Here we are with yet another Bush-era policy Barack “Vote For Me Because I Am Not Bush” Obama:

The Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search — without suspicion of wrongdoing — the contents of a traveler’s laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device, although officials said new policies would expand oversight of such inspections.

The policy, disclosed Thursday in a pair of Department of Homeland Security directives, describes more fully than did the Bush administration the procedures by which travelers’ laptops, iPods, cameras and other digital devices can be searched and seized when they cross a U.S. border. And it sets time limits for completing searches.

But representatives of civil liberties and travelers groups say they see little substantive difference between the Bush-era policy, which prompted controversy, and this one.

“It’s a disappointing ratification of the suspicionless search policy put in place by the Bush administration,” said Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. “It provides a lot of procedural safeguards, but it doesn’t deal with the fundamental problem, which is that under the policy, government officials are free to search people’s laptops and cellphones for any reason whatsoever.”

Why, yes – it is “disappointing.” WTH with these groups who always use that word when Obama retains yet another egregious Bush program. “Disappointing.” Uh, yeah. That’s one (incredibly lame) word for it:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano yesterday framed the new policy as an enhancement of oversight. “Keeping Americans safe in an increasingly digital world depends on our ability to lawfully screen materials entering the United States,” she said in a statement. “The new directives announced today strike the balance between respecting the civil liberties and privacy of all travelers while ensuring DHS can take the lawful actions necessary to secure our borders.”

For instance, searches conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers should now generally take no more than 5 days, and no more than 30 days for searches by Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents. The directives also require for the first time that automated tools be developed to ensure the reliable tracking of statistics relating to searches, and that audits be conducted periodically to ensure the guidelines are being followed, officials said.

Did I read that right? 5 days and 30 days?? That’s supposed to be an IMPROVEMENT? Holy freakin’ smokes!!

Some people are happy with it, though:

Such measures drew praise from House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who called the new policy “a major step forward,” and from Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), who introduced legislation this year to strengthen protections for travelers whose devices are searched.

And these are our representatives. That’s just jake.

Others, those who actually care about the Constitution, for example, aren’t quite so upbeat about it:

But the civil liberties community was disappointed.

“Under the policy begun by Bush and now continued by Obama, the government can open your laptop and read your medical records, financial records, e-mails, work product and personal correspondence — all without any suspicion of illegal activity,” said Elizabeth Goitein, who leads the liberty and national security project at the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice.

Goitein, formerly a counsel to Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), said the Bush policy itself “broke sharply” with previous Customs directives, which required reasonable suspicion before agents could read the contents of documents. Feingold last year introduced legislation to restore the requirement.

Jack Riepe, spokesman for the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, said the guidelines “still have many of the inherent weaknesses” of the Bush-era policy.

Between October 2008 and Aug. 11, more than 221 million travelers passed through CBP checkpoints. About 1,000 laptop searches were performed, only 46 in-depth, the DHS said.

Once again, I am SO “disappointed” to have my civil liberties curtailed. Sheesh. Seriously, people, there are stronger terms for having our Constitution dismantled by The One over whom you ooh-ed! and ah-ed! as such a great Constitutional Scholar, and the Anti-Bush. All I can say is, perhaps you wouldn’t have experienced this “disappointment” had you bothered to actually listen to what he man said (remember the return to Bush I’s foreign policy? How about voting for the Bush/Cheney Energy Bill?) or what he did (remember that FISA vote? Yeah, you were “disappointed” then, too.). So many examples, so little time. The point is, had your eyes been open instead of closed as you swayed in rapture to the tones of The One and TOTUS, perhaps you wouldn’t be oh-so-surprised by this.

The rest of us aren’t.

White House Reveals Obama Is Bipolar, Has Entered Depressive Phase

See?? Doesn’t that make everything make more sense? It sure does for me…

But what isn’t a joke is this recent revelation: “Bill Would Give President Emergency Control Of Internet” (h/t to Mary Ellen, aka, Nunly, for this). Yep, you read that right – Obama wants to be able to control the “internets” when he deems it necessary. Oh, I WISH this was an Onion piece too, but no:

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

“I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness,” said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. “It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill.”

Representatives of other large Internet and telecommunications companies expressed concerns about the bill in a teleconference with Rockefeller’s aides this week, but were not immediately available for interviews on Thursday.

A spokesman for Rockefeller also declined to comment on the record Thursday, saying that many people were unavailable because of the summer recess. A Senate source familiar with the bill compared the president’s power to take control of portions of the Internet to what President Bush did when grounding all aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001. The source said that one primary concern was the electrical grid, and what would happen if it were attacked from a broadband connection.

When Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced the original bill in April, they claimed it was vital to protect national cybersecurity. “We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs–from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records,” Rockefeller said.

Isn’t this just such a comfort to you? Yeah, me, too:

The Rockefeller proposal plays out against a broader concern in Washington, D.C., about the government’s role in cybersecurity. In May, President Obama acknowledged that the government is “not as prepared” as it should be to respond to disruptions and announced that a new cybersecurity coordinator position would be created inside the White House staff. Three months later, that post remains empty, one top cybersecurity aide has quit, and some wags have begun to wonder why a government that receives failing marks on cybersecurity should be trusted to instruct the private sector what to do.

Rockefeller’s revised legislation seeks to reshuffle the way the federal government addresses the topic. It requires a “cybersecurity workforce plan” from every federal agency, a “dashboard” pilot project, measurements of hiring effectiveness, and the implementation of a “comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy” in six months–even though its mandatory legal review will take a year to complete.

The privacy implications of sweeping changes implemented before the legal review is finished worry Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. “As soon as you’re saying that the federal government is going to be exercising this kind of power over private networks, it’s going to be a really big issue,” he says.

Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to “direct the national response to the cyber threat” if necessary for “the national defense and security.” The White House is supposed to engage in “periodic mapping” of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies “shall share” requested information with the federal government. (”Cyber” is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)

“The language has changed but it doesn’t contain any real additional limits,” EFF’s Tien says. “It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous (version)…The designation of what is a critical infrastructure system or network as far as I can tell has no specific process. There’s no provision for any administrative process or review. That’s where the problems seem to start. And then you have the amorphous powers that go along with it.”

Translation: If your company is deemed “critical,” a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.

The Internet Security Alliance’s Clinton adds that his group is “supportive of increased federal involvement to enhance cyber security, but we believe that the wrong approach, as embodied in this bill as introduced, will be counterproductive both from an national economic and national secuity (sic) perspective.”

Uh huh. Um, does it bother anyone else – besides us, that is – that Obama is the biggest micromanager on the face of the planet, especially since he is the most inexperienced leader on the face of the planet? Hey, I’m just asking here…

One last thing:

Update at 3:14 p.m. PDT: I just talked to Jena Longo, deputy communications director for the Senate Commerce committee, on the phone. She sent me e-mail with this statement:

The president of the United States has always had the constitutional authority, and duty, to protect the American people and direct the national response to any emergency that threatens the security and safety of the United States. The Rockefeller-Snowe Cybersecurity bill makes it clear that the president’s authority includes securing our national cyber infrastructure from attack. The section of the bill that addresses this issue, applies specifically to the national response to a severe attack or natural disaster. This particular legislative language is based on longstanding statutory authorities for wartime use of communications networks. To be very clear, the Rockefeller-Snowe bill will not empower a “government shutdown or takeover of the Internet” and any suggestion otherwise is misleading and false. The purpose of this language is to clarify how the president directs the public-private response to a crisis, secure our economy and safeguard our financial networks, protect the American people, their privacy and civil liberties, and coordinate the government’s response.

Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for an on-the-record answer to these four questions that I asked her colleague on Wednesday. I’ll let you know if and when I get a response.

Oh, yippee!! Doesn’t the thought of Obama taking over the internet make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?? I know it does me. I just hope it doesn’t happen when he has one of his mood swings…

Note: Wings Under America was a response to Homeland Security’s Right Wing Extremism Alert discussed by Susan here and here.

If you really want to get the feel of a Klan rally you should don a sheet and sneak into one. Otherwise you are just guessing about what the tenor there really is. That is why, when I was researching information from the Left Wing Extremist Advisory (see note under photo), I knew that I could not really get that total left-wing feeling just by reading a banal review of The Anarchist’s Cookbook on Amazon. I went underground. I slipped into some true black screen anarchy web sites and wandered through the darkness. After I found the quotes I needed I took a long shower and returned to my scribbling.   What I learned later was downright scary. And it was not the freaky words from the left-loon anarchists that spooked me. Let’s go back to the Klan rally. I’ll take you with me on this journey.

Let’s say that, a few days before that research project, you went to the Post Office. While you were there you stepped on one of the itty-bitty, near invisible, tacks spread across the floor and one stuck in your shoe. As soon as you entered the big open field, surrounded by trees with a nice fire in the middle, (that’s where they always hold them in Hollywood) Klan rally the GPS transmitter in your shoe sends a signal back to home boy security alerting the obatron monitors that you have entered into the coordinates of a known risky bunch of stylishly impaired choir boys.

The wake-up call. A few days later you go to city hall to pay your water bill and the girl behind the counter asks you to wait a minute. A federal marshal comes out and asks you to state your business. You toss down the check for the bill and head back home. Behind you is a state trooper. You get in the house and hear an odd clicking when you pick up the phone. Twenty minutes later a man comes to the door and says he is there to pick up your sheets for cleaning.

Itty-Bitty Invisible Radio Tacks. That’s what the techies at Google have given to the White House. If you visit their website a software program operated from Google servers places a tracking device onto the hard drive of your computer. Since we all know that George Orwell was a prophet we must believe that “they” know the web address of every miscreant on the planet. As soon as you visit the anarchist site the itty-bitty invisible tracking device in your computer could send an alert to Washington, cc’d to Chicago, of course. You have just been tagged.

The common name for the IBIRTs (Itty-Bitty Invisible Radio Tacks) is a cookie. That may sound innocent. Cookies are used to help your computer remember your passwords and to help a website recognize you on your return visits. But not all cookies are alike. Some are the type of evil, nasty, spy vs spy information gobblers that even Larry Johnson’s former bosses would put a chain on.

But, isn’t our government, using such technology on an unsuspecting public, against the law? Well, it depends on who is ruling what the definition of isn’t is.

Bill Clinton signed into law a bill that forbade federal agencies from secretly collecting information from your browsing habits. Under George W. Bush the law was further defined and strengthened.

The use of cookies on agency sites is sharply restricted by guidelines set at the end of the Clinton administration, by the E-Government Act of 2002 and by regulations issued by the Bush administration in 2003. “‘Cookies’ should not be used at Federal Web sites… unless, in addition to clear and conspicuous notice, the following conditions are met: a compelling need to gather the data on the site; appropriate and publicly disclosed privacy safeguards for handling of information derived from ‘cookies’; and personal approval by the head of the agency,” according to a memo issued in June 2000 by Jacob J. Lew, then director of the Office of Management and Budget.

