What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done? It’s really a silly question, because the answer is so simple. It turns out that it’s human greed that gets the most wonderful things done. When I say greed, I am not talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, lobbying for special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I’m talking about people trying to get as much as they can for themselves. Let’s look at it.

This winter, Texas ranchers may have to fight the cold of night, perhaps blizzards, to run down, feed and care for stray cattle. They make the personal sacrifice of caring for their animals to ensure that New Yorkers can enjoy beef. Last summer, Idaho potato farmers toiled in blazing sun, in dust and dirt, and maybe being bitten by insects to ensure that New Yorkers had potatoes to go with their beef.

Here’s my question: Do you think that Texas ranchers and Idaho potato farmers make these personal sacrifices because they love or care about the well-being of New Yorkers? The fact is whether they like New Yorkers or not, they make sure that New Yorkers are supplied with beef and potatoes every day of the week. Why? It’s because ranchers and farmers want more for themselves. In a free market system, in order for one to get more for himself, he must serve his fellow man. This is precisely what Adam Smith, the father of economics, meant when he said in his classic “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” (1776), “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” By the way, how much beef and potatoes do you think New Yorkers would enjoy if it all depended upon the politically correct notions of human love and kindness? Personally, I’d grieve for New Yorkers. Some have suggested that instead of greed, I use “enlightened self-interest.” That’s OK, but I prefer greed.

Free market capitalism is relatively new in human history.

Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. President Obama’s perpetual campaign cash-o-matic machine kicks into high gear again this week as the celebrity-in-chief heads to Hollywood for several high-priced fundraisers. But while the Democrats’ 2012 re-election team stuffs its hands into every liberal deep pocket in sight, questions about the Obama 2008 campaign finance operation still fester.

Last week, the laggard watchdogs at the Federal Election Commission announced an audit of the Obama 2008 campaign committee — which raised a record-setting $750 million. White House flacks are downplaying the probe as a “routine review.”

But there’s nothing routine about the nearly $3 million Obama has spent on legal expenses to address federal campaign finance irregularities and inquiries. Roll Call reports that Obama’s campaign legal fees have exceeded all other House and presidential campaign committees, including members of Congress under ethics investigations.

There’s nothing routine about the whopping $6 million that Team Obama has refunded to individual donors since Obama took office.

And there’s nothing routine about the 26 warning letters to Obama for America totaling “more than 1,500 pages of questions and data that outlined compliance concerns — including the longest one ever sent to a presidential candidate,” according to Roll Call.

Among the Obama 2008 campaign committee’s shadiest transactions that have gone unpunished:

— Foreign funny money. Federal election law bans foreign nationals from contributing to American candidates. But during 2008, the Obama campaign was forced to return an illegal foreign donation worth $31,100 made by two brothers in the Gaza Strip, and even mainstream news outlets reported that candidate Obama’s money-handlers had routinely failed to verify citizenship by checking donors’ passports. As the Associated Press reported at the time: “One donor, Tom Sanderson of Canada, made clear his $500 contribution came from a foreign source. He included a note that said, ‘I am not an American citizen!’ Obama’s campaign took the money anyway…”

Another illegal foreign donor, Australian Richard Watters, contributed $1,000, “entering a fake U.S. passport number — a random jumble of numbers and letters” onto the Obama donation website. “He said he also checked a box stating that he was an American living overseas, ‘because I could see it wasn’t going anywhere if I didn’t do that.’”

Obama raked in at least $2 million in overseas donations.

— Online donor credit-card fraud.

Weeks before the 2008 presidential election, investigative journalist Ken Timmerman blew the whistle on rampant phony straw contributors slipping through the Obama donation site. Just one example: “Mr. Good Will” from Austin, Texas. Mr. Good Will listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You.” Timmerman’s analysis of 1.4 million individual donations to the Obama campaign discovered “1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, most of them for $25. In total, Mr. Good Will gave $17,375. Following this and subsequent FEC requests, campaign records show that 330 contributions from Mr. Good Will were credited back to a credit card. But the most recent report, filed on Sept. 20, showed a net cumulative balance of $8,950 — still well over the $4,600 limit.”

