Category: terrorists

QOTD: Obama loses the NYT

WOW….just Wow… 😯

Within hours of the disclosure that the federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.

The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the 9/11 attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.

Poop, meet fan.

Others: Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, Politico, BuzzFeed, Yahoo! News, Washington Post, Hit & Run, The Monkey Cage, Washington Wire, The World’s Greatest …, The Daily Caller, Law Blog,VentureBeat, Business Insider, Mediaite, The PJ Tatler, Washington Free Beacon, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers, The Huffington Post, Salon, ComPost, The Week, Guardian, NO QUARTER USA NET, First Read, Mashable, American Spectator, New Republic, msnbc.com, Washington Monthly, Daily Kos,The Atlantic Wire, Firedoglake, TechCrunch, The Maddow Blog and Library of Law & Liberty – Via Memeorandum

The US continues spying on phones under Obama

There are a ton of opinions on this subject and we’ll get to those in a moment.

But first the story:

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

via NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily | World news | The Guardian.

But, there is a big difference this time:

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

Which sounds about right for the Democrats, because they are perfectly fine with Government of a massive scale.

Now there are two very important opinions on this subject that I want you to see. They are same political slant; however, the opinions are very different. Please go check out Michelle Malkin’s take and Ed Morrissey’s take on this subject. While I agree on Michelle Malkin’s assessment, I really do not agree with her narrative at all. If you are smart and read her a good deal, you will know what I am talking about.

Now there is one thing that Ed Morrissey wrote that I, as an Independent, and someone who believes that the war on terror is a very real thing and that we should at least try to keep America safe, without trampling on our constitutional rights. I believe this to be very true and  very profound statement coming from someone like Mr. Morrissey:

Hypocrisy is an unfortunately ubiquitous condition in politics, but in the case of NSA seizing Verizon’s phone records, it’s particularly widespread.  Some of the people expressing outrage for the Obama administration’s efforts at data mining had a different attitude toward it when Bush was in office.  Conversely, we’ll see some people defending Obama who considered Bush evil incarnate for the same thing.

Either way, we’re left with the situation of having the federal government seizing private records without any meaningful civil due process that engages the citizens affected, whether that includes actual wiretaps or just cataloguing our calls and movements.  Perhaps this will move this issue out of the partisan sphere and into a common ground in which we can all work to define exactly how far we’re willing to go in trading privacy for security.  In order to get there, we’d all better recognize the hypocrisy that has abounded on this issue for far too long, and start thinking about higher principles than party affiliation when it comes to national security and constitutional protections.

Now that last part that I underlined, is something I wholeheartedly agree with. When the story broke about Bush and Co. came about the wiretaps, I remember Keith Olbermann doing a special comment on it and I admired him for standing up. Now, where’s Keith? Where are the liberals who thought that this was much too intrusive? Where are they now? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

My hat tip goes to Glenn Greenwald for putting principles over partisanship and getting this story to the masses. Glenn has been about the only liberal who has stood up and pointed out that Obama Administration has continued the policies of the George W. Bush Administration and in some cases; like this one here — has expanded them to an alarming degree. Yes, this is overreach and it is alarming and I do hope the Congress does something about it.

Others: Hullabaloo, Yahoo! News, Washington Wire, Washington Monthly, New York Times,ThinkProgress, Politico, Firedoglake, BuzzFeed, CNN, Forbes, Joshua Foust, The World’s Greatest …, msnbc.com, The Atlantic Wire, JustOneMinute, American Spectator, Democracy in America,WorldViews, TIME, Business Insider, Examiner, The Fix, News Desk, Associated Press, New Republic, Daily Kos, The Maddow Blog, Mashable, Wake up America, Wonkblog, The Huffington Post, Taylor Marsh, The Volokh Conspiracy, Mediaite, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Library of Law & Liberty, Moon of Alabama, The Daily Caller, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, Engadget, Betsy’s Page, Patterico’s Pontifications, AllThingsD, Outside the Beltway, Post Politics, Informed Comment,Nice Deb, Real Clear Politics, Wired, The Gateway Pundit, The Week, Illinois Review,AMERICAblog, Pirate’s Cove, CANNONFIRE, VentureBeat, No More Mister Nice Blog, First Read,Prairie Weather, The PJ Tatler, Telegraph, The Hinterland Gazette, Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, Weasel Zippers, Jammie Wearing Fools, GigaOM, Corrente, The Spectacle Blog, Gawker, Boing Boing, The Raw Story, Shakesville, Secrecy News, The Verge, Conservatives4Palin, susiemadrak.com, Sense of Events, Taegan Goddard’s …, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The BLT, emptywheel and Overlawyered  Via Memeorandum 

