Egypt's Morsi grants himself sweeping powers

Egyptian President and Muslim Brotherhood leader, and Obama pal, Mohammed Morsi, assumed sweeping powers on Thursday placing himself on a collision course with the judiciary and encroaching on Egypt's laughable and so-called Democracy movement.

From the AP:

Morsi decreed immunity for the panel drafting a new constitution from any possible court decisions to dissolve it. He granted the same protection to the upper chamber of parliament... Both bodies are dominated by Morsi's Islamist allies.

Several courts are currently looking into cases demanding the dissolution of both bodies.

The Egyptian leader also decreed that all decisions he has made since taking office in June and until a new constitution is adopted are not subject to appeal in court or by any other authority, a move that places Morsi above oversight of any kind.

Morsi's decrees came as thousands of demonstrators gathered in downtown Cairo for the fourth day running to protest against Morsi's policies and criticize the Muslim Brotherhood, the fundamentalist group from which the Egyptian leader hails.

I've noted previously that Mr. Morsi had issued statements in the past claiming that Al Qaeda did not perpetrate the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

"When you come and tell me that the plane hit the tower like a knife in butter, then you are insulting us," Morsi said. "How did the plane cut through the steel like this? Something must have happened from the inside. It's impossible."

Morsi said that the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq “due to the U.S. administration claims that the doers of the 11 September attacks [were] Muslims, without proving such a thing until now... This requires a huge scientific conference that is devoted to analyzing what caused the attack against a massive structure like the two WTC towers."

Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Morsi, the so-called moderate extremist, freed [pardoned] 17 Islamists jailed for militancy during Hosni Mubarak's era a step seen as a gesture to hardliners who supported his presidential bid. The freed detainees, includes two individuals accused of killing a police officer, and a third accused of killing another police officer in a separate incident.

Morsi also freed several members of al-Gama'a al-Islamiya, who were incarcerated for mounting armed insurrection against the government in the 1990s. Several members of Islamic Jihad, the movement behind the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat, were also freed by Mr. Morsi, the moderate, fun-loving, Pro-Democracy President of Egypt, and Obama pal.

P.S. I also noted previously: In September, demonstrators stormed the U.S. Embassy in Egypt, took down the American flag and destroyed it, then replaced it with a black flag similar to the banner used by Al Qaeda. For several hours, the Egyptian police - who follow Mr. Morsi's directives - remainded indifferent to the violence and made no effort to confront the thugs until, at long last, they finally decided to remove them from the embassy compound. For several hours, Obama's pal, good ol' Mohammed Morsi, gave the demonstrators free reign to wreak havoc upon the U.S. embassy.