Leftist Rule for Engaging Conservative Ideas #1: conservatives’ motives are never what they claim. It must be rigorously asserted that right-wingers are invariably driven by impulses more sinister than making people better off or trying to find solutions to the problems we face. New Republic senior editor Jonathan Chait knows that lesson by heart—on the Daily Beast, he argues that from the lowliest Tea Partier all the way up to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Right is animated by a view of “the poor as parasites” and “the rich as our rightful rulers,” a dogma we’ve picked up from philosopher Ayn Rand:

Ayn Rand, of course, was a kind of politicized L. Ron Hubbard—a novelist-philosopher who inspired a cult of acolytes who deem her the greatest human being who ever lived. The enduring heart of Rand’s totalistic philosophy was Marxism flipped upside down. Rand viewed the capitalists, not the workers, as the producers of all wealth, and the workers, not the capitalists, as useless parasites.

John Galt, the protagonist of her iconic novel Atlas Shrugged, expressed Rand’s inverted Marxism: “The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains.”

In 2009 Rand began popping up all over the Tea Party movement. Sales of her books skyrocketed, and signs quoting her ideas appeared constantly at rallies. Conservatives asserted that the events of the Obama administration eerily paralleled the plot of Atlas Shrugged, in which a liberal government precipitates economic collapse.

To be sure, Rand’s ultra-capitalist works have enjoyed a surge in popularity recently, a predicable response to our leaders overreaching in the opposite direction. But it’s not quite true to suggest Rand is universally embraced on the Right; for instance, consider National Review’s March 2009 symposium on Rand, which on the whole takes a dim view of the author (in fairness, she’s much more popular at Big Hollywood).

I haven’t read her, and have no strong opinions about her philosophy either way, but I can certainly tell when mainstream conservative thought is subjected to class-warfare caricatures:

When Ryan warns of the specter of collapse, he is not merely referring to the alarming gap between government outlays and receipts, as his admirers in the media assume. (Every policy change of the last decade that increased the deficit—the Bush tax cuts, the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—Ryan voted for.) He is also invoking Rand’s almost theological certainty that when a government punishes the strong to reward the weak, it must invariably collapse […]

Ryan casts these cuts as an incentive for the poor to get off their lazy butts. He insists that we “ensure that America’s safety net does not become a hammock that lulls able-bodied citizens into lives of complacency and dependency.” It’s worth translating what Ryan means here. Welfare reform was premised on the tough but persuasive argument that providing long-term cash payments to people who don’t work encourages long-term dependency. Ryan is saying that the poor should not only be denied cash income but also food and health care.

The class tinge of Ryan’s Path to Prosperity is striking. The poorest Americans would suffer immediate, explicit budget cuts. Middle-class Americans would face distant, uncertain reductions in benefits. And the richest Americans would enjoy an immediate windfall. Santelli, in his original rant, demanded that we “reward people [who can] carry the water instead of drink the water.” Ryan won’t say so, but that’s exactly what he’s doing.

Two main fallacies sink Chait’s argument. First, have and have-not doesn’t have to be an either-or contest. Leftists speak as if one person simply having more constitutes stealing from another, as if there’s only so much wealth to go around. But that’s nonsense for the basic fact that most people, once they have money, don’t just stuff it in a safe and forget about it; we constantly spend it on all sorts of necessities and entertainment, at which point the people we bought from spend it on all sorts of necessities and entertainment, and so on, and so on. This is particularly important when it comes to people in a position to spend their money on creating jobs—you might recognize them as “the rich,” the perennial villains of liberal mythology.

As Rob Port points out regarding the “idea that there is a static amount of wealth in the world”:

If you believe that this is true, I hope you don’t own a business. Otherwise, every dollar you make is actually serving to move your customers closer to poverty. You have to believe that a company like Microsoft or Nike or Target has consigned millions (if not billions) of people to poverty by growing so large.

The second fallacy is in talking about government “rewarding” and “punishing” people. To believe that a tax cut is a “reward” for the recipient, you have to believe the money he’s getting back wasn’t his to begin with, but is basically a gift from Uncle Sam. Likewise, stopping the flow of subsidies is only a “punishment” if the government is taking away money that already rightfully belonged to the beneficiary. But as we’ve discussed before, this understanding of money is bogus. What money the government has, it takes primarily from we the people through taxation. It has no “stash” of its own to draw money from.

