The Dark and Ugly Side of Republican Promises....

So today let's start out the new year by remembering fondly one of moonbat's success stories of the last: Moonbat takes on Idiot Private Security Force. As readers of the comments section know, moonbat forced the idiots to "alter" their "rules" to allow women to remove their high heels and thus avoid being screened by slobering 30 year old men. Why are we revisiting this happy episode? Our idiot private security force is back in the news: Video tape of sleeping security guards shakes nuclear industry. Armed guards sleeping on the job. What I love the most is that they are armed, even at the Museum where they screen people entering and exiting, they are armed. But TSA airport screeners are not armed. Even though it's considered appropriate for worse-trained and poorer performing guards of a museum in D.C. to be armed, let's not have armed guards in airports where terrorists might actually attack. In fact, as anyone who works there knows, even the presence of armed police officers is on the decline. But I digress from drooling over this latest outbreak of idiocy.

So Wackenhut's excuse is that they are being pressured to cut costs to the point where they can afford salaries for guards that only attract people who sleep on the job... after being forced to work regularly beyond the 60 work hour limit for nuclear facilities. Somehow though, I doubt any of this has included pay reductions for upper management. This interesting and obviously a private security firm plant blog post finds that in response to growing dissatisfaction with private security, in order to keep their contracts they were going to move away from a cost-plus business model. No for those of you who have been following moonbat's blogs on private security in Iraq, and Blackwater in particular, know that cost-plus is just a fancy word for "fleecing the taxpayer for tropical beach houses." Meanwhile, let's dig a little into the muck and find out more about Wackenhut's "security guards."

Wackenhut exists to kill you if you stop at a truck stop to have sex with your girlfriend. They are also trained to harrass veterans buying diet coke at another truck stop, but if you are a prostitute you are perfectly acceptible. And they area also suing SEIU claiming that union organizing is racketeering. And this is where you taxpayer dollars are going!!

Republicans Open For Attacks Over Airline Security

So let's be honest. The Republican side of the ticket statements to the American public that their support for the Iraq War and The Great Wall of Texas proves that they are keeping America safe. When the Democratic side of the ticket replies that by watching over civil liberties we are saving Americans from their government, we look like we think paper and lawsuits can protect people from ending up like those who jumped to their deaths out of the World Trade Center. And what we concentrate on now is not an effective counter to the 9-11 propaganda of the neo-cons. Lawsuits and civil liberties don't stop hijackers. And by keeping to such a strict form of attack of the "War on Terror," Democrats and liberals participate in the Republican strategy of using valid concerns over terrorism to push conservative agendas on spying and illegal immigrants. Years after the publishing of Lakoff's "Don't think of an elephant" we are no better at finding ways to define the argument that allow us to attack them at their weakest point.

Think of Katrina and the debacle of emergency management. That's a point that remained valid because constant media attention has kept the issue about how a hurricane devestated an American city, and the Bush Administration failed in it's duties. But we have let the neo-cons define terror threats in terms of phone calls and illegal immigrants, both old debates around which hard concerta wire got laid decades ago between both Democrats and Republicans. While attention to both issues remains important, gaining an inch in either debate will require trench warfare and an immense spilling of loyal blood. Especially without a liberal President and a liberal veto proof majority in Congress, and at least a fair and moderate Supreme Court. But will the fear that the CIA is listening to your phone call to your mother on Sunday night bring voters to the polls? Not likely. The vast majority of American voters understand they aren't likely to be the political operatives that an abuse of power could target, in a return of Hoover-style surveillance. Most of us really aren't that interesting.

What was 9-11 about? It was a group of men, who were on terror watch-lists, had expired visas, had arroused concern by the FBI for their unusal interest in flying skills. It was a low-key, well-planned, easily repeatable attack and it was real. And the Republicans are doing everything they can to make people forget that, and get the American public to think of 9-11 in terms of rogue nuclear nations and weed coming in over the border with Mexico. Why are they so energized to do so? Just like Katrina exposing the farse that Bush had made of FEMA, it shouldn't take another 9-11 style attack on our country to expose what the Bush Administration has done with airline security. Especially, since if there is ever another attack, liberal concentration on lawsuits and potential government abuse will be the Republican ticket to ducking the blame. But right now, airline security is a weak juicy underbelly to the Republican mantra that they are the ones to protect Americans.



To point out how Democratic dialogue over 9-11 has wandered onto thin ice, here's a blog from Congressman Mike Honda from California. His concerns are certainly valid and commendable, and ensuring that people aren't arbitrarily targeted due to their religion is a worthwhile Democratic goal. However, as this has become the Democratic response to 9-11 and airline security, and focuses on a very small part of the American voting public, we are left open to attacks of weakness and pandering by neo-cons. While nothing we do on the issue of airport security is likely to bring over Republican voters, swing voters are going to look closely at the two sides, and they are going to consider the Republican argument stronger. Which is unfortunate because this is an issue over which the Republicans and neo-cons have left themselves wide wide open.

Let's start with this: Rates of Failure to Find Suicide Bomb Tests by TSA.

Yesterday, Representative Kirk from Illinois rose on the House floor during open comments to bring up this subject, calling for a reveiw of airport security involving congressional leaders and the upper management of TSA. This set up and review has been coming for a long time and it has nothing to do with improving airport security, but wrapping up a federal agency as a private contract and handing it out to Republican campaign contributors. The study itself is questionable, given that it compares two of the worse airports against an airport that has been the subject of intensified training. But more importantly, the review will include the upper management of TSA and given current SSI laws which prevent airport screeners from commenting frankly in public, it holds no hope of providing accountability or insight into what is going on in airport security. However, airport passengers have begun to notice that there are fewer screeners at airports than there used to be, and job searches show that TSA offers part-time employment instead of concentrating on a full-time and steady workforce. Without full union representation, and full union rights for airport screeners, the public and Congress will find the truth elusive.

All of this will go on despite the prime opportunity this represents to assail the Republican line that private contractors are the route to take with American government. For instance:

1. Private Contractos Mass Mails SSNs to Wrong People.

TSA spokeswoman Amy von Walter said the breach was "an administrative error, and the contractor has taken steps to ensure it's not repeated." Accenture, a contractor that handles TSA personnel, sent 1,195 documents to the wrong former employees during a recent mailing, according to a letter signed by Richard Whitford, TSA assistant administrator for human capital. The documents were standard forms that are sent to employees after they leave the government. The forms often list an employee's Social Security number, birth date and salary. It's unclear how many forms had that information.

2. Private Contractors Loose Hazardous Material Trucker Data on TWO laptops.

According to a letter the TSA sent to lawmakers on Oct. 12, the laptops—both of which belonged to a TSA contractor—contain names, addresses, birthdays, commercial driver's license numbers and, in some instances, Social Security numbers of the affected truckers.

3. Go back to the use of private contractors in the founding of TSA.

Those details are contained in a federal audit that calls into question $303 million of the $741 million spent to assess and hire airport passenger screeners for the newly created Transportation Security Administration after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The audit, along with interviews with people involved in the passenger-screener contract, paints a rare and detailed portrait of how officials at the fledgling agency lost control of the spending in the pell-mell rush to hire 60,000 screeners to meet a one-year congressional deadline.

The audit, performed by the Defense Contract Audit Agency at the TSA's behest, spotlights scores of expenses: $20-an-hour temporary workers billed to the government at $48 per hour, subcontractors who signed out $5,000 in cash at a time with no supporting documents, $377,273.75 in unsubstantiated long-distance phone calls, $514,201 to rent tents that flooded in a rainstorm, $4.4 million in "no show" fees for job candidates who did not appear for tests.

The audit faulted the prime contractor, NCS Pearson Inc., which was hired by the TSA to test, interview, fingerprint, medically evaluate and pre-certify the candidates. The audit said Pearson failed to properly justify costs and improperly awarded subcontracts without competitive bidding. The audit also said the company demonstrated a "lack of management or oversight of subcontractors."

