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Saturday, August 12, 2006
Funding HateSome of the plotters in the airplane bombing campaign turn out to have been students. Worse, the universities they attended have been funding their extremist hatred: Waheed Zaman, 22, a bio-chemistry student and the president of the Islamic Society at London Metropolitan University, was one of 24 people arrested last week. Material found at two portable buildings used by the society includes documents advocating jihad and a pamphlet on how to deal with approaches from the security services.
Prof Anthony Glees, the director of Brunel University's centre for intelligence and security studies, criticised university authorities for ignoring the threat to national security in their midst. "Institutions have not sought to address the problem: they have instead sought to undermine those who have raised the issue," he told this newspaper.
Extremist Muslim groups had been detected at more than 20 institutions, both former polytechnics and long-established universities, over the past 15 years, Prof Glees said.Meanwhile, the authorities are now following the money trail. The record of financial transactions, along with telephone and computer records, may help investigators trace more people in the alleged plot.
"Think of it as a river — you look upstream to find the source, and downstream to find out where the money is going," said Cliff Knuckey, former chief money laundering investigator for Scotland Yard.
American authorities were looking for any U.S. links in the conspiracy. Hundreds of FBI agents checked possible leads the past few weeks, including what two U.S. counterterrorism officials said, on condition of anonymity, were calls the British suspects placed to several U.S. cities.But this part is a head-scratcher: There were signs preparations stepped up recently. One of the houses raided by British police this week had been bought last month by two men in an all-cash deal, in a neighborhood of $300,000 houses, neighbors reported.Why would suicide jihadis purchase a house?
Rescuing Green HelmetThe AP decides that it's time for them to defend Green Helmet. Daher, a member of the civil defense for 20 years, has been photographed with bodies of the dead in two wars now -- first in 1996 and most recently with the baby on July 30 __ both times after Israeli attacks in the village of Qana six miles southeast of the city.
For that reason, some Web sites have labeled him the "Green Helmet," and accused him of being a member of the Hezbollah guerrilla group, and of showing off bodies as propaganda.
"But that isn't true," he told The Associated Press. He is not affiliated with any party, he said. "I am just a civil defense worker. I have done this job all my life."For the background on why Mr Daher is a little controversial, see here.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Momma Moonbat & Libertarian Lew? Don't know whether it's true or not, but this is too good not to blog about: Cindy Sheehan packed her bags and left Crawford ,Texas, Tuesday afternoon and arrived home in Berkeley, Ca. late Tuesday evening. Sheehan rushed back to do damage control after explosive information became public today about an alleged affair that began while she was still married to her husband Patrick, and after her son Casey Sheehan died in Sadr City, Iraq attempting to rescue members of his trapped squad.
Sources are telling authors Melanie Morgan and Catherine Moy, (American Mourning, Cumberland Press) that Sheehan is furious that the news of her affair has gone public. Sources have identified the boyfriend as former right-winger Lew Rockwell of the Ludwig Von Mises think tank located in Alabama, who is himself married.Rockwell's no right-winger; he's a libertarian wackadoodle. And to be honest, it doesn't mean a hill of beans. But it's funny, anyway. I wonder if this is why comments are disabled over at the Huffpo?
Moron the Bomb PlottersWe get a little information on them from this article: The oldest of the named suspects is 35 and the youngest 17. Thirteen of them are from east London - nine from Walthamstow, one from Chingford, one from Leyton, one from the Limehouse and Poplar area and one from Clapton.
Four are from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and the other two are from Birmingham and Stoke Newington, north London. The attacks were planned for next Wednesday. The plotters' funds have been frozen. But get this detail: Today the Bank of England named and froze the assets of 19 of the 24 air terror suspects arrested. The bank was acting under the instruction of Chancellor Gordon Brown and on the advice of the police and security services.