Again, I don’t presume to know the genius-to-gibberish ratio of Atlas Shrugged or Ayn Rand’s other works, but when I survey the Right, I certainly don’t see any epidemic of greedy Tea Partiers who want the poor to die in the streets. Kudos to Jonathan Chait for finding a line of attack more original than “racist!,” but if the fruits of Rand’s labors are anything to go by, Chait might have to look for another club to beat us with.

Back in the 1960s, with America’s black ghettos exploding into violence, the architects of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society argued that the best way to stop the rioting would be to pump money into the ghettos. George Soros now offers a globalized version of the same argument.  He states that the best way to fight terrorism is to pump money into impoverished regions of the world where terrorism tends to flourish.

In his 2002 book George Soros on Globalization, Soros explains that, in a global capitalist system such as ours, which concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few, we must expect that some, “people may rebel against the system” by forming groups such as Al Qaeda.  Rather than “repressing” such rebellions after the fact, Soros recommends “removing the root causes” of terrorism, such as “poverty, ignorance” and the like. This will cost money, of course.  The ICIC will provide that money, and people like Soros will decide how to put that money to use, channeling much of it into lucrative “public/private partnerships” in troubled parts of the world.  In fact, it is precisely through the manipulation of such “public/private partnerships” that Soros became the 28th richest man in America.  Small wonder that he would wish to expand and empower the global lending system which he spent his entire career learning how to exploit.  Soros knows better than most the multitude of opportunities a global welfare state could provide for global social workers like himself to do well by doing “good.”

Indeed, George Soros on Globalization reads, in some parts, like a resumé, in which Soros argues that his qualifications uniquely suit him to play a personal role in implementing the global programs he proposes.  Regarding his call for a reorganization of international financial and trade institutions (IFTI’s), Soros writes, “I believe I have some unusual qualifications for this project.  I have been a successful practitioner in global financial markets, giving me an insider’s view of how they operate.  More to the point, I have been actively engaged in trying to make the world a better place.  I have set up a network of foundations devoted to the concept of open society.  I believe that the global capitalist system in its present form is a distortion of what ought to be a global open society.  I am only one of many experts on financial markets, but my active concern with the future of humanity sets me apart from others.”

– The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party

If you have a favorite Horowitz quote you want to highlight for others then please submit it here. Please include:

1. “Horowitz Quote of the Day” in subject line.
2. A link to where the quote is from. (No need to include this if it’s from a book.)
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4. Your preferred name and a link to your blog or homepage (if you have one.)

No, you know the drill. "Ohio couple accused of helping Hezbollah," from UPI, June 3:

TOLEDO, Ohio, June 3 (UPI) -- An Ohio couple were arrested Thursday on charges they conspired to help the Middle East terrorist organization Hezbollah, authorities said.

The U.S. Justice Department said Hor I. and Amera A. Akl, both 37, of Toledo, who hold dual U.S.-Lebanese citizenship, are accused of conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to launder money and arson relating to an insurance fraud scheme.

Hor Akl also is charged with two counts of bankruptcy fraud and one count of perjury, U.S. Attorney Steven M. Dettelbach said in a news release.

The Akls allegedly agreed to send money to Hezbollah after being approached by a confidential informant for the FBI who claimed he worked for an anonymous donor eager to support Hezbollah. The couple researched and proposed at least 10 different ways in which the money could be shipped to the terrorist group, authorities say.

The couple ultimately agreed to conceal about $500,000 in the hollow sections of a vehicle and ship it to Lebanon in return for a fee, authorities allege.

I don’t know why Tipper and Al Gore have split after after 40 years of marriage and honestly, I hope we don’t find out.

The “celebrity break-up” where the former couple or their friends leak dirt to gossip rags for money and attention is one of the more sickening spectacles of the modern age. On the one hand, it’s like a train wreck and you can’t tear your eyes off of it. On the other hand, it’s really and truly none of our freaking business.