One of the audit's key revelations is that a decision to move the hiring process from Pearson's 925 U.S. private assessment centers to 150 hotels and other meeting facilities added at least $343 million to the cost of the contract, according to an estimate by Pearson. The company said it was ordered to make the change by the TSA, which said it made the decision in collaboration with Pearson.

Here we find outselves on difficult ground. While the actual testing methods used cannot be disclosed, in order to find enough acceptable hirees in the part-time worker labor pool, physical requirement tests are rumored to have been eliminated. Also rumored is it's not uncommon for the hirees to enter their own personal data into the private contractor's database for their background checks, while overseen by one contractor. Undoubtably, the contractors get paid as if they enter the data.

There's a very good report on discussing private versus federal airport security by the General Accounting Office. If you want to really understand airport security though, read what is claimed is being done by TSA management, and then the next time you fly, ask the TSOs there if it's true or not. Look around and see what's happening beyond the fact that you can't take your water bottle.

There are other weak points to go after Republican mismanagement of our nations terrorism efforts. For instance, as noted in a Senate Commerce Committee by Missouri Democrat MacCaskill, there a great lapse in security at overseas repair stations for airlines in terms of background checks. There should be honest discussion about TSA's application of SSI rules to prevent any dissent or critcism escaping the agency, and also the absurd application leading to some confusion for the public. Honestly, this is one of those cases where SSI claims are bogus. International fliers may present handwritten passports, where the expiration dates and names are all entered by hand. Countless US states allow the renewal of driver's liscenses by mail, to the point where the person has considerably aged compared to their photograph. Even if states have reasons to not renew driver's id's in five year intervals, that doesn't mean that photo identification should not be undated. Photo identification, in the age of credit card and ID theft, is appropriate as a part of airport security, even though recent intensification in this area admittedly has been aimed at finding illegal immigrants.

Airline security as a way to come out on top of the Homeland Security debate between liberals and conservatives is ripe for the taking, but it's a window that won't be open for long. It should be our issue, and it can be. Reframing the debate, as Lakoff points out, gives us a real chance to show our strengths and values, instead of always being on the defensive. With our record of standing up for civil liberties to balance out a call for a renewed focus on airline security, positions us better in the public debate. Airline security is being able to quickly match names against watch lists, and see Al Gore's "Assault on Reason" if you don't understand how important that is. Six years after 9-11 and hundreds of millions of dollars later, it's not possible for the Bush Administration to do what credit card companies do all the time. It would be done if it hadn't been used as a way to make Republican war contractors rich. Airline security is bomb sniffing dogs to prevent frontal attacks on people waiting in ticket lines outside of security. Count how many you see on a busy morning the next time you fly. Airline security is the testing for explosive traces. Next time you fly, how many people are getting their heavy sneakers and boots tested? Their bookbags tested? Ask the airport screeners about their views of their jobs and what they spend their time doing. Ask for the truth and then write your senator and congressional representative.



9-11 involved strong and trained young men using small hand weapons to hijack airplanes and fundamentally change America and our politics. Yet years later, we still let warmongering neo-cons define the debate and set us up to take the blame if it happens the next time. If there is another 9-11, they plan to make us take the blame because we are weak and don't support the war in Iraq. They will trot out how many times they focused on homeland security and they will control the debate. If we let them. Homeland Security and counterterrorism at it's most basic is airport security, and it's time to sent the Republicans to remedial class.

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9-11, war on terror, homeland security, 2008 elections, liberal, moonbat, politics

Ending Poverty for the Average Federal Employee

So today let's note a rather unusual book out there in the slew of presidential hopeful pulp-novelas: Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream. The book contains only an essay by Democratic hopeful John Edwards, and the meat of the book at least isn't endless puffing about how he's going to fix everything that's wrong with you. Instead, it's a collection of essays by both liberals and conservatives, produced by the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity. These essays are scientifically based studies of the nature of poverty and both the successes and failures of recent American policy in creating a fair economy for all of us. The collection begins centered around a simple set of irrefutable statistics:

"In 2005, 37 million Americans- about 1 in 8 people- lived below the income poverty level, defined as $19,874 for a family of 4. Almost 13 million were children under 18... The income gap between the rich and poor is growing as well: in 2005 the top 20% of U.S. households received over half of all income, while the bottom 20% of households received only about 3% of total income. Wealth inequalities are also on the rise: in 2004 the top 1% of households by income held more than a third of all net worth and financial assets. Approximately 80% of stock is held by the top ten percent of wealthy households; the poorest 40% of households own less than 1% of all stocks... Over 46 million Americans (about 16% of the population) lacked health insurance coverage in 2005... over 27 million workers are employed with no health insurance."

What does a poverty statistic mean on a personal level? How accurate is this idea that passing over $19,874 will enable parents to care for two children? Heck, what about single young women working for the federal government to defend the nation against terrorism? Let's calculate the cost of living for one such employee: $9,600 Rent ($800 a month, 1 bedroom), $1,960 Food ($35 a week), $2400 Gas (1 hour commute), $740 Insurance USAA, $396 Work Parking Permit, $1,920 Retirement Savings, $1,440 Health Insurance Co-Pay, $140 Prescriptions (No Birth Control), $100 Emergency Room Co-Pay, $230 New Tires, $480 Cell Phone, $252 Internet Services, $60 Bank Fees, $370 Vet Bills for 1 Cat, $1,940 Car Repairs, $120 AAA, $60 (3 $20) Haircuts, $270 Plane ticket to see dying grandfather, $120 Contact Lenses, $180 Dentist plus x-rays, $380 Holiday Gifts (including Birthdays and Christmas). Not included: Thanksgiving Dinner, Booze, Christmas Tree, Easter Eggs, clothing of any kind, movie tickets, books or magazines, Starbucks, Halo 3, dating, make-up, cable television, laundry detergent. Yes, I need the Internet, as a college student. The cell phone serves as a stand in for a land line. Total Cost for 1 Year: $23,158.

Base Salary? $23,700. A cost of living adjustment raises the total to $27,100. After $3,523 in federal taxes and $813 in state taxes, take home pay would equal $22,764. Rumors on several job sites are that pay is $33,000 and that is not true. For those of you who are curious, the cost in salary and benefits of TSA for 2007 will cost $3.45 billion, at an approximate cost of $1.91 per passenger, and $1.65 per checked bag. The cost per passenger includes the cost of screening carry-on luggage. How interesting it would be to ask passengers how much they think it costs to screen them in terms of labor. The above recounting of expenses includes $26 in prescription co-pays for medication after needing four stitches for an on-the-job-injury, my second in as many years after surviving ten years in retail with a clean record.

Edward's book notes that "One in four people who work full-time, year round, still earn less than the amount of money needed to keep a family of four above the poverty threshold... The single parent with three children, working a full 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year, must earn $9.55 an hour to stay at the poverty line." So basically what you have here is the cold hard economic fact that a fighting the war on terror won't even allow you to provide for yourself, let alone a spouse and two children, without massive government assistance or going without health insurance. And several of my coworkers follow the later track in order to come up with money for their families, betting against the odds that all of their medical needs can be solved with extra sleep and Tylenol. Times I have required medical care in the past year? Three times with my family practice and one emergency room visit after an allergic reaction to a steroid inhaler in the middle of the night. Not that I am completely innocent, I agree, having twice had overdraft charges of $34 dollars for a total of $68 in the past year.

