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David Theroux to Appear on Stossel
<http://www.independent.org/images/news/stossel_logo.jpg> <http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/index.html> <http://www.independent.org/images/bios/theroux_david_100.jpg> <http://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=531>
Pease set your DVRs or tune in this Thursday through Sunday (Sept. 29–Oct. 2) when Independent Institute Founder and President David Theroux <http://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=531> joins John Stossel to discuss the changing tide in the American political culture and answer a question on the minds of many American voters: What if libertarians were in charge?
Having directed and published over seventy scholarly books, Mr. Theroux is the publisher of the quarterly journal, The Independent Review <http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/>, and editor of the books, The Energy Crisis, Private Rights and Public Lands (with P. Truluck), and Politics and Tyranny. His articles have appeared in USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Investor's Business Daily, The Washington Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dallas Morning News, and Insight, among many others, and he has appeared on ABC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, NPR, Voice of America, and other local, national, and international TV and radio networks and programs.
Stossel will air on Fox Business Network: (times subject to change)
Eastern:
Thursday, September 29th at 10pm ET
Saturday, October 1st at 1am ET
Saturday, October 1st at 9pm ET
Sunday, October 2nd at Midnight ET
Sunday, October 2nd at 9am ET
Sunday, October 2nd at 9pm ET
Pacific:
Thursday, September 29th at 7pm PT
Friday, September 30th at 10pm PT
Saturday, October 1st at 6pm PT
Saturday, October 1st at 9pm PT
Sunday, October 2nd at 6am PT
Sunday, October 2nd at 6pm PT
Stossel will air on Fox News Channel: (times subject to change)
Eastern:
Saturday, October 1st at 10pm ET
Sunday, October 2nd at 1am ET
Pacific:
Saturday, October 1st at 7pm PT
Saturday, October 1st at 10pm PT
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Thursday, Sep 29, 2011 14:30 ET
The FBI again thwarts its own Terror plot
By Glenn Greenwald
The FBI has received substantial criticism over the past decade -- much of it valid -- but nobody can deny its record of excellence in thwarting its own Terrorist plots. Time and again, the FBI concocts a Terrorist attack, infiltrates Muslim communities in order to find recruits, persuades them to perpetrate the attack, supplies them with the money, weapons and know-how they need to carry it out -- only to heroically jump in at the last moment, arrest the would-be perpetrators whom the FBI converted, and save a grateful nation from the plot manufactured by the FBI.
Last year, the FBI subjected 19-year-old Somali-American Mohamed Osman Mohamud to months of encouragement, support and money and convinced him to detonate a bomb at a crowded Christmas event in Portland, Oregon, only to arrest him at the last moment and then issue a Press Release boasting of its success. In late 2009, the FBI persuaded and enabled Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year old Jordanian citizen, to place a fake bomb at a Dallas skyscraper and separately convinced Farooque Ahmed, a 34-year-old naturalized American citizen born in Pakistan, to bomb the Washington Metro. And now, the FBI has yet again saved us all from its own Terrorist plot by arresting 26-year-old American citizen Rezwan Ferdaus after having spent months providing him with the plans and materials to attack the Pentagon, American troops in Iraq, and possibly the Capitol Building using "remote-controlled" model airplanes carrying explosives.
None of these cases entail the FBI's learning of an actual plot and then infiltrating it to stop it. They all involve the FBI's purposely seeking out Muslims (typically young and impressionable ones) whom they think harbor animosity toward the U.S. and who therefore can be induced to launch an attack despite having never taken even a single step toward doing so before the FBI targeted them. Each time the FBI announces it has disrupted its own plot, press coverage is predictably hysterical (new Homegrown Terrorist caught!), fear levels predictably rise, and new security measures are often implemented in response (the FBI's Terror plot aimed at the D.C. Metro, for instance, led to the Metro Police announcing a new policy of random searches of passengers' bags). I have several observations and questions about these matters:
(1) The bulk of this latest FBI plot entailed attacks on military targets: the Pentagon, U.S. troops in Iraq, and possibly military bases. The U.S. is -- as it has continuously announced to the world -- a Nation at War. The Pentagon is the military headquarters for this war, and its troops abroad are the soldiers fighting it. In what conceivable sense can attacks on those purely military and war targets be labeled "Terrorism" or even illegitimate? The U.S. has continuously attacked exactly those kinds of targets in multiple nations around the world; it expressly tried to kill Saddam and Gadaffi in the wars against their countries (it even knowingly blew up an entire suburban apartment building to get Saddam, who wasn't actually there). What possible definition of "Terrorism" excludes those attacks by the U.S. while including this proposed one on the Pentagon and other military targets (or, for that matter, Nidal Hasan's attack on Fort Hood where soldiers deploy to war zones)?