It acted under powers granted by the United Nations to tackle the financing of terrorism in the wake of the September 11 2001 attacks.How were they noticed? First via a tip: It all began with a tip: In the aftermath of the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings on London's transit system, British authorities received a call from a worried member of the Muslim community, reporting general suspicions about an acquaintance.Here's an interesting detail: One U.S. intelligence source, however, said some of the British suspects arrested had made calls to the United States.I certainly hope our government did not intercept that call without getting authorization from the UN! Most of the plotters appear to be Brits of Pakistani descent, although there are a couple of "Taliban Johnny's" as well: At least two of the suspects are believed to be British males who have converted to Islam, including Umar Islam, 28, from High Wycombe, who was born Brian Young, and Abdul Waheed, 21, from High Wycombe, formerly known as Don Stewart-Whyte, who is believed to be the son of a former Conservative constituency agent.And there's this usual crap: Some in the British Muslim community have voiced scepticism about the existence of the plot, claiming that the timing was too convenient in drawing attention away from the crisis in the Middle East.Many outside the British Muslim community have made the same ridiculous claim.
New Blog to Check OutAndrea Shea-King and Mark Vance, our buddies from Constitutional Public Radio have joined the living dead (aka bloggers). Their blog is aptly named Radio Patriots, and it's filled with the same great content as their radio show, about which we'll have some news to report in the near future.
Brits Violated Terrorists' Civil Rights?That's what I get from this description: "This wasn't supposed to happen today," a U.S. official told the Washington Post of the arrests and terror alert. "It was supposed to happen several days from now. We hear the British lost track of one or two guys. They had to move." Meanwhile, British antiterrorism chief Peter Clarke said at a news conference that the plot was foiled because "a large number of people" had been under surveillance, with police monitoring "spending, travel and communications."Did they get the proper warrants from the FISA court? Oh, wait it was Britain, they don't have that "protection" for their citizens.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
It's My Teenage Years All Over AgainI've talked about this before many times, but I was a teenage leftist. Back then the Vietnam War was the big topic and I was of the opinion that not only were fighting on the wrong side but that communism was the wave of the future. I was thrilled as a Republican President ran against an antiwar candidate, and stunned when the American public repudiated the latter in one of the three landslides of my lifetime. But eventually the Democrats tore that president down and turned South Vietnam over to the communists. And I cheered. But then a funny thing happened. While I had been sure like former Lieutenant (jg) Kerry that only a few people would have to be relocated, in fact a million or more fled kindly Uncle Ho, with about half of those perishing at sea. And those seemed to be the lucky ones, compared to those who had to face Uncle Pol. Something was terribly wrong. I remember watching The Killing Fields a few years later and coming out completely shaken. This was evil on a massive scale, from leaders that I had been assured by older leftists only had the best interests of their people at heart. Worse still I recognized the horrific logic of the Khmer Rouge in appointing young children as judges and juries. It was the kind of crap I had believed. And so by the time Ronald Reagan was up for reelection, I was a Republican. I no longer believed in the benevolent bear; it was an enemy to be defeated, and thank god, we saw it happen less than a decade later. Now we are fighting a different enemy. It is unimaginably evil. For a change, the left is not rooting for the enemy to defeat us; but they are still claiming that there is no real enemy, that it's all a figment of our imagination. Say they'd blown up 8 airplanes yesterday. How many lives would be shattered in that instant? Not just the people on board, but those left behind. Although all of America experienced 9-11, nobody experienced it like those in NY, Boston, DC, Los Angeles and San Francisco. But coming back from England on planes yesterday? There would have been many funerals in every state. So, you know, we have to win. Not just Republicans, not just Democrats like Joe Lieberman. We have to win. There is no Silver Medal for coming in second to Al Qaeda; there is only a granite marker.
