Rally Attendance OBLITERATES Turnout To Glenn Beck Rally...has she learned nothing from yesterday's teachable moment? Everybody knows that using all caps on the internet means screaming.
The "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" is billed as a correction to what Stewart, Colbert and their fans consider the extremism and dishonesty that have infected the American political system, especially the self-righteousness and fear-mongering they see in the right-leaning Beck and his employer, Fox News. The rally is scheduled to include musical interludes by such reliable openers as the Roots and professional rally balladeer Sheryl Crow. The event also will be emphatically covered by ratings and Web-traffic hungry mainstream media -- including The Washington Post -- that Stewart and Colbert vigorously mock.So there's your only-mentioned target of insanity. The big question is will they pick on Olbermann (Olberdouche), Maddow (Madcow), Matthews (Tingles), and Schultz (Sgt Schultz). Surely they are also visions of insanity in America circa 2010. Oh, and this.
GORDON PETERSON: Nina, columnist Paul Krugman says if the election goes as expected, his advice is be afraid, be very afraid. Should we take his advice?But that's not the kind of fear Stewart and Colbert were lampooning--that's the fear they were actually projecting by holding the rally. They really are afraid to lose one-party Democratic rule.
NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: I am already afraid, very afraid. I mean, it’s not like governance has been going great. I think we’ll, I don't know whether I should be afraid, but there will be gridlock.
The devices were "professionally" loaded and connected using an electric circuit to a mobile phone chip tucked in a printer, Dubai police told WAM, the official news agency for the United Arab Emirates.The next question is where the trigger (detonator) man would be, whether in a foreign country or America, and what is the range of the remote device. UPS has a facility in Louisville, Fed Ex in Memphis, would someone actually wait for the plane to taxi into the ramp area to push the button or would they do it while in-flight? Timing is probably no coincidence either--we are about to enter the Christmas package rush season.
They were packed in toner cartridges and designed to be detonated by a cell phone, a source close to the investigation told CNN. Police said they were tipped off about the possibility of an explosive device in postal packages onboard a FedEx flight from Yemen headed to Dubai.
A man in traditional Muslim clothing caused a “security scare” at Memphis International Airport Tuesday morning, officials said.Seems the poor guy got sick and went into the lavatory, taking awhile, then bumped the seat cover on the way out. When the flight attendants went in and saw the place a bit rumpled they snatched the family off the plane for questioning. Just an innocent reaction ala Juan Williams, or should they be fired for profiling? Isn't that exactly what they did? Or does a suspicious person going into a bathroom signal anything unusual (part 5 of that video series is here, which includes a very prescient remark by the Filipino police chief)?
It's nice to see our POTUS is finally clearly defining the "enemy" and encouraging punishment. No more talk about meetings without preconditions and that girly-man stuff.An aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid repeatedly lied to federal immigration and FBI agents and submitted false federal documents to the Department of Homeland Security to cover up her illegal seven-year marriage to a Lebanese national who was the subject of an Oklahoma City Joint Terror Task Force investigation, FoxNews.com has learned.Let's follow this bouncing ball--she entered a sham marriage with a Lebanese citizen in 2003, who had arrived in 2000 to attend college in Oklahoma City. They stayed married while he did who-knows-what trying to earn his permanent resident card while she got a job with the National Council on La Raza in 2006, then later a job as a PR person for Harry Reid in October 2008. One month later she was busted by the FBI for the sham marriage while her 'husband' had begun to draw the attention of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Ok City.
What I believe Juan Williams did was express, unfortunately, the position of many Americans in their distrust of Muslims. I am Muslim. My father's name has Muhammad in it. We would be profiled if we go through airports because, you know, I buy tickets at the last minute and I fall into the classic profile that you have.She seems to be saying that it's almost like the N word thing with blacks--only Muslims can talk that way about other Muslims. It's ironic that another minority can get fired for crossing that line but the story runs deeper (as the panelists reveal later)...it's about 'serving two masters'. At any rate as Muslims keep exploding or opening fire at various intervals in the states as we continue killing them with prejudice overseas, and while sweeping generalizations about all of this are fast becoming thought crimes, it seems we really do need a national conversation here. Surely when imam Rauf pops back up after the election he'll probably be making the same point, albeit while blaming America somehow.
But I got to tell you, when I went to Great Falls Park the other day, and I saw a woman in an full-face veil and her husband had a little leather bag that wasn't looking like a picnic basket, I felt a little nervous. And there was a park ranger behind me who clearly was on their tail.
