We the People of the United States

Dan Pfeiffer’s Word of the Day: “Irrelevant” (Open Thread)

Miri — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:16:39 +0000

© Miri WTPOTUS May 19, 2013

The word of the day is irrelevant. What’s relevant is that irrelevant is a word that Dan Pfeiffer, an Obama spokesperson and aide, used at least three times when speaking about Obama’s recent hat trick of scandals. Like Susan Rice after Benghazi, Pfeiffer appeared on five Sunday shows this week, in an apparent attempt to spin, spin, spin away the blowback from the scandals.

With regard to the potential illegality of IRS agents specifically targeting certain groups because of their political views, Pfeiffer opined:

The law is irrelevant. The activity is outrageous and inexcusable.

That statement says much about the Obama administration’s attitude towards the law, as well as the Constitution. Activity that is “outrageous” or “inexcusable”, in their opinion, is more relevant than what’s potentially criminal! Why? Because nobody goes to jail for being outrageous or inexcusable. And we don’t need a “special prosecutor” if the activity is merely outrageous and inexcusable, but not criminal.

There’s no doubt that conservative groups were specifically and completely targeted (in other words, PROFILED) by the IRS under OBAMA. Without exception every Tea Party, 9/12, or “patriot” group that applied for tax exempt status during the period in question, roughly 2009 through the 2012 election, was referred for special proctological treatment by politically oriented operatives in Obama’s IRS. This is likely criminal, and unconstitutional to boot.

Next, Pfeiffer used the word irrelevant while discussing the whereabouts of the Commander in Chief as our ambassador and three other Americans were being slaughtered during a terrorist attack on the diplomatic “mission” in Benghazi, Libya:

I don’t remember what room he was in. It’s a largely irrelevant fact.

Irrelevant to whom? The families of the murdered patriots? The families want to know what their sons’ commander in chief was doing while they died. In addition, we all need to learn exactly who gave the “stand down” order to prevent the military from at least attempting to save their lives.

Finally, Pfeiffer responded to a question about those 12 iterations of the Benghazi “talking points” and who exactly made those edits:

It’s an absolute tragedy what happened. The question isn’t ‘Who edited what talking points/’ That’s largely irrelevant.

I’d like to know what IS relevant to these people. These three scandals have been rife with words of the day, such as “spontaneous” and “inappropriate“; now they add “outrageous” and “inexcusable”. Here are some words I’d like to read with regard to these scandals: impeachment, jail, frog marched.

It’s somewhat heartening to see that this time around the mainstream media aren’t as apt to parrot the Obama-supplied talking points, although there are exceptions.

One concept remains to be vanquished: the foolish idea that “foolish mistakes were made” but now our sole job is to identify the problems, fix them, and “move on.” (We heard this meme from Hillary Clinton after Benghazi: “What difference at this point does it make?” The subtext being, let’s just “move on.”)

We’re told that we should never, ever politicize these particular scandals (because they plague a “progressive” administration). Politicization is reserved for progressives like Obama. Nixon never caught a break from the media, no matter how ignorant he was of what his minions were up to.

This administration NEVER wants to be held accountable for anything. This president is the most ignorant president in U.S. history. Ignorant in the sense that he apparently knows NOTHING about anything that goes on in his own administration. Like us, he gets his news from the TV, when we do. He says it with a straight face and expects us to believe it.

Obama’s not in the loop on ANYTHING, but especially not anything that might get him or his administration in hot water.

Dan Pfeiffer is well known to us because of the role he played in introducing Obama’s purported “long form birth certificate” to the world. During that event, Obama was similarly and deliberately kept out of the loop. Pfeiffer took pains to advise the media that Obama would NOT be “holding” the birth certificate, nor would the document even remain in the room with Obama:

Pfeiffer implies that what he holds is the actual certificate. But Obama will NOT hold it; will not avow it; will not recognize it; and Pfeiffer will take it with him before Obama arrives to speak. Why?

“Implausible deniability”. There’s a phrase of the day for you!

#####

h/t Matt Drudge and Gateway Pundit

AP Phone Records Scandal: You Rang? (Open Thread)

Miri — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:39:01 +0000

© Miri WTPOTUS May 16, 2013

By now, almost everyone is aware of three scandals currently plaguing the Obama administration: Benghazi talking points, IRS targeting of conservatives, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoenaing telephone records of AP reporters to investigate an alleged national security leak. Let’s look at that last scandal in more depth.

