As a result of a recent event involving an aircraft and underpants Representative Peter King (R-Not From Iowa), the senior Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, has again come forth to bring his expertise on questions of international terrorism to the national debate.
King, a Congressman who represents a district that straddles New York's Long Island (NY-3), previously served as the Comptroller of Nassau County and a member of Hempstead, New York's Town Council, which wouldn't seem to be the kind of résumé that would give you much credibility in this arena-but Mr. King is a special case.
You see, Mr. King knows a great deal about terrorism...from the inside...because for many years the personal cause that drove his life was to be an active and public supporter of a terrorist group.
And that's why, today, we'll be connecting the dots between Congressman King and the Irish Republican Army.
The noose is more than just a piece of rope, it is a symbol. To some the noose is a symbol of execution; to African-Americans the noose is a symbol of terror. Louisiana and other states have taken steps and passed legislation to outlaw the use of the noose to incite terror. This is in the wake of the incident in Jena, Louisiana which sparked a debate in America about race and symbols.
Louisiana has passed legislation that makes hanging a noose, or an image of one, on another person's property or on public property with "the intent to intimidate" illegal and punishable by up to $5,000 and up to a year in prison.
There are those that voice opinions about the affect this law has on freedom of speech and the affect of the broadening definitions of terrorism.
So, yesterday I went for my long-dreaded cardio clinic diagnostic tests, scheduled for the whole day at BAMC (Brooke Army Medical Center for you "civilians")in San Antonio.
The staff was incredibly fantastic, in spite of the shortages of docs, nurses, techs and other personnel. I got my appt. in a reasonable time frame, Faux News was not on either of the waiting area TV's (CNN and Noggin were), and there was free popcorn provided by a corps of retired military in the main lobby. The staff explained everything in minute detail, at every step of the way asking me my full name, SSN, and birthdate, to avoid errors I was not only impressed, I felt like hugging all 16 people who had anything to do to me, even the adorable Latino nurse in black scrubs that hugged his six-pack abs who injected me with radioactive isotopes, twice, for my stress test. (Which I passed!)
Catch the flip for "The Rest of the Story", as they say...
We come before you today with another of those giant stories.
In fact, this one is so large that to make it a bit more digestible we're going to break it down into smaller parts. Today's, obviously, is part one.
The issues we'll discuss will be an immediate concern of the next President, they impact upon our relationships with many of the world's nations, and they directly affect whether we will return to a nuclear arms race with Russia...and even more fundamentally, whether we will be a nation that embraces the "first use" of nuclear weapons while asking others to give them up.
And with that, I bid you welcome to the mostly uncharted territory of "Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons".
One of the biggest myths Republicans have spread is the idea that Democrats are weak on terror. Specifically, they have claimed that Bin Laden and the Taliban were able to carry out the devastating 9/11 attacks because Bill Clinton did nothing to stop Bin Laden.
An email chain letter many of you may have seen goes so far as to blame Clinton for the deaths of over 7000 people. After listing several terror acttacks against Americans occurring in the 1990's which Clinton promised to avenge, they end the email with this:
Maybe if Mr Clinton had kept his promise, an estimated 7,000 more people would be alive today.
It was a classic and manipulative Republican tactic: state some facts, leave out key details, and then make an emotional and misleading insinuation that simply can't be argued against or for it.
Think about it. No matter what Clinton did, those terror attacks could still have occurred and 7000 people would still have died. Oh, and those key details which this Rovian letter failed to mention? Specific actions which the Clinton administration undertook to hunt down those terrorists responsible for each one of those attacks - including the conviction of several terrorist leaders.
What the GOP conveniently leaves out is the FACT that more terror suspects were convicted during Clinton's administration before 9/11 than were convicted in Bush's reign after 9/11.
But the real insinuation of the email, the real lie that Republicans want the public to believe is that Clinton (and by extension the Democrats) did nothing to stop Bin Laden and the Taliban. Then the GOP can not only claim the 'Tough on Terror' mantle all by their lonesome, but they are also off the hook for not capturing Bin Laden or even eliminating the Taliban SIX years after 9/11.
Well, the idea that Bill Clinton did nothing to stop Bin Laden and the Taliban is a lie and with the anniversary of 9/11 approaching, it's only right that we finally call the GOP on their lie.