The Congressional Budget Office reports that between 1979 and 2000, the income of the top 1% of Americans grew 184%. Top 5th grew 70%. The real income of the bottom 5th grew only 6%. Edwards's book notes that inter generational mobility has stagnated to the point that "it would take a poor family of four with two children approximately 9 to 10 generations- over 200 years- to achieve the income of the middle-income four-person family... A son whose father earns about $16,000 a year has only a 5% chance of earning over $55,000 per year." Meanwhile, the CBO has just released two estimates of the cost of staying in Iraq. For the favored Republican scenario of continued combat operations, the estimated cost is $25 billion per year. For the favored Democrat scenario of non-combat peace-keeping operations, the estimated cost is only $10 billion per year. Both scenarios use conservative estimates on the necessity to replace equipment and armor. Some one's going to have to pay for all of this, and sorry to you war-mongers out there, but this federal employee is running in the budgetary red.

More voices are speaking up about what our money has been buying us in Iraq: Foreign Policy's Terrorism Index.

"The outcome of the war in Iraq may now rest in large part on the success or failure of the so-called surge. Beginning in February, the White House sent an additional 28,000 U.S. troops to Baghdad in an effort to quell the violence there. Securing the capital with overwhelming force is a key component of the anti-insurgency plan developed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq and the military’s foremost expert on counterinsurgency tactics. It took until June for all the U.S. forces to be put in place, and the number of American troops in Iraq is now at its highest level since 2005. But is Petraeus’s plan working?

The index’s experts don’t think so. More than half say the surge is having a negative impact on U.S. national security, up 22 percentage points from just six months ago. This sentiment was shared across party lines, with 64 percent of conservative experts saying the surge is having either a negative impact or no impact at all. When the experts were asked to grade the government’s handling of the Iraq war, the news was even worse. They gave the overall effort in Iraq an average point score of just 2.9 on a 10-point scale. The government’s public diplomacy record was the only policy that scored lower.

These negative opinions may result in part from the experts’ apparent belief that, a decade from now, the world will still be reeling from the consequences of the war. Fifty-eight percent of the index’s experts say that in 10 years’ time, Sunni-Shiite tensions in the Middle East will have dramatically increased. Thirty-five percent believe that Arab dictators will have been discouraged from reforming. Just 5 percent, on the other hand, believe that al Qaeda will be weaker, whereas only 3 percent believe Iraq will be a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. If true, the surge, or any other tactical shift for that matter, was probably already too little, too late."

Americans need to get over their love affair with movie stars and cowboys as Presidents. Certainly doesn't make the world safer, or fairer, or more democratic. As a democrat, I want a renewed commitment to the ideals of democracy, towards compassion and justice. I want to see America renewed in the beauty that democracies are able to produce, in their bustling cities and the equal allocation of riches to it's people, the wealthy and the worker. Instead of tax breaks for corporations, I want workers to have the right to show each other their paychecks without getting fired. Instead of private mercenaries used to secure oil reserves, I want trained and armored US soldiers deployed to end on-going genocide. I want to be able to travel to my job on public transportation, I want utility companies brought under control, I want spammers put out of business. And I want the American Dream for myself, to be able to put away money for a new car and use my tuition to reduce my tax-burden even though I don't itemize.

I want a President who believes in the noble endeavor that democratic government was created to bring about in the world, instead of being pledged to destroy it in the name of private profit. John Edwards saves his remarks until everyone else at his Center has been given a chance to contribute, and he makes a point of including everyone's good ideas towards creating a wonderful future for America... both conservatives and liberals. And it's a good vision, about us as a people... a way to give up terror and war, in exchange for hope and peace.

"The American people understand that no one who works full-time should live in poverty... Let us set a national goal-the elimination of poverty in America in 30 years. It will not be easy, but I believe in the unlimited power of the American people to accomplish anything we set our hearts and minds to acheive. If we do not rest until poverty is history, it will be."

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John Edwards, politics, current affairs, economics, poverty, health insurance, homeland security, war on terror, Iraq, moonbat

Going Down for the War on Terror

So today moonbat has appeared to rant about how America is loosing the war on terror. Flat out, we must be dead last. As Bush could have been dead a few days ago, when Osama Bin Laden snuck through two security checkpoints at the APEC summit in Australia. Interestingly enough, the international security community is being allowed to huffingly brush off the incident, in reality a bunch of comedians from an Aussie t.v. show "The Chaser," as proof about how "the incident fully vindicated the strength of the events security." And we, the public, seem content to let this one side, despite the fact that real terrorists, who think the same zany way as comedians do, could have easily incinerated the "leader of the capitalist world" almost six years to the anniversary of 9-11. Perhaps the next Director of National Intelligence should be selected from the writer's staff of Saturday Night Live.. as an improvement...



Elsewhere than Iraq, the real war on terror spills over into new battlegrounds, as Al-Q continues to be left relatively unmolested by the US military. White German citizens converted to Islam traveled to PAKISTAN, where they trained in camps last year run by the Islamic Jihad Union, a Central Asian group affiliated with al-Qaeda. Young white men, not Arabs or Persians or Indians or Africans, to all of you who object to airline security so much because, by the gods, you are white.

In June, the Taliban circulated a DVD among local journalists in Pakistan that purported to show a training camp graduation ceremony. Among the 250 graduates were more than a dozen white-skinned young men. One Taliban figure in the video was identified as the leader of a small group of German recruits, according to a copy of the video viewed by a Washington Post correspondent.

Wait, who are these Taliban?? Oh, they still run a whole lot of this country we supposedly have liberated from radical Islamic forces, Afghanistan, where we are now also loosing the war against international heroin. Nothing beats an Administration that can loose two wars in the same country at the same time.

Germany's arrests arrive hard on the heels of the arrests of an unrelated Islamic terrorist cell in Denmark. Two isolated cells, both of which had acquired materials to begin cooking explosives. Cheery.

The Muslims arrested ranged from 19 to 29 years old. They came from Afghan, Pakistani, Somali and Turkish backgrounds and six were Danish citizens, Scharf said.

Mmmm... why aren't they Iraqi, do you suppose? No Iranians?

Moonbat lies awake at night often thinking about terrorism. No big surprise considering that unlike a lot of hot-air baffoons, her job entails preventing them from killing innocent Americans should all those intelligence and police operatives fail to discover and stop them in time. But the time has passed for sleepless nights. The time has come for laughter. The time of employing comedians in the ranks of our intelligence agencies, and in our congressional committees has arrived. Comedians understand the mind of a terrorist. Obviously, we can't rely on the Republicans anymore. The life of our President is clearly at stake.

Moonbat Takes On Idiot Private Security Force

So today found moonbat off to do her volunteer work at her favorite Museum, all up in her girlie clothes and girlie heels. Of course, just beyond the front door lies the private security force and their little amateur screening area, which impresses a real Transportation Security Officer not in the least bit. One key difference between TSA and this gaggle of guards, is that unlike an airport there is no same-gender screening, which means that they have a group of 30-40 year old men waiting around to screen women who set off the alarm because they were high heels. As moonbat prefers and has done for the past two years, she yanked hers off and tossed them on the x-ray belt. One of the male officers immediately jumped forward and insisted that she had to wear them through the walk-through metal detector.

Oh yeah? There might be glass. Really? Now, if all passengers who fly on airplanes are required to remove their shoes to pass through airport security at the decision of the Department of Homeland Security, one can reasonably conclude that there are no realistic legal or saftey concerns, especially since liability rests with the Museum and not the security force. So why the eager insistance? Well... moonbat could trip. What, into your waiting arms? So, moonbat insists on a supervisor, and after it becomes apparent that no one else will be allowed to enter until one is summoned, behold, when it was insisted that none were in the building, one can be found. After listening to the presented case, and looking at the growing line of scowling visitors, the supervisor relents.

Moonbat prances shoe-free through the walk-through metal detector. She slings her now x-rayed purse up onto her shoulder and begins to put on her heels. Supervisor insists that she come with him because he is going to have to file an incident report about her behavior, so that her supervisor can councel her on cooperating with security in the future. Sure. Glad to put things on paper. Not a problem. Moonbat reaches for her other heel.