Let me also add that are already jokes and clever quips about Al Gore floating around. Here’s one…

Read the Rest at Right Wing News

Millions of dollars of Saudi Arabian money have flowed into Afghanistan over the past four years, the country's intelligence officials say, with the sponsorship of terrorism its most likely use.

According to members of the Afghan financial intelligence unit, FinTraca, the funds, totalling more than £920 million, enter from Pakistan, where they are converted into rupees or dollars, the favoured currency for terrorist operations.

"We can trace it back as far as an entry point in Waziristan," said Mohammed Mustafa Massoudi, the director-general of FinTraca in Kabul. "Why would anyone want to put such money into Waziristan? Only one reason -- terrorism."...

An investigative report by Israel National News published on Thursday revealed that whenever the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza requests an influx of US dollars to pay its staff, the coastal strip's Hamas rulers end up making a killing.

It is curious that UNRWA requests the transfer of US dollars, as it did this week when it called for $12.5 million for staff salaries. The bulk of that money is provided by US taxpayers.

The fact is that all financial transactions in Gaza take place in Israeli shekels, the official currency of the territory. In order for the UNRWA staff to be paid in shekels, the dollars are deposited in the Gaza Postal Bank, which is controlled by Hamas. The bank changes the dollars to shekels, charging a hefty fee to do so. The dollars are then reportedly sold again on the Egyptian black market where they command a much higher price.

Hamas makes a large amount of money both on the initial exchange and by reselling the dollars....

An investigative report by Israel National News published on Thursday revealed that whenever the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza requests an influx of US dollars to pay its staff, the coastal strip's Hamas rulers end up making a killing.

It is curious that UNRWA requests the transfer of US dollars, as it did this week when it called for $12.5 million for staff salaries. The bulk of that money is provided by US taxpayers.

The fact is that all financial transactions in Gaza take place in Israeli shekels, the official currency of the territory. In order for the UNRWA staff to be paid in shekels, the dollars are deposited in the Gaza Postal Bank, which is controlled by Hamas. The bank changes the dollars to shekels, charging a hefty fee to do so. The dollars are then reportedly sold again on the Egyptian black market where they command a much higher price.

Hamas makes a large amount of money both on the initial exchange and by reselling the dollars....

On Rush Limbaugh’s show of May 28^th, he spent a great deal of time talking about how the progressive elite use foundations. He was responding to Hillary Clinton’s call for the wealthy to pay more in taxes and be more like Brazil (apparently, our new role model.) Rush suggested that Hillary did not have to worry about paying these taxes herself, as they have a lot of money tucked away in their foundations where they will not be taxed.

This is just another problem with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to consider, along with all the other mega foundations, and it’s a pretty big one.  Although it would be unfair to accuse them of forming a foundation for financial reasons only, it sure doesn’t hurt. By doing this, you are in essence withholding taxes and seeing that it is spent in the way you want it spent. That sounds like a better gig than the Federal Reserve even has!

My focus in writing this series is to consider the progressive and perhaps even irresponsible areas where huge amounts of foundation money are going, rather than being taxed, and the effects it can have on everyone. Of course, eliminating tax deductions across the board and going with a flat tax would wreak havoc on this scheme, which may be a big reason why you never see any action on a flat or fair tax structure.

I think most would agree that the big foundations are both tax shelters and philanthropic. You have to consider, though, whether you want to continue to allow the progressive elite to divert millions of tax free dollars into their pet causes and candidates, especially in these tough economic times.  As we lose more and more control, those in power will gain more and more through increased taxes on the average Joe and control of foundation money. They don’t necessarily have to be elected to run your life.

In Part Four, we’ll take a look at the Gates support for the huge, worldwide microloan scheme.

BOSTON - A U.S. immigration judge has ordered a man arrested in Massachusetts during the probe into the failed Times Square bombing deported to his native Pakistan....

Khan was one of three men arrested on immigration charges May 13 and suspected of supplying money to the primary suspect, Faisal Shahzad (FY'-sul shuh-ZAHD'). But authorities say the men may not have known how the money would be used....

Khan says he never heard of Shahzad before his arrest. But federal authorities say Khan had Shahzad's name in his cell phone and written on an envelope.

War Is Deceit, after all.