The Clinton/Gore administration went after Bin Laden right up to point of Bush entered the White House and had the Bush administration taken national security briefings from the Clinton anti-terror team seriously, the Twin Towers might still be standing.
An annual report, known in the American intellignce community as the Terrorism Index, once again found that the Bush Adminstration continues to receive a failing grade from those who know the most about national security and fighting terrorism.
The report which will be in the September copy of Foreign Policy magazine is a survey of 100 foreign policy experts and paints a damning picture of Bush and the GOP's anti-terrorism efforts. And before the report is Swiftboated, these experts ranged from former White House officials, former secretaries of state, a CIA director, liberals and conservatives. In fact, conservatives were often more critical of Bush.
Foreign-policy experts deem U.S. national-security strategy in disrepair, the war in Iraq alarmingly off course, and the world increasingly more dangerous for Americans. More than 80 percent predict a terrorist attack on the scale of the one on Sep. 11, 2001, within the next decade.
What is the biggest reason for their pessimism? In a word, it's Iraq. In the opinion of these experts who have spent their lives and careers studying national security and fightinh terrorism, the Iraq war has made the war on terrorism more difficult and it has made Americans less safe.
Nearly all of the experts (92 percent) believe that the war in Iraq is having a negative impact on U.S. national security.
But what's interesting about this report is just how much these experts are pessimistic as a result of recent events which include George Bush's hail mary known also as the escalation.
That's right. There will be two reports detailing the effects of the Iraq war and the troop surge and only one of them will be an honest look at reality. And unfortunately for our nation, that reality is brutal and alarming thanks to the incompetent leadership of George Bush and his cheerleaders in the GOP.
Human Life International (HLI), "the largest international, pro-life, pro-family, pro-woman organization in the world," is directed by Fr. Thomas Euteneuer. Euteneuer is a well-connected activist who has logged over 700,000 miles in his tireless crusade to eliminate safe abortion care both here and around the world. Now he's written a book about exorcism, and one of the demon-worshipers who's simply got to go is ... me.
The HLI site is headlined by an article titled "Abortion: The Devil's Masterpiece." It's heavily larded with the inflammatory language of hatred - including a charge that my colleagues and I literally worship the demon Moloch by supplying him with blood sacrifices of children - and Father Tom means every word of it.
If he wasn't such a man of peace, I'd think he was trying to get us killed.
Even those die hards who still think that George hangs the sun and sets the moon...
From TPM, this heads up.
Source - Latest FauxNews Poll:link
24. If there is an all-out war between the United States and various radical
Muslim groups worldwide, who would you rather have in charge -- Democrats or
Republicans? (ROTATE)
As Flip Benham's Operation Save America prepares to besiege the same Birmingham, Alabama clinic bombed by Eric Rudolph, veteran associates of the underground terrorist network calling itself the Army of God prepare to memorialize assassin Paul Hill (left) — complete with a reenactment of the shotgun murder that took the lives of Dr. John Britton and his escort, James Barrett.
Events like these are intended to remind abortion providers that there is a violent underground. But they should also remind the rest of society that there is an armed wing of theocratic activism, to which most turn a blind eye. — Frederick Clarkson
Many also turn a blind eye to the fact that "the underbelly of the Christian right ... as scary as anything that ever dwelled in a Tora Bora cave" have influential associates in some very high places
Al Hurra television, the U.S. government's $63 million-a-year effort at public diplomacy broadcasting in the Middle East, is run by executives and officials who cannot speak Arabic, according to a senior official who oversees the program.
That might explain why critics say the service has recently been caught broadcasting terrorist messages, including an hour-long tirade on the importance of anti-Jewish violence, among other questionable pieces.
Facing tough questions before a congressional panel last week, Broadcasting Board of Governors member Joaquin Blaya admitted none of the senior news managers at the network spoke Arabic when the terrorist messages made it onto the air courtesy of U.S. taxpayer funds. Nor did Blaya himself or any of the other officials at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the network.
"How does it happen that the terrorists take over?" asked Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, D-N.Y., at a hearing last Wednesday of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee he chairs. "Is there no adult supervision?"