In case anyone has forgotten: Al-Qaeda is still here and they ain’t playing

Ron Paul hardest hit:

AFP – Al-Qaeda’s military chief in Yemen warned Americans in an audio message posted online Sunday that the Boston bombings revealed a fragile security as he urged Muslims to defend their religion.

Qassim al-Rimi, the military chief of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said making bombs such as the ones used in the twin blasts in Boston in April, is within “everyone’s reach”.

“The Boston events… and the poisoned letters (sent to the White House), regardless of who is behind them, show that your security is no longer under control, and that attacks on you have taken off and cannot be stopped,” he said, in the message entitled: “A letter to the American people.”

“Every day you will be hit by the unexpected and your leaders will not be able to defend you,” warned the man whose organisation is considered by Washington the world’s most dangerous Al-Qaeda branch.

Rimi said the killing of Al-Qaeda’s founder Osama bin Laden in May 2011 and top Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011, had not ended the struggle.

“Have you eliminated the jihadist groups that have spread everywhere after they had only been in Afghanistan? Today, they are in your land or close to it,” he warned.

To the Muslims in the United States, he said: “We encourage you to carry on with this way, be steadfast in your religion

via Qaeda chief warns attacks on US in ‘everyone’s reach’ – FRANCE 24.

This is why I could never quite get into the whole idea of Ron Paul dismantling our Military. I want, as anyone else does, a reasonable foreign policy. However, I do want our Government to defend the Republic.

Irregardless of why they hate us; whether it is because of our foreign policy decisions of the past or because we are free or because of capitalistic society — the fact remains — they hate us and they want to kill us and we do have to be able to defend ourselves.

…..and that my friends — is no laughing matter. 😡

 

Idiot Dubai Arab picks the wrong woman to try and rape!

This is too awesome and the feel good story of the day!

An off-duty U.S. navy sailor wrestled a Dubai bus driver to the ground and beat him into submission after he tried to rape her at knifepoint on Jan. 19, a courtroom heard Wednesday.

The woman, 28, was on 24-hour shore leave in Dubai when she was attacked by a bus driver after he picked her up from the Mall of the Emirates shopping center.

“I noticed he did not take the main road and when I asked him he told me not to worry,” she said, according to the Daily Mail.

He then stopped where several other buses were parked and tried to kiss her. After she refused, he pulled out a knife and tried to rape her.

Prosecutors said that she knocked the knife from his hand, broke it in two, bit him in the hand, forced him to the ground and locked him between her thighs, the Daily Mail reports.

The man, known as K S, has been charged with attempted rape, threatening to kill, assault and consuming alcohol illegally, the Daily Mail reports.

via U.S. female sailor beats Dubai rapist bus driver into submission – Washington Times.

…and here I thought that Liberals were the only classless assholes. Guess not. 😀 After all, liberals do defend terrorists, like the one’s who blew up those bombs in D.C. 🙄

Others: The Jawa Report and Weasel Zippers

The day that Glenn Beck crossed over into “ignore this crank” territory.

….with me anyhow…..

I admit it, I actually used to respect Glenn Beck; his teachings on the socialist left, when he was with Fox News Channel was invaluable to me. I used to love the Chalkboard thing. I even checked to see, using various sources; to see if he was right or not; and, most of the time, he was absolutely correct in what he told the American people. Which is why, I believe, that Glenn Beck is no longer on Fox News Channel.