What Juan Williams expressed, I believe, is the sentiment of many people and including Muslims. Muslims profile each other all the time. When you walk into a mosque and you see other Muslims, you say, oh look, he looks like a Jihadi. Or, that's a niqab, a woman who wears a full-face veil. It doesn't mean, you know, that we need to go to the point of civil liberties, you know, offensive or anything like that.
But Juan Williams was basically, I think, having a commentary that is very true in America today. And I believe, unfortunately, that NPR short circuited a conversation that we really need to be having.
Mr. PRINCE: Well, I think race is always a part of a lot of these discussions. I think it's disingenuous, however, to say that there was a racial element here and not at FOX. I mean, FOX is hardly an exemplar of diversity in terms of its news and so forth.This from the WaPo editor--answering a question about whether NPR might have Shirley Sherroded their lone black commentator and he immediately diverts to Fox News. Just like a message board.
Feel free to read the article, explaining that Juan Williams had violated one too many of NPR's rock solid ethics rules that never applied to any of their other journalists. In other words, not only was Williams either crazy or out for money, but he was a screw-up who couldn't follow Before joining NPR in January 2009, Ms. Schiller was the senior vice president and general manager of NYTimes.com.For those of us who didn't know that was quite an LOL. Not only that, but before working for the Times she was a honcho at--wait for it--CNN. Yep. People used to call it the Communist News Network, well according to her online bio she had the cred:
Ms. Schiller earned her master's degree in Russian from Middlebury College in 1984 and her bachelor's degree in Russian and Soviet Studies from Cornell University in 1983.OK, OK! Certainly one cannot judge this woman and her career solely based on her resume. And just because her background includes time at two of the more liberally-tilted media outlets in the country doesn't mean she was brought into NPR as part of some clandestine war on Fox News like Linda Douglass (former MSM reporter) and Anita Dunn (a war that has now apparently become a quagmire). It's just a little cartoonish, that's all.
Valerie and Joe Plame are back out on the media circuit pimping their movie "Fair Game" (starring a star-struck Naomi Watts and Sean Penn), which conveniently opens right before the mid-terms. For those who've purposely forgotten--never mind.
As to Rachel Maddow's retraction (after saying a GOP congressmen got advanced warning of an attack on the Murrah Federal Bldg).. well, at least she retracted it, albeit without much of an apology.
Sarahcuda seems to be on the move...towards a run for president. Let me be the first to say my opinion stated here was that she would not run, or if so, would not get nominated, much less elected. But what do I know? There was a time I thought Obama had no chance against the mighty Clinton machine.She’s Ronald Reagan — at least a smidge. Palin frequently invokes the name of the 40th president. Of course, she can’t match his decades of debating public issues before winning the presidency in 1980. But like RR, Palin has been maligned and downgraded by the media and punditocracy. But when Reagan stood next to Jimmy Carter and got to make his case in his own words, opinions changed.They called RR a warmongering dummy for years and all he did was win two elections. The big question with Palin is whether she might 'go rogue' if the establishment GOP locks her out next year, which is certainly possible. The Christine O'Donnell flap about the 1st Amendment and other recent 'foupas' made by socially conservative candidates suggests a possible split on the right at some point.
The Taliban leaders coming into Afghanistan for talks have left their havens in Pakistan on the explicit assurance that they would not be attacked or arrested by NATO forces, Afghans familiar with the talks said. Many top Taliban leaders reside in Pakistan, where they are believed to enjoy at least some official protection.While it's a near surety that most Americans are tired of this war (whether they think it's important or not) there's no way America can leave or even wind down operations there without bringing bin Laden and Zawahiri back with us. Right?
In at least one case, Taliban leaders crossed the border and boarded a NATO aircraft bound for Kabul, according to an Afghan with knowledge of the talks. In other cases, NATO troops have secured roads to allow Taliban officials to reach Afghan- and NATO-controlled areas so that they can take part in discussions. Most of the discussions have taken place outside of Kabul, according to the Afghan official.
"The best way to express our support and extend a warm hand of fellowship to our Muslim neighbors here in Memphis was to get together and break bread," said Dr. Billy Bickers of the Prescott Baptist Church.Maybe that's what Jesus would do. Or maybe He would reflect what another Baptist preacher in Dallas said recently, it's hard to know. We do know that Islam in America is not going anywhere soon, so we need to find a way to coexist. But coexisting isn't a one way street. Is it really helpful for Muslims to react this way:
The Islamic faith has been under attack in recent months...Yes, well major Nidal Hasan served in the military and paid his taxes before opening fire and blasting 40 of his fellow soldiers while yelling Allahu Akbar. Just today four Muslims were found guilty in New York for conspiring to blow up a synagogue. The Times Square bomber was recently convicted and sentenced to life--he proclaimed pride in being a terrorist, just like Ramzi Yousef did in 1997. Meanwhile the underwear bomber and others remain on trial or await their day in court. They are all Muslims, killing in the name of Islam.