(2) With regard to the targeted building that is not purely a military target -- the Capitol Building -- is that a legitimate war target under the radically broad standards the U.S. and its allies have promulgated for themselves? The American "shock and awe" assault on Baghdad destroyed "several government buildings and palaces built by Saddam Hussein"; on just the third day of that war, "U.S. bombs turn[ed] key government buildings in Baghdad into rubble." In Libya, NATO repeatedly bombed non-military government buildings. In Gaza, Israeli war planes targeted a police station filled with police recruits on the stated theory that a valid target "ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources" to Hamas.
Obviously, there is a wide range of views regarding the justifiability of each war, but isn't the U.S. Congress -- which funds, oversees, and regulates America's wars -- a legitimate war target under the (inadvisedly) broad definitions the U.S. and its allies have imposed when attacking others? If the political leaders and even functionaries of other countries with which the U.S. is at war are legitimate targets, then doesn't that necessarily mean that Pentagon officials and, arguably, those in the Congress are as well?
(3) The irony that this plot featured "remote-controlled aircraft filled with plastic explosives" is too glaring to merit comment; the only question worth asking is whether the U.S. Government can sue Ferdaus for infringing its drone patents. Glaring though that irony is, there is no shortage of expressions of disgust today, pondering what kind of dasterdly Terrorist monster does it take to want to attack buildings with remote-controlled mini-aircraft.
(4) Wouldn't the FBI's resources be better spent on detecting and breaking up actual Terrorist plots -- if there are any -- rather than manufacturing ones so that they can stop those? Harboring hatred for the U.S. and wanting to harm it (or any country) is not actually a crime; at most, it's a Thought Crime. It doesn't become a crime until steps are taken to attempt to transform that desire into reality. There are millions and millions of people who at some point harbor a desire to impose violent harm on others who never do so: perhaps that's true of a majority of human beings. Many of them will never act in the absence of the type of highly sophisticated, expert push of which the FBI is uniquely capable. Is manufacturing criminals -- as opposed to finding and stopping actual criminals -- really a prudent law enforcement activity?
(5) Does the FBI devote any comparable resources to infiltrating non-Muslim communities in order to persuade and induce those extremists to become Terrorists so that they can arrest them? Are they out in the anti-abortion world, or the world of radical Christianity, or right-wing anti-government radicals, trying to recruit them into manufactured Terrorist plots?
(6) As usual, most media coverage of the FBI's plots is as uncritical as it is sensationalistic. The first paragraph of The New York Times article on this story described the plot as one "to blow up the Pentagon and the United States Capitol." But the FBI's charging Affidavit (reproduced below) makes clear that Ferdaus' plan was to send a single model airplane (at most 1/10 the size of an actual U.S. jet) to the Capitol and two of them to the Pentagon, each packed with "5 pounds" of explosives (para. 70); the Capitol was to be attacked at its dome for "psychological effect" (para 34). The U.S. routinely drops 500-pound or 1,000-pound bombs from actual fighter jets; this plot -- even if it were carried out by someone other than a hapless loner with no experience and it worked perfectly -- could not remotely "blow up" the Pentagon or the Capitol.
(7) As is now found in almost every case of would-be Terrorist plots against the U.S. -- especially "homegrown Terrorists" -- the motive is unbridled fury over (and a desire to avenge) contintuous U.S violence against Muslim civilians. Infused throughout the charging Affidavit here are such references to Ferdaus' motives, including his happiness over the prospect of killing U.S. troops in Iraq; his proclamation that he's "interested in traveling to Afghanistan" to aid insurgents; his statement that "he wanted to 'decapitate' the U.S. government's 'military center' and to severely disrupt . . . the head and heart of the snake" (para 12) and to "essentially decapitate the entire empire" (para 34) (compare that language to how the U.S. described what it tried to do in Baghdad). Using drones to decapitate the leadership and government infrastructure of a nation at war; I wonder where he got that idea.