British Terror Plot Blamed On... Joe Lieberman!There's dumb and dumber, and then there's dumber than a box of rocks. But you've gotta be dumber even than that to believe some of the stuff that the 9-11 Deniers (also known as the Fair Play for Al Qaeda Committee) claim. You got your first level response: That's purely a miniature psy-op to blunt all this talk about 9/11 as an inside job. It's a direct response I suspect.About the same depth of thought is shown here: its a shame that some idiot islamics would do this and not wait for 9/11 truth to come out- they have just comepletely dont the opposite- if indeed this is real...Then you've got somebody (misnamed "Logic") who takes it to the next stage: When manufactured terror exists to set the stage, the real terror will then take it's place or mix with false flag operations eventually, making the truth so skewed people won't know what to think anymore. This was the plan all along. You take an event, shape the world and yes the real extremists will eventually mimic or co-exist with false terror. They create the environment to brew exactly what they want to fight. The extremists were always there, they will always be there.. Smoking them out of the rabbit hole is what has happened and that's what makes exposing 911 that much more important...Before it's too late.....But the prize for the absolutely nuttiest response goes not to these idiot commenters on an idiot forum for 9-11 Denial, but to one of the nominees for Blogger of the Year in 2005, John Aravosis of Americablog: And isn't it queer that the emergency is declared within a day of Republican party leader Ken Mehlman launching an all-out offensive against Democrats following Joe Lieberman's loss in Connecticut, an offensive in which Mehlman, the White House and Republican operatives are claiming that Democrats no longer care about national security or the war on terror.Bottom line: Joe Lieberbush lost. The message is spreading across the land that incumbents who embrace the president are in serious trouble. And the Republicans needed to divert attention, to stop this meme in its tracks, and lo' and behold we have our first terror alert that I can recall since the last election, and it's our first ever Red Alert! What a coincidence!What a nut! More here.
Terror Plot Foiled?Obviously this is the big story of the day. There is chaos at British airports after police disrupted a plot to cause "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" by blowing up transatlantic airliners.
The explosives would have been smuggled aboard at least six airliners as hand luggage - and could have been missed during x-ray screening.
Speaking at Scotland Yard, Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said he was confident the police had disrupted a plot "to cause mass murder on an unimaginable scale".Sources in the United States have reported that three airlines targeted were United, American and Continental.
Security sources believe that liquid explosives would have been used which could have been mixed during the flight into a lethal concoction.
US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the conspiracy was sophisticated, well-advanced and well-planned and "suggestive of an al Qaeda plot".The plot was said to involve British-born young men of Asian extraction; I believe that implies Pakistanis. Yep: According to BBC sources the "principal characters" suspected of being involved in the plot were British-born. There are also understood to be links to Pakistan.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
All Lieberman, All the TimeMichael Moore calls it a resounding defeat; presumably he thought Kerry's loss to President Bush in 2004 was similarly resounding. John McIntyre senses the return of the McGovernites. Nationally, the images from last night are a disaster for the Democratic Party. Perched behind Lamont during his victory speech were the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, grinning ear to ear, serenaded by the chant of "Bring Them Home, Bring Them Home." For a party that has a profound public relations and substantive problem on national security, these are not exactly the images you want broadcast to the nation.
Anti-war Democrats and much of the mainstream media continue to confuse anti-war with anti-lose. The incessant commentary that 2/3rd of the country is against the war completely misreads the American public, as much of the negativity towards the war isn't because we are fighting, but rather a growing feeling that we are not fighting to win or not fighting smart.Nathan Tabor has a similar take: Welcome to the “new” 21st century Democratic Party, the political party that is starting to smell quite similar to the long-buried cadaver of the Democratic Party of the early 1970s – taken over at the time by the anti-Vietnam War McGovern Democrats. Last night has given us the neo-McGovernites.Marty Peretz takes a good poke at Lamont's supporters (the aforementioned Sharpton and Jackson). Meanwhile Brendan Loy decides that's enough for him; he's leaving the Democratic Party. Let's remember, that Loy was nominated for Blogger of the Year in 2005 for his terrific Katrina coverage. So I’ve continued to cling to the label of Democrat, and to the hope that the party would somehow save itself from the tired orthodoxies of its interest groups and the execrable excesses of its far-left wing. I’ve shaken my head at the irrational policies and irresponsible rhetoric coming from so many corners of the party, comforting myself with the thought that while Dennis Kucinich may be a nutjob and Al Sharpton may be a charlatan and Howard Dean may be an idiot and Dick Durbin may be, well, a dick, at least there’s still Joe Lieberman.
