Kevin Harpham has been sentenced to 32 years in the attempted bombing of the MLK parade. The bomb was filled with lead fishing weights which were covered in rat poison in order to prevent clotting. This gentleman had extensive ties to white supremacist groups.
I know that we’ve intermittently talked about this before, but now seems to be a perfect time to discuss our wars with Iraq (our troops are coming home, finally) and Afghanistan. Make no mistake, we were definitely attacked on September 11, 2001. A group of 19 terrorists with the aid of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban took down the World Trade Center, tore a huge hole in the Pentagon and crashed an airliner into a rural portion of Pennsylvania. We now know that these acts of terrorism set in motion a cascade of events which have cost the American people well over $1.5 trillion. 6200 American soldiers have died. Tens of thousands of American soldiers have been wounded. What did we get in return?
When you invest blood and sweat into a project, you should at least hope to get something out of it. Stability in the Middle East? A thriving economy in Afghanistan? At the time of the Iraq invasion, many Americans believed that we were invading Iraq in order to secure their oil. Do we have secure oil agreements in place? Did we, at least, improve our relationships with other governments in the Middle East?
Some of these questions don’t really have answers. Others of these questions do have answers and the answers, unfortunately, are depressing. We spent a lot of time and effort and nearly destroyed our military in the process. We have simply the death of Osama bin Laden and several of his lieutenants to show for our efforts. Questions like whether we madr terrorism worse still linger. Now is the time for us to figure out what we did wrong. We should also assess what we did right. We need to make sure that we do not repeat the same mistakes which led to the disastrous decisions to invade both of those countries. I would submit that we could have infiltrated Afghanistan with a couple hundred to a couple of thousand troops with appropriate air support and eliminated Osama bin Laden and most of Al Qaeda within a matter of weeks or months. I don’t know. What I do know is that spending $1.5 trillion and losing over 6000 troops, breaking our military and getting almost nothing in return is unacceptable.
From DK:
Giving in to an obscure group of haters in Florida may have seemed like a good idea to the managers of Lowe’s last week. But the big box home improvement store’s quiet decision to pull its advertising from Discovery/The Learning Channel’s All-American Muslim has done exactly what they apparently figured they were avoiding: generated a backlash.
Music entrpreneur Russell Simmons has bought the ad space on TLC. A petition hosted by moveon.org urging other companies not to pull their advertising is only a few hundred names away from its 25,000-signature goal. A California state senator has excoriated the company, called for an investigation and threatened a legislative motion of censure. And the publicity keeps piling up.
Among other things, the moveon.org petition states:
The visible aim of those who have threatened the show’s supporters is to propagate hatred against fellow Americans because of their religious beliefs, while increasing the success of their own bigoted industries. Ultimately, it is these same critics who have often touted the question: “Where are the mainstream Muslims?” We believe that “All-American Muslim” portrays just that—mainstream American Muslims—and that these critics should celebrate an effort like this, not condemn it. Yet their reactions leave no more proof necessary of their actual, hate-mongering intentions. And we believe that America and our American companies are above that.
The Daily show breaks it down like this.
When you think about the job that intelligence officials have to do in order to keep us safe, it is somewhat mind-boggling. You need to find people who are plotting to attack America, either here at home or abroad, and then you need to intervene in that attack. Hopefully, you’re able to intervene early enough to prevent any loss of life. You can’t intervene too early or you would be arresting people for thinking. Yesterday, Jose Pimentel was arrested and charged with plotting to detonate bombs in New York City. This alleged terrorist supposedly sympathized with Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim militant killed in a predator strike several months ago.
Cool video on Dark Matter:
I was kind of surprised that Senator Marco Rubio while talking about the death of dictator Muammar Qaddafi managed to thank British and French troops (warning: this link opens an audio file), but not American troops. I just found that interesting. A Republican thanking foreign troops first – curious.
