How Would Trump Fare As America's CEO?

HOW WOULD TRUMP FARE AS AMERICA’S CEO?

By Fareed Zakaria

Thursday, May 5, 2016

At the heart of Donald Trump’s appeal is his fame as a successful businessman. It’s why most of his supporters don’t worry about his political views or his crude rhetoric and behavior. He’s a great chief executive and will get things done. No one believes this more than Trump himself, who argues that his prowess in the commercial world amply prepares him for the presidency. “In fact I think in many ways building a great business is actually harder,” he told GQ last year.

There is some debate about Trump’s record as a businessman. He inherited a considerable fortune from his father and, by some accounts, would be wealthier today if he had simply invested in a stock index fund. His greatest skill has been to play a successful businessman on his television show “The Apprentice.”

Regardless, it is fair to say that Trump has formidable skills in marketing. He has been able to create a brand around his name like few others. The real problem is that these talents might prove largely irrelevant because commerce is quite different from government. The modern presidents who achieved the most — Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan — had virtually no commercial background. Some who did, George W. Bush and Herbert Hoover, fared worse in the White House. There is no clear pattern. One of the few successful CEOs who did well in Washington is Robert Rubin. A former head of Goldman Sachs, he served as the chief White House aide on economics and then treasury secretary in Bill Clinton’s administration. 

When he left Washington, he reflected in his memoirs that he had developed “a deep respect for the differences between the public and private sectors.”

“In business, the single, overriding purpose is to make a profit,” he wrote. “Government, on the other hand, deals with a vast number of legitimate and often potentially competing objectives — for example, energy production versus environmental protection, or safety regulations versus productivity. This complexity of goals brings a corresponding complexity of process.”

He then noted that a big difference between the two realms is that no political leader, not even the president, has the kind of authority every corporate chief does. CEOs can hire and fire based on performance, pay bonuses to incentivize their subordinates, and promote capable people aggressively. By contrast, Rubin pointed out that he had the authority to hire and fire fewer than 100 of the 160,000 people who worked under him at the Treasury Department. Even the president has limited authority and mostly has to persuade rather than command.

This is a feature, not a flaw, of American democracy. Power is checked, balanced and counterbalanced to ensure that no one branch is too powerful and that individual liberty can flourish. It is no accident that Trump admires Vladimir Putin, who doesn’t have to deal with the complications of modern democratic government and can simply get things done.

In interviews with the New York Times, Trump imagined his first 100 days in office: He would summon congressional leaders to lobster dinners at Mar-a-Lago, threaten CEOs in negotiations at the White House (“The Oval Office would be an amazing place [from which] to negotiate”) and make great deals. When talking about the positions he would fill, Trump explained, “I want people in those jobs who care about winning. The U.N. isn’t doing anything to end the big conflicts in the world, so you need an ambassador who would win by really shaking up the U.N.”

This displays an astonishing lack of understanding about the world. The United Nations can’t end conflicts because it has no power. That rests with sovereign governments (unless Trump wants to cede U.S. authority to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon). The notion that all it would take is a strong U.S. ambassador to shake up the U.N., end conflicts and “win” is utterly removed from reality. Yet it is a perfect example of business thinking applied in a completely alien context.

Success in business is important, honorable and deeply admirable. But it requires a particular set of skills that are often very different from those that produce success in government. As Walter Lippmann wrote in 1930 about Herbert Hoover, possibly the most admired business leader of his age, “It is true, of course, that a politician who is ignorant of business, law, and engineering will move in a closed circle of jobs and unrealities. . . . [But the] popular notion that administering a government is like administering a private corporation, that it is just business, or housekeeping, or engineering, is a misunderstanding. The political art deals with matters peculiar to politics, with a complex of material circumstances, of historic deposit, of human passion, for which the problems of business or engineering as such do not provide an analogy.”

(c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group

A Terrible Choice: Hillary or Trump?

A terrible choice: Hillary or Trump?