Oh no, that won't do. Even though so many concerns were sighted to prevent moonbat from removing her heels for screening, it suddenly is okay for her to walk through the museum in bare feet.... because the supervisor seizes moonbat via her purse and attempt to haul her physically across the museum whilst she puts her other heel back on her foot. Oh now it was on. A good measure of steel in "take your hands off me" and he let go, all full of apologies, and made a quick retreat to his office. Another guard waddled up and with almost 300 lbs of authority told me there was no need to have an "attitude" and took down moonbat's information on a napkin. Moonbat found great amusement in forcing a choice between allowed to use her cell phone in the security area to listen to her voicemail (which even TSA allows) and being able to give the extention of her boss. Hah! So the guard had to waddle back off to look up the correct number. Now of course, for moonbat's chance to file a grievance. Only after twice insisting that complaint forms be provided for her, were such forms produced, and she was assured she could fill them out at her station and drop them off on her way out of the Museum later. Likely there was some hope moonbat would cool off and forget. Fat chance!!

Flew through the paperwork, scanned off a copy for her dear readers and also for the head cheese, and pranced right back down to drop them off. Of course, the real sticker is that this will likely result in absolutely no discipline measures against the guard, or any productive change in screening policies, like same gender or the right to remove your heels. Though people might love to whine and complain about the security screening procedures for airports done by TSA, few consider the alternatives of using private security firms to whom politicians have to curry favor in order to get campaign contributions. If Lockheed Martin did airport screening, you can be assured that your local Congressmen could never afford to investigate any real offense that occurred... but since it's all in house, it's safe to wack away at any infraction on the part of TSA. So for all those of you who like to complain that you got screened because the wire in your bra set off the walk-through metal detector, imagine instead of a female screener, an eager 30-year-old and 6 ft tall slobering hulk. And oh, yes, moonbat always wears her Victoria Secret... even today. Cheers!!

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liberal, democrat, washington DC, security, privatization, big government, congress, homeland security, TSA, moonbat

Iraq Makes the Case for Big Government

So employee appreciation day brought a letter from the head cheese lauding how much we at TSA are "appreciated"... and an increase in employee parking fees with less than a week before the increase goes into effect by automatic withdrawal. More money for a private contractor for whom works a wonderful driver who litterally had the nerve to squash me with the bus door because we weren't loading fast enough. And more part-time employees should swell our ranks soon and take away our weekend hours, just to make us even more enthusiastic about defending the nation from terrorism. For those of you outside of the retail world, from which our cheese takes inspiration, Wal-Mart's brilliant innovation means you hire tons of people part-time, which means if you need them for a little extra, you still don't pay overtime. And also of course, they pay more and you pay less for their benefits. Of course, people who don't get hired full-time are the dregs of the barrel, tend not to show up for work, apply themselves, take their oath as a federal employee seriously, and oh... quit!!

Where's the money? Oh the front page of the WaPost covered how Bush shelled out 548 million over the past three years to two British private mercenary companies to protect the Army Corp of Engineers in Iraq. $200 million over budget!! The average payout per merc per month under these contracts has been $15,000. More than twice what any of the Iraq veterans I work with got paid when they were over there for far more dangerous work. The military claims that this indicates they are saving money, and that the plan to save even more money by consolidating two of the current Green Zone contracts into one, reducing the monthly cost from $18 million to $11 million. One of the companies lost in the first round of bidding and has twice held up the contract award (and the savings) by filing protest lawsuits against the government (costing more money just for the suit, and also because the DoD had to re-eliminate that company). Where are the Republicans who are supposed to be out howling that these people are aiding and abetting the enemy? Spending campaign contributions?

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported earlier this month that the Defense Dept. has recovered about $2 billion since 2001 from all outside contractors and government procurement officials accused of dishonesty or mismanagement, but the GAO didn't isolate those working in Iraq.


Is your guess that comes curtosy of DailyKos? Oh no- that's BusinessWeek. A year ago. Best known for the deaths of four of it's wayward employees in Fallujah, Blackwater employes about 1,000 in Iraq for $800 million in government contracts. Do 1,000 soldiers cost $800 million? $800 million of your taxpayer dollars of course, as Iraq oil production remains below pre-2003 invasion levels. To buy what, exactly?

Months ago, Bush's administration initiated and then ceased a failed attempt to increase border security by merely requiring everyone who flies into the country to have a valid passport. The core of the administration's failure remains that it created an unfunded mandate, by coming up with a simple idea and then refusing to hire the needed government employees. Imagine what all that fraud would have bought in military terms for our troops in Iraq. Just look to Bush's latest immigration idea, unfunded soundbite mandates to be paid for by small businesses, at least until they figure out that none of it comes with oh... only border agents to enfore the new rules. Who ah.. stay on the border. Get the picture? Perhaps key to a great deal of this administration's failures has been the overwhelming value it places on campaign contributors and the golden calf of small government, and how much it undervalues those patriots who raise their hand and swear to sweat for their country for peanuts.

Lessons of the Matrix for "the War on Terror"

So today moonbat shall expound on how Osama bin Laden uses The Matrix (1999) to plot his global jihad and recruit otherwise luckless young people to go blow themselves to pieces in foreign countries. You see, it's one thing to declare war on the United States, fast food and the Jerry Springer Show, and quite another to have a clue. Now, OBL got schooled in the usual Saudi customs and road construction, yet neither provide a road map for how to organize a global network of terror without potential recruits laughing in your face and going back to the Arab version of moonshine. And then OBL got his lucky break: a movie came out in America. A movie about a young man waking up to the corrupt system that keeps his true nature a prisoner and the soulless machines whose power must be challenged and whose citadels can be destroyed. That evil liberal Hollywood; don't those directors ever think about how their movies could be emboldening the enemy? So OBL hops on Ebay and snags a pirated copy from a Chinese seller, leaves some positive feedback and an exhortation to read the Koran, and throws a bag of black market Pop-Secret popcorn in the microwave. And Morpheus expounds to him all the secrets of how to recruit idiot young men:

The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it....What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad... What is the Matrix? Control.

If there's anything young people want it's to be the ones in control, to be outside the system, to be above the powers that be. And all that Morpheus tells Neo, all that he promises Neo he will become if he swallows the Red Pill, that my dear readers, that's what OBL tells his recruits into Al-Q. Step outside the system, your actions are for a higher cause, accept no boundaries and no limitations, you will find glory. Of course, not everyone can be the chosen one, even if you tell everyone that they will be the chosen one. Running a terrorist cell in a Western Country, staying under the radar, and reaching your target do take at least a few braincells, and not all your "Neos" have enough to suffice? So you have to get rid of them, and what better form of euthanasia than someone else's occupation? Like... an occupation by a certain Western Country in an Arab land. Iraq. You hardly need persuade your not-quite graduates to the worthiness of their target, since from a distance everything American looks the same.

Moonbat found cause to desire pills for several hours herself today, listening to the debate on the floor of the House in Congress. Republicans denied funding for the troops, of course. Republican after Republican took to the floor, not to admit that 4 previous surges have failed, not to admit that they spent years hiding the total cost of the Iraq War in six other supplemental funding bills, but to insist they were right about investing in an endless war for the mere sake that such a pursuit is fundamental to being American. Meanwhile, the total cost of the Iraq War soon shall surpass $500 billion. Calculate out how many millions and hour that is. And how much did moonbat contribute in taxes for 2007? $3,900. Did moonbat literally pay for a nanosecond of our occupation in Iraq? For the dry erase markers used by defense contractors to teach Iraqi Security Forces to yell "Drop your weapons!!" .. in English? If I insist I would rather have paid for something besides dry erase, of course, that would be emboldening the enemy. Not that they don't laugh about dry erase markers already...