So, why are the IBIRTs back? Let’s pull back the sheets.

“The Executive Office of the President is not an agency and is therefore exempt from the law.”

Can we expect more of the same from the little Kenyan Who Could?

You can assume you know, or at least have an idea, what the White House is getting out of this technology partnership, but what’s in it for Google?

The Googles have already sent a sales team to DC to sell to members of congress a gold plated promise that if they advertise with Google in their next campaign that Google can guarantee that their ads will appear in the browser windows of only those people whose browsing habits match the profile of the type of voter who is interested in federal government and who have interests, determined by what other websites they visit, that would make them be classified as someone who would vote for or donate to the legislator.

You can expect this information farming/netting from a political campaign or a commercial web site. Yahoo and Goolge both know where you have been and display ads on your screen accordingly. The feds have rules that bar the use of government assets for political campaigning. But how long will that last?

“There are indications that the administration wants to revise some of these laws, particularly with respect to the Internet, and we’re waiting to see if we can play a role,” said Peter Greenberger, a former regional campaign manager for Al Gore’s presidential bid who now heads Google’s Elections and Issues Advocacy team. “The real question that people are trying to answer is what can the White House do now that they’re the White House as opposed to a [political] campaign.”

Snip

“There would be issues providing some services to an elected official that is not provided to somebody else,” such as a political opponent. But, he added, “in some cases, you know, incumbency is a powerful thing.” [He actually said that? - EMc]

Google is also working with federal officials to map out government data so that Google’s most valuable property, the Google search page, can better direct citizens to sought-after government information. Any increased traffic through the Google Web page to federal sites gives the company a greater opportunity to sell advertising to government and commercial customers, said Greenberger. “It would be great if HUD’s site had a little ad saying, ‘Are you eligible for the mortgage bailout? Fill out this ad,’” Greenberger said in February, using the Department of Housing and Urban Development as an example.

Yes. But how “great” would it be if the ad said “You visited a divorce advice site yesterday and today you were reading a review of the Vagina Monologues. We can refer you to a Health and Human Services counselor to talk to you about your men-hating derangement,” and the person actually seeing the ad on your home computer was your husband?

I, for one, do not think this would be any more “great” than having my sheet pulled off, revealing my reporter’s notepad and pencil illuminated by the glow of a burning cross. “Oh, Brother. Where am I?”

The National Journal brought in some pros to research this information and you really should take the time to read the resulting article.

Just don’t visit any federal sites, especially the White House, before you go off to one of those Despicable. Shameful, Misleading and … anti-progressive websites.

I wouldn’t want you infected by an IBIRT.

A rally and march in protest of higher taxes in Santa Barbara, Calif., April 4.

Today American taxpayers in more than 300 locations in all 50 states will hold rallies — dubbed “tea parties” — to protest higher taxes and out-of-control government spending. There is no political party behind these rallies, no grand right-wing conspiracy, not even a 501(c) group like MoveOn.org. [KA-ZING! Take that, MoveOn!]

This is part of a general phenomenon dubbed “Smart Mobs” by Howard Rheingold, author of a book by the same title, in which modern communications and social-networking technologies allow quick coordination among large numbers of people who don’t know each other.

In the old days, organizing large groups of people required, well, an organization: a political party, a labor union, a church or some other sort of structure. Now people can coordinate themselves. … [THIS SELF-DETERMINATIVE ACTION HARD FOR THE LEFTIES TO GRASP SINCE THEY COMPLIANTLY WAIT TO TAKE THEIR ORDERS FROM MOVEON ET AL.]

So who’s behind the Tax Day tea parties? Ordinary folks who are using the power of the Internet to organize. …

NRO’s Andy McCarthy also has a new remarkable piece – “The Obama Administration Is Criminalizing Dissent? Intimidating Its Ideological Opponents? You Must Be Joking“ – condemning the DHS report. All of you who’ve been longtime readers and supported Hillary will vividly recall these wholly inappropriate uses of Obot government figures to silence dissent and to intimidate ordinary citizens who are NOT extremists — and note that the litany of anti-Constitutional examples was written by McCarthy in October 2008:

The DHS screed … is entirely predictable. The only conceivable surprise is that it is so blatant and has happened so soon. But all they’ve done is commit to paper the same stuff they say to each other in conversation. [...]

[From a McCarthy column in 2008]I’ll be blunt: Sen. Obama and his supporters despise free expression, the bedrock of American self-determinism and hence American democracy. What’s more, like garden-variety despots, they see law not as a means of ensuring liberty but as a tool to intimidate and quell dissent….

[I]n St. Louis, local law-enforcement authorities, dominated by Democrat-party activists, [are] threatening libel prosecutions against Obama’s political opposition. County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, abetted by a local sheriff and encouraged by the Obama campaign, warned that members of the public who dared speak out against Obama during the campaign’s crucial final weeks would face criminal libel charges — if, in the judgment of these conflicted officials, such criticism of their champion was “false.” [YES! THIS REALLY OCCURRED!]

The chill wind was bracing. The Taliban could not better rig matters. The Prophet of Change is only to be admired, not questioned. In the stretch run of an American election, there is to be no examination of a candidate for the world’s most powerful office — whether about his radical record, the fringe Leftism that lies beneath his thin, centrist veneer, his enabling of infanticide, his history of race-conscious politics, his proposals for unprecedented confiscation and distribution of private property (including a massive transfer of American wealth to third-world dictators through international bureaucrats), his ruinous economic policies that have helped leave Illinois a financial wreck, his place at the vortex of the credit market implosion that has put the U.S. economy on the brink of meltdown, his aggressive push for American withdrawal and defeat in Iraq, his easy gravitation to America-hating activists, be they preachers like Jeremiah Wright, terrorists like Bill Ayers, or Communists like Frank Marshall Davis. Comment on any of this and risk indictment or, at the very least, government harassment and exorbitant legal fees.

Nor was this an isolated incident.

Item: When the American Issues Project ran political ads calling attention to Obama’s extensive ties to Ayers, the Weatherman terrorist who brags about having bombed the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol, the Obama campaign pressured the Justice Department to launch an absurd criminal prosecution.

Item: When commentator Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center was invited on a Chicago radio program to discuss his investigation of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an “education reform” project in which Obama and Ayers (just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood”) collaborated to dole out over $100 million, the Obama campaign issued an Internet action alert. Supporters, armed with the campaign’s non-responsive talking points, dutifully flooded the program with calls and emails, protesting Kurtz’s appearance and attempting to shout him down.

Item: Both Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, have indicated that an Obama administration would use its control of the Justice Department to prosecute its political opponents, including Bush administration officials responsible for the national security policies put in effect after nearly 3000 Americans were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

Item: There is a troubling report that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Section, top officials of which are Obama contributors, has suggested criminal prosecutions against those they anticipate will engage in voter “intimidation” or “oppression” in an election involving a black candidate. (Memo to my former DOJ colleagues: In a system that presumes innocence even after crimes have undeniably been committed, responsible prosecutors don’t assume non-suspects will commit future law violations — especially when doing so necessarily undermines the First Amendment freedoms those prosecutors solemnly swear to uphold.) [Emphasis added.]

Just consider the DHS gambit the first of many Domestic Contingency Operations. … Read all.

McCarthy’s title for his 2008 article? “Obama’s Assault on the First Amendment.”

Now Obama and his administration are going further than Bush to seize and concentrate all power in the executive branch.

But Americans are proving that we have not forgotten our forefather’s courage in standing up and fighting tyranny!

And any decent American should be proud of those organizing and attending today’s events! It does NOT matter that we agree with the sentiments of all who are participating. What counts is that they are the kinds of people who ordinarily don’t do protests, but they feel compelled to speak out! BRAVO!

Hey, all you Tax Day people. You’re not part of some ‘winger cabal, are you? You’re not into some dangerous, extremist rightwing group that the Department of Homeland Security has targeted in its new PDF document, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment?” This report has been sent to police (!) around the nation. (See footnote at end.)

The left seems, oh yes, to be more orchestrated in its mocking opposition than are the grassroots Tax Day efforts that, sadly, Paul Krugman called “Astroturf” (as in fake grass roots) and to which he devoted a precious column. (I’m wondering if someone got to Paul; he used to take Obama’s ruinous economic stimulus plans to task, but his last two columns have fired straight at the heart of the GOP. Now, here’s some of what the left is saying:

• “Fox News is bankrolling and promoting the events.”
• MSNBC’s new dimwit anchor Ed Schultz says that Tax Day participants are “psychos.”
• Firedoglake writes “Corporate Lobbyists Raising Money For Tea Parties (rebutted by Houston TPS).
• MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews goes after the Tax Day people, calling them “poopers,” and is concerned that many are “full-mooners”:

  Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Rachel Maddow mocks the anti-tax Tax Day protests, and oh is she so, so funny:

………………

Footnote about the DHS report (PDF): Yes, there are some truly frightening crazies out there. But I wouldn’t call them rightwing. I’d call them crazy, violent, and racist.

And, yes, the election of an African-American president has doubtless infuriated the tiny groups of Stormfront types.

However, it is very important for the DHS, FBI, and Secret Service to distinguish between right-wing political types and those few extremists who’d wish to harm the president. Otherwise, they’re going to be wasting a lot of time on ordinary Americans who are simply opposed to Obama’s policies.

There is NO logical correlation between having “rightwing” views and plotting violence. I’d guesstimate that 99% of “rightwing” people would never imagine taking violent action and in fact are probably more inclined to be law-abiding than most citizens.

There’s only a correlation between the Stormfront-type racists and violence.

I think about the couple people I know who are involved in the Tax Day demonstrations — GOPMom and LatinaFreedomFighter. I’ve never received any communication from either that would remotely suggest a bent towards violence; they’re just wishing to be vocal about their deep concerns about Obama’s mammoth debt-inducing budget that will likely lead to hyperinflation and leave future generations with nearly impossible debts to repay, debts that also make us far too reliant on our main lender, China, who they don’t trust.

Neither one has ever exhibited anything remotely like “pscyhotic” or dangerous behavior. Michelle Malkin, who is far to my right in her thinking, has written an excellent takedown of this DHS report and its wild claims, in “Confirmed: The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real“:

[T]he piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives. And the intent is clear. As the two spokespeople I talked with on the phone today made clear: They both pinpointed the recent “economic downturn” and the “general state of the economy” for stoking “rightwing extremism.” One of the spokespeople said he was told that the report has been in the works for a year. My b.s. detector went off the chart, and yours will, too, if you read through the entire report — which asserts with no evidence that an unquantified “resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalizations activity” is due to home foreclosures, job losses, and…the historical presidential election.

