be the types of people who celebrate it?
(h/t Israel Matzav)
UPDATE: Commenter Jed says
Update from Israeli TV:
Fire investigator says fire source was from burning garbage.
Suspicion that more fires set up by gang, 2 suspects from Daliat el Carmel arrested by police.
3
Dec 10
Video: McCain Wants More Evidence; Colbert Bets On Thune For President in 2012
Stephen Colbert thinks Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has the right look to be Republican nominee in 2012. Jon Stewart goes after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for opposing the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” because military leaders didn’t solicit the views of their subordinates: “I don’t know how you can get more specific about their views, then: What would you do if you were showing with a gay guy? Without maybe giving the name of the actual gay guy they’d be showering with. Oh how about this, would you be okay with Roy? What about Jim?”
Today’s Must See Moment – Fast forward to 0:18 to find out what happens when you criticize former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R).
27
Nov 10
More Blood Boiling Evidence That The TSA Terrorizes Citizens And Does Nothing For Safety

See the woman nursing her child? Yeah, that’s what a terrorist looks like if you’re the TSA.
Go watch this video and then tell me the TSA does anything besides humiliate and degrade average citizens.
Before you get all righteous and tell me why I’m being excessively cavalier with security, a few thoughts:
1. The perimeter of an airport is not secure. Any determined terrorist could bring a vehicle into the airport with a bomb and kill hundreds, if not thousands of people.
2. The airport itself is not secure. At some security points inside the airport there are hundreds of people. A determined terrorist could bring a suitcase bomb and detonate it in the actual security area.
3. The screeners are randomly picking people. There is no rhyme or reason to the searches.
4. Drug mules know how to get through security and use orifices creatively to do so.
5. Airport workers aren’t screened.
This security nonsense must stop. It’s an atrocious violation of our civil liberties and rights.
If the government were serious about security, they wouldn’t be doing this to law-abiding (and quoting) citizens. This is a pure power play. Nothing more.
Since TSA workers are government workers, they cannot be sued. We have no recourse. We are helpless to their power. Remember this, you short-sighted idiots who want the government controlling your health care. Nothing like having someone who has absolutely nothing to lose in control of your most personal life.
It is clear from this video that the TSA workers were singling out this woman for knowing her rights. This is harassment, pure and simple. This is harassment by uneducated, untrained government robots with no common sense and no sense of right and wrong.
It’s time to revisit the amount of freedom we’re willing to trade for the false notion of being secure.
22
Nov 10
The Evidence That Shows Hezbollah’s Involvement In The Murder Of Rafik Hariri
Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) features an entensive report on Who killed Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri?, noting in particular how one man laid the groundwork for uncovering Hezbollah’s involvement in the murder, after the UN’s own failure to investigate properly:
It wasn’t until late 2007 that the awkwardly titled UN International Independent Investigation Commission actually got around to some serious investigating.
By then, nearly three years had passed since the spectacular public murder of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Hariri.
According to the report, after the UN was unable to get any solid leads, it was Capt. Wissam Eid who alone assembled the evidence that showed Hezbollah’s involvement
. He got the phone records of all of the cellphones registered with the cell towers in the area of the explosion, deleting those of those who were killed, in Hariri’s entourage and those with alibis-resulting in a list of the ‘red’ phones used by the actual hit team. He then traced which cellphone towers the red phones had used prior to the assassination and was able to determine that the people using them had been tracking Hariri.
Eid also discovered that each person with a red phone had a secondary phone, used to contact network of phones that had existed for at least a year-this was called the ‘blue’ network
The big break came when an electronics specialist working for Hezbollah-Abd al Majid al Ghamloush-used one of the blue phones. That slip led Eid to 2 brothers, Hussein and Mouin Khreis. Not only were both of them Hezbollah operatives-one of them had been at the site of the explosion.
Capt. Eid was able to continue identifying phones associated with the hit team and uncovered a third network-the ‘yellows’-which constituted a longer-term surveillance team.
All this led to the discovery that everything he uncovered connected to land lines inside Hezbollah’s Great Prophet Hospital in South Beirut, where Hezbollah is believed to have a command center. Furthermore, it was possible to identify a network of ‘pink phones’ that communicated with both the hospital and the other networks.
The pink phones themselves were issued by the Lebanese government-and when the record for these phones was obtained from the ministry of communications, it was found that in a long column of 6 digit numbers there were 4 which were highlighted, and beside them in Arabic was the word “Hezbollah”.
It was at this point that Eid was contacted by Hezbollah, which claimed that some of the phones he was investigating were being used by Hezbollah as part of a counter-espionage operation against Mossad spy agency-and that he needed to back off.
That veiled warning was followed by a failed attempt to kill Lt.-Col Shehadeh, Eid’s boss.
On January 25, 2008, Eid himself was murdered in an explosion.
The Washington Post notes that the CBC has been warned by a U.N. attorney that he would inform the Canadian authorities that the news agency had obtained privileged U.N. documents. Considering the fact that the UN at one point lost track of Eid’s findings and that they failed to anticipate the danger he was in, it is understandable why the UN would not want details to leak out.