Back to the Matrix. So OBL got the point clean off, that the heart of the movement should have an ethereal city away from the war with the "West" and should strike by slipping in and out of the false world, removing recruits and eliminating targets. Show recruits that the false world can be used to defeat it's own masters, and that by having secret knowledge and faith, an individual could become stronger than the weapons of war, and transcend them, even if only in death. The glamorous image of the warrior that the villains fail to see, touch or stop, destroying even those central artifices of power which reason holds as impenetrable. Shut down the system built to ignore you and your anger at it, again and again and again.

Of course "Zion" is not Iraq. The point of having a "Zion" is so that no matter where you fight you cannot be defeated, your source of fighters will not be lost, your flag is never in jeopardy. Yet out on that House floor, the Republican Party tried to cling to a world without computers, a world without cellphones, a world without globalization. A world where war is a seige of a castle, or a capital, or a country. And as always, appearances for appearances sake. The pure wish that if everything looks good, then everything is good. That the presence of American troops on every street corner in Iraq stops training camps from being set up in Pakistan-when it does not. That the existence of the Green Zone prevents Islamic extremists from a hostile takeover of other countries- when it did not. Republicans hiss and spit over Beruit and Somalia, and neglect to mention that when al-Q assisted the radical Islamic takeover of Somalia last year... the Republicans left that to Ethiopia. Oh yes, but we can't have a second Somalia, they plead. Don't they mean a third?

So long as we humor Bush and his elephant friends by calling this a "war on terror," the longer we remain caught in that loosing equation of energy expenditures that Morphous demonstrated to Neo: takes twice as much energy to swing and miss, as it does to swing and hit. No matter how many "Al-Qaeda operatives" go down in Iraq, the West always misses Al-Q. Anytime Al-Q carries out a terrorist attack on a Western target, they strike us. How can they loose? As long as you can't hit Morpheus, and he can hit you, he always wins. And instead of seeing this, the Republicans lower their heads and flail away at a target that remains always out of reach, only to get blind-sided time and again. Four other times, four other surges, all promised to work. Meanwhile, the monstrous appeal of being at war against an evil enemy keeps debate over not getting our fanny whomped time and again constrained to the classical idea of war: battlefields, generals, tanks, soldiers. But like Morpheus, OBL pursues targets not in the "desert of the real," but in the false cities of the Matrix, in the West.



Democrats like the shine of the term "war on terror," that much is true. Obama and Clinton remain on very romantic terms with GWOT, and so far, only Edwards perceives the relationship might be a little.. limiting. "I also think it suggests that there's a fixed enemy that we can defeat with just a military campaign. I just don't think that's true." Not true in Britain, where investigative work uncovered and stopped a 2003 Al-Q bombing plot and just netted 5 life imprisonments. No weapons of mass destruction were found, however, just plant food. Such a point finds itself hard to be understood. Democrats everywhere who seek to broaden efforts to combat international terrorist networks will be accused of trying to abandon the use of military force and being irresponsible. And people do understand what our "war on terror" means; it's something for which no one has to be responsible. A broad catch-phrase for whatever your chosen politician advocates, from sound environmental policies to the highway robbery that gets itself called cost-plus defense contracting. Want funding? It's for the "war on terror." Don't support tax cuts for the rich? By golly- you must be one of those terrorists!!

War remains the ultimate defense, even ones of last resort and even pre-emptive ones. You find war an appealing choice because you were lazy or too proud to deal with the five thousand things that led up to the war itself. You never will hear conservatives admit they should have listened when liberal American call for intervention in Afghanistan and the ousting of the Taliban... in 1997. Never. You will hear continued Republican refusal to intervene in Darfur (including Bush's "I really mean I might think about doing something about you" speech to Sudan) used by the Republicans to support as many surges as it takes to surpress an insurgency in a country where everyone and his brother has a weapons cache. From old Iraqi Army munitions depos. Which Bush and his cronies failed to secure. Too busy printing up that "Mission Accomplished" banner, eh? As long as we see this only as a war, all we focus on as a nation is the art of war. Not homeland security, not airline security, not international security. Not the black market, not passports and visas, not how much plant food Muhammad is buying on Aisle 5. Not of course, all the future Timothy McVeighs out there either. But I digress.

Giuliani's idea that a Democratic President would mean a return to pre-9/11 mentalities on the reach of global jihad is more than "plain wrong" as Edwards replied, it's plain hysteria. Guiliani remains the kind of politician who believes there are no cockroaches if you stamp on all the ones you see. That sort of mentality leads to the idea that if you make war on the Al-Qaeda network you can see, there is no other network in the world. While the U.S. made war on Al-Q in Afghanistan, and later after the fall of Saddam and the entry of Grand Viceroy Bremer, in Iraq, Al-Qaeda merrily trained the bombers of the "Operation Crevice" intercepted 2003 plot and the successful 2005 "7/7" bombing of our allies, in London. Two years of occupying Iraq failed to prevent, by some form of magic, the ability of Al-Qaeda to target and strike a Western City. Perhaps that is why the Republican Party stood up on the floor of Congress today and declared that "Europe was lost."

Moonbat gets it. Iraq we can't loose, but our Allies can fall to the enemy. What does a dusty little desert country have that our time-honored and true Allies don't? Oh wait, we didn't go into Iraq for oil. So it must be goat meat!!



Whatever we are there for, the pentagon has made a few moves to keep America from ever ever knowing. Opinions about
the surge perhaps:

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Based on what I read and the soldiers with whom I communicate, it's my view that military personnel in Iraq are deeply divided over whether the "surge" will work. There seems to be far more support among officers, even junior officers, than there is among enlisted personnel. That may well be because enlisted personnel are often the ones at the greatest risk over there because they are the ones running convoys, going on patrols, etc. They also are able to see how Iraqis on the street level relate to them and whether the presence of additional U.S. forces is changing Iraqi attitudes.

The reporter in question would be the author of "Imperial Life in the Emerald City." Reporters may soon be our only source of info out of Iraq, whatever your stripe, besides the rare Iraqi blogger. On April 19th the U.S. Army issued a directive prohibiting all unauthorized blogging or personal e-mail, including one imagines, anything criticizing your CO or anything NC-17 for the wife.

Army Regulation 530--1: Operations Security (OPSEC) (.pdf) restricts more than just blogs, however. Previous editions of the rules asked Army personnel to "consult with their immediate supervisor" before posting a document "that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum." The new version, in contrast, requires "an OPSEC review prior to publishing" anything -- from "web log (blog) postings" to comments on Internet message boards, from resumes to letters home.

No resumes? No Monster.com? A ploy to increase retention, by limiting job-hunting? Not all bloggers always went unscathed before, though now anyone seems fair game for telling the truth. Of course, while this may be the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging, there's little talk about this "emboldening the enemy." Only that it would cut down on PR for the U.S. military, keep the real glory of war and the success stories from getting through the MSM and countering the bleak accounts given by the anti-war crowd of misery and death. Of course, all of OBL's little Neos won't be fooled into thinking that just because they've gone silent, there's been a withdrawal of the American military....

Neo: I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

Technorati Tags:
Bush, Iraq, troop surge, war, war on terror, global jihad, matrix, osama bin laden, afghanistan, homeland security

'Air Traffickers' Can Carry Cocaine, Just No Guns

So today's gridlock giggle comes via a White House Press Conference where Bush floated a new anti-terrorism initiative that should please just about everybody. Passengers no longer will be screened getting onto airlines, only drug traffickers. As long as the drug traffickers don't have any weapons on them and submit to the inconvienence of a search, they can bring as much contraband as they can pack into the regulation size carry-on. Drug traffickers in turn promise to no longer use the boarder between Mexico and the real America, tropping across the lawns and flower beds of all the citizens in those border states. Together, we all is safer when we all is safer. Bush really means this:

"We do everything we can here at the homeland to protect us. That's why I've got a Homeland Security Department. That's why we are inconveniencing air traffickers, to make sure nobody is carrying weapons on airplanes. "

Bush also confesses that he's apparently lost $70 billion in the White House, which should make for a really great egg hunt this year. Said money was the bridge fund for the Iraq War passed by Congress last fall, which contained more than enough money for operations for the surge. Since Bush lost the money, and the last-quarter of the Pentagon's fiscal budget has equally vanished into thin air, that's the real reason we need that emergency supplimental funding in the first place. So with a whole lot of money still "available" on the books, no wonder Congress went home to spend Easter with their families and left Bush standing there with his hand held out like a dork. Might be that or the fact that the Republican-led Congress of 2006 took till June last year to approve the last 'emergency' supplimental funding bill. So if Democrats don't do it two months faster they are lazy pack-mules??

