Just watch…

Here’s the thing, the reason these folks can get away with nonsense like this is because congressional districts have been so gerrymandered as to be almost completely red or blue. And given that Rep. Foxx is from North Carolina’s 5th district (very safely Republican) she can keep on talking like this till she’s blue (or red) in the face. And it’ll get her famous, quick.

Just look at Michele Bachmann, a virtual nobody before she started talking crazy on shows like Hardball and Glenn Beck’s cavalcade of crazy. Now she’s being favorably profiled by George Will? And let’s not forget Foxx’s South Carolina cousin Rep Joe Wilson. He jumps so far over the line that even his fellow Republicans chide him, and yet he becomes a folk hero and raises $1M in donations online in short order.

And trust me, this isn’t limited to just Republicans. Dems have said their fair share of nonsense too. But why are these folks being applauded, promoted and revered? Why aren’t they seen as the sideshows they really are?

Yes, yes, I know I’m posting this video and so I’m part of the promotion of this meme, but I point this out to raise the broader topic question….How in the hell did we get here? And is there any way back?

So their argument is basically, “Because Universal Health Care brings about more diversity, it’s more likely to attract terrorists because Muslims will fit in and not be noticed. Best to have private practices where white, Christian doctors make up the majority. That way they’ll spot the Muslims who are likely to be reading jihadist web pages at work.”

Fox News: Breeding Ground For Morons?

NY times article…

Nothing has been proven, but it sounds all too intriguing…at least to a cartoonist.

From AP:

Gen. David Petraeus said the number of attacks in Afghanistan over the last week hit the highest level since the December 2001 fall of the Taliban.

“Some of this will go up because we are going to go after their sanctuaries and safe havens as we must,” Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said during a speech at the Washington think-tank Center for a New American Security.

“But there is no question the situation has deteriorated over the course of the past two years in particular and there are difficult times ahead,” he said.

So how much violence?

There were more than 400 insurgent attacks last week, including ambushes, small arms volleys, assaults on Afghan infrastructure and government offices, and roadside bomb and mine explosions. In comparison, attacks in January 2004 were less than 50 per week.

Extremist attacks in the rural nation tend to increase in the summer months, and in part are spurred by military efforts to crack down on insurgents, Petraeus said.

It looks like we’re going to be there for a while. And I think most Americans are fine with that since Afghanistan always has been the central front in the fight against Islamic extremism.

Why we didn’t finish the job when we had the chance will be one of those things historians look back on and shake their heads about. But we’re there now and we can’t allow it, or Pakistan, to descend into chaos. Especially since Pakistan has nukes. That would be bad, bad news.

This is awful…

The man charged with killing abortion provider Dr. George Tiller claimed Sunday that more violence is possible while the medical procedure is allowed to continue, giving his warning in calls that also focused on complaints about his treatment in jail.

Scott Roeder, being held on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in Tiller’s killing one week ago, called The Associated Press from the Sedgwick County jail. [...]

“I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal,” Roeder said.

He would not elaborate.

Won’t elaborate?

Well, we have ways of making terrorists like this talk, right?

Because the guy is obviously a domestic terrorist, makes no apologies for it and claims more killings will happen. Isn’t this exactly the type of ticking bomb scenario situation that many claim enhanced interrogation tactics can address?

So let’s get this thing done before more innocent people die!

Quick! The clock is ticking!!!

And regarding those complaints about his treatment in jail…

In two separate calls to AP on Sunday morning, Roeder was far more talkative about his treatment at the Sedgwick County jail, complaining about “deplorable conditions in solitary” where he was kept during his first three days there.

Roeder said it was freezing in his cell. “I started having a bad cough. I thought I was going to have pneumonia,” he said.

He said he called AP because he wanted to emphasize the conditions in the jail so that in the future suspects would not have to endure the same conditions.

Roeder also said also wanted the public to know he has been denied phone privileges for the past two days, and needed his sleep apnea machine.

This whole situation is ironic for so many reasons.

More as it develops…

A man with “political and religious motives” killed a soldier just out of basic training and wounded another Monday in a targeted attack on a military recruiting center, police said. The shootings were not believed to be part of a broader scheme. [...]

William Long, 24, of Conway, died, and Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville, was wounded and in stable condition, Police Chief Stuart Thomas said. [...]

Police arrested Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, along a crosstown interstate moments after the shootings at the Army-Navy Career Center in a shopping center in west Little Rock.

So in the last two days it appears as if we’ve had two acts of domestic terrorism because of horribly misguided religious beliefs. And nothing much to more to say than that until we find out more.