In Obama land, there are no coincidences. It is no coincidence that this report echoes Tea Party-bashing left-wing blogs (check this one out comparing the Tea Party movement to the Weather Underground!) and demonizes the very Americans who will be protesting in the thousands on Wednesday for the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party.

From the report, p.2:

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

From the report. p. 3:

(U//LES) Rightwing extremists are harnessing this historical election as a recruitment tool. Many rightwing extremists are antagonistic toward the new presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use. Rightwing extremists are increasingly galvanized by these concerns and leverage them as drivers for recruitment. From the 2008 election timeframe to the present, rightwing extremists have capitalized on related racial and political prejudices in expanded propaganda campaigns, thereby reaching out to a wider audience of potential sympathizers.

(U) Exploiting Economic Downturn

(U//FOUO) Rightwing extremist chatter on the Internet continues to focus on the economy, the perceived loss of U.S. jobs in the manufacturing and construction sectors, and home foreclosures. Anti-Semitic extremists attribute these losses to a deliberate conspiracy conducted by a cabal of Jewish “financial elites.” These “accusatory” tactics are employed to draw new recruits into rightwing extremist groups and further radicalize those already subscribing to extremist beliefs. DHS/I&A assesses this trend is likely to accelerate if the economy is perceived to worsen.

From the report, p. 5:

(U//FOUO) Over the past five years, various rightwing extremists, including militias and white supremacists, have adopted the immigration issue as a call to action, rallying point,
and recruiting tool. Debates over appropriate immigration levels and enforcement policy generally fall within the realm of protected political speech under the First Amendment, but in some cases, anti-immigration or strident pro-enforcement fervor has been directed against specific groups and has the potential to turn violent.

And echoing the anti-military bigotry last seen in that disgusting Penn State University training video, there’s this on p. 7:

(U) Disgruntled Military Veterans

(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of extremists—including lone wolves or small terrorist cells—to carry out violence. The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.

There’s no hackneyed left-wing stereotype of conservatives left behind in this DHS intelligence and analysis assessment. I asked both DHS spokespeople to tell me who, specifically, the report was accusing of “rightwing extremist chatter” and which “antigovernment” groups are being monitored as “extremists.” They say they’ll get back to me.

In the meantime, be aware of this from the report, p. 8:

(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months to ascertain with greater regional specificity the rise in rightwing extremist activity in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the political, economic, and social factors that drive rightwing extremist radicalization.

Better make a few last-minute signs for the Tea Party. Obama’s DHS is watching:

Honk if you’re a radicalized rightwing extremist!

Guilty of rightwing extremist chatter

Anti-government, pro-freedom: Sue me

***

Previous: Missouri retracts report linking militias, 3rd party candidates.

***

Oh, I’m sure DHS will be issuing its report on self-proclaimed bank terrorists like Bruce Marks of NACA and criminal rackeeters harassing private citizens in their homes to “exploit the economic downturn” any day now.

Human beings have an inherent, necessary need to hone in on those who present a real threat to them. However, rational human beings have the logical capacity to DISCERN who is really an enemy who might do one harm, and those who simply disagree with one.

After 9/11, when more law enforcement resources (imho) should have been focused on monitoring the very few who exhibit true terrorist leanings, Attorneys General John Ashcroft and then Alberto Gonzales decided that “ecoterrorists” were the major threat to the nation, and ordered the FBI to go all out to find any reason possible to charge anyone they suspected to be an “ecoterrorist” and toss them in federal prison.

Now, the Obama administration is making the same mistake: Instead of logically worrying about the porous Mexican/U.S. and Canadian/U.S. borders that allow terrorists to cross into the U.S. easily, and to monitor recruitment of young men into terrorist cells in the Middle East and Southeast/Southwest Asia, they (and their willing blogger abetters) are going after ordinary Americans who simply wish to express their disgust with irresponsible spending. Townhall sums it up so well:

This is almost unbelievable.  The message is simple:  If you are a conservative, you might be dangerous…

The WaTimes reports,

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” the warning says.

… That’s right, when they say ‘extremism’ they are not talking about what we think of when we think of ‘extremists’ — they are actually talking about mainstream conservatives who actually oppose things like (gulp) abortion.

(Of course, this comes just in time for the Tea Parties …)

Think about the federal law enforcement manpower that will be expended tomorrow to photograph and watch participants at the Tax Day protests. And you just KNOW that the leftwing bloggers will write nasty, mocking reports on their findings after they’ve combed through every news report tomorrow for any crazy remark, even though it’s always possible to find at least one crazy person at any public event.

Remember too that, of late, Obama hasn’t been scoring well with the left, given his executive power grabs and destruction of freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. But Obama’s people know how to divert the lefties’ attention, and they’ve found a perfect foil in the Tax Day participants. And the lefties are all falling for it.

What say you?

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Read more at Memeorandum.com about the DHS report and tomorrow’s protests.

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UPDATE — Here’s one of the crazed extremists behind Tax Day:

– LatinaFreedomFighter’s latest video. She’s attending the Phoenix, Arizona Tax Day event tomorrow. I hope the FBI keeps an eye on her! She’s clearly a ticking timebomb! Snort.

Here’s part of her insane and dangerous speech:

WTF! The American Revolution was in essence to do away from bowing down before Kings and the monarchy.

How ’bout hearing about Obama bowing to the Saudi King? Its true. Obama bowed from the waist in a greeting which is unseemly coming from the President of the United States. So, not only do we have a rookie as Pres, he acts like one too! …. Read all.

SusanUnPC’s April 8th note: When even Keith Olbermann lowers the boom — calling President Barack Obama’s decision “change you cannot believe in”, condemning Obama for going further than Bush in his expansion of invasive, extra-Constitutional powers — you know the Obama Administration is going to the “dark side,” as Jane Mayer describes in her esteemed book. Howard Fineman explains the administration’s amoral political calculus and its “newbie” problem, and refers to Mayer’s book. When Mayer is a guest on No Quarter Radio soon, we will ask her about this astonishing abandonment of key principles touted by Obama during his candidacy, when he said whatever it took. Question of the Day: Didn’t the Kossack crowd scream for Bush’s impeachment over precisely this issue? Why not threaten Obama with impeachment?

P.S. Do you remember this Boston Globe article about Hillary Clinton on October 11, 2007? “Clinton vows to check executive powers.” If but for the willful Obamabots’ delusions and caucus thuggery, we’d have a president who would stand up to the intelligence community because, for one thing, Hillary wouldn’t have a learning curve hurdle and already knows who’s who, while Obama, as always, thinks he can cover up his ignorance by charming people through doing their bidding. My hunch is that, to a one, the intel community has disdain for his ignorance and unctuous collusion.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer and friend of Larry Johnson’s, is a contributing editor to The American Conservative and a fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance. Originally published at Antiwar.com.

Those who hoped that the change promised by candidate Barack Obama would include repeal of the various acts that have stripped Americans of their constitutional rights should be disappointed.

Benjamin Franklin supposedly wrote, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” The citation is likely apocryphal, at least in terms of its attribution to Franklin, but it is useful shorthand for the unfortunate abandonment of many of the liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution as a consequence of 9/11.

The trauma of 9/11 created an opportunity for those seeking to centralize executive power, an objective of recent presidents from both political parties. Many Americans initially accepted that there had to be some abridgment of fundamental liberties while fighting a multi-faceted and unconventional war against terrorism, but few realize just how much the constitutional rights that all citizens take for granted have been eroded. History also teaches us that once a right is suspended, in all likelihood it is gone forever.

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 might well be described as one of history’s more spectacular euphemisms employed to gut a constitution, somewhat akin to Hitler’s “emergency act” in the wake of the Reichstag fire of 1933. It is better known as PATRIOT Act I. PATRIOT Act I became law six weeks after the fall of the Twin Towers and was followed by PATRIOT Act II in 2006. The two laws together diminish constitutional guarantees of free speech, freedom of association, freedom from illegal search, the right to habeas corpus, prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and prohibition of the illegal seizure of private property. The First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments in the Bill of Rights have all been discarded or abridged in the rush to make it easier to investigate, torture, and jail both foreigners and American citizens. The PATRIOT Act also incorporates the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of Oct. 17, 2001, which permits the freezing of assets and investigation of individuals suspected of being financial supporters of terrorism. “Suspected” is the key word, as there is no oversight or appeal in the process.

The Military Commission Act of 2006 (MCA) followed the PATRIOT Acts, creating military tribunals for the trying of “unlawful enemy combatants,” including American citizens. Unlike a civil or criminal court, the accused needs only a two-thirds vote by the commission members present to be convicted. The act permits the indefinite jailing of suspects in a military prison without being charged with a crime or given access to a lawyer. The government is not required to produce any normally admissible evidence at a commission hearing and can rely on hearsay or even information obtained overseas during torture to make its case. Detainees do not have access to any classified information used against them and cannot cross-examine or even know the identity of witnesses. The MCA suspends habeas corpus for anyone charged and forbids the application of the Geneva Conventions to mitigate conditions of confinement or to challenge the judicial process or verdict. The Geneva Conventions also cannot be invoked if the accused subsequently claims he was tortured or otherwise abused, protecting overly zealous interrogators from later charges of “war crimes.” The act was also designed to cover all cases that were pending, meaning that it was retroactive.

An executive order issued on July 17, 2007, which is still in effect, authorized the president to seize the property of anyone who “threatens stabilization efforts in Iraq.” As the administration’s own Justice Department decides what constitutes “threatening stabilization efforts,” the order can be used to go after any critic of the government. Most disturbing, the order does not permit a challenge to the information the seizure is based on, and it also permits the confiscation of the property of anyone who comes to the assistance of the suspected de-stabilizer.

The threat to civil liberties is real. Under the authority of the PATRIOT Act, the FBI requested more than 30,000 national security letters in 2007, and the number was surely higher in 2008. The letters enable the FBI to look at anyone’s personal information without any judicial oversight or showing of cause. Anyone who is presented with a letter and compelled to cooperate to provide information on a suspect cannot reveal that the letter has been received. Are there 30,000 terrorists roaming the United States? If there were, the country would surely be a bombed-out ruin by now. The government is instead using the security letters and the other tools provided by the PATRIOT Act legislation to look at people who are completely innocent of any wrongdoing, because it is convenient to be able to do so without the bother of having to go to a judge for a search warrant.