By Jay Ambrose
Tribune News Service
Charlotte Observer
2016 May 6

Donald Trump is a shallow, uninformed, narcissistic, immature man who could be catastrophic as president.

But Hillary is an awful choice, too.

We’re looking at a presidential race that doesn’t seem as if it can possibly turn out right.

The GOP presidential primary campaign in Indiana was winding down. Donald Trump was way ahead in the polls and had nothing much to worry about. But that did not stop him from hinting something more outrageous than we have ever heard from any presidential candidate besides himself – that Ted Cruz’s father may have had something to do with John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

This is horrible. It is maniacal. It is stupid. It hints at dementia, or, worse than that, at a moral grounding as flimsy as feathers. If this had been Trump’s only excursion of that kind, one might hope it meant nothing substantial.

But it does, and it is not enough to say that he is a marketing genius who tricks media into paying excess attention to him. Or to say that he just says what he thinks, political correctness be hanged. Or to say he is taking on an abusive establishment. Or to say he is teaching elites a lesson. What needs to be said is that he is a shallow, uninformed, narcissistic, immature man without a hint of reliable judgment and someone who could be catastrophic as president.

The horror is that his victory in Indiana and Cruz’s dropping out of the race set him up to be the Republican nominee and that his general election opponent is also frightening in different ways. If he should, then, make it to the White House, what would we get?

People say he is unpredictable, which is to say, it is predictable he will remain a scatterbrain. He is capable of just about anything.

It is hard to imagine him ever settling down into a state of enduring reasonableness.

How did we get here? Part of it was media run amuck, but that is at least to some degree understandable. If you had someone in a marathon race who was running on his hands, wouldn’t cameras focus on him? More culpability resides with the media for incessant attention on the horse race and too little on the issues.

The bigger matter is all that is going wrong in our society. Here is an incomplete list: distrust of everyone and everything; elitist disdain for the common people; economic policies creating working class misery; craziness in our universities; judges shoving aside law to reconfigure society to their liking; divisiveness and stalemate between Democrats and Republicans; supercilious leftism that doesn’t know what it’s talking about; a diminishment of civic associations and self-reliance; the dissolution of family and the social disintegration that ensues.

Now we’re looking at a presidential race that doesn’t seem as if it can possibly turn out right. Hillary Clinton and her husband have played let’s-get-rich games at the expense of integrity, and on issue after issue she is off track. A real dread is what she would do with Supreme Court nominees.

Is the least of all evils not to vote?

