I need you to call your Senators right away and urge them to OPPOSE all the gun control legislation that may be voted on as early as today. 
You can reach your two Senators at 202-224-3121.
Please call the Capitol Switchboard at that above number and then ask to speak to your two Senators.
Making Americans helpless is not the proper answer for responding to terrorism. Any other response is treason, no excuses…
It wasn’t all that long ago that Italy was being pounded on a regular basis by various terrorist organizations. The United States of America stood by Italy in it’s fight with the blood thirsty enemies of freedom and liberty. Often at our own peoples peril. This is how we are repaid for that loyalty.
ROME (AFP) – An Italian court upped the sentences for 23 CIA agents convicted in absentia of abducting an Egyptian imam in one of the biggest cases against the US “extraordinary rendition” programme.
The 23 CIA agents, originally sentenced in November 2009 to five to eight years in prison, had their sentences increased to seven to nine years on appeal in what one of the defence lawyers described as a “shocking blow” for the US.
Now, in all honesty I wouldn’t have bought into the Nuremberg style defense that was presented either. However, we are in a war, and have been for quite some time. Italy, is supposed to be a major ally, fellow member of the N.A.T.O. alliance and all that. So what do they do? Set their own people free based upon national security concerns that were just as involved as our own C.I.A. personnel but sentence our people to prison… Perhaps, in a juvenile sense it might be a bit fun to just let Italy sit and take it on the chin the next few times they get hit with terrorism. But “two wrongs don’t make a right.” Indeed, The United States of America should take the high road and maintain as cordial a relationship as possible.
That said there is a huge Italian demographic here, and those that still have ties to the old country should be talking to the officials in Italy about this issue, and do it like Americans. Loud and proud!
“The Transportation Security Administration’s demeaning new ‘enhanced pat-down’ procedures are a direct result of the Obama administration’s willful blindness to the threat from Islamic radicals. While better tools are available to keep air travelers safe, they would involve recognizing the threat for what it is, which is something the White House will never do. El Al, Israel’s national airline, employs a smarter approach. Any airline representing the state of Israel is a natural — some might say preeminent — target for terrorist attacks. Yet El Al has one of the best security records in the world and doesn’t resort to wide-scale use of methods that would under other circumstances constitute sexual assault. The Israelis have achieved this track record of safety by employing sophisticated intelligence analysis which allows them to predict which travelers constitute a possible threat and which do not. Resources are then focused on the more probable threats with minimal intrusion on those who are likely not to be terrorists. Here in the United States, these sophisticated techniques have roundly been denounced as discriminatory ‘profiling.’ … TSA believes an 80-year-old grandmother deserves the same level of scrutiny at an airport terminal checkpoint as a 19-year-old male exchange student from Yemen. This policy not only is a waste of time and resources, it denies reality. … Despite all the government bureaucracy and TSA’s intrusive inspection practices, [al Qaeda underwear bomber Umar Farouk] Abdulmutallab’s attack was only foiled because of a faulty bomb and the actions of alert passengers. Now all passengers have to pay the price by having their privacy (and their privates) invaded, which is the Obama administration’s alternative to instituting a policy that will target the source of the problem.” —The Washington Times
If you are an American you get sentenced to death. Deservedly so I might add. Even if your reasons are for avenging the American governments holocaust. If, however,you are a muslim terrorist you get off on all but a single count.
Ahmed Ghailani will face between 20 years and life in prison as a result of his conviction on one charge related to the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa. But because a jury acquitted him on more than 280 other charges — including every count of murder — critics of the Obama administration’s strategy on detainees said the verdict proved that civilian courts could not be trusted to handle the prosecution of Al Qaeda terrorists.
“This is a tragic wake-up call to the Obama Administration to immediately abandon its ill-advised plan to try Guantánamo terrorists” in federal civilian courts, said Representative Peter King, Republican of New York. “We must treat them as wartime enemies and try them in military commissions at Guantánamo.”
Adding political force of such criticism, Mr. King is set to become the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee in January, and he promised to use oversight hearings to pressure the administration over its handling of terrorism trials.
These are people that have taken up arms against the civilized world, and should not be treated as common soldiers. They do not fulfill the requirements of lawful combatants as per the Geneva Accords and should not be given those protections.
This may become a regular feature as the administration digs itself further and further into the dust bag of history. It is such a great thing that said bags can be emptied from time to time, and then we can go on about our business.