Sen. Barack Obama opposed the MCA and voted against it. He was not in the Senate when the first PATRIOT Act was passed, but he criticized the second version for its abuse of civil liberties before voting for an amended version. Candidate Obama ran on his record of opposition to the various pieces of legislation, noting consistently that they had authorized the abuse of authority by law enforcement and had abridged the rights of every American. Unfortunately, President Obama appears to have forgotten the principled positions he took as a senator and presidential candidate. After his inauguration, he moved quickly to publicly ban the CIA’s use of torture, a meaningless gesture in that the Agency had already abandoned the practice, but it now appears that he will do nothing to revoke Bush-era legislation like the MCA that he once strongly criticized. There is every indication that he will also endorse renewal of the PATRIOT Act when it expires at the end of the year, afraid that if he does not do so and there is a terrorist attack he will pay a significant political price. The Obama administration has also been silent about the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretaps and has invoked the “state-secrets privilege” in connection with a lawsuit by the Islamic charity al-Haramain in an apparent bid to prevent disclosure of the warrantless wiretap procedure.

President Obama is not just contradicting his progressive campaign promises and betraying many of the people who voted for him. As a lawyer, he surely understands that protecting the government’s questionably legal “rights” to monitor citizens completely subverts the rule of law, because it guarantees that there will be no accountability. Currently, judges who rule on the state-secrets issue are not themselves allowed to see the alleged classified information, meaning that there is absolutely no transparency to the process in which the government is asserting an extralegal privilege that is surely unconstitutional.

If the Obama administration is beginning to sound like the Bush White House, it should. To be sure, the new president is relying on the advice of many Bush administration holdovers like FBI Director Robert Mueller. Mueller asserts, without providing any evidence, that the tools provided by the PATRIOT Act have been effective in preventing terrorism, just as Bush-era intelligence chiefs claimed that torture and extraordinary rendition were essential to meet the terrorist threat. All such claims should be viewed with extreme skepticism, particularly as they are rarely backed up by any evidence. The government also often lies when it wants to make a case for some illegal action. Claims made in 2008 that the waterboarding of Abu Zubaida produced a flood of information that frustrated terrorist plots are now revealed to have been false. Zubaida confused his interrogators and sent them off on wild goose chases with information that was either deliberately deceptive or flat-out wrong. In reality, the government cannot cite a single instance where the use of draconian new legislation or illegal procedures like torture has either prevented a terrorist incident or led to the arrest of anyone who was ready, willing, and able to carry out a violent act.

Obama would have been wiser to ignore the experts and sit back and consider the broader picture. Does the creation of a monstrous Department of Homeland Security supported by a bloated defense and intelligence establishment really make sense in light of the threat that the U.S. actually faces? How did we arrive at a 400,000-name no-fly list and an NSA that has conducted hundreds of millions of interceptions of telephone calls without any oversight?

That a small group of terrorists holed up in an isolated and backward part of the world got lucky against an unsuspecting America on 9/11 is clear, but the odds of them repeating that spectacular success are minimal. More than seven years later, the actual vulnerability of international terrorism should be completely clear and the government should be telling the people the good news, that al-Qaeda is on its last legs and that the other Salafist terrorist groups that have a similar philosophy have been hounded and contained all around the world. There has been no successful terrorist action within the United States, and the appeal of jihadist terrorism is on the wane everywhere else. Its moment has passed.

In spite of the reduced threat, under Obama the business of fighting terrorism goes on with a change in the rhetoric but not in the policy, buttressed by an enlarged military budget to spread the cheer to Afghanistan and increased spending on intelligence. And there is no sign that the liberties that Americans have bartered away are about to be returned. Having an amorphous foreign threat hanging around is always good politics, as it can be used to divert attention from more serious problems at home. Having the mechanisms at hand to investigate an American citizen can also be useful when the critics become too loud. Those who feared that George W. Bush would give his successors unconstitutional tools that they would be reluctant to relinquish have apparently been vindicated.

Well, the Republicans have put out a list of some of the more egregious (according to them) requests in this article, “GOP Leaders List Waste In Senate Stimulus Bill.” Let’s just take a little look-see to figure out what all the brouhaha is about, and bear in mind that the stimulus package is SUPPOSED to be about job creation:

• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient. (Wow – in IL? A $2 Billion earmark? Huh – maybe people really should have paid attention to Obama’s penchant for pork for IL.)

• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film. (A TAX BREAK?? While our coffers are empty? For HOLLYWOOD to buy FILM? C’mon, already. I love movies as much as the next person, but you gotta be KIDDING me. A tax break. Please.)

• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.

• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).

• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters. (Well, lookey here – it seems the GSA had already asked for this funding. In February of 2008. And here it is – again – in the “Stimulus package.)

• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters. (New FURNITURE?? Like Bermie Madoff’s new furniture with all the artwork in his office? Hell to the no – everyone is having to tighten their belts. They can use the old desks and chairs, dammit.)

• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees. (I’m okay with this – it will reduce gas costs, carbon emissions, and will help auto manufacturers – maybe they’ll be able to pay their own pension costs this year. Ahem.)

• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD’s. (Um, who thought this was an important component of a STIMULUS plan?? Sorry – couldn’t resist.)

• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.

• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.

• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities. (Listen, I love the Smithsonian – I have been a member for YEARS. But would this really help to CREATE that many new jobs, or is this just regular maintenance costs?

• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.

• $75 million for “smoking cessation activities.” (Okay – clearly these folks are UNCLEAR on the concept of for what the economic stimulus package is.)

• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges. (Ditto above. Not that it isn’t a good thing for there to be computer centers, but again – JOB CREATION is the point.)

• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.

• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction. (Important work, no doubt. But can we please keep our eye on the ball here?)

• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.

• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.

• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into “green” buildings.

• $500 million for state and local fire stations.

• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.

• $1.2 billion for “youth activities,” including youth summer job programs. (”Youth activities”?? Like Obama’s Youth Camps that brought us the theft of caucuses through bullying, intimidation, and downright fraud? THOSE kinds of activities? Paid for by TAXPAYERS?? HELL NO!)

• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.

• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.

• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.

• $160 million for “paid volunteers” at the Corporation for National and Community Service. (Isn’t that an oxymoron – “paid volunteers”? And not for nothing, but their budget is already $888,462,000, no small potatoes.)

• $5.5 million for “energy efficiency initiatives” at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.

• $850 million for Amtrak. (Listen, I believe that “there is something about a train that’s magic,” as the Amtrak commercial says, but for the gazillionith time, WHAT is this doing in this package??)

• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.

• $75 million to construct a “security training” facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.

• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.

• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations. (Again, this could end up saving money in the long run, and help the manufacturing sector.)

From the renovation piece on down, all of that sounds like items for which there is regular budgeting (or should be), so why the add-ons (for instance, the Smithsonian has a budget request for FY2009 in the amount of $716.4 million already)? Who is putting these things in there? Which states are going to reap most of the benefits? Some of these things are just ridiculous – I was fully prepared for Nancy Pelosi to put in there that all Californians should get annual passes to Disney Land or something, because there are certainly some Mickey Mouse additions in here (sorry – couldn’t resist that one, either).

Here’s the thing. These are difficult times, and many people have lost their livelihoods and their homes. For our leaders to put forth this pork-laden stimulus package on the heels of another huge stimulus package that had NO oversight whatsoever, is absurd. They tossed away over $350 BILLION dollars, and have NO idea what the hell happened to it. And now they want to give Hollywood a freakin’ tax-break for film? Or give a ton of money for STD treatment or stop-smoking campaigns (not that there is anything wrong with trying to get people to quit smoking, it just does NOT belong in this package).

Our leaders seem to have forgotten that this is OUR money they are throwing around, and that it will be our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who will be responsible for paying it back (see Bert, alert NQ reader, I was paying attention!). We deserve better than this. Future generations deserve better than this. Let’s get SERIOUS here. Stop with all of the pork. Increase oversight. Stop trying to spend OUR money so frivolously. And stop trying to convince us this is in our best interests. We all have to tighten our belts now. It is far past time for our leaders to act accordingly.

So as I listened to Michelle Obama introduce her husband at the DNC, I wondered why she didn’t include his educational achievements. Since the multi-racial Obama poses as an African American (although he is not descended from slaves and his family never suffered under Jim Crow), and uses the “self-made man” mythology to sell himself–raised by a single mother, fed on food stamps, etc–you would think that graduating from Columbia and going to Harvard Law would be hawked in detail. We have heard that he was the first African American to become president of the Harvard Law Review, only to learn it was a political move by Harvard during a time of racial tensions on campus.

Moreover, Obama appears to have never actually written anything. That’s sort of like becoming the head chef of a fancy restaurant but never cooking.

In fact, Obama’s educational history has been intentionally omitted throughout his political primetime. When asked about his undergraduate training at Columbia University, The New Times states that Obama “declined repeated requests to talk about his New York years, release his Columbia transcript or identify even a single fellow student, co-worker, roommate or friend from those years.” Why would that be?

What we know is that Obama graduated from a Hawaiian prep school with a B- GPA. He then went to Occidental College, about which we know little to nothing, and then to Columbia University. According to conservative journalist, Jack Cashill:

We know enough about Obama’s Columbia grades to know how far they fall below the Harvard norm, likely even below the affirmative action-adjusted black norm at Harvard.

So how did Obama get into Harvard Law School five years after graduating from Columbia? if his LSAT scores had been something to brag about, you know he would be bragging.

Connections are everything, as the saying goes, and that is nowhere more true than in academia. During his time at Columbia, Obama made two very important connections: Bill Ayers and Edward Said. Cashill reports:

There are any number of possible reasons for Obama’s reticence about Columbia: his grades, the courses he took, his writing samples and, of course, his associations.

At that time, for instance, both Bill Ayers and Obama fell within the orbit of left-wing Columbia superstar Edward Said. Just recently out of hiding, Ayers was attending the Bank Street College of Education, which adjoins the Columbia campus.

Edward Said (pronounced Sayeed)

Edward Said became famous for his critique of American attitudes toward eastern cultures, particularly Islamist Arabs. His scholarship contributed to the concept of “the other,” a useful way of understanding prejudices and biases The idea that some people discriminate against others whose beliefs, skin color, sexual orientation, gender, etc, differs from their own is helpful in understanding and correcting discrimination and in teaching our children to be open minded.

However, this theory is now put into service by the so-called “progressives,” who use it to ridicule people who differ from them: Clinton Democrats, Republicans and certain strata of Americans. Rooted in anthropology and literary theory’s appropriation of Marxism, the postcolonial theory of Said et al is at the root of Obama’s distain for the “bitter” working class Americans who cling to their guns and their religions.

It is of course ironic that the educated latte drinking members of the so-called “Whole Foods Nation” find “others” inferior to themselves. As anthropologist Clifford Geertz writes:

What [educated people] worry about is provincialism — the danger that our perceptions will be dulled, our intellects constricted, and our sympathies narrowed by…acceptance of our own society.