At least according to the FBI, this is how Feradus replied when expressly asked why he wanted to attack the U.S.:
- Cause that would be a huge scare . . . the point is you want to scare them so they know not to mess with you . . . They have . . . . have killed from us, our innocents, our men, women and children, they are all enemies (para 19).
But whatever else is true, it's simply unrealistic in the extreme to expect to run around for a full decade screaming WE ARE AT WAR!! -- and dropping bombs and attacking with drones and shooting up families in multiple Muslim countries (and occupying, interfering in and killing large numbers before that) -- and not produce many Rezwan Ferdauses. In fact, the only surprising thing is that these seem to be so few of them actually willing and able to attack back that -- in order to justify this Endless War on civil liberties (and Terror) -- the FBI has to search for ones they can recruit, convert, convince, fund, and direct to carry out plots.
http://bit.ly/rsvUbb
Hmmm ... these are (over) regulated by Government ... must obtain a Government approved permission slip (this is a 'free' country?) ... from a Government approved physician ...
The Dangers of Prescription Drugs
Posted by Laurence Vance on September 29, 2011 05:01 PM
Not crack, marijuana, or heroin, but prescription drugs.
"A recent analysis by the Los Angeles Times found that drug deaths now outnumber those killed in traffic accidents, and prescription drugs are largely to blame." This was recently discussed on Talk of the Nation.
Sounds like the government should declare war on prescription drugs, not crack, marijuana, and heroin.
from William N. Grigg:
The mouth-breathers running Broward County's GOP Committee recently accused a Muslim of attempting to "infiltrate" their party:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/26/2426666/broward-gop-blocks-muslim-activist.html
In related news from 1985:
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Biblical Far Side
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--
Warm Regards
DOC
___________________ ~ ~
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A black guy, a Muslim, and a Communist go into a bar.
The bartender asks, "What can I get you, Mr. President?"
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--------
Biblical Far Side
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--
Warm Regards
DOC
___________________ ~ ~
(_____(*)___________} } }
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXiZZFf-b1A
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Hire someone to commit murder for you. You'll walk and they'll stay in
prison awaiting execution.
prison awaiting execution.
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The Kiss Of Death?
Posted by Christopher Manion on September 29, 2011 12:21 PM
Nancy Reagan, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former President George W. Bush are all urging New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to run for president.
And after Christie crashes and burns, they will continue to throw anyone else they can at Ron Paul, whose support has remained remarkably steady, even growing, in all parts of the country.
Mitt Romney probably has paid staff in every precinct nationwide. He receives all the glowing press he wants. He can personally pay all his campaign expenses through 2012. Yet the establishment is afraid that he will collapse. All the other candidates have done their best to parrot Dr. Paul, who does not need a puppeteer or a speechwriter. Eventually, the establishment fears, Americans are going to want the real thing.
If Christie stays out, expect Mitch Daniels to be the next Toast of the Hot Tub Crowd. If he refuses, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. When he fades, Senator Marco Rubio. After him, Big-Money heavyweight Haley Barbour, who will fade just as quickly.
That brings us up to February. Plenty of time for Dr. Paul to become the consensus candidate.
Sorry, Mrs. Reagan. We remember Dick Darman and Jim Baker. Thanks but no thanks.
A Glimpse Behind the TSA's Curtain
Posted by Becky Akers on September 29, 2011 07:47 AM
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has learned to its horror that sexually assaulting the serfs earns their undying hatred. And it is now scrambling to accommodate the victims it formerly abused, with "retrofits" of its porno-scanners that supposedly hide our nakedness under "chalk outlines" (yeah, right) and promises not to molest kids anymore well, OK, only occasionally: it will " reduce, but not eliminate" its pedophilia.
Thrillingly, it's too late. Readers' comments at virtually every website that accepts them continue calling loudly; in fact, they're screaming for its abolition. Not reform, mind you: abolition.