Floyd Abrams, a prominent First Amendment and media attorney, said, “The breathtaking scope of these subpoenas served on the telephone companies might suggest that after all this time, they [the DOJ] have no idea who they’re looking for.” …

“I don’t think that there is any doubt that this is a serious investigation that they have spent a lot of time on and that they feel deeply about,” Abrams said. Justice’s targeting of a large number of phone lines and the AP journalists who use them “taken together, certainly makes it look like the largest, most intrusive action by the government vis-a-vis the press that I can remember.” [emphasis added to all quotes]

Most news stories report that these were only “phone logs”, not tapped conversations. The logs

… listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of calls.

Getting phone logs for AP reporters who worked out of the House of Representatives is especially problematic, according to Representative Devin Nunes, because it raises the issue of separation of powers. By what right does the DOJ demand access to phone records that potentially concern members of Congress, the representatives of the People?

Another question is why this subpoena was “overbroad”, sweeping up records from as many as 100 reporters, most of whom were not involved in the leak investigation. President and CEO of the AP, Gary Pruitt, wants answers and has written to the DOJ, demanding them.

There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the news gathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s news gathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.

We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.

Another issue is whether or not Eric Holder truly recused himself from this situation BEFORE the activity came to light. He said,

I can’t remember when I recused myself from the AP investigation, and I know I didn’t do it in writing

Sound familiar? It has been suggested that ANY Attorney General could simply use a similar secret recusal with no paper trail to evade any uncomfortable revelation. One reporter asked on Twitter:

If there’s no written record of recusal, who told DAG Cole that he was running the AP investigation?

Because these are only phone “logs”, no conversations were recorded, or so this story alleges:

The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.

But is that assumption true? The media would be wise to not rely upon such reassurances and dig deeper into the activities of the Obama administration. Consider this story from the first week of this month:

Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government? A former FBI counterterrorism agent claims on CNN that this is the case:

The real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy. But a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a rather startling acknowledgment of just how vast and invasive these surveillance activities are.

In the context of the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing, Erin Burnett of CNN interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent. She asked whether the FBI could somehow learn what was said between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his wife over the telephone, before and after the terrorist attack:

BURNETT: … There’s no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?

CLEMENTE: “No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It’s not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.

BURNETT: “So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.

CLEMENTE: “No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.”

Clemente appeared again on CNN and elaborated further:

[He] added expressly that “all digital communications in the past” are recorded and stored: repeat that last part: “no digital communication is secure”, by which he means not that any communication is susceptible to government interception as it happens (although that is true), but far beyond that: all digital communications – meaning telephone calls, emails, online chats and the like – are automatically recorded and stored and accessible to the government after the fact.

To describe that is to define what a ubiquitous, limitless Surveillance State is. …

[Former AT&T engineer Mark Klein revealed] “that the NSA [National Security Agency] set up a system that vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T” and that “contrary to the government’s depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas terrorists . . . much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic.” …

“Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications,” [according to a story in the Washington Post].

You can see the obvious danger here. Clemente took pains to say that this isn’t anything the FBI will likely ever present in a court, which suggests that they know that it’s constitutionally problematic. But it gives them INFORMATION, and knowledge is, of course, POWER.

Doubtless the Obama administration would suggest that this is merely one freedom (our privacy) that we Americans MUST surrender in order to be kept safe. This “leak” involves “national security”, so they have to listen to all of those phone conversations, in order to keep us safe.

What else might they learn, unrelated to the alleged leak? Can they be trusted to not use, politically, anything they learned outside the realm of their investigation into the “leak”? Why WAS that subpoena so “overbroad”?

Trust them. They capture and store ALL of our “digital communications” only so that they will be able to retrospectively go back and nail terrorists. Criminals. Someone like Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s wife, if she happens to be complicit in his crimes.

They’re not targeting ordinary Americans who are simply going about their business, or reporters who are exercising their constitutionally protected rights to free speech and freedom of the press. (May as well mention freedom of association, too.)

AP reporters had better sit up and take notice. With their telephone records–date, time, number called–OBAMA’S GOVERNMENT can now easily go back through the NSA’s billions of captured, recorded, and stored digital phone conversations and learn not only who possibly leaked national security information but also the details of every reporter’s conversations with ANY of their sources during those two months.

