• Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2009-12-31

    • Rush took a rotting abandoned hulk – AM radio – and reinvented it as a new conservative medium. Critics such as our former colleague David Frum miss the larger point: It's not just about his opinions on this or that policy issue or candidate, but about a strategic savvy few other folks on our side of the aisle can demonstrate.

      I owe him a lot personally, and I hope he rests up for whatever time he needs, and then comes back and sticks it to the naysayers till mid-century.

    • As the government reviews how an alleged terrorist was able to bring a bomb onto a U.S.-bound plane and try to blow it up on Christmas Day, the Transportation Security Administration is going after bloggers who wrote about a directive to increase security after the incident.

      TSA special agents served subpoenas to travel bloggers Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott, demanding that they reveal who leaked the security directive to them. The government says the directive was not supposed to be disclosed to the public.

      Frischling said he met with two TSA special agents Tuesday night at his Connecticut home for about three hours and again on Wednesday morning when he was forced to hand over his lap top computer. Frischling said the agents threatened to interfere with his contract to write a blog for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines if he didn't cooperate and provide the name of the person who leaked the memo.
      ++++++
      Janet Napolitano is laughable and should resign

  • Twitter

    @Flap Twitter Updates for 2009-12-31

    Powered by Twitter Tools

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2009-12-30

    • From Politico: Obama takes the heat Bush did not. It’s that “George didn’t say anything about the shoebomber, why are they picking on O?” thing again.

      Memo to Politico re Obama: Want your guy to look tough on terrorism? Tell him to kick terrorist ass. Like Bush did. Like Bush was actively doing when Richard Reid was trying to ignite his shoes eight years ago. Also, stop whining. It’s unbecoming. For all the faults of the Bush admin, at least they weren’t whiners. Anyway, Politico and whichever O-paratchiks are feeding them this need to check their history on all the heat Bush took not only for kicking terrorist ass, but for systemic security failures that long predated his administration. And for virtually everything he said and didn’t say.

      Important Dem news via Gateway: Obama has been “far more aggressive in fighting al-Qaeda” than Bush. Gotta hand it to them. It’s a big enough lie. Now, if they just keep repeating it often enough …

    • Democrats claim that the snorkler in chief is more aggressive fighting ‘man caused disasters’ than Bush.
      The Hill reported:

      Democratic strategists Wednesday asserted President Barack Obama “has been far more aggressive in fighting al Qaeda” than the previous administration .

      In an e-mail this afternoon to supporters — which incidentally excoriated Republicans for politicizing the attempted bombing of Flight 253 — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) stressed it was President George W. Bush, not his successor, who relegated the fight against the terrorist network to the back burner by turning “its focus from al Qaeda to Iraq.”
      +++++++
      For the record: In Operation Iraqi Freedom more than 19,429 Al-Qaeda and Islamic militants have been killed. Over 18,900 insurgents have been captured.

    • The attempt to blow Northwest Flight 253 out of the air was planned as an attack on the United States and very nearly succeeded in accomplishing that horrific goal. The moment demanded inspiring, decisive presidential leadership.

      America waited four days for a glimmer.

      President Obama's initial response Monday was too long in coming, too cool in delivery and too removed from the extreme gravity of the plot.

      Tuesday, he spoke more assertively, acknowledging what everyone else had long ago concluded: that unacceptable security failures had enabled 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to smuggle high explosives onto a Detroit-bound jet.

      Before his first remarks on Monday, Obama had left a vacuum, and into that 76-hour empty space rushed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose ineptitude made a mockery of her position and threw millions of fliers into continuing states of confusion.