There seems to be lots of people who are curious about how Muammar Qaddafi died. I’m sorry, maybe I’m just not inquisitive. I simply don’t care. I don’t care if a lightning bolt from Zeus hit him in the head or a sniper took him out at 300 yards with a 10 mile an hour cross breeze. I simply don’t care. From my standpoint, I’m happy for the Libyan people. They needed the dictator either captured or killed so that they could move on. Now they get to the difficult task of trying to make a nation out of Libya. Running a government is a lot harder than overthrowing the government. Running a government that respects all of your people is even harder. By the way, I wasn’t interested in the gruesome photos of Saddam Hussein or the photos of his sons when they were killed. Maybe it’s because I get enough blood and guts and work that I don’t need to see them at home. Maybe it’s because the blood and guts are beside the point.
Charles Blow has been writing some absolutely fabulous articles/op-eds in the New York Times. He has served up another one. This one is about Occupy Wall Street. There are a lot of people who feel a kinship with those who are doing the “occupying.”
Bank failure #84. Yes, there’ve been 84 bank failures so far this year.
According to the Financial Time,s the bondholders of Greek debt are expected to take a 60% loss on their current holdings.
I’ll have a little bit more on this later but I thought I’d start off now. Skeptics of global warming, some curmudgeon scientists, decided to prove once and for all that global warming was nothing but a bunch of hooey. They took a bunch of data than they crunched all the numbers and guess what, they found out what every other climate scientists of any stature has found out, that global warming is for real.
10 years since the anthrax attacks. There have been so many different things going on in the last 10 years, I really have not had a chance to delve into this case. I haven’t looked at the evidence. I know that both Glenn and Jim White have been following this case with more than a passing interest.
As I mentioned several days ago, Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is nothing more than a fancy flat tax. Robert Reich agrees.
We should enjoy a little music on a Friday night:
Artist: Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto
Tune: The Girl from Ipanema
I’m still looking over the president’s numbers. I thought his speech was excellent. I think he struck the right tone. Now, no matter what he actually said last night, he has to take his speech and sell it to the American people. This is the key.
Authorities are still scrambling over the suspected bomb plot. The targets are, supposedly, New York and/or Washington.
That was very ugly football last night. Beautiful offense. No sign of defense.
Representative Tom Price is simply trying to get attention. These days, you need to say something outlandish in order to get media attention. Being thoughtful doesn’t get you in front of the camera. Tom Price stated that a payroll tax cut for working families is class warfare. Really? How is that exactly? By the way, his net worth is estimated to be $8.5 million.
Chris Botti became famous when he replaced Branford Marsalis and Sting’s band. This is an absolutely beautiful tune. I’ll have more news for you tomorrow.
Artist: Chris Botti
Tune: When I Fall in Love
There’s no better example of how things have changed since 9/11 than the latest terrorist threat warning tonight. Before September 11th we, the American people, never heard such a warning. Spokesmen for Department of Homeland Security stated that there has been a “specific, credible but unconfirmed” threat against the United States. President Obama was briefed about the threat early this morning. Now, in the post-9/11 era, we know that Al Qaeda likes these important dates. Everybody in Homeland Security is keenly aware that Al Qaeda would like to try to attack inside the United States on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
I would like to take you to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in early January of 2000. Through various means, the intelligence community became aware of a high-level terrorist/Al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia. Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar (together these terrorists retrained passengers on Flight 77 which was thrown into the Pentagon) were two of the participants of this meeting. The NSA and the CIA were already aware of the existence of both men. Both participated in the holy war in Bosnia. Both pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden sometime in 1998. For reasons that I’ve never been able to understand, our intelligence services allowed the Malaysian intelligence service to monitor this meeting. The Malaysian intelligence service was unable to place a listening device in the meeting. We were able to get pictures that were relayed to us from the Malaysian intelligence service. It is now known that the bombing of the USS Cole was discussed at this Malaysian meeting. Had we had a listening device in the meeting, it is possible that we could have thwarted that terrorist plot. It is also reasonable to assume that the attacks of 9/11 were also discussed, although I have not been able to collaborate this in any of my reading.