Here’s the comment he left at Operation Rescue’s site, via Free Republic:

Scott Roeder Says:
May 19th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Bleass everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp.

Sometime soon, would it be feasible to organize as many people as possible to attend Tillers church (inside, not just outside) to have much more of a presence and possibly ask questions of the Pastor, Deacons, Elders and members while there? Doesn’t seem like it would hurt anything but bring more attention to Tiller.

Also from Free Republic, looks like he has a criminal record:

July 7, Kansas: Scott Roeder is sentenced to sixteen months in state prison for parole violations following a 1996 conviction for having bomb components in his car trunk. Roeder, a sovereign citizen and tax protester, violated his parole by not filing tax returns or providing his social security number to his employer.

This is just the type of domestic terrorism that the DHS pointed out in their recent report and that the right-wing was crying foul over, even though the Bush administration actually commissioned it.

More as it develops…

npr link to music torture…

Also, maybe it’s just me, but I think Cheney should have realized that his audience was broader than the American Enterprise Institute. Because his joke at the beginning about Obama’s speech earlier in the day being too long set the wrong tone, especially since his speech went fairly long too.

But hey, watch them for yourself and tell me what you think.

First Obama’s…

Then Cheney’s…

Discuss.

The logic of how we’ve handled terrorism and terrorists in the post 9/11 world has always been flawed, but one of the more obviously incorrect arguments has been the claim that we don’t want these people serving time on American soil.

Why? Not sure really. We just don’t. They’re incredibly, crazy dangerous for some reason and can’t be here.

Of course this ignores the fact that we’ve held numerous terrorists here before, both foreign and homegrown, and nothing has happened as a result.

Which is why the following story is important to note.

From Wash Post:

Thirty-three international terrorists, many with ties to al-Qaeda, reside in a single federal prison in Florence, Colo., with little public notice.

Detained in the supermax facility in Colorado are Ramzi Yousef, who headed the group that carried out the first bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993; Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted of conspiring in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; Ahmed Ressam, of the Dec. 31, 1999, Los Angeles airport millennium attack plots; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, conspirator in several plots, including one to assassinate President George W. Bush; and Wadih el-Hage, convicted of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.

Inmates in Florence and those at the maximum-security disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., rarely see other prisoners. At Leavenworth, the toughest prisoners are allowed outside their cells only one hour a day when they are moved with their legs shackled and accompanied by three guards.

“We have a vast amount of experience in how to judge the continued incarceration of highly dangerous prisoners, since we do this with thousands of prisoners every month, all over the United States, including some really quite dangerous people,” Philip D. Zelikow, who was counselor to Bush administration Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and executive director of the 9/11 Commission, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

That’s right. One of the people behind 9/11 is in Colorado.

Also, let’s just say that we captured Bin Laden. You’re telling me we wouldn’t want to put him to death on US soil?

Just make sure you remember all of this when you’re arguing that these folks shouldn’t be held in the US. Because I want to hear good reasons, not just the notion that they’re somehow extra, super, insanely dangerous.

The FBI was apparently all over this, following the would-be attackers for quite awhile and even supplying them with fake C-4 through an informant. In fact, while the men under arrest professed their desire to wage jihad, they seem more like deranged criminals than anything like the al Qaeda style terrorists we’ve seen in the past. Of course, thwarting mass murder is always a good thing, no matter the criminals involved.

Good for the FBI.

So, Dick Cheney has been going around telling everyone that President Obama is making us less safe by daring to change some of the Bush era national security policies. But Jack Goldsmith at The New Republic says Cheney’s criticisms don’t hold up. Obama has actually changed very little outside rhetoric and packaging.

Goldsmith details eleven policy areas and explains how Obama has maintained or deviated from the Bush positions. The article is well worth the read and paints Obama as exceedingly cautious about changing the ways the Bush administration was handling the war and terrorism during the final years of the Bush presidency. Obama may be speaking more softly but he’s still carrying a big stick.

Question: can the problems in Pakistan and Afghanistan be solved or will this be Obama’s Iraq?

Discuss…

That said, the posts (and subsequent responsive comment) with which E.D. and Mr. Schwenkler take issue is emblematic of something that has been particularly frustrating to me over the last several days or so. Specifically, I’m frustrated at the certainty with which proponents of waterboarding and various other procedures outlined in the OLC memos proclaim that those procedures were clearly “not torture.”