The other question of course is to what degree Syria and Iran are involved in the murder of Hariri-Hezbollah does not blow its nose, let alone its enemies, without the approval of its backers. But at this point, considering how the UN has allowed the trail to grow cold, it is unlikely that any linkage will be made.
Technorati Tag: Rafik Hariri and Hezbollah and Wissam Eid.

22
Nov 10
The New Waters Evidence: Emails From Her Chief Of Staff
As TPM reported Friday, the House ethics committee has delayed the hearing of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and is sending the case back to investigation, citing new evidence in the case.
Waters, in response, released a scathing statement saying the decision all but proves that she is innocent and that the committee’s case against her is weak. She also claimed that the new evidence in question is neither new nor damning.
According to the New York Times, the new evidence is comprised of emails between Waters’ chief of staff (and grandson) and the House Financial Services Committee, which was working on language for a bank bailout bill in 2008. From the Times:
The e-mails show that Mr. Moore was actively engaged in discussing with committee members details of a bank bailout bill apparently after Ms. Waters agreed to refrain from advocating on the bank’s behalf.
Waters is accused of committing three ethics violations by helping secure TARP money for a bank, OneUnited, in which her husband owned stock. The ethics subcommittee that made the charges said she got language into the bailout bill that would specifically benefit OneUnited.
Waters has maintained her innocence, contending that she was trying to help all small minority- and women-owned banks. Complicating the case is the fact that a OneUnited executive was, at the time, the head of the National Banking Association, a trade group for minority banks.
“The Committee has had this ‘new’ document since October 29th, and it does not provide any new significant information,” she said in a statement. “In fact, the document shows that my office was working to ensure that Emergency Economic Stabilization Act assisted small and minority institutions. The document does not reflect any action on behalf of any specific company.”
According to the statement of alleged violation — the list of charges released by an ethics subcommittee earlier this year — Waters agreed to stop advocating on behalf of OneUnited after Rep. Barney Frank, chair of the Financial Services Committee, warned her it could look bad.
The matter will now go back to the investigative subcommittee, and a new statement of alleged violation will be released if they still find evidence of wrongdoing.
For more on the case, see TPM’s past coverage here.
22
Nov 10
Bombshell evidence may make Waters an ethics nightmare for Dems
The reason it got postponed.
Apparently, the Charlie Rangel ethics trial was just the warm-up act. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the House Ethics Committee suddenly postponed the trial of Maxine Waters on ethics violation because it found more evidence of direct intervention by her office to benefit the bank in which her husband owned a […]
22
Nov 10
U.S. District Court Judge found “ample evidence to establish the association” between CAIR, ISNA, NAIT and Hamas
Recently an erroneous story circulated to the effect that ISNA and CAIR had been removed from the unindicted co-conspirator list — see here. The story turns out to be even worse for Hamas-linked CAIR, ISNA, and NAIT, three of the most important Islamic supremacist organizations in the U.S. today: the judge’s actual ruling has just been unsealed, and as it turns out, the judge reaffirmed the three organizations’ links with Hamas. He was only taking issue with the publication of the unindicted co-conspirator list. “Judge’s ruling on Islamic groups as ‘unindicted co-conspirators’ made public,” by Josh Gerstein at Politico (of all places), November 19 (thanks to D. C. Watson):
A federal judge’s long-secret ruling that federal prosecutors violated the rights of three major American Islamic organizations and others named as unindicted co-conspirators in a Texas terrorism support case finally became public on Friday.
However, publication of the ruling is a mixed blessing for the groups: the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust. That’s because U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented “ample evidence to establish the association” of the three organizations with Hamas, a Palestinian group that the U.S. has labeled as a terrorist organization and with a defunct charity convicted in the terrorism support case, the Holy Land Foundation.
NAIT appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to overturn Solis’s ruling and have it unsealed. The federal appeals court recently agreed that the ruling should be unsealed and suggested that parts of it went too far, but the appeals panel refused to change it….
19
Nov 10
Rep. Waters Ethics Hearing Postponed Due To New Evidence
On the heels of a censure recommendation for Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), the House ethics committee today announced that the upcoming ethics hearing for Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) is postponed indefinitely.
Unspecified new evidence has cropped up in the case, according to the committee, and the matter will go back to an investigative panel. The hearing had been set for Nov. 29.
A spokesman for Waters did not immediately have comment.
Waters was accused in July of committing three ethics violations. According to the committee, Waters improperly helped secure TARP funding for a bank, OneUnited, which her husband had stock in at the time.
She has maintained her innocence, saying she was legitimately helping an association of minority- and women-owned businesses get in touch with Treasury officials during the financial crisis.
Waters has been demanding a hearing since the allegations were announced in July.
The announcement takes the process back several steps. It is unclear what would happen to the investigation if it is pushed into the new Congress, which begins in January.
19
Nov 10
More evidence that the Stuxnet worm specifically targeted Iran’s nuke program
Centrifuges zapped.
American Thinker Blog
19
Nov 10
More evidence that the Stuxnet worm specifically targeted Iran’s nuke program
Centrifuges zapped.
American Thinker Blog