    • Media sympathizers have spotlighted Abdulmutallab's web postings bemoaning his "loneliness." But more compassion and empathy — the remedy Barack Obama prescribed in an infamously clueless Chicago community newspaper op-ed after the Sept. 11 attacks — are useless salves to the terrorist's damned soul. Like so many of his wealthy, educated jihad brothers and sisters before him, from Osama bin Laden to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Fort Hood mass killer Nidal Hasan, M.D., Abdulmutallab targeted us for who we are — dirty, unbelieving infidels — not anything we've denied him.
      And for his failed act of self-eunuchery and mass murder, the all-too-enlightened leaders of al-Qaida in Yemen and beyond hailed Abdulmutallab as a "hero."

      Another of these "heroes" in Yemen is Jamal Muhammad Ahmad Al Badawi, the convicted mastermind of the U.S.S. Cole bombing that took the lives of 17 American sailors in October 2000. Despite being sentenced to the death penalty, escaping twice
      ++++++
      Read it all

    • Less than two weeks ago, the Obama administration repatriated to Yemen six detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. It was a test. About 90 of the 200 or so remaining Gitmo detainees are Yemenis. The president would like to move toward fulfilling his promise to close Gitmo, and thus to appease the antiwar Left, by transferring most of those Yemeni jihadists back home.

      On Christmas Day, we got yet another indicator of how reckless this obsession with closing Gitmo is. A well-to-do Nigerian jihadist, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, tried to destroy Northwest Airlines Flight 253, carrying 289 passengers and crew, as it was preparing to land in Detroit after a flight from Amsterdam. The 23-year-old Mutallab attempted to ignite an incendiary chemical bomb, the components of which he assembled in flight after smuggling them onto the aircraft. He reportedly confessed to the FBI that he had been trained and tasked for the operation by al-Qaeda in Yemen.
      +++++++
      Read it all

    • If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?

      We are headed toward the moment when screeners will watch watch-listers sashay through while we have to come to the airport in hospital gowns, flapping open in the back.

    • Unable to defend themselves on the merits, the administration and Democratic leaders are trying to change the topic to blaming Bush and Republicans. This is pathetic.

      First of all, Obama is president. He has been for almost a year. Whatever mistakes Bush did or didn’t make, Obama is in charge — and the issue isn’t partisan score-settling, it’s whether the system he is in charge of is working. It isn’t.

      One reason the system isn’t is some of the people he put in charge — Janet Napolitano and Dennis Blair come to mind. Another reason is certain concrete policy choices they’ve made — e.g., embracing a law enforcement approach and, without even weighing the choice, immediately choosing to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal suspect, not an enemy combatant.

    • There is no more solemn duty for an American commander-in-chief than the martialling of “all elements of American power” – the phrase Obama himself used on Monday – to protect the people of the United States. In that key respect, Obama failed on Christmas Day, just as President George W. Bush failed on September 11th (though he succeeded in the seven years after that).

      Yes, the buck stops in the Oval Office. Obama may have rather smugly given himself a “B+” for his 2008 performance but he gets an F for the events that led to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarding a Detroit-bound plane in Amsterdam with a PETN bomb sewn into his underpants. He said today that a “systemic failure has occurred”. Well, he’s in charge of that system.

      (tags: barack_obama)
    • I’ve already written about how his isolationist garbage leads inexorably to nonsense like this, so let me just add two points. First, and most obviously, there is no U.S. occupation of Yemen or Nigeria. The only way the airline plot is a reaction to U.S. “occupation” is if you accept the jihadist premise that there are no Arab/Muslim nation-states but rather only one Islamic caliphate waiting to be born. Only in that way does the U.S. occupation of Iraq warrant a reprisal from, say, a Pakistani or Yemeni. And yet, needless to say, if Britain was attacked tomorrow and Obama pledged U.S. forces to assist in the reprisal, Paul would be the first guy to scream that we should scrupulously observe national boundaries and not go fighting another country’s battles for it.
      +++++++
      Ron Paul in true nutter form……
      (tags: Ron_Paul)
    • Former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Barack Obama on Tuesday of “trying to pretend we are not at war” with terrorists, pointing to the White House response to the attempted sky bombing as reflecting a pattern that includes banishing the term “war on terror” and attempting to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

      “[W]e are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe,” Cheney said in a statement to POLITICO. “Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency – social transformation—the restructuring of American society.”
      ++++++
      Or in denial…..