What power that ability hands to this corrupt administration! “Corrupt” to us, who’ve been watching this administration from the beginning; but “corrupt” to the previously “Obama lapdog media”?

Do these 100+ reporters TRUST Obama and Holder to NOT use what they now know to their political advantage, especially in light of what reporters learned recently about how the IRS targeted political opponents of Barack Hussein Obama?

#####

Mother’s Day Open Thread

Miri — Sun, 12 May 2013 18:06:03 +0000

From the poem “Mother” by Madison Julius Cawein

Oh, just to see her face again
A-smiling at the windowpane!
To see her standing at the door
And offering her arms once more,
As oft she did when, just a child,
She took me to her heart and smiled,
And hushed my cry and cured my pain
I’m going home to her again.

Happy Mother’s Day to all from WTPOTUS.

######

Passing of a Legend: Ray Harryhausen (Open Thread)

Miri — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:31:11 +0000

© Miri WTPOTUS May 9, 2013

from Smithsonian.com

Who hasn’t been thrilled by the special effects in the movies of Ray Harryhausen? The legendary writer, movie producer, and inventor of Dynamation died two days ago, at the age of 92.

Who could ever forget that thrilling scene from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, when the skeleton militia arose, armed for battle, out of the fertile soil of Harryhausen’s imagination? It scared me then; it scares me still, 40 years after. Who’d ever seen the likes of that?!! Nobody.

Harryhausen was a true pioneer–a special effects wizard who inspired those who followed, such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, James Cameron, Steve Archer, Jim Danforth, Seamus Walsh and Mark Caballero, among others. In his early years, Harryhausen worked with such fellow masters as Willis O’Brien, Ray Bradbury, Forrest J. Ackerman, Frank Capra, Theodore Geisel (“Dr. Seuss”), Charles H. Schneer, and Irwin Allen.

Among his more memorable works:

Mighty Joe Young
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
It Came from Beneath the Sea
20 Million Miles to Earth
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
Jason and the Argonauts
One Million Years B.C.
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger
Clash of the Titans

Raymond Frederick Harryhausen June 29, 1920 – May 7, 2013

May he rest in peace.

#####

Benghazi: Hillary’s Second Watergate?

Miri — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:15:00 +0000

© Miri WTPOTUS May 6, 2013

Hillary Clinton, with chief counsel John Doar (left), bringing impeachment charges against President Nixon before the House Judiciary Committee in 1974

Back in 1974, Hillary Rodham Clinton worked for the House Judiciary Committee, which was writing articles of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon. Clinton, however, was fired from that job.

Jerry Zeifman, her supervisor on the committee, was the person who fired her. [emphasis added]

Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, … contends Clinton was collaborating with allies of the Kennedys to block revelation of Kennedy-administration activities that made Watergate “look like a day at the beach.” …

[Franklin] Polk [once Chief Republican Counsel and Staff Director for the House Judiciary Committee] confirmed Clinton wrote a brief arguing Nixon should not be granted legal counsel due to a lack of precedent. But Clinton deliberately ignored the then-recent case of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who was allowed to have a lawyer during the impeachment attempt against him in 1970.

Moreover, Zeifman claims Clinton bolstered her fraudulent brief by removing all of the Douglas files from public access and storing them at her office, enabling her to argue as if the case never existed.

Polk confirmed the Clinton memo ignored the Douglas case, but he could not confirm or dispel the claim that Hillary removed the files.

Looking back on the case amid Clinton’s fierce battle [in 2008] with Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, [WND columnist Dan] Calabrese sees a picture emerging “of a very ambitious young lawyer who was eager to please her political patrons, and was willing to mislead and undermine established committee staff and senior committee members in order to do so.” …

When the Watergate probe concluded, Zeifman said, he fired Clinton from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation. …

“She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer,” Zeifman said. “She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”

Flash forward to 2012, when Hillary Clinton was U.S. Secretary of State. On her watch, on the night of Sept. 11, Muslim jihadist terrorists, likely associates of Al Qaeda, attacked a U.S. “mission” in Benghazi, Libya, killing four Americans and wounding many others. Although it was suspected within hours to be a terrorist attack, the Obama administration did everything in its power to pretend otherwise.

Now Clinton’s words and actions in the aftermath of that event are being investigated by the House of Representatives. Ironic?