The fact is, whatever one thinks of the legal acumen demonstrated (or, more accurately, not demonstrated) in the OLC memos, and especially the Bybee memo, they do not provide a basis for concluding that waterboarding, et al – especially when combined in one continuous program – are “clearly” not torture. The Bybee memo itself states quite explicitly that waterboarding in particular is pretty damn close to being torture, going so far as to say that it is a “predicate act” for a finding of torture. So if you’re going to rely on the Bybee memo as an accurate depiction of the law (which it isn’t – seriously, I’ve seen associates fired for less shoddy memos), then at the very least you have to acknowledge that these actions come pretty damn close to being torture, and that there is hardly anything outrageous or unhinged about calling these acts torture.

In other words, if you’re going to rely upon a piece of legal analysis as proof that something is clearly “not torture,” then you probably shouldn’t rely upon a piece of legal analysis that (shoddy as it may be) concludes that said something is pretty damned close to being torture.

Cross-posted at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen.

This was definitely troubling, so it’s good to see that some real action was taken after the report was revealed.

From McClatchy:

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The Missouri Highway Patrol this week retracted a controversial report on militia activity and will change how such reports are reviewed before being distributed to law enforcement agencies.

The Highway Patrol also will open an investigation into the origin of the report, which linked conservative groups with domestic terrorism and named former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin.

The Lt. Gov has also suggested that the Director of Public Safety be put on leave pending an investigation into how the report came about. I think that’s harsh, because there probably are some ties between 3rd party supporters and militia members, but the big thing here was the profiling based on bumper stickers. That was just a lazy move and the DoPS should have known better.

However, 3rd party supporters should take note at how quickly this was reversed once it was discovered. In other words, try not to fall into the trap of thinking this is part of a conspiracy. We’re still a nation of checks and balances, and this situation demonstrates that.

Still, I think somebody should keep an eye on the guy who put all those stickers on his car in the picture above. :-)

I’m just saying…

Looks like President Obama isn’t the reactionary pacifist some of his critics (and supporters) thought he was. Tomorrow, the administration is expected to announce a major increase in forces in Afghanistan.

Confronting an inherited and faltering war, President Barack Obama plans to dispatch thousands more military and civilian trainers to Afghanistan by the fall on top of the 17,000 combat troops he has already ordered, senior administration officials said Thursday.

Obama’s war strategy, which will he announce on Friday, includes no timeline for withdrawal of troops. The war began more than seven years ago.

As he plans to put more U.S. lives and money into the war zone, Obama will set benchmarks for progress in Afghanistan and neighboring, troubled Pakistan. The goal is to show Congress and the American people that the strategy is working — and to set a clear framework for making corrections as needed.

While Obama did campaign on refocusing on the conflict in Afghanistan, this news is likely to surprise more than a few. Apparently, the president believes military force can help our ongoing war on terror conflict against various terrorist organizations. Obviously, Obama wants to be very sure to put in place the kinds of benchmarks his predecessor resisted. That’s probably for the best considering the war has gone on for over seven years. I doubt the public will have much patience for more war and will expect measurable results.

More when the official announcement comes.

The report is put out by the Missouri Information Analysis Center, which is a “public safety partnership consisting of local, state and federal agencies.” It collects information on matters of homeland security and disseminates it throughout Missouri and neighboring states.

Supposedly, this is a report not meant for public distribution, but it is getting wide dissemination throughout the media. Although not one of my favorite sites because of exaggerated conspiracy theories, infowars.com has copies of the report.

In an attempt to identify where militia members may gather, the report identifies sources of political and anti-government rhetoric that it claims are suspect.

“Militia members most commonly associate with 3^rd party political groups. It is not uncommon for militia members to display Constitutional Party, Campaign for Liberty, or Libertarian material. These members are usually supporters of former Presidential Candidate: Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr.”

Ralph Nader must be jealous not to be included as a subversive.

However, if you think being liberal might get you off easy, there are still ways to catch the liberal terrorists in our midst.

“Militia members commonly display picture, cartoons, bumper stickers that contain anti-government rhetoric. Most of this material will depict the FRS, IRS, FBI, ATF, CIA, UN, Law Enforcement and “The New World Order” in a derogatory manner.”

It looks like as long as you don’t question the government, then you won’t be a suspect. That makes just about everyone a suspect.

Here, let’s give the Missouri authorities a chance to explain themselves as they did in this AP story:

Lt. John Hotz of the Missouri State Highway Patrol said the report comes from publicly available, trend data on militias. It was compiled by the Missouri Information Analysis Center, a “fusion center” in Jefferson City that combines resources from the federal Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. The center, which opened in 2005, was set up to collect local intelligence to better combat terrorism and other criminal activity, he said.