So what does its chief cheese, John "the Pervert" Pistole, do? Change the cubicles where various sociopaths shuffle papers. Yes!
Here's a lengthy, boring, jargon-y memo, written by a bureaucrat for bureaucrats. If there's a bit of humanity anywhere in this nonsense, my name's George Bush. But at least we rest confident that the TSA's deviants and their boss richly deserve one another. Behold what your taxes finance:
To: All TSA Employees
From: John Pistole
TSA Administrator
Subject: 100 Supporting TSA's Evolution to a High Performance Counterterrorism Organization
Following a good deal of conversation with the Senior Leadership Team, I am announcing my decision to make several enhancements to better align TSA Headquarters functions. These changes are essential to achieve our goal of becoming a high performance counterterrorism organization that provides the most effective security in the most efficient way.
*Formalizing the Policy Coordination function within the Office of the Administrator to ensure responsibility for overall coordination and alignment of TSA security policies within DHS, the Interagency Committees and National Security Staff.
*Shifting the Executive Secretariat and Inspector General/Government Accountability Office (IG/GAO) liaison function from the Office of Special Counselor (OSC) to report directly to the Chief of Staff to drive process discipline and senior-level accountability.
*Establishing a new Office of Training and Workforce Engagement (TWE) that combines the existing technical, leadership and workforce engagement functions currently dispersed across many Offices throughout the agency. This centralizes all training and establishes an office with the responsibility to create processes that engage our employees and empowers them to execute our mission.
*Merging the Offices of Intelligence (OI) and Transportation Threat Assessment and Credentialing (TTAC) vetting operations, as well as the technical, modernization, and Secure Flight mission support resources into a new Office of Intelligence and Analysis. This will ensure vetting and intelligence informs daily operations.
* Transitioning the Office of Transportation Sector Network Management (TSNM) to the Office of Security Policy and Industry Engagement that will also include policy development for Secure Flight and the remaining TTAC program resources. This places accountability in one organization for program management and policy development of security programs.
* Forming a new Security Capabilities Office, comprising the existing Office of Security Technology (OST), and the transfer of the Operations Improvement Branch, Screening Passengers by Observation Technique (SPOT) and Transportation Security Specialist-Explosives (TSSE) program management functions, along with the Office of Innovation from the Office of Security Operations (OSO). This alignment creates a single office with responsibility for defining and developing both the security and technology capabilities required to execute our counterterrorism mission.
* Consolidating Information Technology (IT) services currently residing in the Offices of Security Operations (OSO) and Law Enforcement/Federal Air Marshal Service (OLE/FAMS), along with certain IT services in the Office of Human Capital (OHC), to the Office of Information Technology. This establishes a clear system of accountability for IT functions.
* Shifting responsibility for criminal investigations of non-TSA personnel from the Office of Inspection (OOI), and the Security Threat Assessment Operations function from TTAC to OLE/FAMS. This will ensure TSA speaks with one voice to other Federal law enforcement organizations. The Office of Inspection will continue its core mission of investigating internal employee misconduct matters.
The changes outlined above represent critical components to enable our continued evolution to a high performance counterterrorism organization. Our plan is to complete many of these changes by the end of this calendar year, and others throughout 2012.
Over the next week, each Assistant Administrator will be conducting Town Hall meetings with their headquarters staff to provide more detailed information on the changes. In addition, an iShare page dedicated to keeping you informed about our evolution to a high performance counterterrorism organization will be launched later this week. On the page, you will find more details about what will be required to implement the restructuring, along with answers to commonly asked questions.
These changes, and our shift to a more intelligence driven, risk-based security organization are possible because of the solid foundation established across TSA over the past decade, and will give us the strategy, focus and capability to meet the challenges for the decades ahead.
"Thank you for your continued dedication to our mission and to one another."
Excuse me, my cookies need hurling.
Al Qaeda's Dumbest Terrorists
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfreedman/2011/09/26/al-qaedas-dumbest-terrorists/
One of the least publicized things about al Qaeda is that for every cunning
terrorist mastermind, there are other members who would merit coverage on a
show similar to "America's dumbest criminals."