Lies and coverups. Unethical behavior. Conspiracy. A leopardess doesn’t change her spots. Will Benghazi be yet another “Watergate” for Hillary? Or will it be her Waterloo, when whistle blowers finally get to speak in hearings this week? [emphasis added]

… Hillary Clinton and a key aide effectively tried to cut the department’s own counterterrorism bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making, according to … Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for operations in the agency’s counterterrorism bureau.

[A]nother official from the counterterrorism bureau — independently of Thompson — voiced the same complaint about Clinton and Under Secretary for Management Patrick [F.] Kennedy to trusted national security colleagues back in October. …

Thompson considers himself a whistle-blower whose account was suppressed by the official investigative panel that Clinton convened to review the episode, the Accountability Review Board (ARB). Thompson’s lawyer, Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, has further alleged that his client has been subjected to threats and intimidation by as-yet-unnamed superiors at State, in advance of his cooperation with Congress. …

Documents from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council … showed that senior officials from those agencies decided within days of the attacks to delete all references to Al Qaeda’s known involvement in them from “talking points” being prepared for those administration officers being sent out to discuss the attacks publicly. …

[T]he statements of all senior Obama administration officials who commented publicly on Benghazi during the early days after the attacks — sought instead to depict the Americans’ deaths as the result of a spontaneous protest that went awry. The administration later acknowledged that there had been no such protest …

[T]he conduct of the ARB is itself now under review by the State Department’s Office of Inspector General.

In essence, Clinton’s State Dept. investigated itself.

In 1974, Hillary Clinton tried to deny President Richard M. Nixon legal counsel. What would she have said then to anyone who even suggested that the Nixon administration be allowed to investigate its own actions after the Watergate burglary, write a report, and then MOVE ON?

#####

The Pigford Scandal — Pigs Feeding at the Taxpayers’ Trough (Open Thread)

Miri — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:21:13 +0000

© Miri WTPOTUS May 1, 2013

Today is national Everybody Blog about Pigford Day, so WTPOTUS will do its part. Although we have known about and griped about this scandal for several years, unfortunately most of our fellow citizens, who are on the hook for the payments to these fake farmers, are kept in the dark, deliberately, by the lamestream media. That held true–at least until, inexplicably, the New York Times finally ran an in-depth story about the scandal, which involved compensating black “farmers” for alleged discrimination by the US Dept. of Agriculture. [emphasis added to quotes]

[A]n examination by The New York Times shows that [an effort to redress discrimination] became a runaway train, driven by racial politics, pressure from influential members of Congress and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees. In the past five years, it has grown to encompass a second group of African-Americans as well as Hispanic, female and Native American farmers. In all, more than 90,000 people have filed claims. The total cost could top $4.4 billion.

From the start, the claims process prompted allegations of widespread fraud and criticism that its very design encouraged people to lie: because relatively few records remained to verify accusations, claimants were not required to present documentary evidence that they had been unfairly treated or had even tried to farm. Agriculture Department reviewers found reams of suspicious claims, from nursery-school-age children and pockets of urban dwellers, sometimes in the same handwriting with nearly identical accounts of discrimination.

Yet those concerns were played down as the compensation effort grew. Though the government has started requiring more evidence to support some claims, even now people who say they were unfairly denied loans can collect up to $50,000 with little documentation.

As a senator, Barack Obama supported expanding compensation for black farmers, and then as president he pressed for $1.15 billion to pay those new claims. Other groups quickly escalated their demands for similar treatment. In a letter to the White House in September 2009, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a leading Hispanic Democrat, threatened to mount a campaign “outside the Beltway” if Hispanic farmers were not compensated.

The late, great Andrew Breitbart covered this growing scandal initially, so he gets much of the credit for exposing this outrage (even from the New York Times)!

Breitbart (the media entity) now leads the way to try to call more attention to this outrageous fraud perpetrated deliberately upon US taxpayers, in what can only be considered back door reparations:

… Sharon LaFraniere’s story is a huge breakthrough because it vindicates all the work of Andrew and the Breitbart News team, confirming the major conclusions we reached and adding new details.

The New York Times sets the agenda for much of the mainstream media, and it’s already had an effect, but we need your help to keep the momentum going. …

May 1st is a crucial date because corrupt farmers’ settlements for women and Hispanic farmers are STILL open –the claims form is at FarmerClaims.gov–but the deadline for these schemes is May 1st.

And schemes they are, indeed.

May Day. How appropriate for a communist-style fraud to redistribute the wealth of a nation to favored groups, to whom the regime is beholden for its very existence.