Provincialism is not a compliment. It means unsophisticated and “country”–as in country-and-western, backward, rural, redneck, hick, shitkicker and so on. Said taught that Americans were biased against Arabs, but the American students who studied with him use this theory as justification to be biased against America.

Obama studied with Said at Columbia. Said was a Palestinian by birth and a pro-Palestinian activist in life. He said that he was a “Christian wrapped in a Muslim culture.” Said’s essay, Between Worlds, reveals an even greater connection between student, Obama, and professor, Said:

With an unexceptionally Arab family name like Said connected to an improbably British first name (my mother much admired the Prince of Wales in 1935, the year of my birth), I was an uncomfortably anomalous student all through my early years: a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport and no certain identity at all.

Barack Obama breaking bread with Edward Said

No Quarter has many excellent posts on radical Bill Ayers and his long relationship with Barack Obama. And to complete this three-way embrace, Edward Said wrote a back-cover endorsement on Bill Ayers’ 2001 Fugitive Days. Said reveals how close they are, at least ideologically, when he wrote:

“For anyone who cares about the sorry mess we are in, this book is essential, indeed necessary reading.”

Khalid al-Mansour

Donald Warden (aka Khalid Al Monsour), founded the Berkeley based African-American Association (AAA) and became the mentor of Huey Newton, one of the founders of the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers are said have broken from Warden’s AAA group due to disagreements about economics. According the UC Berkeley’s chronology of the Black Panthers:

(1961) Huey Newton, a black militant activist student, meets Bobby Seale while attending Merritt College (Oakland, California). Both join the Afro-American Association, a black cultural organization led by Donald Warden.”

(1965) Huey Newton’s mentor, Donald Warden, creates Economic Night in a storefront located next door to the future Black Panther Party office on Grove Street, Oakland.

Larry wrote this piece on Khalid al-Mansour, the person who helped Obama get into Harvard. Al-Mansour is a Texas-born African American whose birth name was Donald Warden. Among other things, he is known by some for his rabid anti-Semitism (see this video). And Cashill adds this:

As far back as 1988, however, Obama had serious pull. He would need it. As previously reported, Khalid al-Mansour, principle adviser to Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, lobbied friends like Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton to intervene at Harvard on Obama’s behalf.

An orthodox Muslim, al-Mansour has not met the crackpot anti-Semitic theory he could not embrace. As for bin Talal, in October 2001, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani sent his $10 million relief check back un-cashed after the Saudi billionaire blamed 9/11 on America.

Percy Sutton, a Manhattan Borough president for 12 years was among the most powerful black politicians in New York. In the YouTube below (previously posted by Larry, but please watch it again), Sutton describes how al-Mansour introduced him to Barack Obama, asking him to help get Obama into Harvard.

Cashill writes:

“I was introduced to [Obama] by a friend,” Sutton told the interviewer. Sutton named the friend as “Dr. Khalid al-Mansour.” Sutton described al-Mansour as “the principal adviser to one of the world’s richest men.” The billionaire in question is Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal.

Knowing that Sutton had friends at Harvard, al-Mansour asked Sutton to “please write a letter in support of [Obama] … a young man that has applied to Harvard.”

So who is this Dr. Khalid al-Mansour? A quick Google search finds this biography from African Venture Partners:

Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tario Al-Mansour is an internationally acknowledged advisor to Heads of State and business leaders in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North America. He has been actively involved in structuring investments and joint ventures worldwide for over 35 years. Dr. Al-Mansour was also responsible for the Africa investment activities of Kingdom Holdings, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal’s investment company. During his distinguished career, Dr. Al-Mansour has been a guest lecturer at Harvard University, Bombay University, Columbia University, UCLA, University of Kenya, London School of Economics and the University of Ghana.
In addition to Africa Venture Partners, Dr. Al-Mansour sits on the Boards of: Saudi African Bank; Kingdom Holdings, Africa; Multimedia Super Corridor (Malaysia); Space Tech Inc.; AmNet Corp. International; New Avenues Fund Ltd; United Bank for Africa; United Networks; and Landmark Entertainment.

Dr. Al-Mansour has authored 24 books and is listed in Who’s Who in the World; International Who’s Who in the Arab World; Two Thousand Men of Achievement; Royal Blue Book of London; World’s Who’s Who of Intellectuals and American Hall of Fame.

Dr. Khalid Al-Mansour has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University (Phi Beta Kappa) and Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of California at Berkeley.

In a fascinating academic article entitled The US Organization, Black Power Vanguard Politics, and the United Front Ideal: Los Angeles and Beyond, Scot Brown discusses the history of various Black nationalists groups. He states this pertinent information about Donald Warden/Khalid al-Mansour:

IN 1963, KARENGA met with Donald Warden, a bay area nationalist who headed the Afro-American Association. Bay Area activists Ernie Allen, Jr. (Ernie Mkalimoto), Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and Ken Freeman were also members of this group. Karenga accepted Warden’s invitation to head the Los Angeles chapter of the group. Ayuko Babu, Tut Hayes, Akida Kimani, and Lloyd Hawkins figured prominently in the association’s Los Angeles chapter. The association functioned primarily as a study group and lecture forum — members frequently spoke outdoors to black community audiences (sometimes called “street speaking”).

DONALD WARDEN RECORDED his association’s street-speaking style in an album called Burn Baby, Burn, released in the aftermath of the Watts explosion. An instrumental track and chorus-like affirming voices that call and respond to his assertions, accentuate this recording’s non-stop nationalist proselytizing.

For those of us who remember the Watts riots of 1965, the phrase “Burn Baby, Burn” has very specific associations of molotov cocktails, bloody street fights, “race” riots and death.

What does it take to get into Harvard Law School?

Khalid al-Mansour (aka Donald Warden) asked his friend, Percy Sutton, to help Obama get into Harvard. With friends like al-Mansour, who needs good grades, high scores or affirmative action?

The relationship between Obama and al-Mansour deserves further research.

We have written in detail about the Obamas’ associations with other Black nationalists, and this information about Khalid al-Mansour adds yet another layer to the story.

Check out other related No Quarter reports:

Black Liberation Theology

Obama the Stealth Socialist

What Lies Beneath Barack Obama

Wheel…of…Theology

I was just listening to Barack Obama, who has essentially been silent for a week when it comes to details, repeat John McCain’s idea to have a bipartisan oversight committee to watch over the man who thinks he should get a trillion dollar blank check: Mr. Paulson.

At the same time, I was listening to Obama talk about “opening up credit” again. What does this mean? Does this mean that ACORN can start getting mortgages for dead beats again instead of being shut down as they should be? His idea is to repeat the very same mistake again!

What does this trillion dollars of taxpayer money all mean? What are we buying? According to Paulson, we are buying up “Toxic” debt that is “clogging up the arteries” of our economy.

Now I ask you, would you buy up a deadbeat’s mortgage and expect to be paid? Anybody? Would you buy somebody’s bankrupt local company and take on the owner’s debt? Would you not think this was crazy? And if nobody else wants to buy these bankrupt companies’ debts, are they a good deal? Of course not.

If they were a good deal, other companies would be bidding on them.

What are we getting for this trillion dollars?

Well we don’t really know.

What is what we are buying actually worth?

Well we don’t know that either.

What will be a future benefit for our purchases?

Well we don’t know.

Is this a good idea? Well we don’t really know that either. We just know that what we are investing a trillion dollars in something “toxic”. That’s all we know. Oh, we know one more thing too. “It” might work or “it” might not. How will we even know if “it” “works” if we don’t even know what would constitute success? Do we have a benchmark or two? Nope. We don’t have that either.

What we do have is one man, whom nobody ever elected, saying that we have to do this by friday or the sky will fall. Give me a trillion dollars to hand out like Santa Claus or you are all going to be sorry. I don’t know if you will STILL be sorry after you give it to me, but Just. Do. It.

How stupid is that? This is what you get when you put people who have never even run a lemonade stand in charge of a country. This is the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party folks!

Every one of my senses is insulted by what is going on here.

My business sense tells me that we are about to be shafted by very stupid politicians who are beholding to greedy rich lobbyists representing companies that couldn’t care less about any one of us.

My common sense also tells me we are also being shafted by greedy deadbeat individuals who want things that are privileges under Democracy handed to them as rights under Socialism.

What is the government going to do with all these bad mortgages they are about to buy? Foreclose? I doubt that, don’t you? I think instead they will give these people their homes for pennies on the dollar, at the expense of people who have responsibly paid their own mortgages for years. What about all the people who figured out that owning a home means you repair your own home when something goes wrong, that there is no landlord–and they can’t handle this and don’t even WANT to refinance? What is our government going to do with all these abandoned homes in need of repair?

What reward will responsible Americans get for this deal? I can’t think of anything. Can you?

Maybe we should all, everybody in America, stop paying our mortgages. Then we can all get our homes practically for free? Ya think?

So what else am I hearing? I’m hearing that some in congress want to add auto loans and charge card balances to the mix as well. And student loans. I don’t care whose idea this is or what party you are in while you serve in congress. If you support this, You suck. If you support this and you are a Republican, you SUCK! If you support this and you are a Democrat, you SUCK! I smell lobbyists stuffing your pockets, you pigs. You are going to make sure these creditors get their money from everyone else’s pocket and everybody who is at fault, be they individuals or corporations, walk away scott free!

Charge Card Joe! Where do YOU stand in this? You and MBNA, the big honcho of your state of Delaware that has lined your pockets for decades. You gave us “bankruptcy reform” that forces people who are dying of cancer and who had to file bankruptcy because of medical bills, to recognize that after they are dead, their home will go to creditors and their famiies can just punt. How come you aren’t worrying about that??? These are people who deserve help, people who were responsible until a catastrophe hit their lives, not the kind of people who acquired mortgages they knew they could never pay for. That trillion dollars would go a lonnnnng way to reduce the cost of health insurance in America. That trillion would go a lonnnng way to repair our decaying infrastructure AND provide jobs while doing it.

Barack! How come you voted No to a cap on credit card interest? you said you voted No because the cap was too high. So no cap is better than a high cap? And how are you doing with your buddies ACORN?????? You started out with these criminals in Chicago (of course!). They and your Finance Chair, the Mother of The Mortgage Meltdown, Penny Pritkzer got loans for people with absolutely NO ability to buy a home. And here they are today, working hard for you to illegally register as many people as possible to vote for you. The states can hardly keep up with their crimes. You and your friends have been playing footsie with Fannie and Freddie and now you have the audacity to say now that “We have to act fast”?

What the Hell is going on here? Nevermind. We already know.

