The Obama administration apparently never made or discovered a mistake not worth repeating.
February 8, 2010
February 5, 2010
Mark Levin’s interview of ‘Courting Disaster’ author Marc Thiessen
Mark Levin interviewed Marc Thiessen, the author of ‘Courting Disaster: How The CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting The Next Attack.’
In addition to back cover endorsements by former Vice President Richard Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and former CIA Director and retired General Michael Hayden is this one from a trusted friend who I have known and worked with for the past eight years:
“It is only because of the unheralded efforts of CIA and military interrogators that many more Americans did not suffer the same fate my brother did on 9/11. They kept us safe — for that they have been vilified, slandered, and threatened with prosecution. In this terrific and important book, Marc Thiessen comes to the defense of these courageous men and women. He explains, in stunning detail, how they protected us from danger, and how the good work they did is now being undone. This book deserves to be read by every American — and by our President.” — Debra Burlingame, sister of Charles “Chic” Burlingame, pilot of American Airlines flight 77, hijacked and crashed at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Government waste: Fed agencies spending stimulus at ‘$196 million an hour’
Mark Levin read from a Fox News report last night and commented upon just how out of control government spending is:
Nearly a million dollars to two universities to hire three people to study ants? Arrrrgh!
Great news! White House leaked Abdulmuttalab secret only on background
The folks in the White House are even dumber than they look. For example, take Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:
At the White House briefing Thursday afternoon, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs attacked Bond for politicizing intelligence and haughtily demanded an apology: “No briefing is done here or anywhere in this administration where classified information is used in a place where it shouldn’t be,” Gibbs said. “And I would suggest that somebody that alleges that, when they know it doesn’t happen, owe[s] people an apology.”
The White House contends that the sensitive information about cooperation from Abdulmutallab was unintentionally disclosed during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday. At the hearing, Mueller responded to concern from Senator Olympia Snowe that the decision to mirandize the terrorist so quickly meant that the U.S. government missed valuable intelligence. “Let me just add one other point, and that is, it is a continuum. In other words you can look at it in that day, but I encourage you to look at what has happened since then. It is a continuum in which over a period of time we have been successful in obtaining intelligence, not just on day one, but day two, day three, day four, day five and down the road.”
That’s not much of a disclosure. But Gibbs explained that the White House felt the need to provide background briefings about what Abdulmutallab was now saying in order to “contextualize” the information after receiving inquiries from reporters.
Everyone thought someone else was responsible for following the intelligence before Flight 253. They read Abdulmuttalab “his” rights so he shut up before telling them all he knows. President Barack Obama is left to negotiate with a terrorist for the information he should have gotten for free. And his Press Secretary is revealing secrets on background to the media to cover their political butts.
About the only thing that might prevent us from getting hit here again on the scale of 9/11 or greater would be if Joe Biden resigned and Dick Cheney was sworn in as Vice President and given a free hand.
Hurry, 2012, please!
February 4, 2010
No Miranda warnings needed: Sen Risch tutors DNI Blair and FBI Dir Mueller
Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) provided a tutorial on why Miranda warnings did not ever need to be provided to Flight 253 bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab. It took place on February 3, 2010, during testimony by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and FBI Director Robert Mueller before the Senate Intelligence Committee:
Attorney General Eric Holder decided on Christmas Day to direct that Abdulmuttalab be read his rights. By doing so, he prevented the immediate gathering of further intelligence because Abdulmuttalab elected to remain silent and speak to a lawyer before answering further.
Not reading him Miranda warnings would not have effected the ability to convict Abdulmuttalab or prevented a sentence of life in prison. Yet that intelligence might not have been available for use as evidence in the federal prosecution of others involved, thus forcing their prosecution by Military Commission. The war paradigm — the imminent risk of possible attacks by Abdulmuttalab’s associates — should have taken priority. Instead, AG Holder placed a higher priority on his preferred legal option to prosecute those involved in federal court.
Update: Here is a mp3 download of the audio.
February 3, 2010
Remember: President Bush defended America
The five senior leaders of the U.S. intelligence community told a Senate panel Tuesday they are “certain” that terrorists will attempt another attack on the United States in the next three to six months.