The Big Lie of the Presidential Campaign

The Big Lie of the Presidential Campaign By: Bill O'Reilly April 18, 2016 Apparently millions of American voters believe the federal government should be required by law to provide things for the folks – education, healthcare, good jobs, financial security in old age, on and on. That belief runs counter to how America was established in the late 18th century when our first-elected officials put their game plan into effect. Basically their vision was a limited one.  Citizens would have basic freedoms to worship, vote, speak openly without being punished, assemble without interference, and pursue happiness within the framework of the law. It was entirely up to the folks how they would use those freedoms.  No one was forced to go to the voting booth as they are in Australia, no one was forced to believe in God as they were in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Today the question of individual choice -- the quest to succeed or fail on your own -- has almost been obliterated by politicians and judges who don't respect the concept of competition and the struggle to prosper. In short, they are evolving away from how this country was established. In addition, they are deceiving the American people into believing that their success and well-being will be almost assured by a giant federal nanny state, which is absolutely impossible in a nation of nearly 320 million people. Politicians deceive because it is an easy way to seduce voters unhappy with their circumstance in life. When Bernie Sanders tells Americans that the economic system is rigged against them, he destroys incentive. Why work hard if the big banks will harm you no matter what?  If I am failing, it's not my fault -- the phantom billionaires are hurting me. Sanders is correct that the feds need to stop fraud in the marketplace, but his message of wall-to-wall capitalist corruption is false and pernicious. When a guy like Rand Paul tells Americans that they should be able to intoxicate themselves at will and public safety be dammed, he gives license to behavior that has destroyed untold billions of people the world over.  Not to mention the message that legalized drugs sends to children. We don't live in a vacuum here.  The condition of others can directly affect us, just look at the drunk-driving stats. When Al Sharpton and his grievance lobby assert that black Americans are oppressed by a racist system bent on hurting them, he provides an excuse for a litany of apathetic and destructive behaviors. The kid struggling in a bad school with parents who don't care needs all the encouragement leadership can give him or her, not a list of historical atrocities that can cause even more bitterness. The cold fact is very few powerful people are willing to address vexing problems by telling the truth to the folks. Here's what the government owes us: Protection from foreign concerns who would harm us. Protection from criminals who would harm us. A secure border system whereby our immigration laws are enforced and respected. An infrastructure of mass transportation that is safe and efficient.  What the U.S. airlines are doing to their passengers is a scandal and the fact that we don't have a high-speed rail system is flat out irresponsible. The government also has an obligation to protect our constitutional rights and to protect private property. Seizing assets after an American dies is abhorrent.  Many Americans work hard all their lives to give their children a better situation than they had. Finally, it is the duty of those in power to foster a system that allows every single American a truly fair shot at material and emotional success. That means schools with strong educational and disciplinary standards; subsidized benefits for the poor and infirmed that are delivered responsibly with clear guidelines; also, protections in the workplace against companies that would violate labor laws and exploit powerless employees. That's the heart of what the government owes us and social engineering is not part of it, nor is free education, nor free health care, nor a free income if you choose to lay about. Workers pay taxes to support the government, as well as for personal social security in old age, which the feds have mismanaged in the extreme. We deserve honesty and responsible spending, not wasteful programs designed to secure votes. Last week I spoke with Donald Trump about his promise to return jobs from overseas. Mr. Trump, Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton all say they will punish American companies who move jobs abroad. A president could certainly make life very difficult for corporations that ship jobs out, but the truth is that many of the lost jobs pay little and even if they do come back it's a marginal play. The big problem is that millions of Americans are so poorly educated and personally irresponsible they simply cannot compete in the free marketplace. So what are the power-seekers going to do about that?   Blank stares. Now the race hustlers, who apparently have not walked the streets of poor neighborhoods lately, immediately accused me of racism. And that is why the acute problem of cultural deprivation among underclass children of all colors is never addressed.  The smear merchants hammer anyone who does so. It is beyond disgraceful that powerful people look away from the real problem. Mr. Trump is noble in his intent to create jobs and train Americans to do them. But that will require much more than trade deals and rhetoric. It will require a cultural change in many working class and poor precincts.  If you reject the conventional road to success -- education and hard work -- you will fail in our capitalistic system … no matter what kind of outlandish promises Bernie Sanders makes. It is all about personal responsibility and motivation, and who is preaching that message?   Who? The truth is that individual motivation is being destroyed by phony politicians seeking power by promising an endless series of entitlements to a population that is moving away from achievement and into the gimme zone … gimme, gimme, gimme. Until that deep cultural flaw is exposed, until the phonies, race hustlers and corporate greed heads are called out, we will continue to see big lies spouted by deceivers and enabled by a gutless media. God help America. And that's the memo.

How US Covered Up Saudi Role in 9/11

How US Covered Up Saudi Role In 9/11

By Paul Sperry
April 17, 2016
New York Post

In its report on the still-censored “28 pages” implicating the Saudi government in 9/11, “60 Minutes” last weekend said the Saudi role in the attacks has been “soft-pedaled” to protect America’s delicate alliance with the oil-rich kingdom.

That’s quite an understatement.

Actually, the kingdom’s involvement was deliberately covered up at the highest levels of our government. And the coverup goes beyond locking up 28 pages of the Saudi report in a vault in the US Capitol basement. Investigations were throttled. Co-conspirators were let off the hook.