The NY Times story reports that one family alone collected a half million dollars in “compensation” by having 10 extended family members file claims.

In another instance, the residents of an entire URBAN apartment building each received payments of $50,000, no questions asked. Will black women, previously compensated as blacks, now be re-compensated as women? Don’t be surprised if they are.

No wonder so many Obama voters were ebullient when Obama won in 2008. They knew; even if we did not suspect.

Remember the woman who famously cried out that now that Obama was president, she wouldn’t have to pay her mortgage any more? We laughed, thinking she was misguided, if not totally off her rocker. Perhaps now she’s laughing–all the way to the bank!

Obamaphones, Obamacare, Obamareparations.

We the People are stuck with the bill for this egregious fraud, which was aided and abetted by Obama, Eric Holder’s DOJ, and many members of Congress.

Looting the Treasury on behalf of selected groups of citizens.

If Hispanics also end up getting reparations for pretending to be farmers, would it surprise you to eventually learn that many of those recipients weren’t even US citizens? It’s probably coming …

Reparations for illegal alien “farmers”, too! Why not?

All things are possible in the Obamanation.

Links to some of our many discussions of Pigford, and related scandals, are here.

#####

The Past Meets the Present (Open Thread)

Bridgette — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 04:50:28 +0000

Posted by Bridgette

Absolutely Heartwarming!

Photo of the Day: You Just Can’t Fake Decency!

Barack Obama, Former Pres. George W. Bush,
First Lieutenant Melissa Stockwell U.S. Army ( Ret.)

Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit, posted the photo above on April 29, 2013. It was too good not to share with our readers.

He wrote:

President George W. Bush invited his friend, this wounded warrior, to say the Pledge of Allegiance at his library dedication this past week.

George W. Bush and First Lieutenant Melissa Stockwell, U.S. Army Retired, with Barack Obama looking on. She is the same hero who danced with W after the Warrior 100K Ride in 2012.

You just can’t fake decency. There is a video of Bush as President with the troops that shows this love as well.

The look on President Obama’s face is telling. He will never have that connection with our troops. It’s just not in his soul.

#####

New Questions about the Tsarnaev Investigation (Open Thread)

Miri — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:55:43 +0000

© Miri WTPOTUS April 25, 2013

Another day, another set of questions about the many discrepancies in this evolving story about the Boston Marathon Islamist terrorist attack. Here are just a few:

After authorities claimed that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev engaged in a shootout with police from his hiding place in a boat, they now say that no weapons were found. Dzhokhar was unarmed, even though early news reports claimed he had “several weapons.”

Quite obviously, the fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was unarmed puts to rest any prior claim that he tried to shoot himself in the mouth to commit suicide.

After federal authorities testified that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was not on any watch lists, now they say he was on at least two watch lists, if not three. Russian authorities had reported Tamerlan Tsarnaev to US intelligence agencies (both the FBI and the CIA) at least twice in 2011 (March and November, if not also in September). He was placed into the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), a “highly classified central database of people it views as potential terrorists.” He was also placed on the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), “maintained by the Homeland Security Department’s Customs and Border Protection bureau which is used to screen people crossing U.S. land borders and entering at airports or by sea.” Janet Napolitano testified that the system “pinged” when Tamerlan Tsarnaev left for seven months to visit a hotbed of Islamic terrorism in Dagestan because he was in the TECS “platform”; but the system did not ping when he returned, because by then (we’re told) the “intelligence” agencies had concluded that he was no threat, even though the Russians “pushed” in a “warning letter” to have him listed as a potential terrorist because of his increasing radicalization and the fact that he used different dates of birth and aliases.

After news reports stated that the Tsarnaevs had a regular arsenal of weapons (an M4 carbine, two handguns, and a BB gun) now we’re told that there was “a single firearm” recovered at the scene of the shootout. This weapon was a 9mm handgun, not an M4 “assault rifle”.

Numerous stories said that the parents of the suspects would come to the USA as early as today; now we hear that the father will come but the mother will stay in Russia, perhaps because as soon as she sets foot on US soil, she’ll be arrested:

She faces three felony charges for alleged shoplifting and property damage in Massachusetts in 2012, according to Natick District Court. She jumped bail, and there has been an arrest warrant for her since October, the court’s clerk magistrate Brian Kearney said.