Decent Fellows Alert, and an update on this story. "Two views in Houston terror trial," by Mary Flood for the Houston Chronicle, May 24:

Jurors on Monday heard two wildly different views of ex-Houston Community College student Adnan Babar Mirza, who is on trial for possessing weapons illegally and conspiring to give money to the Taliban.

Federal prosecutors painted Mirza as having violated the terms of his student visa, participated in military-like training in Texas woods in preparation for aiding U.S. enemies in Afghanistan and hoping to get some money to the Taliban, a designated terrorist organization.

His lawyer, David Adler, told jurors that Mirza was a good student who regularly fed Houston's homeless and worked with Houston police on a local public access channel to explain Muslim ways to police and citizens.

Adler said his client did learn to fire a weapon, but never violated his visa and wanted to send money to war victims, not to the Taliban.

Mirza, 33, sat in court wearing glasses and a beige suit across the room from a 14-person panel of jurors and alternates in U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein's court.

A co-defendant, Kobie Diallo Williams, previously pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in which he admitted to paramilitary training and donating money to the Taliban. He was sentenced to 4½ years in prison.

Jurors were shown a picture of Mirza and three other men in front of a tent while camping in Willis. In the photo were Williams, an FBI informant and an undercover agent.

Prosecutor Jim McAlister told jurors he expects to prove that Mirza violated his student visa by holding an unspecified job, and that made it illegal for him to have weapons or ammunition, while camping or otherwise.

McAlister said these weren't just camping weekends, but were paramilitary training weekends. "(They) intended to go to Afghanistan and fight, and it was not to fight for the Americans," the prosecutor said....

From the beginning, McCain-Feingold was a political Trojan Horse. Its stated purpose did not reflect its actual purpose. Its stated purpose was to clean up politics by tightly regulating the amount of money political parties and candidates could accept from donors. Its actual purpose, to use [George] Soros’s words, was to curb the “use of TV advertising” in American politics. “Television ads are doubly corrupting: They substitute misleading, negative sound bites for honest statements, and they are paid for by donor (read: special-interest) money,” wrote Soros in his 2000 book Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism.

Any doubts about the intentions of the McCain-Feingold legislation were dispelled by its actual results. As we shall see, the spending caps imposed by McCain-Feingold were widely ignored, in many cases by the very politicians who had pushed for them most strongly. Rather than limiting the amount of money in politics, the passage of McCain-Feingold ushered in a record increase in political contributions. This development seemed to provoke only shrugs from the chief proponents of “campaign finance reform” who populated Soros’s many and increasingly effective front groups.

The real impact of McCain-Feingold has been to regulate political speech rather than finances, and it accomplished this with a vengeance. The legislation bars private organizations, including unions, corporations and citizen activist groups, from advertising for or against any candidate for federal office on TV or radio 60 days before a general election, and 30 days before a primary. Only official political parties may engage in “express advocacy” for or against a candidate during that black-out period. The law does grant an exemption, however, to major (Democrat-leaning) media networks. Unlike ordinary citizens, major media networks may use the airwaves and cable networks to say whatever they like about any candidate on their news reports and talk shows during the 60- or 30-day black-out period. Thus the law grants to a handful of media organizations what amounts to a government-enforced monopoly on political speech during election season.

Many people assumed the Supreme Court would strike down McCain-Feingold. But they were proved wrong. In a move that stunned civil libertarians, the Supreme Court approved McCain-Feingold on December 10, 2003 by a one-margin vote. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Antonin Scalia wrote:

Who could have imagined that the same Court which, within the past four years, has sternly disapproved of restrictions upon such inconsequential forms of expression as virtual child pornography, tobacco advertising, dissemination of illegally intercepted communications and sexually explicit cable programming would smile with favor upon a law that cuts to the heart of what the First Amendment is meant to protect: the right to criticize government?

– The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party

If you have a favorite Horowitz quote you want to highlight for others then please submit it here. Please include:

1. “Horowitz Quote of the Day” in subject line.
2. A link to where the quote is from. (No need to include this if it’s from a book.)
3. Any remarks you’d like published explaining what value you take from it.