Truth is, Democrats are in fact lazy when you measure 2007 vintage pork with what the Republicans call PORK. The aforementioned 2006 'emergency' supplemental bill: $20 billion in Gulf Coast Hurricane Recovery, $2.3 billion for bird-flu, $2 billion to chase lettuce-pickers, and $500 million for the agri-industry. The 2005 vintage: $104 million for watershed projects (mostly Utah), $70 million to former Soviet satellites struggling to be democratic over a decade later, and a measly $24 million for the Forest Service. The real gossip to be had concerns Bush's charge that Pelosi bought votes: the $3.4 billion in the 2007 bill got inserted long before timetables and benchmarks. Democrats are apparently so lazy that people decide what their votes are going to be bought with before the Democrats figure out they need to buy votes. Hilarious. Meanwhile having gone from tens of billions in pork to a mere few billions, Pelosi has once again shown Congress how to cut a fine looking figure. Give her a show on BRAVO.

Technorati Tags:
Bush, Iraq, Congress, security, homeland security, war on terror, politics, immigration, liberal, democratic party

The Case Against the Flying American Public

So today USAToday editorialized on the Case of the Flying Imams who were tossed from US Airways Flight 300 after a few passengers and flight attendants decided to play FBI Profilers. The paper takes the position that the lawsuit was expected though not a case of actual discrimination, but highlights that it lists as defendants the actual airline employees and passengers who reported them for "suspicious behavior." The imams in question cooperated fully and identified themselves to authorities, left the plane peacefully, submitted to being lined up on the runway and being sniffed by a police dog, being detained in cells and interrogated by the FBI. And then they were completely cleared by the actual airport security apparatus. The authorities determined there was no cause for alarm. They returned to the airline the next day so they could fly home and the airline refused to rebook them on another flight. Since screaming or calling the ticket agent out to the parking lot for a duel with rapiers is no longer acceptable in civilized society, they sued. An opportunity for the airline to gracefully and responsibly make amends came and went, and now redress will be pursued in the courts of law.




And the courts of public opinion of course. The Police Reports are available via Pajamas Media. Also relayed is a letter from "Pauline," a woman who claims to have been aboard the flight and witness some of the events, and a subsequent interview of her by Pajamas Media. Although repeated claims are voiced that either the imams intended to hijack the plane (using seat extenders of all things) or they were doing a publicity stunt in order to weaken airport security, a repeated lack of confidence in our homeland security apparatus is expressed. Even though the airline and the FBI are held up as under attack from the imams, "Pauline" sleeps elsewhere even though that same homeland security apparatus cleared the imams of being a real threat. Pajamas Media also reported aspects of the police reports different that as actually published, changing the opinions of some of the airline employees from describing the PAX Pauline claims to have seen ask for a seat extender to as "was heavier" than the PAX in first class who also requested one, to "too thin." Pauline's letter also contains claims which stand counter to the witness statements within the police reports presented by Pajamas Media.

Also highlighted are several claims of what should suffice for "suspicious behavior" under which the American flying public should scrutinize their fellow passengers: making a long phone call, asking for a seat extender, arriving as a group but sitting apart, arriving as a group but trying to sit together, speaking a foreign language, praying in another language, not having a pleasing gaze, being unfriendly and not talking to people, being friendly and talking to people, cooperating with the FBI, leaving your seat during a delay the pilot announced was due to incomplete paperwork. Who is not guilty of a single one of these offenses? Who could modify themselves to meet all of these requirements so they are as Pauline would insist we all be "sensitive" to the delicate nerves of their fellow passengers?

The interesting alterations and highlights present themselves as a horrible indictment of the general intelligence and susceptibility to hysteria of con-blogs, Americans, and the flying public. The alteration of the flight attendants words repeated themselves onwards, along with a curious use of the level of baggage carried or checked by the imams. Con-blogs repeat with zest that the police reports indicate that 5 of the imams carried their luggage aboard as a vast amount of people concerned that the airline will loose their luggage do, and that "only one" imam checked his bag. This is presented as something which qualifies as "suspicious behavior" when 4 of the 5 9-11 hijackers checked bags on American Airlines Flight 11 and all 5 9-11 hijackers had checked bags on American Airlines Flight 77. All of these bags were selected and screened under CAPPS 1.

Pajamas Media's report lists the author Richard Miniter as their Washington Editor, but fails to note that it was published 2 days previous as an op-ed in the NewYorkPost, which lists Miniter as a best-selling author and fellow at the Hudson Institute. Although the op-ed got polished in it's second "printing" there's no mistake it's an unaccredited reprint. Richard Miniter worked himself into a tiff that the MSM found nothing more titillating in the story, so he fished up a retired D.C. police detective to look over the police reports and comment. This "retired detective" notes that there are discrepancies between witness accounts and the actual accounts of the police officers that a trial attorney would "have a field day with." However, the retired detective was incorrect in stating that Officer Huddlemeyer was wrong that passengers were rebooked for later flights; CNN interviewed two passengers in the terminal who chose to do so. Officer Windgate was correct in his turn that the plane did take off for Pheonix after the bomb-sniffing dog checked the plane and the passengers were rescreened, as some but not all passengers chose that option. Both were correct. One issue raised was that the witness statements weren't typed and signed. I've been assaulted twice in that detective's city by strangers in public and the responding police has never typed my statement for me to sign. Please. Completely lost on the detective was that the police statements aren't highly detailed after taking the imams into custody because the interrogations were conducted by the FBI with the police only observing. The detective rattles off a laundry list of questions he (or Miniter) feels the cops should have asked about their supposed suspicious behavior, which sports teams and company teams going do presentations in other cities do every single day.

Of course, PJ stands as civilized misinformation when compared to the readers of Free Republic who openly advocate murder as the acceptable response to discovering their is a Muslim passenger on one's flight. They also denounce the imams as trying to destroy homeland security and in the next breath denounce the inconvenience of homeland security. No pleasing some people. Miniter's op-ed makes good fuel for other who advance the idea they might have been attempting a hijacking. However, the vast misinformation of some people remains the real concern; just a convergence of mistakes or deliberate? Misinformation: all six requested seat belt extensions. Only two requested them. Conservative fascination with what amounts to less of a threat that the average skull-and-crossbones style male belt begs to a motivation based on something other than a fear of the actual belts.



In a claim by US Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader to the Associated Press that "police were called after the captain and airport security workers asked the men to leave the plane and the men refused," the Imam's lawsuit gains validity in it's claim to discriminatory treatment by the airline, as that event never occurred. The police state in their report that "all parties left the plane cooperatively." CNN provides a link to a video clip where a female passenger relates that she never heard or saw them refuse to leave the plane, and the only thing suspicious she saw was one of them wearing sunglasses the whole time- not realizing of course that he was blind. So all blind people are terrorists, eh? Or people who wear sunglasses inside? That would include a lot of young men attempting to be beach cool. Yeah. Onward. Imam Mohamed Ibrahim "questioned" by a witness who set out to prove that Imam was a terrorist because he had a Muslim name on his boarding pass made it a point to speak in public that he felt compassion for the man who had accused him, and that his attempt to explain he sought to live his religion as a whole life were misconstrued as advocating violence. None of that's making the rounds, of course.