Ok maybe I am off base here, I’m just a shmuck next to these honcho big shots in DC running our lives. But it seems to me that if you want the stock market to do better, you CUT the capital gains tax to ZERO instead of doubling it.! You set interest rates at 4.5% and LEAVE IT THERE. You Regulate the IRRESPONSIBLE, not the RESPONSIBLE. Why on earth would anybody bother to save money or invest a little in the market if they have to take all the risk but give all the benefits to stupid politicians so they can hand the money out to somebody else??? I don’t get it.

Ok, I digressed. But it’s my blog so I can do that, right? Back to the rest of congress.

Those of you who pay off your charge cards, those of you who reliably pay your auto loans and mortgages, those of you who rent while you save your own money to buy a home, and those of you who bust your butts to pay off your school loans, will this benefit you? Nope. The middle class is about to get screwed again. This time it’s BIG TIME. That’s the message. There is no other message here. By the time Congress is done porking up this bill for the lobbyists, the American Dollar won’t be worth squat. And guess who cares? Those of us who aren’t benefiting from this bailout, that’s who. Why? Because we are going to have to pay for it and still pay our own bills with our devalued dollar.

If you worked hard and responsibly paid your bills up until now, you will get NOTHING. If you are a deadbeat, this is your Day. If you are a greedy corporation, this is your Day. But the rest of you can just go punt. You get to pay for the whole goddamned thing. Socialism for corporations. And socialism for debt defaulters. Nothing for you. In short, you are sucker punched. You are being punished for the sacrifices you made. You are being punished for living within your own means. And you are being punished for saving against your own future. Both sides of congress are punishing you. In America, the middle class is shit. It always was shit. And right now, you are on the bottom of the congressional shoe and they are wiping you off. Right after they empty your wallets. If for some reason, you busted your butt to reach a piece of the American Dream through your own hard work and ingenuity, you are also screwed. You will pay for this. You will pay for doing it right.

I think it’s interesting how corporations want Capitalism when things are going well, and they want Socialism when things aren’t going so well. When was the last time a corporation offered their share their profits with Americans? Now they want us to share in their debt. I think it’s even more interesting that congress thinks this is Ok.

I think it’s just as interesting that our congress thinks the people who behave responsibly toward their creditors are worth nothing, and people who are not responsible should have their debts absorbed by the rest of us who ARE responsible.

I think America has lost its way, hijacked by extremists at the fringe of two parties. This is what lack of moderation and extremism-gone-wild does. Good habits are now officially bad habits. And bad habits are now officially rewardable.

And Capitalism has just been removed from our country. Blogger Pundita was right. Say hello to the New Democratic Socialist Republic of the United States, Comrades. It’s the Pie thing Michelle was talking about, folks. You work. You save. Then you Share with those who haven’t done either of those things. People left other countries to come here so that they could get away from that.

According to Rasmussen, Sept 23, Only 28% of Americans approve of this trillion dollar idea.

I could do hours on this, as you can tell. But my scouring of the internet did yield the simple explanation of what is really going on here.

Paulson’s Toxic Toxic Debt Plan

So, Treasury and the Fed (i.e., you and I) are going to buy toxic mortgage securities.

1) If these were priced fairly relative to their intrinsic value, an actual investor would have bought them. So we are forced to conclude that the government is going to overpay for them, regardless of the price they actually end up paying for them.

2) What is the immediate benefit? That investment bankers who make $2 or $3 million a year don’t lose their jobs? Boo freakin’ hoo.

3) If the government ends up owning all these mortgages, are they going to foreclose? No. They’ll let folks keep their houses for pennies on the dollar. “American dream” and all that bull—-, you know. Houses worth 2x or 3x what mine is, which I paid for all on my own.

4) How are they going to deal with all this debt? They’ll monetize it, of course. Severely depleting my savings, to the benefit of those who didn’t save squat.

Thanks again, Washington. I hate you all.

Copyright 2008 Uppity Woman. All Rights Reserved.

Overview: This is a story of big-city behind-the-scenes politics — of scratch-my-back and I’ll-scratch-yours backroom dealings. It is a story of how Bill Ayers and Barack Obama — sitting on a charitable board (for which they were paid) — aided and abetted the lucrative real estate development projects of Obama’s former law firm associate Allison Davis and Davis’s development partner Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

The Woods board on which Ayers and Obama sat ended up giving those two development partners the sum of one million dollars, from which both Davis and Rezko reaped considerable financial gain. And Obama did not recuse himself from the board’s vote on this large real estate transaction despite a clear conflict of interest from his past associations. Obama then became the beneficiary of large — very large — campaign contributions from Rezko and many of his wealthy associates. It all worked out very well for Sen. Obama.
_______________________________________

Bill Ayers, Obama’s friend and benefactor, was introduced to the public during Wednesday’s Democratic debate, much to the chagrin of the Obama campaign and his supporters.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Ayers was not a radical; he is a domestic terrorist (Ayers once suggested that young people should “Bring the war home. Kill your parents.”). There’s a big distinction between having radical ideas and violent plans. Gloria Steinem, Tom Hayden, and Todd Gitlin were radicals. The desire to kill innocent Americans makes Ayers a terrorist.

Larry Johnson makes the point that:

William Ayers is not just some guy who lives in Barack’s congressional district. He helped Barack organize his run against State Senator Alice Palmer. Ayers raised money for Barack. Ayers contributed money to Barack. And Bill Ayers and Barack Obama sat side-by-side as paid board members of the Woods Fund.

Contrary to Obama’s claim that who your friends are shouldn’t matter, the fact that his benefactor is an unrepentant terrorist calls into question Obama’s judgment. If Obama were applying for a job with the FBI or any American intelligence agency, his relationship with Ayers would receive the utmost scrutiny and would likely result in him receiving a rejection letter:

The CIA employment Web site says:

Friends, family, individuals, or organizations may be interested to learn that you are an applicant for or an employee of the CIA. Their interest, however, may not be benign or in your best interest.

This is a warning for an entry level analyst position. Obama is applying to be Commander-in-Chief. Obama’s friends have included an American terrorist and Obama wants us to be believe that this relationship was benign? Not only are we entitled to ask about this relationship, it’s our fiduciary duty as voters to demand more information about this relationship.

As the National Review Online asks about Obama’s association with Ayers, only slightly tongue-in-cheek: “Do you, personally, know anyone who has ever tried to blow up the Pentagon?”

Obama’s poor judgment in picking his friends–from Wright, to Rezko, to Ayers–becomes glaringly obvious when you realize that many of Obama’s friends knew each other and were all working for each others’ benefit. Like the Teamster’s Pension Fund, the non-profit Woods Fund was place where Chicago’s powerful could mingle and dispense funds to their friends:

In Obama’s case, a whole gang of slumlords in Illinois made their “voices heard” by writing campaign checks to fund his rise to fame. But as long as the focus of the slumlord allegations remains solely on a crook named Rezko, the other members of the gang will not get the credit they deserve.

Until now…

In the mid-1990s, Ayers and Dohrn [Ayers' wife] hosted a meet-and-greet at their house to introduce Obama to their neighbors during his first run for the Illinois Senate. In 2001, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama’s campaign. Ayers also served alongside Obama between December 1999 and December 2002 on the board of the not-for-profit Woods Fund of Chicago. That board met four times a year, and members would see each other at occasional dinners the group hosted.

Writing for the Chicago Sun Times, Tim Novak reports that Obama’s “charity” work may have equally benefited Obama and his friends. Obama and Ayers were sitting board members when their friends came looking for money:

Seven years ago, Sen. Barack Obama was on the board of a Chicago charity when his former boss, Allison S. Davis, came looking for money. At the time, Davis was a developer represented by the law firm where Obama worked, as well as a small contributor to Obama’s political campaign funds. He wanted the charity to help fund his plans to build housing for low-income Chicagoans. Obama agreed. He voted with other directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago to invest $1 million with Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners L.P., a $17 million partnership that Davis still operates.

It’s not clear whether Obama told other board members of his ties to Davis, whose family would go on to donate more than $25,000 to Obama’s political campaigns, including his bid to be president of the United States.

“Let me get back to you on that,” Obama presidential campaign spokesman Bill Burton said when asked about that two weeks ago. He never did.

In a painful contortion, the Obama campaign defended Obama’s “magnanimous” vote by claiming that

“It was a worthwhile project,” Burton said. “It’s not a conflict of interest to do what’s right for your community.”

City records show Davis used some of the money to build a 72-unit apartment building for senior citizens at 87th and Ashland. The $10 million project — built with a $5.7 million loan from the city — netted Davis nearly $700,000 in development fees, city records show.

Perhaps the biggest revelation is that Obama’s buddy Rezko was a business partner with Davis.

As a developer, Davis’ partners have included Tony Rezko, the now-indicted political fund-raiser who has been among Obama’s biggest political supporters. A few months after Davis left the law firm, Obama won his first political office — a seat in the Illinois Senate. His campaign contributors included Rezko and Davis.

Two years later, Obama wrote to city and state officials, urging them to give money to New Kenwood LLC, a company that Davis and Rezko formed to build an apartment building for low-income seniors at 48th and Cottage Grove.
Davis and Rezko were building that project in 2000 when Davis approached the Woods Fund, seeking its investment in future projects.

In summary, Obama was at the intersection of money and power in Chicago politics. He voted to fund his boss’s projects who in turn donated huge sums of money to his campaigns. His boss was in business with Tony Rezko, another Obama friend and fundraiser. And all of this was done while sitting across the table from an American terrorist, Bill Ayers, who also gave money to Obama’s campaigns and to the business ventures of Rezko and Davis. It’s now painfully obvious why Obama doesn’t want us to examine his friendships.

The Clinton campaign ad featuring a 3 a.m. telephone call as a metaphor for experienced leadership in foreign policy has generated considerable comment, but much of the reaction is from people who have never been involved in foreign policy and certainly never had to field such a call in a crisis situation. Some of the responses are from advisers to the Obama campaign who know better but are actively diminishing the importance and realities of presidential engagement for immediate political advantage.

To begin with, there are such 3 a.m. calls. During my long career as a diplomat, including crises and military actions in Africa, the Middle East and Europe, I have been on the receiving end, the sending end, and the development of options that led to some of those late night calls. The president’s role in crisis management is direct, critical and reflects the exercise of leadership in its most fundamental and powerful form. That capability is not intuitive; rather, it comes from years of experience, training and exposure to the complexities that are in inherent in international relations.

On August 3, 1990, while serving as acting Ambassador to Iraq, I received a middle of the night call from then President George H.W. Bush’s Middle East adviser, who informed me that Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait. While the president had not personally called me, it was clear to me from that moment on that he was directly responsible for every significant decision made and engaged in marshaling the forces of the U.S. government and the support of the international community in what ultimately became Desert Storm.