For years, film buffs have been lampooning actor Kevin Costner for his 1995 flop Waterworld. However, Costner has also given us good movies such as the unforgettable 1987 film The Untouchables. He was even able to make JFK watchable, a 1991 film by Marxist propagandist Oliver Stone. Like most actors his career is riddled with ups and downs, however, unlike other celebrities instead of preaching down to us from a Hollywood mansion, he leads by example by actually doing something constructive.

While British Petroleum and our own federal government appear to have been completely unprepared for the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it appears that Costner is the only one who learned something from the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident. Sure, he could be appearing in commercials advocating clean energy like Robert Redford, instead he has been putting his own money into research that will help clean up oil spills.

Costner began putting money towards cleanup research during the filming of Waterworld and has since put about $24 million towards finding a way to clean oil spills fast and efficiently. The efforts culminated in centrifugal oil separators which will soon be put to work. Costner’s attorney John Houghtaling describes the machines to the LA Times:

“The machines are essentially like big vacuum cleaners, which sit on barges and suck up oily water and spin it around at high speed. On one side, it spits out pure oil, which can be recovered. The other side spits out 99% pure water.”

This must make us wonder, if a Hollywood celebrity can fund such a helpful endeavor why can’t a company like BP? We have a wonderful natural resource surrounding our country but it is just appalling that this spill has gotten so far out of hand. Houghtaling continues:

“We could have as many as 26 machines dispatched throughout the gulf. Our largest machine is 112 inches high, weighs 2 ½ tons and cleans 210,000 gallons a day of oily water. We are hoping to have 10 machines that size out there — meaning we could potentially clean 2 million gallons of oil water a day.”

Fellow actor Stephen Baldwin is currently producing a documentary about the oil spill and Costner’s machines. It will be interesting to see them in action. At this point, we hope that Costner can show our government and BP a thing or two about how to apply resources properly.

What else can we say, sometimes celebrities get it right.

Lowlife

That's the quote of the night, and maybe of the year: "I'm shocked and stunned but I'm not surprised because he was such a low-life."

Anyway, perhaps Ouazzani was too busy with his auto parts dealership to figure out how to understand the Religion of Peace™ correctly. "Mo. auto dealer pleads guilty to aiding al-Qaida," by Bill Draper for Associated Press, May 19 (thanks to Davida):

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A Kansas City auto parts dealer who had sworn allegiance to al-Qaida pleaded guilty Wednesday to taking part in a conspiracy to provide financial support to the terrorist group.

Khalid Ouazzani, 32, a Moroccan native who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2006, admitted that he sent $23,500 to al-Qaida between August 2007 and mid-2008.

Although Ouazzani talked with others about ways to support al-Qaida, including plans for them to fight in Afghanistan, Iraq or Somalia, U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips said he did not pose a threat to the Kansas City area, where he briefly operated a business that sold auto parts and used vehicles.

"At no point prior to his arrest was he any threat to cause imminent harm or danger to the citizens of our community," Phillips said at a news conference.

Of course not! I've seen so many of these stories come down the pike over the years, and these guys never posed any danger to the community. Ever! The day I see a story about a jihadist getting arrested that has the U.S. Attorney saying, "This guy could have killed thousands," I will faint dead away.

Ouazzani was arrested in February on 33 counts contained in a sealed grand jury indictment charging him with bank fraud, money laundering, interstate fraud and making false statements to the government. There was no mention of any terrorism charges in the initial indictment.

He pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and one count of bank fraud and to an additional count of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization.

Prosecutors said Ouazzani, who became a permanent U.S. resident in July 2004 and became a citizen about two years later, provided false information to obtain a $175,000 line of credit commercial loan in April 2007 to run his business, Truman Used Auto Parts.

In May 2007, he wired $112,830 of the loan to a bank account in the United Arab Emirates, where it was used to purchase an apartment. In June or July 2008, he sold the apartment for a $17,000 profit, which was sent by a co-conspirator to al-Qaida, court records say.

He also agreed in August 2007 to send al-Qaida an additional $6,500 through a co-conspirator, who paid the money on his behalf, and in November 2007, Ouazzani repaid the co-conspirator through a wire transfer to a bank account in the United Arab Emirates, court records show.