“All this is an educational thing,” Hotz said of the report. “Troopers have been shot by members of groups, so it’s our job to let law enforcement officers know what the trends are in the modern militia movement.”

Ron Paul bumper stickers. Anti-CIA rhetoric. That puts you on the path to be watched by Missouri law enforcement because you might be out to shoot them.

The report has some very weak arguments. It lists one of the motivators for the rise of militias the idiotic theory from Russian Professor Igor Panarin that the U.S. is going to split into six different nations as early as this year. According to this delusion, the Western U.S. may become part of China and the east coast will become part of the European Union. I must assume the authors of this report must have been looking for filler to include this lunacy. When Panarin presented this idea in Moscow recently, even the Russians snickered.

The report has just enough viable information about extremist Christian groups, white supremacist organizations, militant abortionists and anti-immigrant backers to give credence that it offers the “educational” value that officer Hotz said it is about. That is the problem. What is going to stop someone in law enforcement from believing all of it?

As much a threat the federal government can be to civil liberties, it increasingly looks like it’s the state cops that are going to have to be watched. Missouri is not the first state to head in this direction. Recently, a program in Maryland put peace-activist nuns, among others, on its terror watch list. However, all was not lost. In the name of national security, this specially trained unit spent hours investigating a potential chicken theft.

When anti-government rhetoric becomes something law enforcement wants to watch, then we all have cause to worry.

(from Foolocracy.com)

Here’s the transcript…

MATTHEWS: The polling that took place before we attacked, conducted by “Time” and CNN, showed that 72 percent of the American people, nearly three quarters, believed it was likely that Saddam Hussein was involved in the attack on us 9/11. How do you think they got that idea, that somehow going to war with Iraq was getting even for 9/11?

GAFFNEY: Well, as I said, he kept saying that he was going to try to get even against us for Desert Storm, so it wouldn‘t be unreasonable for people to conclude maybe that that‘s what he was doing. There‘s also circumstantial evidence, not proven by any means, but nonetheless some pretty compelling circumstantial evidence of Saddam Hussein‘s Iraq being involved with the people who perpetrated both the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and even the Oklahoma City bombing.

They have video over at C&L.

Amazing.

This has to be one of the most terrifying and haunting images I’ve ever seen. It takes a tragic place right alongside the Vietnamese children who are running down the road near Trang Bang after they got hit with napalm.

(credit: Telegraph)

"Manny is being Manny" and the "Mideast is just being the Mideast."

Really the only way to guarantee a ceasefire is to wait until your enemy runs out of bullets. So it’s baffling what the nutcake negotiators from Israel and Hamas are trying to achieve with these “temporary” ceasefire proposals.

The latest scoop from Israel’s Haaretz newspaper:

“Hamas’ Gaza spokesman Ayman Taha, meanwhile, has said recently that Israel has offered his Palestinian Islamist group a 10-year cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

Egypt is also demanding a truce of a number of years’ duration. But Taha said the group would agree to a cease-fire of anywhere between one year and no more than 18 months. Another Hamas spokesman, Ismail Radwan, said a long-term cease-fire “kills” the right to resistance by the Palestinians.”

OK, so Israel wants to sign a 10-year deal, Hamas wants to sign a one year contract with an option for another six months to re-arm. And Egypt wants both sides to go to arbitration?

Sounds like the Manny Ramirez negotiations, although this horrific analogy stops right here, because I don’t think the Red Sox, the Dodgers or the free agent Manny’s next employer deserve to be compared to Hamas.

Haaretz also reports that Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who once dressed like a girl in a daring commando operation, is now ratcheting up his testosterone rhetoric in a way that should send chills to plumbers throughout the Middle East.

“In a bid to gain the vote of the Russian immigrants in the elections, Labor leader and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will quote Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s statement about killing Chechen terrorists “on the toilet.”

“As you people say, they should be wacked when they’re on the toilet,” Barak will say in a radio election broadcast intended for Russian speakers. Labor, which is launching its campaign among the Russian speakers this afternoon, will ask them to support him, as they did when he last ran for prime minister 10 years ago.

The indirect allusion to Putin is Barak’s way of fashioning his image after that of an aggressive leader whom many Russian immigrants see favorably.”

If Barak does win the election over the favored Netanyahu, look for headline writers worldwide to have a blast with “Barack to meet Barak” headlines.

(For more foreign policy insights, contact Darren Garnick at www.cultureschlock.com)