    • For most of the decade about to end, the natural trends of California politics have been partly suspended as the result of the once-in-a-lifetime 2003 recall election and the surreal emergence of immigrant movie action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor.

      In two days, 2010 will be upon us, Schwarzenegger will officially become a lame duck and Californians can begin to ponder life after Arnold.

      A good part of what lies ahead politically is that the blossoming diversity of the California electorate will assert its influence in ways that Schwarzenegger’s early cross-cultural and cross-partisan appeal stunted, or at least helped to mask. With Schwarzenegger in the governor’s office, Republicans were able to retain their relevancy and delay dealing with a potentially fatal political shortcoming.

      That is the obvious conclusion that can be drawn from an encyclopedia of political data assembled in a new book, “California after Arnold,” by two Dem operatives
      ++++++
      Delusions of grandeur

    • Today, after a vacationing President Barack Obama conceded that both human and systemic failures of U.S. Intelligence had failed to bar a Nigerian man posing a reported security risk from boarding that Detroit-bound jetliner – a near-''catastrophic" breakdown in security – Obama left the reporters taking his words in Hawaii and went snorkeling.

      The president was wearing a navy blue suit and white striped shirt with no tie, and spoke only to reporters – unlike a televised appearance sans-tie that he had made the day before. Today, his words seemed sterner. Today, he was acknowledging a troubling breakdown in Intelligence and security surrounding air travel.

      (tags: barack_obama)
  • Twitter

    @Flap Twitter Updates for 2009-12-30

    Powered by Twitter Tools

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2009-12-29

    • The American College of Cardiology (ACC) today announced that it filed a complaint against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in United States District Court. The complaint alleges that Secretary Sebelius, in her capacity as the HHS Secretary, unlawfully adopted the payment rates for cardiology services in the 2010 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) by using an invalid Physician Practice Information Survey (PPIS) in a manner that threatens access to care for patients and precipitously increases medical care costs.
    • Rep. George Radanovich (R-Calif.) is set to announce Tuesday that he will not seek reelection, according to House Republican aides.

      Radanovich has missed a series of votes recently, citing his wife's health. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in recent years.
      Radanovich has made it official and has endorsed Denham.

      “As many already know, Ethie has been valiantly fighting ovarian cancer for nearly three years. My family needs me, and I intend to be by their side to win this battle.

      “It is for this reason that I have decided to not seek reelection to Congress in 2010.

      “I am pleased to say that I reached out to State Senator Jeff Denham and asked him to consider running for my seat. Jeff and I share over 100,000 constituents and I have witnessed firsthand the work he has done for our special part of California. After consulting with his family, he agreed to be our Republican candidate for the 19th congressional district."
      +++++++
      Sad but the seat should remain Safe GOP

    • The good news for Senator Ben Nelson is that he doesn’t have to face Nebraska voters until 2012.

      If Governor Dave Heineman challenges Nelson for the Senate job, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows the Republican would get 61% of the vote while Nelson would get just 30%. Nelson was reelected to a second Senate term in 2006 with 64% of the vote.

      Nelson's health care vote is clearly dragging his numbers down. Just 17% of Nebraska voters approve of the deal their senator made on Medicaid in exchange for his vote in support of the plan. Overall, 64% oppose the health care legislation, including 53% who are Strongly Opposed. In Nebraska, opposition is even stronger than it is nationally.
      +++++++++
      Harry Reid will be gone in 2010 over the failed economy and Nelson will go down with Obamacare

    • Sen. Max Baucus' office Monday denounced a widely viewed Internet video that suggested Baucus was drunk on the Senate floor last week, calling it an "untrue, personal smear" designed to attack Democrats' health-care reform legislation.

      "This is beyond the pale, and this type of gutter politics has no place in the public sphere," said Baucus spokesman Ty Matsdorf.