Here are a few questions I have:

Right before the bomb exploded, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was talking on a cell phone. Given that the Tsarnaev family are reported to have taken advantage of multiple social welfare programs over the years, one wonders whether both brothers had Obamaphones. Enquiring minds want to know what taxpayer monies potentially funded these Islamic terrorist attacks against us.

Did either or both of the Obamas visit the Saudi national “student” in the hospital, either before or after Secretary of State Kerry had a closed-door meeting with the Saudi ambassador and Barack Obama had a unexpected encounter with Saudi bigwigs in the WH?

Exactly WHO is the Abdul Rahman Al-Harbi who visited the White House multiple times over the Obama presidency?

Is he or is he not the Saudi national “student” of the same name who was at the scene of the Boston Marathon bombing and was allegedly injured and was originally reported to be a “person of interest” in the terrorist attack?

Who were the other Saudi nationals who were wounded in the explosion, seen with Al-Harbi, and were ANY of these men on terror watch lists? How did any of them get into the country? Were they fast-tracked, unvetted, as VIPs? Are any of them currently “armed and dangerous?”

What is the government going to do about the estimated 15,000 Muslims who came to the US on “student visas” but never showed up at school?

Is the reason our “intelligence” agencies do not adequately follow or investigate Muslims because they are intimidated from above by a president and his administration? Is it political correctness run amok, as suggested by the fact that this administration labeled the Fort Hood Islamic terrorist attack “workplace violence“?

Update 04/25/13 12:37 p.m.: I forgot this one: Who brought in the magistrate and the U.S. Attorney to STOP the FBI interrogation of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and why? He was cooperating, but “immediately” clammed up upon being read his Miranda rights. The FBI was not amused:

Two officials with knowledge of the FBI briefing on Capitol Hill said the FBI was against stopping the investigators’ questioning and was stunned that the judge, Justice Department prosecutors and public defenders showed up, feeling valuable intelligence may have been sacrificed as a result. [emphasis added]

#####

Tsarnaev Brothers Had No Gun Permits (Open Thread)

Miri — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:16:02 +0000

Last week, the Senate voted down expanded background checks, which would have covered all “advertised” private gun sales. After the Boston Massacre of 4/15/2013, gun control advocates began predictably to call once again for more gun control legislation, and added control of the purchase of black powder, which allows a person to make or reload ammunition. As many news reports have pointed out: the Muslim Tsarnaev brothers had no permits to carry weapons, and yet they did, nonetheless.

Criminals and terrorists, by definition, do not obey laws. [emphasis added to quotes.]

In the confrontation with police on the streets of a Boston suburb, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were armed with handguns, at least one rifle and several explosive devices, authorities say.

But neither brother appears to have been legally entitled to own or carry firearms where they lived …

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in the shootout with police, would have been required to apply for a gun license with the local police department where he lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

But there is no record of him having done so, according to Cambridge Police Department spokesman Dan Riviello.

Even if he had earlier received a gun license from somewhere outside Cambridge, that license would have to be registered with Cambridge police upon becoming a resident of the city, Riviello said. In Massachusetts, gun licenses are issued by municipal police departments.

“There is no record of him having a license to carry,” Riviello told Reuters.

Tsarnaev’s younger brother Dzhokhar, 19, who was captured alive on Friday after the manhunt, would have been too young to get a handgun license. Under state law, residents under 21 may only apply for a so-called firearms identification card, which allows the holder to own only rifles that hold 10 rounds or less and shotguns.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had no record of a firearms ID card in Cambridge. The police department in Dartmouth, where Dzhokhar was a student, said they had no record of gun licenses or ID cards for either brother.

Also predictably, this terrorist attack is being politicized–used to further restrict the Constitutional rights and the freedom of innocent Americans, the very people who are victimized by criminals and terrorists.

Senator Lindsey Graham implied that perhaps our government ought to be allowed to deploy ARMED drones within the USA, to take out US citizens who have been labeled terrorists:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) stirred the pot by suggesting that the Boston Marathon bombing incident proved the assertion that the United States is the battlefield in the war against jihadists. He recalled that during Sen. Rand Paul’s filibuster on drones, “I went to the floor for only one objection. He said ‘American is not the battlefield..’” Graham said he had brought with him a poster of the twin towers. Graham recalled, “I said, ‘This is the first battle.’”