..the Mid-South Islamic community says it is tired of the discrimination and hateful acts.
"I pay taxes, I vote, I've served in the military, I was born in this country and because I wear a head scarf I'm somehow different? If I take off my head scarf and walk down the street nobody is going to look at me twice,” said American Muslim Maureen Ameen.
Righty blogs are in a buzz over the admission from Times writer David Brooks that Obama told him there really wasn't such a thing as 'shovel ready' while he was telling America to plow borrowed money into those magical shovels."The tension we've been seeing is that what is good for the longer term may not work as an immediate short-term stimulus. We're still getting slapped around in the Recovery Act for this," Obama said. "The term 'shovel-ready' -- let's be honest, it doesn't always live up to its billing."Other than vintage Obama--the all knowing SpockYoda figure floating above the maelstrom telling everyone what to do, then explaining how and why everyone failed when his advice tanks--let's be clear here...that's about as close as he gets to admitting failure (in this case by saying others were lying to him about the term). But those in the know like Brooks were no doubt smiling because they knew it was a game all along.
But at the same time, Obama made it sound as if he was not keen on doing more of the road repavings and other faster-acting repairs that have dominated the infrastructure, which he said "may duplicate needs of the past as opposed [providing] vision."Which is strange considering the 50 billion
Three years before Pakistani terrorists struck Mumbai in 2008, federal agents in New York City investigated a tip that an American businessman was training in Pakistan with the group that later executed the attack.The impression being left that since the attack occurred and people died, the FBI failed or was negligent or even complicit. There's no mention of Bush but the inferences are there--he was president.
As the plot took shape in 2008, U.S. anti-terrorism agencies warned Indian counterparts at least three times about a suspected Lashkar plan to attack Mumbai, according to Indian and U.S. officials. There has been speculation in news reports and among anti-terrorism officials that the United States got that information by monitoring Headley, either as an informant, an ex-informant or a suspect.Emphasis added for obvious reasons. In other words, we probably did have the guy under surveillance but because Headley was dealing with our 'ally' in Pakistan it was a fairly sensitive operation and remains so today. But after reading only the first two pages how many people would be left with that impression?
But climate skeptics have made some specific inroads. As the report’s authors found, 42 percent of those surveyed “incorrectly believe that since scientists can’t predict the weather more than a few days in advance, they can’t possibly predict the climate of the future.” More than a third (37 percent) think climate models are too unreliable to predict the climate of the future. And one-third believe, incorrectly, that most scientists in the 1970s were predicting an ice age.They use "incorrectly" as if it might mean something. For instance on their first point, it's an entirely plausible conclusion for the average person to think scientists can't accurately predict the weather more than a few days in advance just by watching the forecast. Extending it out further, well, just look at the accuracy of the past several Atlantic hurricane forecasts.
But 55 percent believe, incorrectly, that the Earth’s climate is now hotter than it has ever been before, and about two-thirds believe, incorrectly, that the climate has always oscillated gradually between eras of warmth and eras of cold.Hmm, no shock that people might think the Earth has never been warmer based on an almost weekly diet of media trickery for going on two decades now. The shock is that only 55 percent believe it, most likely understanding that our observations only go back about 120 years. As to oscillations, any kid knows the climate oscillates because, gee, we're no longer in an ice age. They seem to be focusing on "gradual" because if people believe climate moves along on a geologic scale then there's no reason to change the way we live.
While reading Woodward's book about Obama's dealings with Af-Pak I noticed a new story on Fox reporting from London that General Petraeus, while speaking to a military think tank, dropped a few nuggets about negotiations between the Taliban and Karzai (us):First Petraeus went on the record about US involvement in assisting the budding peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.He went on to downplay the efforts as nothing formal, saying that it would be hard for any Talibanis to reach Kabul without help from NATO forces and that we've killed a bunch of their hierachy of late. But it does shockingly suggest that an entity created by entities in Pakistan, who supported the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, and who've shown little compunction to change their ways, might soon be sitting across the peace table from messers Karzai or Holbrooke. While I'm only about half-way through "Obama's Wars" there does seem to be a central theme--not about winning--but about getting out. 2011 is fast approaching.