In the above photo: blind Imam, 2nd from left. Scary looking??

Miniter's post gets echoed: incorrectly claiming that the imans boarded together, worried that two seat extenders meant they were going to hijack the plane, and a passenger who happened to know "Arabic" translated the words of the economy class passengers as mentioning "bin Laden" and condemning America for "killing Saddam." Those two phrases in Miniter's op-ed were incorrectly attributed to a passenger who whispered them to a flight attendant. But if you look at the police reports, the note writer MDM is the same witness who in the first statement in PJ's pdf file states that she overheard that being said by the imams in the boarding area, before they got on the flight. MDM does not whisper them to a flight attendant but tells them to the first police to respond to the scene, who state that they boarded the plane to speak to the note writer but not the imams. Miniter's misinformation (or perhaps he would like it to be called "disinformation?") is oft repeated. There's a concerted effort being made to insist that the imams weren't removed because of the note of just one passenger. However, the police report states just that. U.S. Airways Robby Taylor Davis told the responding officers that they were "going to deny flight service due to their suspicious activity that another passenger witnessed prior to boarding the flight...A note written by the reporting party was brought to the Captain of the aircraft." The largest part of misinformation being bandied about by the con-blogs: the existence of a passenger who spoke Arabic who translated things the passengers said on the plane for the flight attendants. No passenger who spoke Arabic was present, and the remarks relayed were done by MDM and were purportedly heard (only by her and not by the gate attendant or the deadheading flight attendant who also saw the imams in the boarding area). Another spin to that particular piece is that MDM engaged the imams in conversation previous to boarding, which appears to be mismatching MDM with another passenger, who identified employment as "self clergy" to whom Imam Mohamed Ibrahim spoke. "Self clergy" would be the passenger who decided to strike up a conversation with Ibrahim to entice out of the Imam verbal evidence the Muslim was a terrorist.

Investor's Business Daily demonstrates why the Imams in fact do have a case, taking disinformation for their editorial on the incident from the statements of US Airways Spokeswoman Andrea Rader. They also repeat the (mistaken) claim that the men were forcibly removed from the flight, and pay undue attention to the request for seat belt extensions. The editorial gives the implication that to speak any Arabic language on an airplane stands as sufficient for the charge of "suspicious behavior" and then goes on to imply that all Imams are by virtue of their place in Islamic society, prone to repeat the crimes of a few the editorial lists. (As if all Catholic priests are prone to molesting young boys because a few have been convicted for doing so.) The airport itself ensnares itself through the words of Patrick Hogan, who chooses to accuse the Imams of disruptive and antagonistic behavior based on the witness statement of the boarding area agent, even though it stands countered by the witness statement of the deadheading flight attendant who did not find their behavior "unusual" and does not remark that they were ever shouting or loud. Blatant discrimination isn't usually hard to identify when you hear or see it.

These accusations and further misinformation were then repeated in further coverage by con-blogs. As further evidence, although the same con-blogger insists that at the same time it didn't matter how they ended up sitting where they were, they were guilty of causing alarm by where they sat. However, one passenger was bumped to first class because he was in a preferred passenger program with US Airways. They requested to the boarding agent if they could sit together, but the flight was too crowded to honor their request. The seats are assigned at the time the tickets are purchased, and the only Imam who changed seats politely asked a passenger between him and the blind Imam if they could trade so he could assist his friend. Hardly sinister when the truth is out there, so that's likely why it's squashed in the "reporting" around the web. Only one Imam left his seat during the delay, to look in on the blind Imam and the other Imams in the rear of the aircraft. Only two Imams asked for seat extensions, one of which was secured by the flight attendant who brought it to him. The seat extensions were not as claimed "placed on the floor for all to see, brandished as potential weapons or restraints." The only seat extension found on the floor was that of one of the first class passengers (290 lbs) and it was found after the individual had unbuckled and left the airplane at the request of the police. Well of course, you would have to unbuckle yourself to get out of the airplane... but realizing that takes brains. The accusation that they refused to depart the plane- also repeated again, despite the fact that the police refute that in their own reports.




US Airways admits denying tickets to the Imams the following day was a mistake. The Imams' case against them remains fairly solid based on what the airline chose to do following the actual removal of the Imams from the aircraft. US Airways will be hard pressed to justify a defense that explains they developed the behaviors that lead them to defame the Imams in the national press with inaccurate statements of the event. The authorities were summoned to remove the Imams based on the single note of MDM. Neither the boarding agent or the deadheading flight attendant thought they beheld suspicious activity warranting that they should notify the authorities until after the police had arrived, thus excluding them from contributing to the cause of the authorities being summoned. The witness statement of the other passenger was not brought to the authorities until after the Imams had been removed. In this case, the uninformed paranoia of one passenger did result in this unfortunate and costly incident, and that the airline needs to conduct internal reviews. US Airways faces defending it's precedent in denying tickets to passengers falsely identified as passengers and then cleared by the FBI. No hope for the airline.

After all of this, moonbat will finally get to the point. If you make an accusation, it's the American thing to stand by your words. I don't mean anyone who looked at the Imams funny. I mean those two passengers who chose to give witness statements. Either you have given your honest word and have nothing to fear, or you broke one of the Ten Commandments, the one where you don't give false testimony against thy neighbor. I'm curious at all the hoopla that if those who give witness statements and are honest, won't give them if they have to be named in public and could be called to account if they have defamed someone. Slander and libel are crimes in this country, and nothing should be a shield for illegality. Something in shielding witnesses from accountability breeds cowardice, encourages stabs in the back and whispers in the darkness, when justice should be about the searing light of day. After much consideration, yes, the judge should allow the Imams to name in their suit all those who choose to issue witness statements to answer for the charge of defamation. Here's why.

Moonbat is fed up with the flying American public. The ones who think they can spot terrorists and also think their cell phones aren't metal once they turn them off. And she doesn't mean the laughable, she means the petty and ignorant like... so a flustered male passenger pipes up about a crazy looking Muslim woman, speaking Arabic, darting between the lines, who needed to be "taken care of" as she was likely a terrorist. Someone had to do something. He was in front of me, she behind a few people, so I pulled out to the side to "find" my missing pass and get to take a look at her. Yes, a woman in a headscarf, with elegant and expensive jewelry, chasing three very wired children while trying to get her bags and stroller up into the machine, while a sea of men pretended they could not see her. Not Arabic, but black. And she was speaking.... french. Gracious and sweet, she took my hands and babbled something that sounded just lovely after I lifted her things up for her. I have no idea what she said, but her gratitude was clear enough. As for the idiot male: seek and ye shall find. Yeah mister, you can shut the frak up.

islam homeland security war on terror politics moonbat

Has Al-Qaeda Jumped the Shark?

So WaPost threw out an interesting expose on the war on terror: do we all buy the mantra of the Bush Administration that all aspects of every citizen's life should be filtered through the question of "does this encourage the bad guys?" We now know that OBL's father traveled to America and returned home with a deep disgust over our immorality... because of suburban lawns. Does this excuse me from all counterinsurgency tactics against dandelions? Are lawns now to be considered anti-American? Or a patriotic duty not well understood by urban liberal Democrats? Seriously. Aptly noted is that FDR, on entering America into WWII, extolled to the public that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." And the summers of the odd numbered year.

Even my conservative coworkers blinked at me today when I broached the issue at lunch. What's with odd years? 2001. 2003. 2005. Now it's 2007. 2001. What happened those other years? You're kidding. We haven't experienced a terrorist attack since.... Madrid. London. Those Al-Qaeda bombings. Oh. Not here. Our allies, yeah. Them. Europe has too many Muslims now, so they can't be our allies. Interesting. I'm just saying. So... you think there is some kind of a pattern? Three odd years in a row. Major attack on a Western City. So.. if 2007 passes by and there isn't one... has Al-Qaeda jumped the shark?