So the CIA has this information on al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. Somehow, when this meeting in Kuala Lumpur breaks up, the US intelligence service loses all track of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. It’s never been clearly explained what the CIA did with the photographs of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. It is clear that the CIA knew that they were terrorists. But the CIA did not alert the Immigration and Naturalization Service (responsible for border security at that time) and they did not alert the State Department, who had the largest active list of terrorist suspects. As far as I can tell, they didn’t share this information with anyone. Furthermore, one would figure that the CIA, after finding out that they missed out on this once-in-a-lifetime terrorist summit, would have gotten some agents over to Kuala Lumpur to watch the condominium where the meetings had taken place. Had they done so, they would’ve found Zacharias Moussaoui, who was arrested prior to the 9/11 attacks and was thought to be the 20th hijacker.
In late January of 2000, al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar turn up in Los Angeles. More on this later.
We have been told that a lot of the errors that occurred before 9/11 have been fixed. We have been told that there is increased communication between our security agencies. So, with 9/11 looming, I truly hope that they have fixed these things.
Check out NYT’s special section on 9/11. Very nice.
No other document, in my opinion, reveals how clueless the Bush administration truly was prior to 9/11. This document is little over a page long, yet it holds some alarming information. First, read the memo. Now, re-read the memo and imagine that you are the President of the United States in August 2001. You are responsible for the well being of over 275 million people. Secondly, focus on the title – Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US. Now, in August of 2001, this was not common knowledge. In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed, but it is not clear to me that the Bush White House (well, I’m really talking about Bush, Cheney and Rice) clearly understood the connection between Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Osama bin Laden. US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya are bombed in 1998. Hundreds of Africans were killed. A third Embassy was targeted but the attack was thwarted by the Ugandan police. October 12, 2000, the USS Cole was bombed. 17 sailors were killed. We cannot forget the Millennium Day Bomber who intended to bomb the LA airport. Just because he was caught does not mean that he isn’t part of the picture. As a matter fact, the Millennium Day Bomber is probably the most vivid example of Al Qaeda (he trained with Al Qaeda) trying to come into the United States. It was due to nothing but a lot of luck and some skill that this plot was thwarted. The US Customs agent said that the Millennium Day Bomber was acting hinky.
This should be the most superficial knowledge that the president should have as he was reading the August sixth daily brief.
The seventh paragraph of the PDB should have sent chills up and down the spine of any American who read it.
Al Qaeda members – including some who are US citizens – have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two Al Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-’90s.
Never before have I seen any evidence that the FBI or the CIA thought that Al Qaeda had members here in United States. If I were president, I would want the FBI director to explain how come we haven’t located these Al Qaeda members. Where are they? What are they doing? Who are they with? Can we arrest them? I would pepper the FBI director with questions until he had answers.
The first paragraph of the second page reads:
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
This paragraph should elicit one of two responses. First, if you’re not taking Al Qaeda seriously, there’s nothing specific in this paragraph, so you can just ignore it. Let the FBI and CIA and other agencies do their jobs at their usual pace. On the other hand, you can remember that you’re responsible for the safety of millions of Americans. You can ask the FBI what kind of suspicious activities they have been seeing. You can ask your national security advisor to alert the FAA. You can also call the governor/mayor of New York and inform them of suspicious activities. You can ask them to have their state and local authorities look for suspicious activities.
Now, if President Bush was truly on the ball and had really studied all the information he been given, he would’ve known about not one but several different plans to hijack planes and use them as missiles. What if President Bush had called the head of the FAA and his national security advisor and the heads of the FBI and CIA down to Crawford after his August sixth daily brief? What if he told the head of the FAA that the FBI has information that suggested that Al Qaeda was preparing for hijacking of one or more planes here in the United States. Could that warning have saved lives? Could the FAA have done enough to have prevented the hijackings?
I know that it is far-fetched to think that President Bush would have been this in charge and on the ball that early in his presidency. I fault him for being so complacent, so nonchalant. On August sixth, we needed a president that was engaged, cerebral, who studied information that he’d been given and who took his job as president as seriously as he did after the September 11 attacks. (If you are interested in reading the spin that the Bush White House put on the PDB check this out.)