In 1995 and 1996, while serving as Political Adviser to the Commander in Chief of U.S. Armed Forces, I was directly involved in the diplomacy associated with the movement of troops from Western Europe to Bosnia in support of the efforts of President Clinton and his special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, to implement the Dayton Accords and bring an end to the Balkan genocide.

In 1998, as Senior Director for Africa in President Clinton’s National Security Council, I helped orchestrate six phone calls, some late at night, directly from President Clinton, three each to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles, and Eritrean President Afwerki, to stop the air war between the two countries. Two of Barack Obama’s senior advisers, Tony Lake and Susan Rice, were also involved in that effort, and could attest to the importance of presidential involvement if they would choose not to remain silent as a ploy to protect their candidate’s slender credentials.

In each of the three cases, there was a critical common denominator: direct presidential engagement. During the Desert Shield part of the first Gulf War, then President Bush personally chaired many of the National Security Council meetings and made nonstop calls to foreign leaders to assemble the international coalition and secure the U.N. resolutions that provided the legal underpinning for the military action.

In former Yugoslavia, President Clinton played a similar role, reaching out to friends and allies, to adversaries and belligerents, in order to reach agreements that permitted the deployment of an international peacekeeping force.

And in the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict, the aerial bombings of Addis Ababa and Asmara ceased thanks to the personal efforts of a President.

Contrast the above examples with the last seven plus years of George W. Bush and the conclusion is inescapable: presidential leadership is critical and should be tempered with experience and capability.

Senator Clinton has a long and well documented history of involvement in many of critical foreign policy issues we have confronted and will continue to confront as a nation. Critics can quibble about the details of the health plan she fought for in the 1990s, or whether hers was the decisive or merely an important voice in the Northern Ireland peace efforts, but there can be no denying that she has been in the arena for a generation fighting for what she believes in, gaining experience and developing leadership skills. She has traveled the world and met with international leaders both as the First Lady and as a respected senator on the Senate Armed Services Committee. As NSC director on Africa I experienced her direct positive involvement in U.S.-African relations; it was she, as First Lady who advanced through her own travel, then urged and made possible President Clinton’s historic trip. In the Senate, she has aggressively exercised her oversight responsibility and held the Pentagon’s feet to the fire on plans related to withdrawal from Iraq, shaped legislation requiring reports to Congress, and cosponsored legislation with Senator Byrd to deauthorize the war with Iraq. She has exercised the levers of power because she knows how to do so. That is not a small thing; it is not a campaign theme. It is simply true and goes to the heart of whether she, or anyone, is prepared to be the president to manage at once two wars and a global economic crisis.

Senator Obama is clearly a gifted politician and orator. I disagree profoundly with his transparently political efforts to turn George Bush’s war into Hillary Clinton’s responsibility. I was present in that debate, in Washington, from beginning to end, and Obama was nowhere to be seen. His current campaign aides in foreign policy, Tony Lake and Susan Rice, were also in Washington, but they chose to remain silent during that debate, when it mattered.

Claims of superior intuitive judgment by his campaign and by him are self-evidently disingenuous, especially in light of disclosures about his long associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko. But his assertions of advanced judgment are also ludicrous when the question of what Obama has accomplished in his four years in the Senate is considered.

As the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee subcommittee on Europe, he has not chaired a single substantive oversight hearing, even though the breakdown in our relations with Europe and NATO is harming our operations in Afghanistan. Nor did he take a single official trip to Europe as chairman. This is the sum total of his actions in the most important responsibility he has had in the Senate. What are his actual experiences that reassure us that when the phone rings at 3 a.m. he will know what to do, which levers of power to pull, or which world leaders he can count on?

Obama has stated that he will rely upon his advisers. But how will he know which ones to depend upon and how will he be able to evaluate what they say? Already, one of his chief foreign policy advisers, Samantha Power, has been compelled to resign for, among other indiscretions, honestly revealing on a British television program that Obama’s public position on withdrawal from Iraq is not really his true position, nor does it reflect what he would do. Her gaffe exposed a vein of cynicism on national security. How confident can we be in his judgment? In fact, the hard truth is that he has no such experience.

Obama has tried to have it both ways on the issue of national security. On the one hand, he claims his intuition somehow would make him best equipped to handle the difficult challenges that face the next president. On the other hand, he tries to ridicule and dismiss as relatively insignificant the idea that actual experience with and intimate knowledge of foreign affairs and leaders, the U.S. military, the intelligence community, and the intricacies of diplomacy matter. He has even suggested that talking about the problems of national security amounts to exploitation of “fear.” One of Obama’s fervent supporters, a Harvard professor named Orlando Patterson, who has no expertise in foreign policy, wrote absurdly in a New York Times op-ed that the 3 a.m. ad wasn’t about national security at all, but really a subliminal racist attack. Delusions aside, sometimes a discussion about national security is about national security.

There will, in fact, be 3 a.m. phone calls for the next president. They are not make believe. I have been there for such calls. The next president cannot be afraid or hesitant of handling the enormous national security crises that President Bush will leave behind. One thing is certain — the calls will come. Obama has only an abdication of his chief senatorial responsibility as a basis for assessing what his judgment might be if and when the phone rings. Which of his shifting coterie of volatile advisers would he turn to? Will it be the one who repudiated his withdrawal plan, exposing his real intention, prior to being forced to resign? Or will it be those advisers who remained silent until politically convenient — several years and several thousand lives after the shock and awe invasion, conquest and disastrous occupation of Iraq?

The calls are real and experience is real, too. The campaign might be treated as a game by the media, but those calls are serious, deadly serious.

(Thank you, C.S., for the fast video work!)

Earlier: Larry Johnson will be on ABC World News tonight to discuss Bush’s veto today of the legislation that bans waterboarding. Tune in, or check for video here.

UDPATE, via MakeThemAccountable.com, from ThinkProgress “MSNBC Host Falsely Claims McCain Opposes Bush On Torture Bill Veto“:

On MSNBC this morning, anchor Monica Novotny claimed that President Bush’s impending veto of the Intelligence Authorization Bill would put “a chill” in his alliance with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Bush is vetoing the bill because of an amendment that puts the CIA’s interrogation program under the standards of Army Field Manual, which Novotny claims McCain supports.

“He doesn’t like a provision that’s been pushed by, you guessed it, Sen. McCain,” claimed Novotny. Watch it: [VIDEO]

The problem is that Novotny has her facts dead wrong.

Though McCain has criticized the use of torturous interrogation techniques in the past, he voted against the bill that Bush is set to veto tomorrow: …

Here’s the news story, via Fox News, “Bush Vetoes Legislation Barring Waterboarding, Says It Preserves Tool in War on Terrorism,” along with Larry’s writings here on torture, and more:

President George W. Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks. …

Larry Johnson has written much here at NoQuarter on torture, waterboarding, and the Bush administration. Among those stories is “Urgent: Letter from Intelligence, Military, Diplomatic, and Law Enforcement Professionals.”

A group of distinguished intelligence and military officers, diplomats, and law enforcement professionals delivered an urgent message this morning to the chairman and the ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, calling on them to hold the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey until he takes a clear position on the legality of waterboarding.

Their message strongly endorses the view of former judge advocates general that waterboarding “is inhumane, is torture, is illegal.” The intelligence veterans added it is also a notoriously unreliable way to acquire accurate information.

They noted that the factors cited by the president and Mukasey as obstacles to his giving an opinion on waterboarding can be easily solved by briefing Mukasey on waterboarding and on C.I.A. interrogation methods.

The intelligence veterans noted that during their careers they frequently had to walk a thin line between morality and expediency, all the while doing their best to abide by the values the majority of Americans have held in common over the years. …

Look at the list of professionals who signed this letter.

ALSO OF NOTE — From “Foreign Policy: Will This Get Fair Play? [UPDATED x2]“:

“General Taguba Endorses Hillary Today” — Ret. Army Major General Antonio Taguba “is among 27 flag-rank military officers and more than 2000 veterans who have endorsed Senator Clinton to be our nation’s next Commander-in-Chief.” As you know, he “led the Army’s investigation into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in 2004.” In General Taguba’s endorsement, he stated:

“Senator Clinton’s unequivocal opposition to the use of torture under any circumstances, and her willingness to take a stand for what she believes in is exactly the sort of courage and moral strength that we need in our leaders. I know that, as President, Senator Clinton will hold America to the high moral standards that have made us a leader among nations.” READ MORE.

While Obama supporters often obsess over the Iraq War Vote, there is no denying that Senator Clinton has far more Foreign Policy experience than Senator Obama.  If one reads the Foreign Policy Speech she gave yesterday (link), there is an impressive grasp of world affairs.

But giving a speech is not the full extent of her foreign policy experience.  There is testimony from all parts of the world about her involvement in world affairs, playing a role that is far beyond that of a typical First Lady or even a US Senator.

The New York Times seemed to intentionally minimize her role during the White House years in a piece late last year.  They wrote (link):

Her role mostly involved what diplomats call “soft power” — converting cold war foes into friends, supporting nonprofit work and good-will endeavors, and pressing her agenda on women’s rights, human trafficking and the expanded use of microcredits, tiny loans to help individuals in poor countries start small businesses.

Hillary’s real influence in African Affairs

This is an impressive list but is made to look more like the typical First Lady role.  This theme of people intentionally playing down her experience is also part of a discussion by Ambassador Joseph Wilson of his interaction with her when he was over African Affairs.  Wilson talks about a key role played by Hillary in African Affairs, and mentions that some of the people who know this work for Obama and yet are suddenly forgetting what she did (link):

During my tenure as Senior Director for African Affairs in the Clinton Administration, I had the responsibility for helping to plan and execute President Clinton’s historic trip to that continent. It was a trip that forever changed the way American administrations think about Africa. I spent eleven days with President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton traveling to six countries and meeting with leaders from many more. She was a full participant in all of our activities and a key adviser–and for good reason. Hillary had previously traveled to Africa, leading a prominent U.S. delegation to several countries. On her return she was instrumental in persuading the president that he should invest that most precious of presidential assets–time–in his own trip. People who are now senior advisers to Senator Obama were involved in both of those trips. So it is mystifying to me that they have allowed themselves to “forget” the key role Hillary played in such a major shift in approach to that part of the world and have participated in a negative campaign tactic on the part of the Obama campaign to demean her significant contributions to foreign policy of which they are well aware.

Hillary’s real role in the Northern Ireland Peace Process

And although there has been a move by some to minimize Hillary’s role in the Northern Ireland peace process, those who worked with her are having none of that (link):

“I am quite surprised that anyone would suggest that Hillary Clinton did not perform important foreign policy work as first lady. I can state from firsthand experience that she played a positive role for over a decade in helping to bring peace to Northern Ireland,” said former SDLP leader and Nobel laureate John Hume is a statement responding to critical press reports.