Netroots Have Their Objective in November: Defeat a Democrat!Anybody who thought the Huffpoers would be magnanimous in victory will be sorely disappointed this morning. It's all Joe & Ned over there. They have seen the enemy, and it is they. The always amusing Cenk Uygur: The message has been sent. Get back to the middle. Get back to your voters. Get back to the principles we believe in. Stop cowing down to the Republicans. Otherwise you will have to answer to us. There will be a day of reckoning. Lieberman's day was today. And it felt great.
The best thing we can hope for the next time a vote like Sam Alito's filibuster or the Iraq War resolution comes up again is for the Democratic Senators to think, "Well, I don't want what happened to Joe to happen to me." Mission accomplished!I think that's intended to be a play on Gaddafi & Saddam. Rick Jacobs: Joe Lieberman has every right to run as independent. Those are the rules. And we as donors and grassroots leaders and patriots have every right to say to any and all Democrats, “you will support the nominee. If you do not, do not ever again ask for a dime for the DSCC or the DCCC or the DNC or for yourself. We cannot give money to institutions that carry the name Democrat but act as oligarchs.”Joe has every right to run as an independent, but nobody has the right to support him. RJ Eskow does the typical "We won even if we lose," routine: As far back as January, 45% of the voters didn't want the Senator they had. The system worked. Now they'll have the chance to vote for someone they do want.
Whatever the outcome in November, that already qualifies as a happy ending.Pam Meister, our favorite Connecticut blogger, has more.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Down Goes McKinney!Nice to see Hank Johnson bring that one home. In other news, the netkooks finally won a race, but it was much closer than had been predicted only a few days ago, with the result that Joementum could carry over into the general election. Given that the margin is reported at 52-48, who will be the first liberal blogger to declare this gives Ned Lamont a--drumroll, please--mandate?
More Bad PhotographyGateway Pundit notices that a supposed victim of an Israeli attack was seen in photographs earlier helping in the rescue efforts. Better yet, the photographer is a New York Timesman, not some Lebanese stringer.
The Qana Photo OpDan Riehl has been at this story like a dog with a bone, and he makes the point that the Qana situation looks more like a carefully planned photo op than a frantic rescue effort. Great blogging!
Sirota Playing the Managing Expectations Game?Sheesh, this doesn't sound to me like a guy who's confident Lamont's going to win: Here's the deal folks: No matter what the outcome tomorrow - and I sure am hoping Lamont wins - we should all remember that last point: the fact that Ned Lamont and the progressive movement have mounted such a serious challenge to an entrenched incumbent with such a massive corporate-backed warchest is a HUGE ACCOMPLISHMENT. In the course of just a few months, a guy who has never run for office took on one of the most well-funded, insulated politicians in America, who used all of his clout and cashed in all of his favors to get other Big Time members of the Establishment to help him. If Ned gets within 15 points of Lieberman, it is a display of real strength, and it is a major step forward in our movement.Personally I'm hoping that Lieberman ekes out a small win, thereby making the netkooks go wild with conspiracy theories and anger at Diebold. PS-- Pam Meister's in Connecticut and will undoubtedly be paying attention to the results today.
Nice Headline, There, AP50% of Americans polled falsely believe in Iraq WMDs It gets worse. Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?
Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll says, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying round a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900 million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.Oddly, when the media reported the 9-11 poll last week, they felt little need to inform the public that the 16% who believe it was likely or somewhat likely that the World Trade Center towers had been brought down by controlled demolition were obviously mistaken because millions have been spent on researching the reasons the towers fell, with the conlusion that it was a combination of the impact of the planes and the fires.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Brainster on the Radio! (Note: This post will remain on top until tomorrow morning; scroll down for newer content). I'll be on the radio next tomorrow morning at 7:10 AM Central, 8:10 AM Eastern, and 5:10 AM my time (groan) with my buddies Allman and Smash in the Morning, 97.1 FM. For those of you not fortunate enough to live in the St. Louis area, you can listen in here.
Moo-On Hopes for First Win--Against a DemocratI love it! A merger followed, and by 2004, MoveOn's political involvement included traditional get-out-the-vote operations. Its embrace of Howard Dean's anti-war candidacy helped fuel his brief rise in the presidential race, and it worked closely with John Kerry in the fall campaign.
But in the end, reviews were mixed.
Some Democrats said MoveOn's liberal positions alienated the swing voters the party needed to defeat Bush and elect Democrats to Congress.
Republicans scoured the Web site for ammunition, and found plenty. A video posted online by one member suggested a similarity between Nazi war crimes and Bush administration policy.
Bloggers Pick Their Favorite People On the RightJohn Hawkins polled 51 right of center bloggers on this question. Scroll down to see John's personal selections. For the record, my choices were as follows: Personalities/Columnists Hugh Hewitt Rush Limbaugh Michelle Malkin Mark Steyn Pols George W. Bush Jon Kyl Dick Cheney Bloggers Lucianne Goldberg Lorie Byrd John Hawkins Patrick Hynes Kitty Myers
Peretz on LamontI'd imagine this article will get the Lefty blogs up in arms: We have been here before. Left-wing Democrats are once again fielding single-issue "peace candidates," and the one in Connecticut, like several in the 1970s, is a middle-aged patrician, seeking office de haut en bas, and almost entirely because he can. It's really quite remarkable how someone like Ned Lamont, from the stock of Morgan partner Thomas Lamont and that most high-born American Stalinist, Corliss Lamont, still sends a chill of "having arrived" up the spines of his suburban supporters simply by asking them to support him.Hmmmm, interesting. There's more about Lamont's family background here. Edward "Ned" Lamont, Senator Lieberman's primary opponent, is the great-grandson of Thomas W. Lamont, a senior partner in J. P. Morgan and Co. from 1911 until 1943. Before the advent of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in 1933, the Morgan firm was the most prestigious banking firm in the world, and Thomas Lamont became a very wealthy man.
The New Deal did its best to eviscerate the financial community in the process of debasing the dollar and promoting inflation as a nostrum to cure the Depression. But J. P. Morgan & Co. remained a major player in domestic and international finance.
Thomas Lamont was a devout Christian, and he and his wife raised their son Corliss Lamont as a Christian. Corliss, however, became an atheistic socialist after attending Harvard from 1920 to 1924 and receiving his PhD from Columbia University in 1928. His PhD thesis was devoted to denying the existence of God and life after death. This is hardly surprising, as he studied at Columbia under John Dewey, the high priest of socialist intellectualism.
Corliss Lamont's son, Edward M. Lamont (Ned Lamont's father) embraced his father's liberal-socialism and passed his religious devotion to atheistic materialism along to his son. Like his grandfather, Ned Lamont is a product of Eastern prep schools and Harvard University, the leading edge of socialism in American education.