Phillips said the $6,500 came from the sale of his business. She declined to comment on the co-conspirator or say how long Ouazzani had been in Kansas City prior to his arrest....

At least this is refreshing: the usual "neighbor said he was a quiet, friendly guy" stories get a twist in this one:

Dennis Hogan, who rented a salvage yard building to Ouazzani for his auto parts business, said Ouazzani owes him about $17,000 in back rent.

"I'm shocked and stunned but I'm not surprised because he was such a low-life," Hogan told The Associated Press. "Once he got in, he stopped paying his bills almost immediately."

Hogan said it was always a hassle to deal with Ouazzani and that other creditors in the Kansas City area were looking for him.

Hogan said that when he first met Ouazzani, he asked him if he was a terrorist, then immediately regretted the question.

"He looked at me and seemed real taken aback, and he said, 'Are you?'" Hogan said.

Mustafa Hussein, director of the Islamic Society of Greater Kansas City, said Ouazzani's wife came to the center after her husband was arrested in February and asked if the center could help him. Hussein told her that if the charges were politically motivated, there are organizations that could help, but "if he's guilty, there's nothing we can do."

"She was crying, very upset," Hussein said. "She did not come back to talk about it."

Hussein, who acknowledged that he knew Ouazzani only through brief encounters at the center or mosque, said Ouazzani seemed like a normal family man and didn't show any signs of extremism....

Of course! No one ever does!

There were people moving money for Shahzad, and he had connections to the Pakistani Taliban. Now none of his jihadi patrons can shoot him a few bucks for a decent lawyer now? Of course not: that would implicate them, and in any case it's better to make the kuffar pay for it all.

More on this story. "First Look: Faisal Shahzad Mugshot," by Aaron Katersky for ABC News, May 19:

Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad, who made his first court appearance Tuesday, is seen here in a mug shot provided by the U.S. Marshals.

A federal judge assigned a public defender to Shahzad, who faces five terror-related counts in connection with the attempted car bombing of midtown Manhattan on May 1.

Shahzad appeared in a Manhattan federal courtroom Tuesday afternoon to hear the charges against him and to be assigned a public defender in an arraignment that lasted less than 10 minutes....

Shahzad uttered a faint "yes" when the judge asked if his affidavit of financial insufficiency was correct, meaning that Shahzad could not afford private counsel. Judge Francis then appointed public defender Julia Gatto to represent him. Shahzad's only request of the judge was that he be provided with halal meals - food that follows Islamic dietary restrictions....

Of course. We should make every accommodation for this would-be mass murderer. As Marisol put it earlier: "That is: 'Please go to extra trouble on the taxpayer dime to respectfully accommodate the belief system under whose orders (cf. Qur'an 9:5, for starters) my client tried to commit mass murder.'"

BAGHDAD (AP) - An Iraqi official says oil exports have dipped in April by 4.3 percent compared to March due to continued insurgent attacks on infrastructure.

Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad says last month's daily exports averaged 1.76 million barrels, down by 4.3 percent from 1.84 million barrels a day in March.

Jihad says April's oil revenues stand at $4.222 billion with an average price of $79.66 a barrel.

March exports generated $4.351 billion....

Liz Blaine’s excellent piece Sunday showed the tension between union members who see illegal aliens flooding the job market and driving down the price of labor, and union bosses who lobby for watering down immigration laws, obsessing over “migrant rights,” and boycotting Arizona.

And while Liz is right that this fits into the socialist mindset of most union muckety-mucks, and although workers are indeed befuddled by how their leadership can sign onto something that is so obviously against the interest of American workers, both miss the real reason behind this position: Money and power, that’s what this is really all about.

You see, union leaders consider floods of unskilled and unschooled workers a ripe field for harvesting union dues. Democrats look at them as future (maybe near future) voters.  Since the union bosses are tied to the Democratic Party, that makes them a source for political power, as well.

President Barack Obama is doing everything he can to promote– and even force– union membership. From the infamous “card-check,” to directing stimulus funds to unions, to specifically unionized sectors: as long as a plan increases union’s hold over Americans, Obama’s for it.