“So now, I gather, our only strategy is to hope the terrorists’ bombs keep fizzling. There’s no other line of defense. In the case of the Times Square car bomber, the Department of Homeland Security failed, the Immigration and Naturalization Service failed, the CIA failed and the TSA failed. (However, the Department of Alert T-Shirt Vendors came through with flying colors, as it always does.) Only the New York Police Department, a New York street vendor and Shahzad’s Rube Goldberg bomb (I do hope he’s not offended by how Jewish that sounds — Obama can apologize) prevented a major explosion in Times Square. Even after the NYPD de-wired the smoking car bomb, produced enough information to identify the bomb-maker, and handed it all to federal law enforcement authorities tied up in a bow, the federal government’s crack ‘no-fly’ list failed to stop Shahzad from boarding a plane to Dubai. To be fair, at Emirates Airlines, being on a ‘no-fly’ list makes you eligible for pre-boarding. Perhaps the Department of Homeland Security should consider creating a ‘Really, REALLY No-Fly’ list.” –columnist Ann Coulter
“There has been one high-profile violent incident perpetrated by a right-winger since Obama took office: the May 31, 2009 shooting of abortionist George Tiller. There have been a bevy of high-profile violent incidents by registered Democrats or liberals: the suicide airplane attack by Joseph Stack of Austin, Texas, against the IRS; the liberal who bit off the finger of an ObamaCare opponent in Thousand Oaks, Calif.; the murderous rampage by Obama-lover Amy Bishop at the University of Alabama; the beating of black man Kenneth Gladney by Service Employee International Union thugs in St. Louis; the Earth Liberation Front’s destruction of KRKO-AM’s radio towers in Seattle. None of these incidents by non-Muslim Americans were designed to create mass casualties among random Americans or members of the American military. All of the radical Muslim attacks were. Using rudimentary reasoning skills, it wouldn’t take long to hit on the hypothesis that perhaps the Times Square attempted bombing was linked to a radical Muslim. But we live in a country where rudimentary reasoning skills have been banned if they offend politically correct sensibilities. So our politicians suggest that tea partiers were behind the attempted bombing (that suggestion, not coincidentally, fits with President Obama’s attempts to label his domestic political opponents terrorists). They suggest that it could have been anybody — anybody! — behind the propane, gas and gunpowder. Meanwhile, they don’t place radical Muslim terrorists on no-fly lists. Only when the proof is indisputable do they finally confirm what everybody with half a brain suspected all along — and then they hope to get lucky.” –columnist Ben Shapiro
“Greece has cultural problems that contribute to its economic implosion. But there are similarities to the U.S. as well — and because we have elected Democrats, they are growing. By the end of 2011, Greece’s debt will be 150 percent of its GDP. According to a March report by the Congressional Budget Office, President Obama’s 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years — $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected — which will increase our debt to GDP ratio to 90 percent by 2020. One in three Greeks works for the government. Government employees enjoy higher wages, more munificent benefits, and earlier retirements than private sector employees. … Public sector unions are growing in the U.S. More than 50 percent of all union members are now public employees who have negotiated sweet deals with local, state, and federal governments. As economic historian John Steele Gordon points out, ‘Federal workers now earn, in wages and benefits, about twice what their private-sector equivalents get paid. State workers often have Cadillac health plans and retirement benefits far above the private sector average: 80 percent of public-sector workers have pension benefits, only 50 percent in the private sector. Many can retire at age 50.’ While private employers were shedding jobs during the recession, state and local governments hired 110,000 new workers. Obama’s new spending will result in a 14.5 percent increase in the number of federal employees in just two years. … And in a corrupt feedback loop that may not be so very different after all from the Greek practice, public employee unions give generously to Democratic candidates, both in cash contributions and by manning phone banks, getting out the vote, and so on. It’s no coincidence that the states with the most powerful public sector unions — New Jersey, California, and New York — are facing the most severe budget crises. Greece is in flames, but if you look around, you can smell the smoke here as well.” –columnist Mona Charen
When the first description of the Times Square would-be bomber Faisal Shahzad was released to the media, it raised the hopes of many. No, fellow Patriots, we’re not speaking of normal American hopes such as a quick capture of the would-be mass murderer. Unfortunately, what some were hoping was that this “middle-aged white guy” would be a right-wing Tea Party nut.
Fox News’ resident lefty Bob Beckel pontificated that he thought it might be a “right-wing militiaman” and Geraldo Rivera salivated over the white male suspect that was initially reported. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested it might be “somebody home-grown, maybe a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something.” MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer couldn’t help but allude to the Hutaree Militia in Michigan while lamenting, “I get frustrated and there was part of me that was hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country.” One could almost taste the blood in the water as the frenzied Leftmedia homed in on the “real” right-wing threat they just knew had finally been revealed.
Unfortunately for them, however, this latest attempt at a “man-caused disaster” on American soil wasn’t perpetrated by a homegrown militiaman, nor by a member of the Tea Party, nor by an anti-ObamaCare zealot. Despite all the dashed “hopes” of the Left, this guy was just another Muslim jihadist. Worse is the news that Shahzad is a naturalized Pakistani-American with apparent Taliban and al-Qa’ida training. Furthermore, he drew inspiration from Anwar al-Awlaki, the same radical Yemeni-American cleric that inspired Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan. The only good news, despite irresponsible media efforts to correct the mistake, was that this nitwit must have flunked Bombing 101.