      The video, posted over the weekend on the popular Internet video Web site YouTube (www.youtube.com), is a five-minute clip of Baucus speaking last Tuesday during floor debate on the health-reform bill that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve.

      Baucus, a key figure in Democrats' crafting of the health-reform bill, is angrily answering Republican criticism that Democrats fashioned a partisan bill and locked Republicans out of any meaningful talks on the bill.
      ++++++
      Yeah, right……

      (tags: max_baucus)
    • Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia will build new weapons to offset the planned U.S. missile defense and urged Washington to share detailed data about its missile shield under a new arms control deal.

      Putin's remarks posted on the Cabinet's Web site set a defiant tone and signaled new difficulties in talks between the two nations on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that expired on Dec. 5. Moscow and Washington had hoped to strike a deal before the end of the year but problems persist.

      Putin's comments also showed that the former Russian president is continuing to shape Russian foreign policy, which under the constitution should be set by his successor, Dmitry Medvedev.
      ++++++++++
      The Russians have been against U.S. missile defense since Reagan. Of course, the US has an edge and that is the point. Will Obama negotiate it away?

  • Day By Day,  Max Baucus

    Day By Day December 29, 2009 – Democrats Blow



    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Montana Democrat Senator Max Baucus is a disgrace and this was the principal architect of Obamacare in the United States Senate. Besides his problems with his girlfriend and taking her on government paid trysts:

    Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, gave a nearly $14,000 pay raise to a female staffer in 2008, at the time he was becoming romantically involved with her, and later that year took her on a taxpayer-funded trip to Southeast Asia and the Middle East, though foreign policy was not her specialty.

    Late last Friday, Baucus acknowledged his relationship with Melodee Hanes, whom he nominated for the job of U.S. attorney in Montana, after it was first reported on the website MainJustice.com. But he said that Hanes withdrew from consideration for the job when the relationship became more serious. The following day, Baucus dismissed calls for an ethics investigation, saying, “I went out of my way to be up and up.”

     …..there is his obvious intoxication on the floor of the Senate:

    Now, do Montana voters really want someone who has clearly “LOST IT” as their Senator?


    Technorati Tags: ,

  • Twitter

    @Flap Twitter Updates for 2009-12-29

    Powered by Twitter Tools

  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2009-12-28

    • That's right, former governor and U.S. senator George Allen said today that he is thinking pretty seriously about public office, including a possible rematch against Democrat Jim Webb, who defeated Allen in 2006 by fewer than 10,000 votes.

      It's so thrilling we can hardly type. Allen's been out and about quite a lot lately, prompting lots of gossip about his political plans. Turns out he might have some. Here's the money quote, which he offered when asked about a rematch:

      "Many people have encouraged me to run," Allen said in a telephone interview. "Susan and I have heard that from many people. And the answer is: perhaps."

    • The leading Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence today said blame for allowing an al Qaeda bomber to board a US-bound flight with deadly explosives on Christmas day lay with a number of foreign governments and US policy makers, but he pointed his finger at the Obama administration for taking its eye off the threat from terrorism abroad.

      “I think there’s enough blame to go around here, the bottom line is we ended up with a bomb on a plane with a detonator ready to go off — that’s totally unacceptable. There’s probably failures at every step of the way, in Nigeria, in the Netherlands, and in the overall procedures,” Ranking Member Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., said in an interview with ABC News.

    • FAILED plane bomber Umar Abdulmutallab has bragged to FBI agents that there are more young men plotting to launch attacks on the West.

      The 23-year-old Nigerian has told security chiefs of a sinister network in Yemen who are ready and waiting to strike.

      The reports come after The Sun revealed that cops fear that 25 British-born Muslims are plotting to bomb Western airliners.

      The fanatics, in five groups, are now training at secret terror camps in Yemen.
      +++++++
      How about a pre-emptive strike in Yemen, Mr President?

    • Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.
      American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.

      Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.