“We do facilitate several on-going initiatives,” he said. He went on to say that it would be hard for a Taliban figure to travel through Afghanistan to Kabul if NATO was not a “witting” participant.
The second one was just after most of the contingent of muscle hijackers had arrived in Florida in July. During that second trip, July 7 to July 19, Atta clocked 1,908 kilometers on his rented Hyundai and changed hotels frequently -- except for five nights, where he vanished from all hotel registries.Another fabulous revelation that didn't receive much coverage occurred even earlier. The Instapundit pointed to a story in the Nashville Tennessean (now disappeared) about a Judge working for the CPA in Iraq who had been given evidence of a link between the terror moguls:
So today he brought me the proof, and there is no doubt in my mind that he is right.Instapundit mentioned he had once clerked for this Democratic judge and also mentioned the possibility somebody was trying to dupe him with disinformation but the story met the fate of so many others--it just died away without being confirmed or denied, just like the story about Uday Hussein's newspaper mentioning a possible bin Laden attack on America before the attack, which found its way into the Congressional Record.
The document shows that an Iraqi intelligence officer, Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, assigned to the Iraq embassy in Pakistan, is ''responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group.''
The document shows that it was written over the signature of Uday Saddam Hussein, the son of Saddam Hussein. . . .
That is the story of the ''Honor Roll of 600,'' and why I believe that President Bush was right when he alleged that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama and was coordinating activities with him.
It does not prove that they engaged together in any particular act of terror against the United States.
But it seems to me to be strong proof that the two were in contact and conspiring to perform terrorist acts.
In same folder is a copy of an order from the Presidential Secretary to the IIS, directing a task for the Afghan Islamic Party. The task is not specified, but the relationship with an organization the IIS identifies as an "extreme political religious movement" is explicitly described.The Afghan Islamic Party is led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and is/was just as religious as the Taliban. For some reason the mainstream media headlines ignored these items and crowed about there being "no smoking gun link between Saddam and al Qaeda". That certainly helped Obama get elected although he surely knows all about these details by now.
42 Other documents in this folder include the following:
• A memorandum from the IIS to the Presidential Secretary discussing cooperation with Islamic Organizations in Egypt (Jamaal Islamiya) in planning for an insurgency against the Egyptian government.
• A memorandum asking that the IIS Directorate be kept informed on all
non-Iraqis training in Saddam Fedayeen camps.
• A list of 100 non-Iraqi Fedayeen in Iraq that details when they had finished
their commando courses and the operations in which they had already
participated.
• A memorandum discussing a letter sent by Tariq Aziz [Deputy Prime
Minister] to Egyptian Islamic Groups, encouraging their cooperation
in "acts of insurgency against the Egyptian Government.
Fazlur Rahman: I am the one who started with this issue, the relation between Taliban and Iraq, and it is our idea. The brothers in Afghanistan are facing the pressure of America, and are struggling against America and aim to have some connections between Afghanistan and Iraq, and it is a good start to establish the relations with Iraq and Libya and our association has taken this responsibility upon her. I already met with Mr. the Vice-President and the previous head of the directorate, may God rest his soul (translator’s note: apparently the head of the directorate passed away) and both proposed that Hekmatyar and the Taliban should get to an agreement. I spoke with the Taliban about this issue and they started meeting with delegations from the Islamic Party, and I met Mullah Omar and his reply was positive.Keep in mind this purported meeting would have occurred after bin Laden's World Islamic Front fatwa against America in 1998, which Ray Robison believes was signed by Fazlur Rahman even though the Rahman on the letter identified as a terror leader in Bangladesh. Neither confirmed nor denied.
Robert Gibbs was hit with a question today in the daily briefing--paraphrasing--"when will the trial for al-Nashiri be conducted?" He gave the same stock answer the families have heard for 10 long years. Ten long years ago today, as a matter of fact. Obama waxed reflective:“I will never forget meeting with some of the families of the victims of this bombing in February 2009. I am deeply grateful to them for their sacrifice, and their efforts to keep the memory of this tragic event alive in our nation’s conscience.They probably haven't forgotten, either:
Obama called a meeting of the Cole families and made us feel comfortable that something would be done. Now I see that it was a political stunt and how disingenuous he was on this issue. Supposedly we had a contact person at the White House. Obama told us we would always have an open phone. After the announced decision I tried calling this guy and am not getting any response at all. It seems this administration does not care.Hmm. According to this story everyone is ready to go:
“We don’t have a date yet” for reviving the charges, the official said. When he and other military officials have asked about the delay, they’ve been told, “The administration wants to wait until after the election to go forward,” the official added.Today it was announced that lawyers for Major Hasan have asked for a 30 day delay (until after the election). Nobody seems to know much about the trial of Underbomber Abdulmutallab other than he's fired his lawyers and wants to defend himself--usually a sign he wants the opportunity to rant off a diatribe like Little Rock recruiter jihadist Abdulhakim, whose own state trial is also languishing and under a gag order (apparently for everyone except the suspect).