What your thoughts? Is the August sixth presidential daily brief as big a deal as I’m making it?
I’m tired of war. I’m tired of secret prisons. I’m tired of renditions. I’m tired of my government acting like the bad guys and not the good guys.
From the Nation:
The CIA presence in Mogadishu is part of Washington’s intensifying counterterrorism focus on Somalia, which includes targeted strikes by US Special Operations forces, drone attacks and expanded surveillance operations. The US agents “are here full time,” a senior Somali intelligence official told me. At times, he said, there are as many as thirty of them in Mogadishu, but he stressed that those working with the Somali NSA do not conduct operations; rather, they advise and train Somali agents. “In this environment, it’s very tricky. They want to help us, but the situation is not allowing them to do [it] however they want. They are not in control of the politics, they are not in control of the security,” he adds. “They are not controlling the environment like Afghanistan and Iraq. In Somalia, the situation is fluid, the situation is changing, personalities changing.”
Just in (Homegrown terrorists):
Two men have been arrested in Seattle in what federal agents say was a terrorist plot to attack a military recruit processing station in Seattle.
Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, also known as Joseph Anthony Davis, 33, of Seattle, and Walli Mujahidh, aka Frederick Dominque Jr., 32, of Los Angeles were arrested Wednesday and charged in a complaint unsealed in U.S. District Court in Seattle.
Among the charges were conspiracy to murder U.S. officers, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and unlawful possession of firearms.
Both men appeared this afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler, who ordered them held pending a detention hearing next Wednesday. A preliminary hearing is set for July 7, which will be held only if the men are not indicted by a grand jury before then. (more…)
A 20-year-old Saudi man was arrested on Thursday. He was plotting to blow up multiple targets in the United States. This guy seems to have, “I’m an obvious terrorist” written all over his dossier. He is young. He comes from the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia. He doesn’t make friends and United States. He writes a blog with extremist statements. This guy seems to be a no-brainer. My question is how to we detect those that aren’t so obvious? How do we detect those terrorist that do fit into society? How do we detect those terrorist that don’t come from Saudi Arabia but instead come from somewhere like London or Paris or Germany? How do we detect terrorist that don’t send up these multiple red flags?
From TPM:
A 20-year-old Saudi man living in Texas was arrested Wednesday and charged with the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction in connection with his alleged purchase of chemicals and equipment used to make an improvised explosive device (IED).
Federal authorities say that Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari wrote an e-mail to himself listing the Dallas address of former President George W. Bush as the “Tyrant’s House” and considered used infant dolls to conceal explosives and targeting of a nightclub with an explosive device concealed in a backpack.
We’ve posted the criminal complaint here.
Late Update: We’ve got more on this story here.
Did you hear about the bomb that was found in Spokane? This was serious.
From TPM:
A bomb found along the route of a Martin Luther King Day parade in Spokane, Wash., on Monday was a sophisticated device with the potential to devastate, an official on the case tells the AP.
“They haven’t seen anything like this in this country,” the official said. “This was the worst device, and most intentional device, I’ve ever seen.”
The official also said the device was rigged to a remote detonator.
Officially, the FBI has not released many details about the bomb, other than that it was viable and could have caused multiple casualties.
An FBI official yesterday told TPM the bomb was an act of “domestic terrorism.”
It was found Monday morning in a parking lot along the parade route, just half an hour before the parade was to begin. Three city workers who found the backpack it was stuffed in called the police, who sealed off several blocks and rerouted the parade. The FBI dismantled the bomb and is handling the investigation. (more…)
This isn’t the first bomb threat or terrorist attempt in the last couple of years. There is a trend. There is an uptick in this kind of terrorism. All of these acts are targeting Liberals or the Government. This a growing problem.
From C&L:
– July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how “liberals” are “destroying America,” walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two churchgoers and wounding four others.
– October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee in a plot to murder dozens of African-Americans, culminating in the assassination of President Obama.