Case agents I’ve interviewed at the Joint Terrorism Task Forces in Washington and San Diego, the forward operating base for some of the Saudi hijackers, as well as detectives at the Fairfax County (Va.) Police Department who also investigated several 9/11 leads, say virtually every road led back to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, as well as the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles.

Yet time and time again, they were called off from pursuing leads. A common excuse was “diplomatic immunity.”

Those sources say the pages missing from the 9/11 congressional inquiry report — which comprise the entire final chapter dealing with “foreign support for the September 11 hijackers” — details “incontrovertible evidence” gathered from both CIA and FBI case files of official Saudi assistance for at least two of the Saudi hijackers who settled in San Diego.

Some information has leaked from the redacted section, including a flurry of pre-9/11 phone calls between one of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego and the Saudi Embassy, and the transfer of some $130,000 from then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar’s family checking account to yet another of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego.

An investigator who worked with the JTTF in Washington complained that instead of investigating Bandar, the US government protected him — literally.  He said the State Department assigned a security detail to help guard Bandar not only at the embassy, but also at his McLean, Va., mansion.

The source added that the task force wanted to jail a number of embassy employees, “but the embassy complained to the US attorney” and their diplomatic visas were revoked as a compromise.

Former FBI agent John Guandolo, who worked 9/11 and related al Qaeda cases out of the bureau’s Washington field office, says Bandar should have been a key suspect in the 9/11 probe.

“The Saudi ambassador funded two of the 9/11 hijackers through a third party,” Guandolo said. “He should be treated as a terrorist suspect, as should other members of the Saudi elite class who the US government knows are currently funding the global jihad.”

But Bandar held sway over the FBI.

After he met on Sept. 13, 2001, with President Bush in the White House, where the two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony, the FBI evacuated dozens of Saudi officials from multiple cities, including at least one Osama bin Laden family member on the terror watch list. Instead of interrogating the Saudis, FBI agents acted as security escorts for them, even though it was known at the time that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

“The FBI was thwarted from interviewing the Saudis we wanted to interview by the White House,” said former FBI agent Mark Rossini, who was involved in the investigation of al Qaeda and the hijackers. The White House “let them off the hook.”

What’s more, Rossini said the bureau was told no subpoenas could be served to produce evidence tying departing Saudi suspects to 9/11. The FBI, in turn, iced local investigations that led back to the Saudis.

“The FBI covered their ears every time we mentioned the Saudis,” said former Fairfax County Police Lt. Roger Kelly. “It was too political to touch.”

Added Kelly, who headed the National Capital Regional Intelligence Center: “You could investigate the Saudis alone, but the Saudis were ‘hands-off.’ ”

Even Anwar al-Awlaki, the hijackers’ spiritual adviser, escaped our grasp. In 2002, the Saudi-sponsored cleric was detained at JFK on passport fraud charges only to be released into the custody of a “Saudi representative.”

It wasn’t until 2011 that Awlaki was brought to justice — by way of a CIA drone strike.

Strangely, “The 9/11 Commission Report,” which followed the congressional inquiry, never cites the catch-and-release of Awlaki, and it mentions Bandar only in passing, his named buried in footnotes.

Two commission lawyers investigating the Saudi support network for the hijackers complained their boss, executive director Philip Zelikow, blocked them from issuing subpoenas and conducting interviews of Saudi suspects.

9/11 Commission member John Lehman was interested in the hijackers’ connections to Bandar, his wife and the Islamic affairs office at the embassy. But every time he tried to get information on that front, he was stonewalled by the White House.

“They were refusing to declassify anything having to do with Saudi Arabia,” Lehman was quoted as saying in the book, “The Commission.”

Did the US scuttle the investigation into foreign sponsorship of 9/11 to protect Bandar and other Saudi elite?

“Things that should have been done at the time were not done,” said Rep. Walter Jones, the North Carolina Republican who’s introduced a bill demanding Obama release the 28 pages. “I’m trying to give you an answer without being too explicit.”