“She visited Northern Ireland, met with very many people and gave very decisive support to the peace process. In private she made countless calls and contacts, speaking to leaders and opinion makers on all sides, urging them to keep moving forward,” said Hume.

Hillary’s real challenge of the Chinese over rights for women

She took on the Chinese over women’s rights in particular.  In the NYT piece that seemed intentionally written to belittle her White House years, even they wrote that she stood up to Chinese officials (link):

…The foreign policy achievement most often credited to Mrs. Clinton came in 1995, with her speech to the United Nations conference on women in Beijing, where she declared that “human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.” She also tangled with Chinese officials, she said, and refused to bow to pressure to soften her remarks.
“She had a good balance of being firm on these issues, even if they clearly covered Chinese sins, but also understanding the need for good relations with China,” said Winston Lord, then the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, who briefed and accompanied her on the trip.

Hillary’s real key role in Kosovo

But perhaps the biggest event that Senator Clinton had a role in during the White House years is her involvement in Kosovo.  During this time there was a lot of opposition from Republicans in congress (See discussion here)and from the Pentagon to getting involved in what appeared to be a Civil War.  President Clinton was torn between the Department of Defense and the Department of State.  Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke and General Wes Clark were pushing for involvement because there was an impending ethnic slaughter of Kosovars.  They reached out to Hillary and she then convinced Bill to get involved.  That is mentioned in the NYT piece and here (though with details twisted to make it look like a purely political calculation).  More discussion of these events here.

Here is what the NYT actually said, which is intentionally misleading:

In visits to Bosnia and Kosovo after the American-led bombing of Serbia, she entered war zones before officials believed it was safe for her husband to go and acted as a spokeswoman for American interests rather than as a negotiator. Mrs. Clinton had become a champion of the bombing campaign, and many officials — including Madeleine K. Albright and Richard Holbrooke in the administration and Tony Blair, then Britain’s prime minister — turned to her at times to stiffen Mr. Clinton’s resolve to take on Serbia.

It is worth remembering that Kosovo actually yielded the hearts and flowers that Vice-President Cheney and others promised us we would see in Iraq.  Picture here.  It is also worth noting that although there are some critics of the war in Bosnia and Kosovo, Senator Obama’s own Foreign Policy analyst, Samantha Power, recently defended the actions taken there by the Clinton adminstration.  She refused to accept much of what critic Jeremy Scahill had to say. (link)

Hillary’s real involvement in Palestinian Statehood Issues

Hillary has also been involved in pushing for Palestinian statehood.  Here is a mention by the ever noxious William Safire of a statement she made supporting Palestinian statehood in May of 1998.  And though Senator Clinton is often painted as a pro-Israel War Hawk, there is at least some evidence that Palestinians think she would be on their side as president. (link, link) (For those who believe Senator Obama is better on Israeli Palestinian issues, they need to read this.)

One thing Hillary has done is to publicly address the textbooks used to teach Palestinian children to hate.  A youtube video of part of that work is here.

The real story about the Iraq War Vote

As in other areas, there are people who were part of discussion of the Iraq War vote who intentionally remain silent about previous events in order to promote Senator Obama over Senator Clinton.  Among these are some bloggers, Josh Marshall for example, who defended the same exact position in 2004 that Senator Clinton holds now. (link)

There is no end of Obama supporters who claim that they knew at the time of the AUMF vote that it was a vote for war and that George Bush could not be trusted.  I am not just speaking only of bloggers but also of some media personalities.  Chelsea Clinton recently referred to such claims as “clairvoyance” and got called all sorts of nasty names in the lefty blogs. (One example here)  One person in particular who could have stepped up on this and set the record straight is Senator Ted Kennedy.  Here is what he said in 2002:

“In this serious time for America and many American families, no one should poison the public square by attacking the patriotism of opponents, or by assailing proponents as more interested in the cause of politics than in the merits of their cause. I reject this, as should we all. Let me say it plainly, I not only concede, but I am convinced that President Bush believes genuinely in the course he urges upon us. …There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein’s regime is a serious danger, that he is [a] tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated.”

The reason I know Senator Kennedy said this is that Tim Russert whacked him over the head with this quote in 2004 on Meet The Press.  Clearly, telling the truth about that time period is not as important to him as promoting Senator Obama.  A lot of lies are being told about who said what then to build up a candidate who was not even in the Senate at the time.  And a lot of unfair anger is being directed at Senator Clinton that Senator Kennedy and others are shamelessly allowing to happen.

One person who has spoken up in defense of Senator Clinton is also one of the chief critics of the Bush administration and the intelligence manipulation leading up to the war: Ambassador Joseph Wilson.  Here is what he said (link):

A number of us, like then Illinois state senator Obama, opposed the second Gulf War. My own opposition from the beginning has been well documented. I fought the fight in the arena itself, Washington DC, against a ruthless administration and its supporters while the senator’s opposition came from a far distance and carried no risk, given that he represented in Springfield, Illinois the district encompassing the University of Chicago. As an obscure but safe provincial political figure, he never was granted access to the distorted intelligence that was used to drive the Congress and the media. When I looked to the left or to the right for support, I never saw the state senator. In fact, I never heard of Barack Obama until he announced his intention to run for the Senate in the 2006 election.

In the run up to the war and thereafter, I was in frequent discussions with senior Democrats in Washington, including Senator Clinton, and I was keenly aware of her demand for the full exercise of international diplomacy and allowing the weapons inspectors to complete their mission. Many of the most prominent early opponents of the war, including former General Wes Clark and former ambassador to the United National Richard Holbrooke support Senator Clinton for President, as do I. We do so because we know that she has the experience and the judgment that comes from having been in the arena for her entire adult life–and from close personal participation with her in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. And we have trust in her to end the war in Iraq in the most responsible way, consistent with our national security interests.

During this time Senator Clinton has repeatedly said that although she did not read the complete NIE she got enough briefing on it to believe the info was suspect.  So she reached out to the international network of intelligence analysts to find out if Saddam really had weapons or not.  It is only recently that most of us learned, from an FBI agent interviewed on 60 Minutes (link), why the international network she reached out to could not give her a definite answer: Saddam was intentionally giving the impression that he did indeed have WMD because he wanted to scare the Iranis.

Even Senator Obama admitted in his famous speech that Saddam might have WMDs (link):

I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

Since no one knew for sure and Saddam had been willing to assassinate a former US President (link) and had once threatened the security of Israel (link), this seems to be an instance where it is better to be safe than sorry.  With that in mind, Senator Obama’s willingness to not push for weapons inspectors to be allowed into Iraq seems ill-advised.

Senator Clinton’s Real Actions on Iran

Getting back to the subject of Iran, Senator Clinton has long urged attention to the issue, pointing out the threats to Israel and Lebanon in addition to concerns in Iraq.  She urged for sanctions, not war, and went to great lengths to say that the President Bush should not go to war with Iran unless he had specific congressional approval.

Critics of Senator Clinton say that her support of the Webb amendment, which basically said the same thing, was a mere CYA effort because of her Kyl-Lieberman vote.  But Hillary had been publicly saying the same thing some six months before the Webb amendment came into the picture.

And while we are on the subject of Kyl-Lieberman, Senator Clinton took a lot of criticism from Barack and John and their supporters, even though both had been willing to bomb Iran.  Never mind that Hillary had said over and over that she felt Iran was dangerous because of the threats to Lebanon and Israel, if not Iraq, and that she said she signed Kyl Lieberman as a way of getting diplomatic leverage against Iran.

Of course the supposedly really smart people, especially on the blogs, would have none of this explanation.  Even though Josh Marshall at TPM, as just one example, admitted that the part about authorizing use of the military against Iran was taken out, even including a copy of the changes that were made so readers could see for themselves, even so Josh, who I really respect, and others, complained to high heaven about the vote and refused to accept that labeling the IRG as a terrorist organization might give diplomatic leverage.  

And this kvetching from the blogs and others was all in spite of the fact that all three of the principal players in rescuing the Kosovo Albanians from Milosevic, Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke and Wes Clark, who had to get help from Hillary to drag the Pentagon kicking and screaming to get involved, and who still do not get the recognition they deserve for doing so, supported the vote and pointed out that the final legislation did not include the part that was likely put in the document to use as an excuse to start a war with Iran.

Even Digby got all sidetracked by what Kyl and Lieberman and their neocon friends probably intended to do with the amendment.  She failed to focus on the fact that the final document only labeled the IRG as terrorists and she failed to discuss that such a labeling could conceivably be used as diplomatic leverage against the Iranians.  No sir, all the supposedly very smart people, even some Hillary supporters, failed to contextualize Hillary’s vote within the years of her personal discussion of Iran and/or give her the benefit of the doubt.

On the lighter side, the New Yorker’s Hendrick Hertzberg links to campaign limericks that Andrew Sullivan’s readers have been contributing to his blog at The Atlantic:

There once was a mayor called Rudy
Who went to Long Island for booty
The taxpayers paid
So that he could get laid
Did 9/11 come before Judy?

More on the Real I.D. story:

States have until May 11 to request extensions to the Real ID rules that were released last Friday. They require states to make all current identification holders under the age of 50 to apply again with certified birth and marriage certificates. The rules also standardize license formats, require states to interlink their DMV databases and require DMV employee to undergo background checks. [...]

Last year Montana passed a law saying it would not comply, citing privacy, states’ rights and fiscal issues.

In his letter (.pdf) to other governors, Schweitzer makes clear he’s not going to ask for an extension.

“Today, I am asking you to join with me in resisting the DHS coercion to comply with the provisions of REAL ID,” Schweitzer wrote. “If we stand together either DHS will blink or Congress will have to act to avoid havoc at our nation’s airports and federal courthouses.” [...]

[DHS spokesperson Laura] Keehner says DHS’s policy won’t change even if Georgia — one of the 17 states that has signaled strong opposition to the rules — declines to apply for an extension.

If that scenario came to pass, every Georgian who flies out through the nation’s busiest airport — Atlanta-Hartsfield International — would have to be patted down by Homeland Security agents and have his carry-on bag hand-screened, likely resulting in massive delays.

Keehner also suggests that patted-down citizens will turn their wrath not on the feds but on their state government.

For his part, Schweitzer wants Congress to step up and pass alternative legislation that would stop Real ID and re-instate a commission that was working on driver’s license rules before the REAL ID Act was slipped into must-pass defense legislation in 2005. That legislation assigned DHS the task of setting the rules single-handedly. … Read all at Wired.

What else is going on?