Before the second bombing suspect was apprehended Friday night, Graham explained his reasoning during that filibuster regarding use of drones at home. “I said, ‘They’ll be more cities.’” At the time be belittled Rand Paul’s concern about Americans getting zapped by drones. He recalled his words then about Americans killed on U.S. soil, “Americans killed by drones. Zero. Americans killed by al-Qaeda. 2,995 [on 9-11-2001].” …

Graham also leads the charge against reading the prime suspect his Miranda rights. Other legislators argue for more surveillance cameras, even though it’s as likely that images and video captured by citizens would have led to the same suspects, regardless of whether or not Lord and Taylor had their cameras aimed at the finish line:

Some lawmakers argue that there can be no expectation of privacy in public, and that additional surveillance cameras are the best way to prevent attacks or track-down home-grown terrorists who operate off the grid of traditional communications monitored closely by U.S. intelligence authorities.

“If you walk down the street, anyone can look at you, anyone can see where you’re going. You have no expectation of privacy when you’re out in public,” said Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the former chairman of the Homeland Security panel and a member of the Intelligence Committee.

“This is not looking into someone’s home or doing something that would require a search warrant,” King said in an interview with The Hill. “We’re talking about something which is out in the open.”

Other lawmakers agree public cameras can be useful in the war on terrorism, especially in urban environments where terrorists can easily slip into the crowd.

The incident is also being used to push for “immigration reform“:

The Boston bombings and the foreign-born suspects have become part of the Capitol Hill debates on legislation to overhaul immigration law — with critics of the proposal saying Sunday the terror attacks expose gaps in the country’s system and supporters saying the tragedy could be a turning point in fixing a broken system.

“Now is the time to bring all of the 11 million (illegal immigrants) out of the shadows and find out who they are,” South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We may find some terrorists in our midst who have been hiding in the shadows.”

Graham and New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, members of a bipartisan Senate group working on immigration reform, said a key part of the legislation is better tracking of who enters and exits the United States on visas.

“The 19 (9/11) hijackers were all students who overstayed their visas and the system didn’t capture that,” Graham argued. “We’re going to fix that. … What happened in Boston should urge us to act quicker.” …

“Our law toughens things up,” Schumer told CNN. “There are some on the hard right, some otherwise, who oppose our immigration bill from the get-go, and they’re using this as an excuse. We are not going to let them do that.” …

Now is the time! Never let a crisis go to waste!

How coincidental that this incident touches upon most of the issues–the agenda–currently being rammed through Congress.

We the People who are not criminals (or terrorists) will find our lives constricted, although nothing implemented since 9/11/01 stopped that terror attack in Boston on 4/15/2013. Why not? Twelve years after, and still we ask,

“Are we safe?”

After all the billions of dollars spent, after all the bureaucracy created, after all the employees hired, after all the data sharing, these Chechen Muslim brothers somehow slipped through the cracks. After another country (said to be Russia) WARNED our intelligence agencies that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a radicalized Muslim with connections to terrorist elements in Dagestan–even so, he was allowed to remain in the USA.

Their new laws will infringe upon us and our rights, but they will not affect the criminals or terrorists, who already ignore laws and who, apparently, are able to come here at will, with no scrutiny whatsoever, even obtain citizenship, and then wreak havoc, kill and maim.

What is wrong with this picture?

#####

Islamic Jihad in America (Open Thread)

Bridgette — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 15:48:32 +0000

Is It Really Over?

Were We Watching Martial Law Being Tested?

Drudge Headlines on April 19, 2013

Are Obama’s sheeple still believing that the U.S. has “Al Qaeda on the Run?”

Was the Boston Marathon Terrorist Attack another example of “Work Place Violence” or was it a “Man Caused Disaster”? Was it a bombing or was it a MUSLIM TERRORIST ATTACK?

Was this attack a prelude to Martial Law in the United States? Did you even notice that everyone was told to stay in their homes, lock their doors, and not allow anyone into their homes unless they were the police? Did this even cross your mind that your constitutional rights were being trampled upon? Looking backwards, can you see how it would work if Obama and his regime instituted Martial Law nationwide?

Does anyone believe that the War on Terror is over? By changing the vernacular to describe the Islamic jihadist’s goals to something that won’t offend our enemies, we are vulnerable to the massive propaganda machines of organizations like CAIR and its affiliates, the Muslim Brotherhood, and our own Marxist run government supported by a leftist media.