A Saudi reformer with direct knowledge of embassy involvement is more forthcoming.

“We made an ally of a regime that helped sponsor the attacks,” said Ali al-Ahmed of the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs. “I mean, let’s face it.”

Paul Sperry is a former Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington.”

This Is How It Is With Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz Gets To The Heart Of Making America Great Again

Investors Business Daily Editorial
2016 March 6 

Election 2016: Pundits have decried the bickering at the latest GOP presidential debate as an embarrassment to the party and its prospects. But in fact, Ted Cruz made one of the clearest economic cases for change we’ve heard so far. 

The Fox News moderators played to the crowd by peppering the candidates with a series of Flint- and Detroit-oriented questions, asking them to address the area’s chronic urban-blight problems at the March 3 debate in downtown Detroit. 

There were some solid answers showing mature thinking from the likes of Ohio Gov. John Katich.  But only when Texas Sen. Ted Cruz took the microphone were the questions of how to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. transformed from a local issue to a national imperative — one that went to the heart of what it really takes to make America great again, the very theme that has drawn so many voters to Donald Trump.

(READ THE FOLLOWING QUOTATION CLOSELY)

“Let me start by observing that Detroit is a great city with a magnificent legacy that has been utterly decimated by 60 years of failed left-wing policy,” Cruz told Fox News moderator Chris Wallace. 

“You know, Henry Ford revolutionized automobile manufacturing and brought automobiles to the middle class. During World War II, Detroit provided — funded the arsenals of democracy to help us win World War II. In — in the 1960s, Detroit was the Silicon Valley of America. It had a population of 2 million people, had the highest per capita income in the country. 

“And then, for 50 years, left-wing Democrats have pursued destructive tax policies, weak crime policies, and have driven the citizens out. 

“This city now has just 700,000 citizens. There are vacant homes, one after the other after the other. Crime has been rampant, and it is an outrage. And let me say to folks in the media: That is a story that the media ought to be telling over and over again, the destruction of left-wing policies and the millions who have hurt because of it,” Cruz declared as his sixty seconds ran out. 

“I’ll give you 30 seconds to try to answer my question,” Wallace responded, almost appearing to upbraid Cruz. “What specifically would you do to bring manufacturing jobs back to Detroit and to train the residents here to do those jobs?” Wallace asked. Cruz’s answer just got better. 

“The way you bring manufacturing back to America is, number one, you lift the regulations. As president, I will repeal ObamaCare, the biggest job-killer in America,” said Cruz. 

“I will pull back the federal regulators, the EPA and all the regulators that are killing small businesses and manufacturing. 

“And my tax plan, which is a very, very detailed plan on the website tedcruz.org, is what’s called border adjustable. We get rid of all the taxes. We get rid of the corporate income tax and the death tax and the ObamaCare taxes and the payroll tax. And we replace it with a 16% business flat tax that is border adjustable, which means all exports are entirely tax-free and all imports pay the 16% business flat tax. That’s a 32% differential. 

“What that will do, Chris, is bring millions of manufacturing jobs back to this country, bring the steel industry back to this country, create an environment where, when we compete on a fair and level playing field, American ingenuity can beat anyone. But right now, the federal government isn’t giving us a level playing field.” 

It was an eloquent, fact-based, carefully thought out and powerful statement that gets to the heart of who’s been running the U.S. as its establishment, why change is needed and what greatness really means.

It was the sort of argument and answer that elevates the national contest and its debates on the great questions, and something that many Americans hope to see more of now. Cruz struck a nerve — and hit a bullseye.

For more critical information, see:

https://www.tedcruz.org/issues/

See also the Cruz tax plan below:

https://www.tedcruz.org/tax_plan/

This Is How It Is With Donald Trump

The Emperor Has No Clue…And His Devotees Couldn’t Care Less

Derek Hunter

2016 February 28

Townhall.com

There he was, stripped bare and standing in the middle of the debate stage. Donald Trump was eviscerated in Thursday’s debate. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz took turns pummeling the founder of Trump University with his own words, his own history, and delivering body blow after body blow.