I'll give them credit; no one asked me what "jumped the shark" meant. What will it mean if there is no major attack on a Western City this summer? British investigations prove that terrorist cells develop inside their target drawn from individuals recruited at training camps held away from major combat. "Operation Crevice" drew itself from terrorist camps in Pakistan, a country Bush has yet failed to invade, and which appears a bit lower on that lucky list than Iran. British evidence given at trial links the "Crevice" bombers with conventional ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and not a Weapon of Mass Destruction. Crevice bombers also met several times with bomber of the successful 7/7 plot, whose connections were not investigated due to a lack of funding and manpower. Of course, if one has to choose between soldiers in Iraq and police hunting actual terrorist cells in a Western City... well, Al-Qaeda must be defeated in Iraq or they will follow us home! No of course, to any expensive Republican ski-lodges in the Rocky Mountains, just the cities of liberals.

Dick Cheney lectured in Florida (smell 2008 campaign work?) 3/24/07:

"The most common myth is that Iraq has nothing to do with the global war on terror. Opponents of our military action there have called Iraq a diversion from the real conflict, a distraction from the business of fighting and defeating bin Laden and al Qaeda."

Cheney goes on at length to quote OBL propaganda. Truth is, few and far between are the Americans (outside of the anti-all-war protesters) who treat bombings in Baghdad that kill hundreds the way we would treat a similar bombing in a Western City, where we would plaster the site with flowers and candles and teddy bears. How many teddy bears end up outside of the Iraqi Embassy following a suicide bombing in some random dusty town on the Eurphrates? When we are honest, we admit this. When Al-Aaeda plots to incinerate Britons with plant food, they understand this. The global war on terror exists because the global jihad exists, whose sole pursuit is to strike at Western targets. And nothing is more West than the West. Despite the Taliban being routed, and the invasion of Iraq, the formation and execution of the terrorist cell proved enduring, and exportable to the Muslim fighters at war with Mother Russia. Iraq remains one square on the giant checkerboard, and not the only one that makes kings.

"The second myth is the most transparent -- and that is the notion that one can support the troops without giving them the tools and reinforcements they need to carry out their mission."

I like Petraeus. Truth. I supported a vote of no confidence in Bush's troop surge plan. That plan was not Petraeus' as Bush began it before Petraeus was confirmed, something that Cheney selectively avoids. Liberals of course were right, the plan was faulty which Bush proved when he had to send reinforcements for his reinforcements just this month. Petraeus' real COIN operation would have required more soldiers. Enough more to make Bush's surge look like a couple of cops in a squad car. What does happen when a bad war happens to a good general?

Congress does, of course, play a critical role in the defense of the nation and the conduct of this war. That role is defined and limited by the Constitution -- after all, the military answers to one commander-in-chief in the White House, not to 535 commanders-in-chief on Capitol Hill. (Applause.) If they really support the troops, then we should take them at their word and expect them to meet the needs of our military on time, in full, and with no strings attached. (Applause.)

Cheney avoids scolding the dethroned Republican Congress of 2006 for failing to provide adequate funding last year for the troops, making this supplemental necessary in the first place. The vast majority of these funds aren't for the troops being surged, but for more normal combat or military operations which should have been already provided for in full. Cheney also seems not to be a big fan of the Constitution, if he thinks that Congress is limited as he implies above, to merely writing blank checks. How can the audience trust Cheney and Bush to spread democracy abroad when they prefer a lack of democracy at home?

There is a third myth about the war on terror, and this is one that is perhaps the most dangerous. Some apparently believe that getting out of Iraq before the job is done will strengthen America's hand in the fight against the terrorists. This myth is dangerous because it represents a complete validation of the al Qaeda strategy. The terrorists do not expect to be able to beat us in a stand-up fight. They never have, and they're not likely to try. The only way they can win is if we lose our nerve and abandon the mission -- and the terrorists do believe that they can force that outcome. Time after time, they have predicted that the American people do not have the stomach for a long-term fight. They've cited the cases of Beirut in the '80s and Somalia in the '90s. These examples, they believe, show that we are weak and decadent, and that if we're hit hard enough, we'll pack it in and retreat. The result would be even greater danger for the United States, because if the terrorists conclude that attacks will change the behavior of a nation, they will attack that nation again and again. And believing they can break our will, they'll become more audacious in their tactics, ever more determined to strike and kill our citizens, and ever more bold in their ambitions of conquest and empire.

Cheney and his fanclub have amnesia. We won the Cold War, the last long great struggle against an intractable foe, the only adequate comparison. Cheney also fails to mention the other side of the Beruit story.. which would be the French. The French also suffered a bombing a few days after the U.S. and they retaliated... against Iran, with an airstrike. But the French are still wussies. That's public opinion for ya. Depresses me that not only does Cheney expect people to be impressed by this argument, so many people have such undeveloped brains that they are unable to appreciate the effect of spin. Some people will say anything, and that includes Islamofacists. And some people will believe anything. Just look what the National Inquirer can publish. Iraq is not all that important to Al-Qaeda. There will always be another Iraq for them, another Afghanistan, another Sudan. They're global. Like cockroaches.

That leads me to the fourth, and the cruelest, myth -- and that is the false hope that we can abandon the effort in Iraq without serious consequences to our interests in the broader Middle East. The reality is that, if our coalition withdrew before Iraqis could defend themselves, radical factions would battle for dominance in that country. The violence would spread throughout the country, and be very difficult to contain. Having tasted victory in Iraq, jihadists would look for new missions. Many would head for Afghanistan and fight alongside the Taliban. Others would set out for capitals across the Middle East, spreading more sorrow and discord as they eliminate dissenters and work to undermine moderate governments. Still others would find their targets and victims in other countries on other continents.

Cheney forgets how wrong his administration proved going into Iraq. What's given him some new brilliance over the past few years... ah... nothing? Another scenario finds that with reduced American presence, Sunni tribes become less welcoming of foreign fighters. Shite leaders become more confident in their majoritarian governance and form better alliances with the Kurdish population to develop oil production. Iran gets smoozy, sure, and the rising economic fortunes of both countries' urban populations leads to stronger democratic parties and a weaker Islamic fundamental showing in following elections. Saudi Arabia's (mildly fundamental) dominance begins to wain, as Iraq's oil production increases. Jordan's economic fortunes rise with their old friend Iraq, which enables them to better manage their Palestinian refugee population. Increases in regional stability spread to Lebanon and into the West Bank. All equally possible. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to provide air and naval defense to Iraq, combined with training to it's military and police, while maintaining it's boarders against those foreign fighters. Also a possible scenario, but equally not guaranteed. Life gives no such promises.

We can be confident in the outcome of this struggle. America is a good and an honorable country. We serve a cause that is right, and a cause that gives hope to the oppressed in every corner of the Earth. We're the kind of country that fights for freedom, and the men and women in the fight are some of the bravest citizens this nation has ever produced. (Applause.)

Cheney said this holding up a tiny asterisk to indicate all the various places in the world where the U.S. pursues no policy to give hope to the oppressed. In Tibet.

Or in airports. Which leads me to the subject that con-bloggers who don't do my job should shut the frak up:

"If this legislation passes (civil service protections given to every other federal worker extended to federal airport security), the Democrats will be making the TSA’s job more difficult. Passengers will assume a greater risk when flying commercial airplanes as a result of this legislation."

TSA pursues the purposes of it's political appointees who spend lavishly on limos and passing on contracts to their personal friends. None of which has to do with airport security. Or preventing future terrorist attacks. Reducing overtime and reducing customer complaints are the primary concern of the management level. When I have a union to protect me for telling the truth, I'll get back to you on this subject.

I need a picture here to educate this bloody moron:



Don't blame the crew in the boiler room for TSA's design flaws.

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Iraq, Bush, Petraeus, war on terror, global jihad, 7/7, homeland security