The warning came during the annual threat briefing to Congress in response to questions from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who asked, “What is the likelihood of another terrorist-attempted attack on the U.S. homeland in the next three to six months? High or low?” “An attempted attack, the priority is certain, I would say,” Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, a retired admiral, said in response.
…
The testimony specifically warned that al Qaeda is capable of another attack on the United States, marking a change from the 2009 assessment that emphasized the group’s intentions to attack U.S. soil but said their capabilities to launch an attack on the homeland were limited.
President Obama’s “number one priority” has not been keeping America safe. That was the bottom line of Mark Levin’s opening tonight:
BTW, today I stated that Attorney General Eric Holder should resign. I heard since from some who say Obama and Holder are birds of a feather, that Holder is implementing Obama’s ideology, and Obama might appoint an even worse AG. Perhaps all that is true. Yet Holder should know better, after nearly five years as the Deputy Attorney General, that law enforcement leading the effort to fight this enemy will fail our nation; we saw it fail repeatedly during the Clinton administration and through 9/11.
February 2, 2010
David Rivkin and Marc Thiessen: A Tale of Two Terrorists (AG Holder sends a WOT canary in to destroy the Bush doctrine)
Fn 12 on page 59 of the DOJ’s Dec 18, 2009 rebuttal to Ghailani’s Speedy Trial Motion to dismiss his case in federal court. Click to enlarge
In their Wall Street Journal op-ed today, David B. Rivkin and Marc Thiessen understated the significance of the Bush doctrine arguments filed on December 18, 2009 by the Department of Justice and used to rebut the Speedy Trial Motion to dismiss the federal case against Ahmed Ghailani. Surely U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara did not file contrary to the direction of Attorney General Eric Holder.
Mr. Bharara is no doubt a dedicated public servant. I have great personal faith in his abilities, loyalty to our Nation, and willingness to do all that he can to successfully prosecute Ahmed Ghailani to the fullest extent of the law. That said, Ghailani is President Barack Obama’s canary for the federal prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, his 9/11 co-conspirators, and perhaps 40 more detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay. For the criminalization of the war against terror to succeed, Ghailani’s motion must fail. It is ironic and insidious that Obama and Holder must first defend what they seek to destroy:
On Dec. 18, 2009, days before the Christmas attack, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, made a secret filing in federal district court that was aimed at saving the prosecution of Ahmed Ghailani, another al Qaeda terrorist. Ghailani is facing charges for helping al Qaeda bomb U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Ghailani argues that those charges should be dropped because lengthy CIA interrogations have denied him his constitutional right to a speedy trial.
Mr. Bharara, on behalf of the Justice Department, filed a memorandum with the court stating that Ghailani’s claims are dangerous and off the mark. Interrogating terrorists must come before criminal prosecution, he wrote in language so strong that even a redacted version of his filing (which we have obtained) serves as a searing indictment of the administration’s mishandling of Abdulmutallab.
“The United States was, and still is, at war with al Qaeda,” Mr. Bharara argued. “And because the group does not control territory as a sovereign nation does, the war effort relies less on deterrence than on disruption—on preventing attacks before they can occur. At the core of such disruption efforts is obtaining accurate intelligence about al Qaeda’s plans, leaders and capabilities.” … READ THE REST
Review again the image above and think about Flight 253 bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab. Then read this fuller excerpt from the DOJ’s rebuttal. It begins with the last paragraph on page 46 (B. Discussion) and runs through the partially transcribed paragraph on page 50. (Except where clarification was needed, citations and footnote numbering were omitted from this transcription):
Read the rest of this entry…
January 29, 2010
Moving danger? So what if Obama is reconsidering moving 9/11 trials
“In what communities in the United States of America are children required to walk by military conveys and snipers on a daily basis on their way to school?” — unidentified lower Manhattan resident, addressing New York City’s Community Board 1 meeting, January 27, 2010, just before the Board voted 42 to 0 to ask the Obama administration to move the 9/11 trials.
