RW-The efforts by some groups to prevent the construction of mosques could backfire, suggests a recent study that urges the building of Muslim community centers and mosques as a way of preventing Islamic radicalism.

The two-year-long study (PDF), which was brought to public attention in Sunday’s New York Times, states that “the creation of robust Muslim-American communities may serve as a preventative measure against radicalization by reducing social isolation of individuals who may be at risk of becoming radicalized.”

It asserts that “the stronger such communities are, in terms of social networks, educational programs, and provision of social services, the more likely they are to identify individuals who are prone to radicalization and intervene appropriately.”

The study, put together by researchers at Duke University and the University of North Carolina and released in January, could shed new light on the recent outbreak of anti-mosque sentiment among some groups, sparked by the controversy over illegal immigration and the construction of a mosque and Muslim community center near Ground Zero in Manhattan.

The study suggests that promoting — rather than acting against — strong Muslim communities may be one of the keys to preventing Islamist terrorism in the United States.

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By Craig Harrington

As the American economy continues to falter, workers are shouldering the brunt of the burden. Wages have been cut, hours have been taken in, and benefits are being delayed or held up. It used to be that working in the U.S. brought with it certain distinctions and protections that you could find nowhere else. Now, many Americans are being forced to settle for positions they would have rejected just years or months ago.

According to CNNMoney.com, the few jobs that are returning to the work pool are very different from the ones that left when the financial crash sent our already broken economy into a tailspin.

Unemployment remains near 10 percent in the United States and will likely remain there for months or even years. In the mean time the American worker is expected to make due with temporary work, no benefits, and part-time jobs to make up for everything they have lost.

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HP-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has spent a good portion of the past two years going up against an entrenched web of military bureaucrats and defense lobbyists to try to restore rationality to the defense budget.

He’s battled against obsolete military hardware, pledged to make cuts to the civilian bureaucracy, and ordered the Pentagon to shed $100 billion in overhead. Now, as Ginger Thompson and Thom Shanker report in the New York Times, Gates has put “the military’s sacrosanct corps of generals and admirals” in his crosshairs, by “ordering his staff to cut at least 50 positions, and making clear that he would be happier if they cut more.” And it doesn’t stop there:

Pentagon officials said the measures were aimed at more than a number. Mr. Gates said he wanted to flatten a bureaucracy that had experienced significant “brass creep,” swelling to “cumbersome and top-heavy proportions.” He complained, for example, that a request to send a dog-handling team to Afghanistan goes through no fewer than five four-star headquarters.

Beyond that, Pentagon officials said, Mr. Gates wanted to push back against a culture of entitlement that had allowed some senior officers to pad their lifestyles as well as their commands.

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By Joshua Sanders

EconomyInCrisis recently featured an article discussing the negative implications that would arise from congressional approval and the subsequent enactment of the Korean-US Free Trade Agreement. One of those implications is that U.S. law will become subservient to the stipulations existing in the FTA. Kor-US, like the rest of our FTAs currently on the books, would allow foreign companies to sue the U.S. for violating any terms of the FTA. This should be especially troubling for Americans since many companies could utilize loopholes in the FTA to gain unsolicited and unbalanced access to our markets.

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Bush’s former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, on how Obama screwed up his predecessor’s handiwork in Iraq, the coming regional arms conflict—and what the president should say in his speech tonight about his decision to withdraw American troops.

President Obama has an opportunity in Tuesday’s Oval Office address on Iraq to show that he has finally learned something about American security in the hard world of international geostrategy. Of course, if he did, it would mean abandoning much of what he advocated during his election campaign, reversing many of his most-prized policies since his inauguration, disappointing his leftist political base, and causing acute heartburn on Norway’s Nobel Peace Prize Committee. I’m not holding my breath. But if the president was blessed with a revelation during his summer vacation, perhaps he now understands what we have at stake in Iraq going forward.

The consequence of an Obama policy that continues the withdrawal of American forces down to zero in Iraq would unquestionably strengthen Iran.

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AP-President Barack Obama exhorted Congress on Monday to make passage of a long-languishing small business aid package its first order of business when it returns next month from its summer break.

“I ask Senate Republicans to drop the blockade,” Obama said in the Rose Garden after meeting with his economic advisers

Acknowledging that the economy still remains extremely fragile, the president said he’d also have other specific ideas in the days ahead.

He mentioned extending Bush tax cuts due to expire this year for households making under $250,000 a year, upping the nation’s investment in clean energy, rebuilding more roads and highways and tax cuts designed to keep jobs in the United States.

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A pastor who hates Muslims, Mormons and gays will start preaching Sunday. Will mosque opponents speak out?

A bigoted pastor who has assailed gays and Muslims is launching the “9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero” a mere two blocks from the World Trade Center site this Sunday, but so far the project hasn’t drawn a peep of protest from those who are outraged by the “ground zero mosque.”

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TH-The Democrats’ stimulus raised economic growth by as much as 4.5 percent in the last quarter and may have increased the number of people with jobs by more than 3 million, according to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report released Tuesday.

The CBO report also provided a new estimate of the stimulus’ 10-year cost — $814 billion, down slightly from its $862 billion estimate from earlier this year but slightly higher than the initial $787 billion projection from early 2009.

The report gives a small boost to President Obama and Democrats, who pushed the stimulus through Congress with minimal support from Republicans in February 2009. The White House and Democratic leaders have argued that the stimulus was necessary to prevent the economy from slumping into an even deeper recession and possibly a depression after the financial crisis.

That’s been a tough argument for Democrats to press ahead of the midterm elections, given slow economic growth, an unemployment rate of 9.5 percent and new housing data that showed sales of existing homes plummeting in July.

Republicans have made the stimulus Exhibit A in their election-year case against Democrats. Republican leaders said the stimulus failed to keep the jobless rate around 9 percent or below, and has instead contributed to deficits of roughly $1.4 trillion in 2009 and this year.

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MSN-He incriminates engineers, including one who refuses to testify at presidential inquiry

A contractor to BP testified Tuesday that he warned BP that it risked gas leaks in the Macondo well if it cut back on stabilizers for the pipe going down the hole. The warning, he told the Coast Guard-led inquiry into the disaster, was sent via e-mails to BP engineers, including one who refused to testify on Tuesday.

Jesse Gagliano, a technical advisor for Halliburton, which was contracted to cement the well, testified that two days before the explosion he sent BP a computer model showing severe risk of gas flowing into the cemented well if it used fewer than seven “centralizers” at different depths of the pipe.

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S-Jon Stewart demands that Americans stop watching Fox News as the only way to cut off the revenue stream to “these bad dudes.”

The Kingdom Foundation, funder of the Ground Zero Mosque is run by Alwaleed bin Talal, the largest shareholder in Fox News.

Fox News owner Alwaleed bin Talal, who, according to Fox News, has ties to terrorist organizations and the Iranian government, also owns, of course, Fox News and pays the salaries of those who say the man funding the Ground Zero Mosque is a terrorist.

What Fox News fails to mention is that the terrorist they are speaking of is their owner, Alwaleed bin Talal.

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