Obama seemed not to notice the book that landed near him on an outdoor stage after he finished speaking to a large crowd Sunday. The president had turned his back to shake hands with people on another side of the stage.In other words, the thrown book did not faze the fearless commander-in-chief, who was too busy talking with constituents to notice. Except for the fact the Brit story showed a picture of the book flying past his head while he was smiling and facing the crowd as did a video of the event. His back was not turned to the book, he just didn't react to it. Does the Times newsroom not understand the digital age? And here they said McCain was a tech loser.
Spokesman Ed Donovan said the man had written the book and hoped the president would read it. Donovan said agents concluded the man posed no danger.And no, there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that the book thrower was actually O'Reilly himself in disguise and the book was Pinheads and Patriots.
How dare they! How? Desperate times and all. Here's the theme of a new DNC ad against those evil repukes: "Stop stealing our democracy"Hey, everyone knew the party of ends justify means...the party of 'I won'...the party of personal destruction cough Palin cough O'Donnell would play the Bush card--they made a promise. No shocker.
James JonesGoodbye General Jones--Secretary Gates can't be far behind you.
A variety of administration officials reportedly expressed scorn for Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, who allegedly became so distrustful of the President’s political aides that he began calling them the "Politburo" and the "Mafia”.
But Robert Gates, the Defense Secretary, reportedly worried that General Jones would be succeeded by his deputy, Thomas Donilon, who would be a "disaster".
As deputy national security adviser, Mr. Donilon has urged what he calls a “rebalancing” of American foreign policy to rapidly disengage American forces in Iraq and to focus more on China, Iran and other emerging challenges. In the Afghanistan-Pakistan review, he argued that the United States could not engage in what he termed “endless war,” and has strongly defended Mr. Obama’s decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan next summer.So as the deadline approaches they throw in a guy who favors withdrawing from the central front in the WoT to send a hopeful message to the far left base (many of whom supported Obama when he said AkPak was the central front in the GWoT and a necessary war) in an effort to butter them into voting en masse again.
But at the same time they are nothing to be trifled with, as can be seen. It's why he says "Pockeston" while pronouncing most other country names in the American dialect--a shameless attempt to curry favor with a dangerous nuclear-armed Muslim country. It seems to have failed.'He was praying in what was believed to be Hebrew and yelling out that he was going to kill himself and all the passengers would die,' said Helen, who had been sitting in Premium Economy.Some of the more obscure sites and message boards are taking this to mean the man was an Israeli. Yet did "Helen" even hear the man at all? Here's how a Brisbane paper put it (emphasis added):
But an Australian passenger, Helen, said another woman on the flight told her a man, whom she believed was praying in Hebrew, suddenly started shouting: "I'm going to kill myself, you are all going to die, it will be God's will, what will be will be, I'm going to open the door."So prudence would say wait until further information to make any judgments about crazed Israelis. That's surely what Obama would recommend if it appeared the nut was a Muslim.
Question: Can you address the recent incident where the woman tried to open an airplane door in flight? Were the passengers in any danger? How hard would it be for someone to get a door like this open?Then again, it would be pretty upsetting nonetheless.
—Anthony Hazzard, Marlboro, N.Y.
Answer: Pressurization exerts a very strong force against the inside of the plane, sealing the doors shut and preventing them from being opened in flight. You can twist the handle and tug on it all you want, but it's impossible for a human, or even several humans, to overcome this pressure. Still, it's not recommended that you play with the door handle at any time as unauthorized tampering with aircraft equipment may result in arrest..
About 100 passengers on Bermuda-bound US Airways flight 1070 were evacuated from the plane at about 11:15 a.m. and towed to an isolated area at the airport in order to be searched after a man in a US Airways uniform allegedly had wrong identification to prove he was a real employee.This could have several explanations, at least one of which is very troubling. We'll see if they find the guy. It could be something innocent or just plain stupid. Or maybe just another crazed Israeli.