Be very skeptical of reports saying the Obama administration is “strongly” considering moving the 9/11 trials out of lower Manhattan. Otherwise, this CBS report fairly describes what is going on. (My fellow co-founders of the 9/11 Never Forget Coalition, Debra Burlingame in cameo and Tim Brown briefly interviewed, appear within it):
Taking on the task of hosting the 9/11 terror trials and housing indefinitely detained terrorists in Newburgh, NY and Thomson, IL, respectively, outwardly appear as economic boons to those desperate economies. Why should the danger just be shifted from Chinatown and lower Manhattan to somewhere else? It would not solve the national security risks of a federal trial. It moves the danger to ill-equipped rural civilian populaces. It does nothing to lower the billion dollar cost for both the trial and detention.
Congress must fix the law. It must restore national security solely to the elected branches, remove judges from the conduct of war, prosecute war criminals while protecting our secrets, detain captured enemies for as long as necessary, and isolate detainees from any civilian populace. Those are the things an overwhelming majority of Americans want done.
Barring those steps being codified in statute, terror trials and detentions should remain at Guantanamo. This is not a pipe dream yet it will not get done if America is lolled back to sleep thinking “we won” because the Obama administration is reportedly “strongly” considering moving the trials. To put it another way, I’ll remind you of an old Army axiom to troops: Stay alert; stay alive.
Obama and Biden lied about ‘Citizens United’ decision to intimidate Supreme Court
Mark Levin offered that President Barack Obama lied about the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision during his State of the Union Address, and Vice President Joe Biden repeated it; the purpose was to intimidate the Court during its future, related decisions.
Mark also cited former Federal Election Commission member Bradley Smith writing that, “The corporate ban is not about foreign contributions, and the government never tried to defend it as such. To suggest that this ruling allows foreign expenditures in elections is wholly misleading.”
In my opinion, it was also wholly inappropriate for the sitting Attorney General, Eric Holder, to stand and applaud Obama’s remarks (21 seconds into the video above Holder stands and applauds with his new buddy, Senator John McCain, or stunt double Robert Gates). The AG’s job is to apply the law, not advocate for or against a political point of view about the law.
January 28, 2010
Victory in Iraq; the greatest shame of last night’s SOTU
President Barack Obama on Iraq, last night during his State of the Union Address:
“As we take the fight to al Qaeda, we are responsibly leaving Iraq to its people. As a candidate, I promised that I would end this war, and that is what I am doing as President. We will have all of our combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this August. We will support the Iraqi government as they hold elections, and continue to partner with the Iraqi people to promote regional peace and prosperity. But make no mistake: this war is ending, and all of our troops are coming home.”
Was that a loss, win or tie? If someone won, which side, and who and what made victory possible?
America won, our coalition won, and the people of Iraq won. Together, we won by force of arms and staying the course, despite the mistakes made — as they are always made — in the fog of war, growing political opposition at home, and enemy opposition on the battlefield.
More specifically, our troops won wth courage beyond description, sacrifice, blood, tears, and honor — always honor.
Yet they did not fight or pay the price alone. Their families, the troops of many nations, and thousands of federal and contracted personnel stood with them, fought along their sides, or supported them near and from afar. And the Iraqi people won because America stood with them through years of chaos, helped them to establish a government, worked with multiple factions despite civil war, and trained an army and police forces that could stand on their own, defend in place, and keep peace on Iraqi streets.
Obama has to date thanked exactly no one.
Last night, he thanked not one U.S. or coalition fallen hero, wounded troop, intelligence agent, government official, family member, ally, or Iraqi. Stunning is too small a word to describe that omission. “This war is ending.” No, Mr. Obama, we ended it with our victory; you are just now the guy in charge of a homecoming victory parade you will never conduct.
Obama did not lead the fight in Iraq, fight there or sacrifice himself, or acknowledge those who led, fought, and sacrificed. Our troops and that leadership were owed at least this President acknowledging another honorable chapter in American history written in blood.
Shame on you President Obama, shame on you.
Update: President Obama needs to be introduced to the American soldier by General Douglas MacArthur:
And what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead? Are they reliable? Are they brave? Are they capable of victory?
Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American man at arms. My estimate of him was formed on the battlefields many, many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded him then, as I regard him now, as one of the world’s noblest figures; not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless.
His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give. He needs no eulogy from me, or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy’s breast.
——
Note from the author: This is cross-posted from 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America.
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Poor Rush,Can't even enjoy the dam superbowl this year.And it took two government motor's to beat one Ford Fusion... 
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