If Ned Lamont becomes the junior United States Senator from Connecticut, he won't be any more liberal in social policies than Senator Lieberman, but my state will no longer be represented in the Senate by a believer in God.Corliss Lamont ran for governor of New York in 1958 on a "peace" platform. So Ned Lamont is just the continuation of an anti-American line of silver spoon socialists. Back to the Peretz piece, we see that Lamont also represents the continuation of another line; call it the Neville Chamberlain fans: Now Mr. Lamont's views are also not camouflaged. They are just simpleminded. Here, for instance, is his take on what should be done about Iran's nuclear-weapons venture: "We should work diplomatically and aggressively to give them reasons why they don't need to build a bomb, to give them incentives. We have to engage in very aggressive diplomacy. I'd like to bring in allies when we can. I'd like to use carrots as well as sticks to see if we can change the nature of the debate." Oh, I see. He thinks the problem is that they do not understand, and so we should explain things to them, and then they will do the right thing. It is a fortunate world that Mr. Lamont lives in, but it is not the real one. Anyway, this sort of plying is precisely what has been going on for years, and to no good effect. Mr. Lamont continues that "Lieberman is the one who keeps talking about keeping the military option on the table." And what is so plainly wrong with that? Would Mahmoud Ahmadinejad be more agreeable if he thought that we had disposed of the military option in favor of more country club behavior?The lurch by the Democrats to the Left is certainly beneficial to the Republicans as it decreases the chances of a liberal takeover of the House and Senate. But it's a negative too, because if they do grab the reins, it will be worse for the country. Quinnipiac says that Lieberman may be staging a comeback. The poll shows Lamont, a wealthy Greenwich businessman, leading Lieberman 51 percent to 45 percent among likely Democratic voters heading into Tuesday's primary.
Last week's Quinnipiac poll showed Lamont leading 54 percent to 41 percent. Lamont has had a lead in the poll since July 20.Of course, getting a read on who's really a likely voter is always a tricky prospect in primary elections. While I'd love to see this "Joementum" carry Lieberman to victory tomorrow, I'm expecting that he will lose.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Crawfordapalooza Gets UnderwayWith the arrival of Momma Moonbat herself, Cindy Sheehan. "It doesn't say my new address, but I do live here now,'' said Sheehan, who lives in Berkeley, Calif., and recently bought land in Crawford for war protests. ``My name is Cindy and Bush killed my son.''Ah, how many mothers' sons were killed by Roosevelt and Wilson and JFK? Just stupid. The enemy killed Cindy's son. White House spokesman Tony Snow has said that neither Bush nor his staff plan to meet with Sheehan.
"I would advise her to bring water, Gatorade or both,'' Snow said Friday during a press briefing. "Honestly, when you're talking about the kind of issues that we're talking about, Cindy Sheehan hasn't risen to the level of staff meetings at this point.''Good old Tony's got the scorn down pat. :) And Cindy likes Jamba Juice.
Here's Some Interesting BloggingI can't say that I've figured it all out, but this story seems to be about a troubling connection between a candidate for the Republican nomination in Arizona's Congressional District 8 and a fundraising/lockbox company. Randy Graf is reportedly leading in the polls heading into the September 12 primary to replace retiring Jim Kolbe. He is apparently using American Caging, Inc., a company that is attracting some attention due to problems with its account as fundraiser for the Minuteman Project. The concern is that Graf will win the primary, but that these connections will come back to haunt him in the general, and the Democrats will pick up his seat. I did a little looking around and it certainly appears there is ample reason for concern.
Gary Hart Watching Too Many MoviesHe announces that the administration will schedule a pull-out prior to the election, if Joe Lieberman is defeated on Tuesday. Why Lieberman? Hart doesn't say, but he does close with this bizarre bit: But even as President Bush rolls out the bogus plan in the Rose Garden, surrounded by trembling Congressmen, and claims "victory" in Iraq, work will continue around the clock on the American fortress in central Baghdad and on the permanent military garrisons in the countryside.
It was all forecast years ago in the final scene of the movie Three Days of the Condor when the CIA official Higgins explains to the naive CIA research character portrayed by Robert Redford: "Of course it's about the oil. Do you think the American people care how we get it? They just want us to get it."Three Days of the Condor of course was one of those bizarre paranoid lefty thrillers of the 1970s, about our government killing a bunch of people working for the CIA because they knew too much.
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