When Obama and Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security Secretary, scrapped the terms “war on terror” and “terrorist attacks,” we were appeasing the enemy. Their new Leftist hygienic, sterilized language and “politically correct” terms were introduced to replace the apt and appropriately named “‘war on terror” when it became “Overseas Contingency Operations.” In place of “terrorist attacks” the politically correct term became “Man Caused Disasters.” Lest we not offend religious zealots, murderers, al-Qaeda and its off-shoots, and the Muslim terrorists that attack us and others across the world, we sealed the deal on our futures by allowing the enemy, the media, and the Obama administration to dictate and propagandize how they are perceived. The name changes and rebranding of the war that is being perpetrated against the West did not change the perception or goals of those whose barbaric ideology and religious combination dictate that they rid the world of infidels, in other words, you and me. Obama’s inability to use the word terrorist to describe our enemies shows his anti-American bent and his protection and support for the religious Muslim zealots.

Obama’s national security bona fides are in shambles as recently evidenced by the Ft. Hood massacre, Benghazi, and now the Boston Marathon Terrorist Attack. It wasn’t just a bombing, it was a Terrorist Attack. As Obama likes to remind us in every speech that he is president or commander-in-chief, may we remind the Usurper that the number one job of a real president is to keep America safe. He has failed miserably. His pronouncement that justice will come to those that attack Americans falls on deaf ears; just ask the families of those who died in Benghazi. They celebrate in Boston because one terrorist is dead and the other captured but will they celebrate when Eric Holder allows the youngest terrorist to be prosecuted as a common criminal instead of being sent directly to Gitmo to be interrogated? Will they celebrate when he is read his Miranda rights instead of being deemed a terrorist with limited rights?

Obama’s policy of Muslim appeasement that removed all references to Muslims and Arab-Americans in FBI training manuals because some people or Muslim organization found them offensive, shows their lack of comprehension about Muslim jihad that has left us vulnerable to the real enemies of the United States. The very enemies this administration is coddling by believing that they should unclench their fists and have a chat with the so called leader of the free world has proven it has no teeth. The followers of the “religion of peace” are the very ones who have infiltrated our government as “friends” and who are dictating the changes they want in our laws to perpetuate their ideological agenda.

The Marxists in power have proven that their Utopian idea of worldwide diplomacy is an abject failure, and they are insulating, protecting, and supporting our enemies by their idea of political correctness. We need only look at Libya, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Egypt to see how their foreign policies have worked. The Middle East is on fire and instead of putting out the fires, this regime adds the fuel time and time again. Instead of showing strength, our government led by the usurper has projected weakness in all areas. That the tin horn dictators around the world have become more bold in their verbal assaults and threats against the United States proves that the perception of the United States as being a super power no longer holds true, and that this administration has failed.

It is time for the American people to hold this government’s feet to the fire, and demand that they do their jobs to protect and defend the rights and liberties of its citizens. We must demand that we correctly identify our enemies by name, vigilantly check the backgrounds of those who want to enter our country, and purposefully identify our enemies who reside in the U.S. and who are shielded by our laws regarding free speech and freedom of religion. Freedom of Religion does not give our enemies the freedom to promote the ideas of jihadists within our borders. Additionally, we must demand accuracy in reporting and that means just because the Associated Press wants to play word games and remove descriptive words from their articles, doesn’t mean we have to adhere to their edicts. Just because Obama invokes biblical passages in his speeches or uses patriotic language to sway the masses, doesn’t mean he means a word of what he espouses.

Actions speak louder than Obama’s words, and we have learned how to read him. No longer should we have our language, prominent religion, traditions and values assaulted by those who do not have our best interests in mind. No longer should we allow the voices of the minorities to outweigh those of the majority.

Americans need to say to Obama and his state-run media, “Enough, We’ve Had Enough” of your attacks on us, your support of minority causes and your neglect of the majority. We must put our money where our mouths are. Those that promote and support the views of the minorities and our enemies should be relegated to the dustbins of history, and actively silenced by using their Alinsky rules against them.

Islamic Jihad is alive and well in the United States, and forcefully must be eliminated by educating the populous and demanding that truth be told by espousing the very traditions and values that have defined America for 237 years.

God Bless America and all those who value our republic for which it stands. We must stand strong against the evil people who seek our demise. We are still the red, white and blue and Obama and his minions and the Islamic terrorists can’t remove the white and blue!

U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.!

Additional Reading:

Barack Hussein Obama took Shahada
August 19, 2010

H/T: Papoose for alerting us to the Drudge headline.