I present some of my favorite, "dumbest terrorists":
Jose Padilla and Binyam Mohammed. These two planned to detonate a dirty
bomb in a U.S. city - by stealing uranium from a passing truck and then
enriching it by swinging it around in a bucket.
Salman al-Taezi and Walid Ashibi. These Yemenis were part of a cell that
plotted to attack embassies in Yemen, including the Cuban embassy - "because
of Guantanamo Bay" other cell members later explained to investigators.
While the two were preparing a missile, Ashibi trudged across a carpeted
room and unwittingly ignited it with the static energy he had created -
causing it to fire into Taezi and kill him. Ashibi himself collapsed and
died moments later.
Abu Jaffar al Hada. In 1999, the brother-in-law of 9/11 hijacker Khalid
al-Mihdhar decided to fish on Lake Duranta in Afghanistan using electricity.
He was electrocuted after one of the al Qaeda members onshore misinterpreted
his signal and switched the current on.
A certain Yemeni explosives trainer. Toward the end of a class at the
Banshiri training camp (in Afghanistan) with new Chinese Uigher recruits,
this trainer told them "and don't do this" while putting two ends of an
explosive wire together - killing himself along with almost everyone else in
the class.
Abu Jandal. Bin Laden's personal bodyguard tried to impress U.S
interrogators with his knowledge of history - by reciting the plot of Mel
Gibson's Braveheart movie.
Abdullah Hassan al Asiri. This terrorist pioneered the underwear bomb in
2009 while attempting to assassinate Saudi Arabia's Prince Mohammed bin
Nayef, but prematurely detonated it and only killed himself.
Salman al-Adani and Taha al-Ahdal. The two were selected to be suicide
bombers for a January 3, 2000, attack on the U.S. navy vessel, USS The
Sullivans. But they forgot to plan for the changing tide, and their boat got
stuck in the sand. They abandoned it and went home to sleep, not bothering
even to tell the other plotters. The boat was found the next morning by
local fishermen, who claimed ownership, and on arriving at the scene the
plot leader had to buy it back.
Iyman Farris. In 2003 this naturalized U.S. citizen plotted to use a
blowtorch to cut the suspension cables of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Highlighting the incompetence of al Qaeda members not only provides
merriment at the expense of those who have caused so much pain, but also
serves an important tactical purpose.
One of the most effective recruiting tools used by terrorist groups is the
offer to otherwise unremarkable individuals the chance of international
fame. The mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, for example, hatched
the plot partly out of a desire to attain the same global notoriety as his
cousin Ramzi Yousef - the architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Governments therefore unwittingly help terrorist groups recruit when they
talk up the brilliance and dangerousness of terrorists, as others, with
similar mindsets and backgrounds, figure they too can achieve such infamy.
It is appropriate to applaud our investigators when a terrorist is stopped,
but there is no benefit in pretending that fools are masterminds.
After Padilla was arrested - much to the bewilderment of the FBI Agents who
uncovered the plot and arrested him - Attorney General John Ashcroft
declared at a press conference that they had "disrupted an unfolding
terrorist plot" that could have caused "mass death and injury." Padilla, who
later made it onto the cover of Time magazine, certainly had the intent -
and therefore belongs in prison - but is a brain surgery away from the
capability.
If the government had instead ridiculed Padilla and mocked al Qaeda for
sending an idiot, it's highly unlikely that his example would have inspired
anyone to join al Qaeda. If anything, potential recruits might have had
second thoughts. Death or life in prison, along with international ridicule,
is hardly appealing - even to fools.
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Used to be five bucks. I guess that was too much. One cent would be overcharging.
WordPress.com
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rusty Weiss
If anyone has done further investigating on this company, please let me know...
Has anyone investigated the company that built the Solyndra facility, CH2M Hill? They've received $1.6 billion in stimulus funds, including $10 million or so to engineer that facility. Did they design the Disney Tune-whistling robots, or the elaborate shower facilities? I think the cronyism extends to this company as well. Just a tip...
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rusty-weiss/2011/09/04/solyndra-not-only-company-benefit-democrat-ties
Thanks!
Rusty
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