– December 2008: A pair of “Patriot” movement radicals — the father-son team of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, who wanted “to attack the political infrastructure” — threaten a bank in Woodburn, Oregon, with a bomb in the hopes of extorting money that would end their financial difficulties, for which they blamed the government. Instead, the bomb goes off and kills two police officers. The men eventually are convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.
– December 2008: In Belfast, Maine, police discover the makings of a nuclear “dirty bomb” in the basement of a white supremacist shot dead by his wife. The man, who was independently wealthy, reportedly was agitated about the election of President Obama and was crafting a plan to set off the bomb.
– January 2009: A white supremacist named Keith Luke embarks on a killing rampage in Brockton, Mass., raping and wounding a black woman and killing her sister, then killing a homeless man before being captured by police as he is en route to a Jewish community center.
– February 2009: A Marine named Kody Brittingham is arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate President Obama. Brittingham also collected white-supremacist material.
– April 2009: A white supremacist named Richard Poplawski opens fire on three Pittsburgh police officers who come to his house on a domestic-violence call and kills all three, because he believed President Obama intended to take away the guns of white citizens like himself. Poplawski is currently awaiting trial.
– April 2009: Another gunman in Okaloosa County, Florida, similarly fearful of Obama’s purported gun-grabbing plans, kills two deputies when they come to arrest him in a domestic-violence matter, then is killed himself in a shootout with police.
– May 2009: A “sovereign citizen” named Scott Roeder walks into a church in Wichita, Kansas, and assassinates abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.
– June 2009: A Holocaust denier and right-wing tax protester named James Von Brunn opens fire at the Holocaust Museum, killing a security guard.
– February 2010: An angry tax protester named Joseph Ray Stack flies an airplane into the building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas. (Media are reluctant to label this one “domestic terrorism” too.)
– March 2010: Seven militiamen from the Hutaree Militia in Michigan and Ohio are arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate local police officers with the intent of sparking a new civil war.
– March 2010: An anti-government extremist named John Patrick Bedell walks into the Pentagon and opens fire, wounding two officers before he is himself shot dead.
– May 2010: A “sovereign citizen” from Georgia is arrested in Tennessee and charged with plotting the violent takeover of a local county courthouse.
– May 2010: A still-unidentified white man walks into a Jacksonville, Fla., mosque and sets it afire, simultaneously setting off a pipe bomb.
– May 2010: Two “sovereign citizens” named Jerry and Joe Kane gun down two police officers who pull them over for a traffic violation, and then wound two more officers in a shootout in which both of them are eventually killed.
– July 2010: An agitated right-winger and convict named Byron Williams loads up on weapons and drives to the Bay Area intent on attacking the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, but is intercepted by state patrolmen and engages them in a shootout and armed standoff in which two officers and Williams are wounded.
– September 2010: A Concord, N.C., man is arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. The man, 26-year–old Justin Carl Moose, referred to himself as the “Christian counterpart to (Osama) bin Laden” in a taped undercover meeting with a federal informant.
– January 2011: A 22-year-old gunman named Jared Lee Loughner with a long grudge against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and a paranoid hatred of the government walks into a public Giffords event and shoots her in the head, then keeps firing, killing six people and wounding 14 more. Gifford miraculously survives.
– January 2011: A backpack bomb with the potential of killing or injuring dozens of people is found along the route of a Martin Luther King Day “unity march” in downtown Spokane.
(Above–Smoke as observed from space in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack.)
Republicans have said they are concerned that the bill would add to the deficit, yet adding to the deficit did not seem to be a concern for Republicans when it came to protecting tax cuts for the most wealthy Americans.
The 9/11 bill will cost $7.4 billion.
Republicans care that the wealthy become more powerful and wealthy.
How is it that tax cuts for the rich are okay with many Republicans, but assistance for those who risked their health to help after the destruction of the World Trade Center is not okay?
Mike Huckabee, a former Republican Presidential candidate, says the 9/11 bill should be passed.