However, today, Glenn Beck lurched into what I like to call, “Alex Jones territory”.

The Story via RightWingWatch:

 Near the end of today’s radio broadcast, Glenn Beck declared that the cover-up of the Saudi link to the Boston Marathon bombing makes this the second most important thing (behind 9/11) that he has ever covered in his broadcasting career.  And depending on how the media and the government responds in the coming days, it just might be the most important thing he’s ever covered because the response “will either save our country or we will be done.”

Beck then went on to send a semi-coded message to those in the upper level of the government warning that they had better come clean about this Saudi national because The Blaze has information that reveals that he “is a very bad, bad, bad man” which will be revealed on Monday.

“I don’t bluff,” Beck stated, “I make promises. The truth matters. I’ve had enough of what you’ve done to our country. I thought I had heard and seen it all.  I thought I didn’t trust my government.  Oh no, no, no.  There is no depth that these people will not stoop to.  They have until Monday and then The Blaze will expose it.”

 Crooks and Liars observes:

This conspiracy theory comes out of the rumors emerging about the Saudi national who was fingered by the media on Monday after the bombings and later found not to be a suspect. Beck and his pals have decided there’s a coverup because he has some kind of relationship to the Benghazi tragedy in September.

This is little more than an attempt to use the current tragedy to flog the past because it works politically for the extreme right wing. They can link up scary brown people with Russians! Because…scary.

It’s cynical, it’s ugly and it’s vintage Glenn Beck.

I agree with above; I noticed that towards the end of Glenn’s time at Fox News Channel, that he started sounding like a Mormon Alex Jones.  It did bother me, quite a bit. So, I am going to tell the right, just like I told the left —- if the Republican Party believes that Glenn Beck should be the Vis-à-vis mouthpiece of the Republican Party, when it comes to Barack Obama; then they can basically forget about me voting for them ever again.

I will be the first to admit, I do not like Barack Obama, I disagree with his politics: but to blatantly accuse the Obama Administration of a blatant coverup and/or accusing the Government of the United States of America of intentionally blowing up its own people —- for the sole damned purposes of furthering a Conservative/far right-wing/tea party/racist  (pick a word…)  meme that somehow or another President Obama is a pseudo-Muslim — is, I am afraid, a bridge too far for this writer.

It amazes me greatly, that the Republican Party and the Conservative movement as a whole, spends a great deal of  time, effort, money, ink and yes, bandwidth to prove to the liberal left that they are not racist bigots. However, every time it seems that they are making ground in that department; someone, like this nitwit here; does something so incredibly asinine that the line of, “Oh, we’re not racist!”  becomes so very incredibly hard to believe. If anyone would know about the racist history of the Democratic Party; it would be me; what saddens me  is that the Conservative movement as a whole, is getting closer and closer to that very state of the Democratic Party of the 1950’s.

Believe me when it tell you this; it pains me, like nothing else, to actually have to write this about the Conservative movement. I came on board to this movement, which predated the “Tea Party” movement by a couple of years. After my original blog was hacked in 2007 and I basically saw that the Democratic Party was simply not the party that I remembered back in the 1990’s and after it seemed as if the Democratic Party was lurching more and more to the left. I decided to make a change and start writing against the wrongs that I saw in that Party. I was not, nor had I ever been, a Republican; or even a “right-winger.” I was a Christian man, who grew up with a sense of morality and of values. I do not always act like such as person; but, I know my heart and I know my God.

This why that this sort of idiotic nonsense by Glenn Beck is not only idiotic and “Alex Jones” sounding; it is immorally racist to the core. If there was a Democratic Party President in office, who happened to be a man with white skin; none of this stupidity would be happening at all. Oh sure, there would be the idiotic nonsense of the “WorldNetDaily” crowd, like there was in 1990’s, with Bill Clinton. However, this goes to another level entirely. Basically, the Conservative Movement as a whole; whether nuanced or directly —-  in the case of President Obama —- is accusing the Nation’s first black President of being a secret Muslim and of supporting terrorism; and even of being in cahoots with Al-Qaeda or some other Muslim Terrorist boogeyman organization that they pull out of their butts — to carry out terrorist attacks in this Country —- and this, my friend is just unacceptable in my opinion.