The man had ID that allowed him into the airport but two US Air baggage handlers noticed the man with no employee tags loading the plane with them.
When they questioned the man he allegedly took off on a baggage cart.
Mr. Speaker, back in 1999 when I was Chair of the defense research subcommittee, the Army was doing cutting-edge work on a new type of technology to allow us to understand and predict emerging transnational terrorist threats. That technology was being done at several locations, but was being led by our Special Forces Command. The work that they were doing was unprecedented. And because of what I saw there, I supported the development of a national capability of a collaborative center that the CIA would just not accept. In fact, in November 4 of 1999, 2 years before 9/11, in a meeting in my office with the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Deputy Director of the CIA, Deputy Director of the FBI, we presented a nine-page proposal to create a national collaborative center. When we finished the brief, the CIA said we did not need that capability, and so before 9/11 we did not have it.Later in his House speech Weldon dropped the bomb:
What I did not know, Mr. Speaker, up until June of this year, was that that secret program called Able Danger actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda in January and February of 2000, over 1 year before 9/11 every happened. In addition, I learned that not only did we identify the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, but we identified Mohamed Atta as one of the members of that Brooklyn cell along with three other terrorists who were the leadership of the 9/11 attack.This was a big story in the right blogosphere in 2005. A subsequent Senate investigation found that Able Danger had not identified Atta or any other 9/11 hijackers.
I have also learned, Mr. Speaker, that in September of 2000, again, over 1 year before 9/11, that Able Danger team attempted on three separate occasions to provide information to the FBI about the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, and on three separate occasions they were denied by lawyers in the previous administration to transfer that information.
The verdict is in on the Times Square failure, Faisal Shahzad, and it's life without parole. Not sure why after hearing the one hour anti-American diatribe a judge wouldn't declare him a traitor and immediately sentence him to death, because if this guy can't get death or be called a traitor, who can?Remaining defiant, and smirking as the sentence was read, he told the court: “Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun.” He later continued: “The defeat of the U.S. is imminent and will happen in the near future.”Some people still think we're at war, apparently. Notice he said "the Muslims" not "extremists". Well, maybe part of his punishment can be regular visits from Imam Rauf to discuss moderation, that is if they'll let him into the Supermax--where they simply must send Shahzad to join the Shoe Bomber, right? After all, both are remorseless thugs who call themselves soldiers for Allah but who didn't kill anyone.
A 23-year-old Nigerian, Farouk AbdulMutallab, charged with trying to blow up an international flight near Detroit, United States on Christmas day, 2009 will be arraigned in court for the first time since January. This follows disclosures that his lawyers have talked to prosecutors several times about a plea deal.Why no appearances since January? Shahzad's crime happened in May 2010 and he was found guilty and sentenced in the same time interval it took for Underoo to make two court appearances. Was Shahzad processed through the criminal justice system at warp speed for political reasons to show how us just how great civilian trials are for terrorists?
Predatory lending aimed at racially segregated minority neighborhoods led to mass foreclosures that fueled the U.S. housing crisis, according to a new study published in the American Sociological Review.Since their perspective is unsurprisingly lefty it's refreshing to see an admission of one of the main problems--too many defaults from the target group Carter and later Clinton were trying to "help".
Siddiqui, 36, was picked up in Kabul in early July.The paper of record and spilling top secret info mirrored that account. Yet earlier reports said:
Intelligence and law enforcement authorities in the US and Europe said the threat information is based on the interrogation of a suspected German terrorist allegedly captured on his way to Europe in late summer and now being held at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.Emphasis added. If he was training in Waziristan then technically Afghanistan would have been "on the way". But that's a darned long walk.
Members of the new interrogation unit will have the authority to travel around the world to talk to suspects and will be trained to handle certain high-interest people, such as al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Linguists and cultural and interrogation specialists will be assigned to the group and will have "some division of responsibility" regarding types of detainees, a senior administration official said. Most of the group's members will work there full time, although they will have part-time support from the FBI.So was he Mirandized? Martinized? Anything? Where's that old time curiosity? Ya know, that opportunistic duty to point out any contrast between humane interrogation and the torture tactics of Bush, Cheney and the Yoo?
Interrogators will not necessarily read detainees their rights before questioning, instead making that decision on a case-by-case basis, officials said. That could affect whether some material can be used in a U.S. court of law. The main purpose of the new unit, however, is to glean intelligence, especially about potential terrorist attacks, the officials said.