Here is some of what Mr. Huckabee said—
“There are people who need medical care right now, and frankly, the clock is running out on them. Their lives are fading away, even as we sit here talking about it,”
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also supports the legislation.
Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma has renewed his commitment to not allowing the bill to proceed. Senator Coburn is a doctor.
Senator Coburn says he does not like the process that has been used to bring the bill to the floor of the Senate.
Sure.
How do average working people tolerate these things?
How can any loyal American support Republican actions in this matter?
The FBI just arrested a Somali born teenager who wanted to detonate a bomb in Portland, Oregon. I’m kind of surprised at how much we know about the plot already. This young man contacted somebody in Pakistan who put him in touch with another man. This second man, an FBI informant/agent, was supposed to have information on how to make a bomb. The FBI sting was elaborate. The FBI proved the bomb was real. They took the young man to some deserted portion of Oregon and detonated a similar device.
If you listen to the mainstream media, they would have us convinced that Barack Obama loves terrorists. It appears that nothing could be further from the truth. The Obama administration has been outstanding, so far, at combating these terrorist threats. I’m still worried about the guys that we haven’t caught. They guys that aren’t stupid. The guys that are trying to stay under the radar.
Kudos, congratulations and a high five to the FBI. The FBI has been much maligned about their counterterrorism prowess. They’ve dropped the ball on the number of occasions. They seem to be getting their act together.
From NYT:
The terrorism attempt was the latest is a string of plots since last year involving Americans or immigrants who had become radicalized, often through exposure to extremist Web sites. In May, a Pakistani-born American was arrested in the plotting of a car bomb attack in Times Square, and later pleaded guilty.
But in contrast to that plan, which the authorities learned about only at the last minute, the F.B.I. had been tracking Mr. Mohamud since 2009 and his planning unfolded under the scrutiny and even assistance of undercover agents, officials said.
The F.B.I.’s surveillance started in August 2009 after agents intercepted his e-mails with a man he had met in Oregon who had returned to the Middle East, according to a law enforcement official who described the man as a recruiter for terrorism. According to the affidavit, the man had moved to Yemen and then northwest Pakistan, a center of terrorism activity. (more…)
From TPM:
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) went to the House floor Thursday night, to warn of a diabolical terrorist plot — with a 20-30 year timeline.
The plot involves arranging for a child to be born in the United States — then training them in an isolated environment abroad, ready to dispatch them back here to commit violence after a quick two or three decades.
“I talked to a retired FBI agent who said that one of the things they were looking at were terrorist cells overseas who had figured out how to game our system. And it appeared they would have young women, who became pregnant, would get them into the United States to have a baby,” said Gohmert. “They wouldn’t even have to pay anything for the baby. And then they would turn back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists. And then one day, twenty, thirty years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life. ‘Cause they figured out how stupid we are being in this country to allow our enemies to game our system, hurt our economy, get set up in a position to destroy our way of life.”
Now, I know that Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have the “long view” of things but this is a plot right out of NCIS. BTW, in NCIS, we win.
On the Right side of the country, it has become a full-time job to bash president Obama. Before he was elected, their job was to support anything and everything President George W. Bush did. Towards the end of the Bush presidency, they just didn’t seem to have the same zeal about defending the president. With the election of Barack Obama, the old spark is back. It’s just like the way they relentlessly attacked Clinton and never admitted that he submitted a balanced budget, never gave him credit for turning around the deficit. They just kept bashing him. They’re doing the same with the president. Let’s look at today’s example –
From TP:
As the Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman sarcastically noted, Shahzad’s guilty plea is “obviously another crucial failure for a law-enforcement-based response to terrorism.” Indeed, Shahzad’s guilty plea puts the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy in an awkward spot. Just this morning — hours before the announcement of the guilty please — McCarthy gleefully declared the failure of the law enforcement approach, citing the Department of Justice’s failure to secure a guilty plea:
Now comes word from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York that Shahzad has been indicted.[...]