We can do better than this; The Conservative Movement, those who believe in liberty and America in General. We can disagree on politics and not stoop to this level, there is no call for it at all.

Remember Conservatives: 2014 and 2016 looms near — lets not blow it again.

Others: The Moderate Voice and Crooks and Liars

Update: As I thought it would be;  Glenn Beck’s HUGE, BIG, CAREER TOPPING STORY!!!!111!!! —– turned out to be a bit of a nothing burger. Bummer. 🙄

 

On the terrorist attack in Boston

Yes, I happen to know about THIS HERE.

I have followed the blog coverage and roundup.

I do not think that we had it coming, that would be morbid. However, I will simply say this; seeing that we are doing this HERE and starting unconstitutional wars, occupying foreign lands, which is Wilsonian foreign policy —– what can we, as a Nation, honestly expect?

Just my thoughts.

 

It Begins: Evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church listed in Army training slide as extremists

This is something to put everyone on alert:

A U.S. Army training instructor listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of religious extremism along with Al Qaeda and Hamas during a briefing with an Army Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania, Fox News has learned.

“We find this offensive to have Evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church to be listed among known terrorist groups,” said Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty. “It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization.”

Material presented to soldiers at training session.

The incident occurred during an Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief on extremism. Topping the list is Evangelical Christianity. Other organizations listed included Catholicism, Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Ku Klux Klan, Sunni Muslims, and Nation of Islam.

The military also listed “Islamophobia” as a form of religious extremism.

via Army Labeled Evangelicals as Religious Extremists | FOX News & Commentary: Todd Starnes.

Of course, when caught, the Army quickly raced to cover its butt:

Army spokesman George Wright told Fox News that this was an “isolated incident not condoned by the Dept. of the Army.”

“This slide was not produced by the Army and certainly does not reflect our policy or doctrine,” he said. “It was produced by an individual without anyone in the chain of command’s knowledge or permission.”

Wright said after the complaint was lodged, the presenter deleted the slide, and apologized.

“We consider the matter closed,” he said.

The incident was made public by a soldier who attended the briefing. He asked for copies of the presentation and sent them to the Chaplain Alliance.

“He considers himself an evangelical Christian and did not appreciate being classified with terrorists,” Crews told Fox News. “There was a pervasive attitude in the presentation that anything associated with religion is an extremist.”

Which is the story they always tell the public, when they do something and get caught doing it. I just wonder how long it will be, if the Lord tarries; before the United States Government will begin rounding up those who dare to read from the King James Version of the Bible and start imprisoning those Pastors who dare to preach that homosexuality is a sin and that abortion is murder. I think it will happen, before the Lord’s return myself. Why with the Anti-Defamation League — a leftist Jew-run organization; doing the bidding of the Obama Administration, it is a wonder now that Fundamentalists like myself are not in prison.

It goes without saying that we are in the last days. Things like this, are going to become more and more prevalent and will the norm eventually. As Jesus said, “Watch ye and Pray.” and that my friends, is all that we can really do. Watch and pray and be about our Father’s business; and wait for his blessed return.

Others: Atlas Shrugs, Jihad Watch and Weasel Zippers

Quote of the Day

Over the past 10 years, there have been few days when the war in Iraq was absent from my thoughts. People often ask me whether I have regrets. It seems absurdly presumptuous to answer the question. I could have set myself on fire in protest on the White House lawn and the war would have proceeded without me. And yet … all of us who advocated for the war have had to do some reckoning. If the war achieved some positive gains, its unnecessary costs—in human life, in money, to the prestige and credibility of the U.S. government—are daunting and dismaying. If we’d found the WMD, it would have been different. If we’d kept better order in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam, it would have been different. If more Iraqis had welcomed the invasion as we expected, it would have been different. If the case for the war had been argued in a less contrived and predetermined way, it would have been different.

But it wasn’t different. Those of us who were involved—in whatever way—bear the responsibility.