It was more than enough to convince any thinking person he was not a serious candidate for president. But Trump isn’t your typical presidential candidate. He’s Barack Obama-light, in every sense of the term.

What does Donald Trump stand for? What will he do if elected? What core conservative principle will he advance? 

If you’re being honest, the answer to each of those questions is you have no idea.   Don’t feel bad, neither does he. 

That’s not entirely true. He was fairly unambiguous about one thing he’d like to do: change the law so he can sue newspapers. When it comes to solutions to the nation’s problems, Donald Trump is the equivalent of a constitutional dumpster fire; and that’s just fine to his worshipers. 

The day after being embarrassed in front of the world, in part because of the lack of specifics he’s provided as to what he would do as president, Trump held a press conference to get specific – or at least specific-ish – about this proposal.

He said: “One of the things I’m going to do, and this is going to make it tougher for me…but one of the things I’m going to do if I win…is I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We’re going to open up those libel laws. So that when the New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when the Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.”

By the way, the reason “they’re totally protected” right now is the First Amendment, that whole “Congress shall make no law” bit about freedom of the press. But who cares? Right, Trump fans? 

It’s the same stifling of speech outraging conservatives on college campuses; only it’s Trump advancing it.  If it’s fascism when a student group proposes it, what is it when a billionaire does?  

His supporters don’t bother with strings of words ending in question marks. Their kryptonite is a simple “How?” or the dreaded “What?” 

What does Donald Trump want to do as president? There is no answer yet articulated that wouldn’t fit nicely on a bumper sticker. He wants to “make American great again,” or “build a wall,” or “destroy ISIS,” etc., etc. How?

He has no answer.  He makes proclamations like a dime-store Juan Perón.  Only he has no clue how a president must work with Congress to create or change laws. Trump supporters appear content to adopt the Barack Obama model of rule by executive fiat.  They don’t mind a despot as long as he’s their despot. 

Trump’s “specifics,” such as they are, about his signature talking point is a wall that grows by 10 feet each time Mexican officials say they won’t pay for it. It’s at least 30 feet higher than when it started, but we’re no closer to learning how it will be paid for. It just will be…apparently. 

Cheerleaders aren’t even bothered by the fact that on his signature issue, immigration, he’s imported workers rather than hire Americans. His claim of it being “impossible” to find Americans to do his jobs is right out of the liberal playbook of “jobs Americans won’t do” for illegal aliens. 

His supporters don’t give a damn about his hypocrisy any more than Hillary Clinton’s, Barack Obama’s or Al Gore’s do.

They love he’s “self-funding” his campaign because he “can’t be bought.” Do they think that will hold? A general election will cost at least $1 billion. Will Donald Trump mortgage his business on the possibility that, after alienating more than half the GOP, he’ll win? 

He doesn’t have a billion in cash lying around. Since he’s hiding his tax returns, most likely because he’s not nearly as rich as he claims (he’s sued over that before and lost), there’s little chance he’d be able to fund a tenth of a general election campaign. 

He’s gotten this far through free media. Sure, he’s spent a few million once he absolutely had to, but the majority of his exposure comes from the cable networks taking every speech of his live, allowing him to phone in whenever he wants and being willing to broadcast any sycophant wannabe Trump staffer representing him unchallenged. Against Hillary Clinton that ends. He will need money, money he doesn’t have.

He does have rich friends, and those friends would love to have a friend in the White House. And not because they’d find it “cool” to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom. 

When Rubio and Cruz exposed Donald Trump’s inability to explain what he’d do, and how, on any issue beyond his memorized bumper stickers, they did the country a great service. Unfortunately, blinded by anger and hatred, his devotees refuse to see their emperor has no clothes, nor clue. 