Attorney General Eric Holder has been telling anyone who would listen that Shahzad is cooperating and providing valuable information. Civilian due process has been no obstacle at all, Holder insists: no problem posed by Miranda, the appointment of counsel, the prospect of providing discovery, and the dynamics of plea-bargaining. Yet it is highly unusual to indict a cooperator, precisely because it is so strategically disadvantageous to the government. When someone is cooperating, the standard practice is to strike a deal, complete with a cooperation agreement and a guilty plea, in what is known as a “criminal information,” rather than to file an indictment. [...]
An indictment, on the other hand, is the throwdown moment in a criminal case, the opening bell for the first round of a prize fight. It signals that the parties have been unable to work out an agreement and are in an antagonistic posture.
Unfortunately for McCarthy, his eagerness to bash President Obama put him on the wrong side of the facts by about five hours. Of course, this probably won’t stop McCarthy from making up another reason for why the Obama administration has botched this terrorism prosecution.
It seems to me that our Constitution guarantees some basic rights for all Americans. (Now we can, of course, argue about whether Faisal Shahzad should have been allowed to become an American citizen.) These rights are not open for negotiations. Yet, we have some who have argued that alleged failed Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, shouldn’t have been afforded these rights. Why not? Doesn’t our Constitution work in good times and bad? If there is some reason that the Constitution doesn’t work, then we need to amend it. I think that this is really pretty simple, but it seems that folks don’t get it.
We must do more for our veterans because they do so much for us!!
From NYT:
Even in Times Square, where little seems unusual, the Nissan Pathfinder parked just off Broadway on the south side of 45th Street — engine running, hazard lights flashing, driver nowhere to be found — looked suspicious to the sidewalk vendors who regularly work this area.
And it was the keen eyes of at least two of them — both disabled Vietnam War veterans who say they are accustomed to alerting local police officers to pickpockets and hustlers — that helped tip off the authorities to the Pathfinder, illegally and unusually parked next to their merchandise of inexpensive handbags and $2.99 “I Love NY” T-shirts.
Shortly before 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, the vendors — Lance Orton and Duane Jackson, who both served during the Vietnam War and now rely on special sidewalk vending privileges for disabled veterans — told nearby officers about the Pathfinder, which had begun filling with smoke and then emitted sparks and popping sounds. (more…)
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
From BnB:
Imagine this: you’re in Times Square on a Saturday night getting your T-shirt hustle on. You see a Nissan Pathfinder with smoke coming out the windows. What do you do?
Well, if you are Vietnam vet Lance Orton, you flag down a cop and say, “Something ain’t right.” (Okay, I paraphrased). The mounted officer detected the smell of gunpowder and Times Square was evacuated. Investigators removed three propane tanks, consumer-grade fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. Whoever put it together was NOT PLAYING. Let’s face it, that could’ve serious jacked up some stuff.Mr. Orton finds himself a reluctant hero, he wants no publicity: (From NY Times)
“I’m not going to say nothing, I’m not going to say nothing,” he said when first approached by a gaggle of reporters. As he walked down the street, employees from Junior’s restaurant stood outside applauding him. He briefly entered the restaurant before heading toward 44th Street.
He walked with a limp, had a cane, wore a white fedora and had a hoop earring in his right ear. When asked if he was proud of his actions, he said: “Of course, man. I’m a veteran. What do you think?”
The vendor said that he had served during the Vietnam War and had been selling wares on the street for about 20 years.
“I don’t have too much of a choice, nobody’s giving me a job,” he said.
He said that he was reluctant to speak with members of the media because they had twisted his words when they interviewed him in recent years.
He got into the back seat of the taxi, took off his hat and used it to fan his face.
Before he left, he was asked what he had to say to New Yorkers.
“See something, say something,” he said.
There’s a deeper lesson here if anyone is looking for it. Dude serves his country, comes home and has to sell T-shirts on the street to make a living. Without even hesitating, he serves his country again. Amen, Mr. Orton. Hey Bloomberg, cut the brother a check… seriously. He’s earned a little “thank you” from the City of New York.
Update
Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