Blaya conceded that the top officials in the network's chain of command could not understand what was being said on al Hurra broadcasts.
The American-Statesman reports the arrest of Paul Ross Evans (left) , 27, of Austin for the attempted bombing of an Austin clinic that provides abortion care.
Law enforcement officials made the announcement at a news conference this afternoon.
"Our initial estimates are that the device could have caused serious injury or death within a hundred-foot radius," Assistant Police Chief David Carter said. "I do believe the threat has been removed."
Evans made an initial appearance before a federal magistrate this afternoon. Evans, who was crying, had an attorney appointed for him.
[:::]
The bomb was in a soft-side insulated cooler and contained 2 pounds of nails, a battery, a 12-inch piece of copper pipe, a mechanical timer and a propane cylinder, according to an affidavit from an FBI agent that was used to arrest Evans.
Inside the pipe was potassium nitrate, which can be used to manufacture gunpowder, and a type of sugar called dextrin, the affidavit says.
There was also a device that would detonate the bomb ...
Federal charges lodged against Evans include "using weapons of mass destruction, attempting to damage a building used in interstate commerce and attempting to damage a facility because it provides reproductive health services."
Law enforcement agents tracked Evans down so quickly because, like most others of his ilk, he apparently entertains more deep convictions than deep thoughts. Officers were able to trace the bomb materials to a Lowe's in Lufkin and a Wal-Mart in Austin -- where they were paid for with a credit card.
The specific nature of the charges indicates official recognition of anti-abortion violence for what it is -- terrorism. And it's about time.
Why? He was attacking Castro and , oh, he was a CIA asset.
U.S. Releases Cuban Bombing Suspect - New York Times
"A 79-year-old anti-Castro Cuban exile and former C.I.A. operative linked to the bombing of a Cuban airliner was released on bail yesterday and immediately returned to Miami to await trial on immigration fraud charges.
Before you jump to the conclusion that this means that the number of idenitifed terrorist has leaped by 400%, realize what it means is that if you use a vacuum cleaner, you pick up damn near everything. Sometimes it is even dirt and trash, or terrorist. Sometimes , it is even on purpose.
In the case of the Terrorist Watchlist, this does NOT inspire confidence:
Some of the False Positives the list has spawned: link * Numerous children (including many under the age of five, and some under the age of one) have generated false positives.[4]
* Daniel Brown, a United States Marine returning from Iraq, was prevented from boarding a flight home in April 2006 because his name matched one on the No Fly List. The rest of his company refused to leave the airport until Brown was allowed to board.[5]
* In August 2004, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) told a Senate Judiciary Committee discussing the No Fly List that he had appeared on the list and had been repeatedly delayed at airports. He said it had taken him three weeks of appeals directly to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to have him removed from the list.
* Jesselyn Radack, a former United States Department of Justice ethics advisor who argued that John Walker Lindh was entitled to an attorney, was placed on the No Fly List as part of what many believe to be a reprisal for her whistleblowing.
o In February 2006, U.S. Senator Ted Stevens stated in a committee hearing that his wife Catherine had been subjected to questioning at an airport as to whether she was Cat Stevens due to the similarity of their names.[14][17]
* U.S. Representative Don Young (R-AK), the 3rd most senior Republican in the House, was flagged in 2004 after he was mistaken for a "Donald Lee Young".[19]
(Bush has increased terrorism by a factor of 7. Amazing. - promoted by krazypuppy)
A new report has been recently released by Mother Jones, entitled "Iraq 101: Aftermath, Long Term Thinking" (Part 4) This in-depth, 5-part study was led by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, research fellows at the Center on Law and Security at NYU's School of Law.
According to the study, Bush has been insisting that fighting terrorists "over there" means we don't have to fight them "over here." When Rumsfeld has been asked if the war has created more terrorism, he would routinely reply "No one knows. The world doesn't know." The report reveals that until now, no one has ever done a statistical analysis of the effects of the war in Iraq on terrorism.
Bergen and Cruickshank's report give us crystal clear look at a Bush's GOP work in abysmal and profound failure, the death of hundreds of thousands, devastating human suffering both at home and in Iraq, a nightmare of regional migration displacement, gross corruption and the squandering and depletion of U.S. treasure. As if this personal, social, military, geopolitical and national calamity isn't horrible enough, Bush & Co. seriously compromised our security and safety by opening Pandora's Box of terrorism.