Proof that unions no longer see any line between private industry unions and public sector unions can be illustrated by taking a closer look at the United Auto Workers.  The UAW’s middle initial is becoming increasingly ironic, as its largest local is no longer a GM or Ford factory complex in Detroit or Flint, but Local 6000—a State of Michigan employees union.

Once upon a time, there was a certain tension between autoworkers and public employees on union and strike issues, as the former knew they paid the salaries of the latter.  This was especially true around teachers’ strikes, because it were the autoworkers’ children and grandchildren who were being used as political pawns so teachers could extract more money from—well, their (grand)parents.

Now, for the union bosses, “Workers of the world, unite!” truly is the battle-cry.  As unions become less and less relevant in the real world, government is the only unionized growth industry – and illegal immigrants may be the only audience ill-informed enough to fall for the union spiel en masse.

In order to distract from the grave fiscal crisis caused by Greece’s cradle-to-grave socialism, Greek socialist prime minister George Papandreou is threatening to sue American banks.

Like his father before him who was also prime minister, Papandreou is the leader of the political party PASOK, which is the Panhellenic Socialist Movement. He is also president of the Socialist International. (The Socialist International’s affiliate in the U.S. is a group called Democratic Socialists of America, which in turn in closely tied to the Congressional Progressive Caucus).

“Greece will look into the past and see how things went,” Papandreou said. “There are similar investigations going on in other countries and in the United States. This is where I think, yes, the financial sector, I hear the words fraud and lack of transparency. So yes, yes, there is great responsibility here.”

So, not only is the United States involved in a futile scheme to bail out Greece’s basket case economy, but now that country’s leadership wants to shake down U.S. businesses for even more money. It’s as if the ruthless extortion artists at ACORN suddenly took over the government of the Hellenic Republic.

As I wrote previously, the U.S. is expected to kick in billions of dollars in order to prop up Greece’s failing welfare state via the International Monetary Fund.

It’s flushing money down a socialist toilet. And then the other fiscally doomed countries—including Spain, Portugal and Ireland—are going to whine and demand a bailout too. And knowing how much backbone President Obama has, we’re going to give it to them.

The Greek bailout will solve nothing. It will only delay the day of fiscal reckoning for the spendthrift Hellenic welfare state where hard work is for suckers.

Glenn Beck touched on the topic of excessive indebtedness on his TV show on May 5 (no video; link to transcript). He also noted that the rioters in the streets in Greece were left-wingers and union members, adding sarcastically:

In reality, we’re not going to let Europe go down. No, no, no. We can’t. They’re too big to fail. We’ll have to contribute more and more and more to prevent their demise. You’re already on the hook for this mess in Greece and Europe.

Well said Glenn.

Following leads provided by the interrogation of Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad, FBI agents fanned out across the Northeast today in raids that led to "several people" being taken into custody, according to Attorney General Eric Holder.

US officials told ABCNews.com that the operation was focusing on people who may have helped move money for Shahzad in his failed bombing plot. Initially, Shahzad had claimed to have "acted alone," according to US officials. He has been talking freely with FBI agents and federal prosecutors since being taken into custody May 3.

The FBI raids began just after dawn in the Boston suburb of Watertown and in residential areas near Shirley, Long Island in New York.

The people taken into custody were detained on immigration violations, according to Attorney General Holder, who discussed the early morning operation at a Congressional hearing today.

"The searches are the product of evidence that has been gathered in the investigation since the attempted Times Square bombing and do not relate to any known immediate threat to the public or active plot against the United States," Holder said.

Two of the arrests were made at a house in Massachusetts and a third person was taken into custody in Maine," according to a US law enforcement official.

"If Shahzad provided names to the FBI, the US has the ability to track their recent phone calls and determine who they have been talking to, to see if there is some kind of terror cell that exists here," said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, a former White House counter-terrorism official.

The searches were also carried out at a printing shop in Camden, New Jersey, an apartment on New York's Long Island, and at a gas station in Brookline, Massachusetts. [...]

Prosecutors said today that Shahzad continues on a daily basis to waive his right to appear in court, as he continues to provide FBI agents with chapter and verse of his conversion from suburban father of two to Taliban terrorist.

Interesting choice of words.

Officials say the three arrests today may not be the end of it, that at least three others remain under close scrutiny.