In the face of the evidence, even the administration came around. Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano informed the nation in the hours after the bombing attempt, “We’re treating it as if it could be a potential terrorist attack.” Nothing gets by her.
“I worked in homeland security. I’m from intelligence, and I’ll tell you, one of the largest threats to our internal security — I mean terrorism has an Islamic face — but it really comes from racial supremacist groups. Its the kind of thing we keep a threat assessment on record [for].” —Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) on the Tea Party
New York’s felon Mayor is back at it again. That guy just can’t seem to figure out that when something is broken you don’t promote it as something to be admired… I just happen to have a problem with taking away peoples rights without a trial…
New York City officials on Wednesday seized on the attempted terror attack in Times Square to urge Congress to tighten counterterrorism policies.
In testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly called on lawmakers to close a loophole that lets individuals on the federal government’s terrorism watch list buy firearms and explosives.
~snip~
“The problem I have is that [the] watch list, when you look at the numbers, has so many problems with it that I think it’s not appropriate to go down the road that we’re going because a constitutional right is involved,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Bloomberg during questioning.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) strongly opposes the proposed changes, claiming that the terrorism watch list is full of errors.
Andrew Arulanandam, NRA’s director of public affairs, pointed to the well-publicized 2004 incident in which the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) was temporarily prevented from boarding a flight because his name was mistakenly on the list.
“There are innocent people who are not terrorists whose names are on the list,” Arulanandam said in an interview. “It is wrong to deny law-abiding people a constitutional right if they are innocent.”
But Bloomberg claimed that national-security concerns take precedence over any Second Amendment arguments.
It seems Mr. bin Laden ignored my invitation to him. Lo those many years ago…
The offer still stands, and, we could accommodate many of your fellows as well. Although I am no longer a resident of Colorado the offer still stands. I am sure that you would feel right at home. There have also been rumors about your health issues over the years Osama, and Colorado can surly help with those as well, possibly ending the suffering that you have gone through for so many years!
We grow, and learn Osama. There is no need for anger. Please, come to Colorado, we eagerly await your august presence!
Three provisions of the PATRIOT ACT are due to expire at the end of this month. These provisions are . . .
1. Business Records: allows searches on your personal data without your knowledge if the FBI convinces a judge it is “relevant” to a terrorism investigation. The data could be computer-related, financial, medical, or even your library check-out history
2. Lone Wolf: allows the federal government to spy on a foreign person with no known ties to a foreign government or terrorist group — a power that’s never been used
3. Roving Wiretap: allows federal agents to intercept phone conversations without having to specify the person being investigated or which phone is being used
The House and Senate can’t seem to agree on reforming the Patriot Act. They might, however, agree on another temporary renewal of these provisions for 2-6 months.
We have a better idea. Use DownsizeDC.org’s “I am not afraid” campaign to tell Congress to just let these provisions expire.
You may borrow from or copy this letter . . .
Last month it was revealed that the FBI illegally collected 2,000 phone records by falsely claiming a terrorism emergency. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60I0KB20100119
I consider this not just a crime by the FBI, but a failure of Congress as well. I wonder if Congress even cares about the abuse of powers you’ve given the Executive Branch.
Since the original USA PATRIOT Act was passed in 2001, Congress has failed . . .
* to provide basic civil liberties protections in its Patriot Act and FISA Amendments legislation
* to narrowly focus surveillance and search powers to suspected terrorists and information directly related to terrorism; instead, it has given the Administration sweeping powers to snoop on anyone who accidentally and incidentally comes into contact with a suspected terrorist
* to provide sufficient oversight of the Administration’s vast new powers
* to hold the FBI or Executive Branch officials accountable for law-breakingThe House did pass H.R. 3845, which restores several important civil liberties that were lost in the Patriot Act. But the Senate seems unwilling to pass it.
I’m hoping for a different kind of failure. If the Senate refuses to pass H.R. 3845, I hope Congress “fails” to pass any temporary extension of the Patriot Act’s expiring provisions.
* the House should stand firm and insist on passing H.R. 3845 with no further watered-down compromises
* Senators should filibuster any bill that does not restore civil liberties protections
* do NOT let this issue drag on for another few months by passing a temporary extensionI do not believe letting these provisions expire will make me less safe, I believe their expiration will make me *more* safe. In fact, I believe repealing the Patriot Act altogether would make me safer than I am now . . .
* safer from terrorism, because this would force intelligence and law enforcement agencies to investigate actual suspected terrorists instead of targeting anyone and everyone;
* safer from my own government, because I won’t live in fear of being spied on or falsely caught up in an investigationI hope this letter encourages and emboldens you to do the right thing.
END LETTER
You may send your letter using DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System.
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
From Tracy at the No Compromise Blog (see sidebar) we get this!
This video was made in March … way BEFORE the “underwear bomber.”Funny how it came to passThis is mean to (comically) highlight the DANGERS of Radical Christiansof course, those with a brain know there IS a difference.
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