"It had a very sinister appearance," Attorney General Martha Coakley told reporters. "It had a battery behind it, and wires."
Oh, my gawd! Run for the Hills! It's got batteries! Run for...What? Litebrites? They were F'ing LITEBRITES!!! Yes. Part of a marketing promotion for a Cartoon Network movie!! C'mon! Do these two men look like they'd rather blow up a joint or smoke it?!?
What person sees this and thinks "Bomb"? It's display - in litebrites - a character on the show Aqua Teen Hunger Force (ATHF) giving everyone the middle finger.
No wonder these guys, along with the rest of the country, are laughing at Boston. This promotion, not hoax, ran in ten cities around the country and in 9 of them, everyone noticed that, um, hey, these are friggin LiteBrites. Only Boston went nuts.
And now, instead of admitting they looked like fools, city officials would rather persecute these two men, who were only doing their jobs. No. Much better to spend $1000s more on going after a cartoon promotion than to be an adult and admit you behaved foolishly.
Tracy O'Connor, 34, a retail manager, called Boston's response "silly and insane. We're the laughing stock of the country."
It's a real shame. Boston's a great city much maligned and ridiculed by GOPers & many Red Southerners for its progressivism. God, did the reicht get a gift from the city itself. It's a good thing Kerry didn't run. He'd wouldn't hear the end of this till, well, he stopped running.
Randy Neugebauer has wasted no time in putting himself in position to, well, waste time. His committee assignments are Agriculture, Financial Services, and Science and Technology. If you can find a single legitimate reason why this man should have any interest in any of those areas, let me know. I have rather cynical answers myself, and they all boil down to: Re-election and self-enrichment.
"What I believe the best outcome is that we continue to make sure that we win the war on terrorism and particularly our efforts in Iraq," said U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, whose 19th Congressional District includes Young County and most of Archer County.
and:
Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, said too much emphasis has been given to what the politics of the war are, whether that's draw down or ramp up.
"I think the discussion we ought to be having today is what do we need to do to win?" he said.
Apparently, Randy believes this does not apply to implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations. I don't mind Randy being all for the war (actually I do mind), but if he's gonna try and kill people over there, I'd tend to think that he should try and keep people alive over here.
I know some of you think Tony Snow is an idiot. Well, he's not. He just plays one on tv.
I actually think Snow is a fairly bright guy - the way, oh, Stalin or Ted Bundy were fairly bright people. Think about it.
He's the press secretary of a corrupt and incompetent Presidency which has bankrupt this country & gotten us into a dangerous war in a geographic location that unlike Vietnam we cannot abandon.
Everyday he's got to get in front of the world and deftly deny the truth and keep Americans from believing in reality. That takes talent. That I submit, ladies and gentlemen of the grand jury, is pure genius.
And Tony Snow's genius has been on display with the recently declassified (and leaked) non-partisan government report which has been highly critical of the Bush administration's disastrous decision to invade Iraq.
The report surveyed intelligence analysts and unaminously they stated the war in Iraq has hurt the war on terrorism and has served as a focal point and incubator for more terrorists.
But notice how the gifted Tony Snow spins this report.
(I think we missed this sad but funny snark! Editted to show picture.... - promoted by lightseeker)
My fellow Americans
After spending nearly 400 billion dollars ousting Saddam and the Taliban, eradicating al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations and creating a Model for future Middle East Democracies in Iraq, after vastly improving the lives of the Iraqi people by turning on their electricity and water service, creating a safe and secure environment for them to pursue their lives, rebuilding their schools and hospitals and other critical infrastructure and after getting their oil flowing freely to the export markets, to enable their return to national solvency, you might think that they would be grateful.
Read the caption on this British newspaper: "Pakistan helps UK foil terror plot"
Not "UK foils terror plot" and not even "UK gets help from Pakistan". It's Pakistan - first - helping the British.
That seems like semantics but it clearly makes Pakistan an equal respected partner and makes clear that without their aid, thousands of British and Americans citizens would have died.