There is no issue on which you can find Donald Trump speaking eloquently, passionately, and with any detail that doesn’t involve his poll numbers or his wealth. We have only his word to go on about his wealth, and his word has not always been accurate. That people are willing to believe him, unchallenged, and take offense when others do challenge him, is the mentality that has led to dark places in world history. 

Scapegoating is a powerful weapon of manipulation, and Trump deploys it better than anyone in 80+ years. His followers want to “burn it all down,” so they’re willing to blindly follow a pied piper down a very dangerous path. If they refuse to open their eyes, the dumpster fire they’re franticly cheering will burn them down eventually too. 

PS: I urge you to watch this video, any part of it, and try to spot a coherent or even complete sentence from Trump. It’s the ramblings of a man unhinged and incapable of serious or important discussion of any issue facing the country. It may make you laugh, but does it inspire? Is it remotely presidential? 

Obama to Visit U.S. Mosque Tied to Extremism

On February 3, President Barack Obama will visit a U.S. mosque for the first time during his presidency. Curiously, the president chose a mosque to visit that is deeply tied to Islamist extremism and terror funding.

The Islamic Society of Baltimore, the mosque Obama will visit, is part of a network of mosques of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). In 1991, a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo placed ISNA at the top of a secret list of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” The document said the organization’s “work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within…”

In 2007, federal prosecutors named ISNA an unindicted co-conspirator in the terrorism-financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation, another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity housed in the ISNA building.

See Clarion Project’s profile of ISNA

The U.S. government’s identification of ISNA as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity was upheld in 2009 due to “ample” evidence linking ISNA to Hamas.

As if the Islamic Society of Baltimore’s association with ISNA wasn’t bad enough, the mosque’s imam for 15 year, Mohammad Adam el-Sheikh, also has deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. In addition, el-Sheikh served as the regional director of the Islamic American Relief Agency, a group which, according to the U.S. Treasury, funneled funds to Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda and Hamas, among other terrorist organizations.

El-Seikh is on record as defending and justifying Palestinian suicide bombing against Israelis.

This is not the first time Obama endorsed and supported the Brotherhood-linked ISNA. In 2013, Obama addressed the 50^th annual ISNA convention via videotape, praising ISNA for its partnership with his administration.

To the conference participants, Obama said, “Over the last half-century, you’ve upheld the proud legacy of American-Muslims’ contributions to our national fabric and this gathering is a testament to that tradition.”

Yet, the gathering was anything but a testament to American tradition. A Clarion Project report showed the convention's roster of speakers included many known extremists, including Zaid Shakir and Siraj Wahhaj.

Shakir has preached that the U.S. Constitution is flawed because it grants equality to Muslims and non-Muslims and Wahhaj, a main speaker at the conference, has a history of anti-American preaching and envisions the day when sharia law will control America.  As a current strategy, he advises Muslims to avoid discussion of Sharia because “we are not there yet.”

Ironically, the White House said one of the purposes of Obama’s visit to the Baltimore mosque is to “reaffirm the importance of religious freedom to our way of life.”

Religious freedom is hardly a concept promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood and those associated with it.

In fact, Muslims who are genuinely interested in religious freedom for all people have found Obama’s visit to the Islamic Society of Baltimore highly offensive.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, called the visit was “insulting.”

“It’s disgraceful that this is the mosque he’s picked to be the first to visit,” Jasser said on “Fox and Friends” Sunday. “This mosque is very concerning...Historically, they are basically a radical, extreme mosque and not representative of the modern Muslims in America.”

Jasser is right. According to a 2011 Gallup poll, only 4% of Muslim-American males and 7% of females chose ISNA as the organization that most represents their interests.

If one of the purposes of visiting a U.S. mosque is to “celebrate the contributions Muslim Americans,” as stated by the Obama administration, he could have started by choosing a mosque and its congregants that are have truly done so.

Meira Svirsky is the editor of ClarionProject.org

Copyright © 2013 Clarion Project, Inc. All rights reserved.