Don’t you feel safer now? I’m sure I do – not.

Of course, that is not all these expanded powers allow them to do:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.

The F.B.I. soon plans to issue a new edition of its manual, called the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, according to an official who has worked on the draft document and several others who have been briefed on its contents. The new rules add to several measures taken over the past decade to give agents more latitude as they search for signs of criminal or terrorist activity.

[...]

Under current rules, agents must open such an inquiry before they can search for information about a person in a commercial or law enforcement database. Under the new rules, agents will be allowed to search such databases without making a record about their decision.

Mr. German said the change would make it harder to detect and deter inappropriate use of databases for personal purposes. But Ms. Caproni said it was too cumbersome to require agents to open formal inquiries before running quick checks. She also said agents could not put information uncovered from such searches into F.B.I. files unless they later opened an assessment.

The new rules will also relax a restriction on administering lie-detector tests and searching people’s trash. Under current rules, agents cannot use such techniques until they open a “preliminary investigation,” which — unlike an assessment — requires a factual basis for suspecting someone of wrongdoing. But soon agents will be allowed to use those techniques for one kind of assessment, too: when they are evaluating a target as a potential informant. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

I’m all for fighting crime, and stopping terrorism in its tracks, but to not even have to open a “preliminary investigation” first before searching people’s trash or lie detector tests is a bit disconcerting, don’t you think?

And speaking of terrorists, Janet Napolitano has an interesting take on “profiling” a certain group:

Good grief. She is incredibly painful to listen to, isn’t she? And THIS is the head of Homeland Security? No wonder the FBI needs expanded powers. Ahem.

In other news, Obama plays golf again on Sunday for the ELEVENTH week in a row. So glad he has his priorities in order…

Feel free to add your own “news we do not want to lose”!!

Basically, a foreign national has been killed by another foreign army. What does Pakistan have to do with this, then? Nothing and everything. And this nothing yet everything has placed Pakistan between a rock and a hard place.

If Pakistan admits that it helped US forces kill bin Laden it fears a backlash from the different militant organizations with in its boundaries, and if it denies any such cooperation then it will be labeled a supporter of Al Qaeda.

For this reason Pakistan – which is defined as the Pakistan Army and the agencies, including the infamous ISI – stayed silent. So silent that it’s scary. It’s the silence before the storm. This storm is not necessarily directed at the US, the CIA, Afghanistan or India. The tempest could be directed at foreign militants. Remaining silent was a wise approach and the best strategy so far for Pakistan. Be aware of that silence. The pendulum could swing either way. The forces that actually control Pakistan — and I’m not referring to politicians — could back any horse at this point. Or spread the wager across the board. Only time will tell.

The US media has been hammering Pakistan day and night. The media should consider Pakistan’s tight spot here. The US needs help, not just rooting terrorist networks out of Pakistan but in Afghanistan as well. It’s not easy for a country to sustain repeated bombardments, knowing that it depends on the country doing the bombing for large quantities of foreign aid. Already, a number of politicians and the Pakistani media are defining the bin Laden raid as another example of infringement of sovereignty and using bin Laden’s death to goad the US to pull out of Afghanistan. Rock, meet hard place. If only the US media understood that.

Then there have been conflicting reports coming out of various US departments. But the fact is that the raid could not have succeeded without the ISI’s help. Clearly bin Laden’s time was up. Given the ISI’s deserved reputation for treachery and intrigues, wouldn’t there have been a strong and deep bunker under that mansion to hide bin Laden? Or a maze of tunnels to help him and his family escape? Bin Laden was trapped, with the local support on the ground.

Obama said last night that he got confirmed reports of bin Laden’s location last week. I looked out for events that happened last week. President Obama was busy dealing with Trump’s nonsense, while the Pentagon was hosting ISI chief General Pasha. Coincidence? I don’t think so. There must have been a deal, a tit for tat.

Pakistan’s religious quarters have already started to question then authenticity of the killing. Above all, they have started asking US to wrap up their “war” and leave the region. Which again the US or NATO cannot afford to do. Not yet at least. The US has to deal with Afghanistan, Karzai, the Taliban, the Quetta shura…and the list goes on.

So let’s not get carried away here. The war is not over yet. Bin Laden killing has improved Obama’s approval ratings, but bin Laden’s death has hardly put a dent on al Qaeda. Keeping in mind that Al Qaeda’s's real ideological inspiration is al-Zuwahiri, who’s still very much alive. And probably on the ISI’s watch list too.

I had another post all ready to go this morning of Lara Logan’s interview on “60 Minutes,” but that can keep until tomorrow. Today, the big news, as President Obama announced late last night, Osama bin Laden has been killed.

The reports have been a bit conflicting on just how he died, however. Initially, reports stated he had been killed by a drone attack last week, and that they had kept his body to determine through DNA analysis that it was indeed him.

Obama’s statement to the nation, though, claimed that he had (reaffirmed) the order to the CIA to get bin Laden (Bush initially gave the order), and that bin Laden was killed yesterday. Now we are told it was a Navy Seal who took him down, on a mission aided by CIA intel, as well as information gleamed from Khalid Sheik Muhammad at Gitmo. Apparently, the Pakistanis aided the US in this mission as well.

Following are excerpts of Obama’s remarks on this historic event (and I am glad he was finally able to use the word, “terrorist,” since it was one he and his Administration have worked hard not to use. Ahem.):

“Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

“It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory — hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction.

“And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.

“On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to (emphasis mine – you knew it was coming, right?), or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.

“We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda — an organization headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.

“Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in that effort. We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot.

“Yet Osama bin Laden avoided capture and escaped across the Afghan border into Pakistan. Meanwhile, al Qaeda continued to operate from along that border and operate through its affiliates across the world.

“And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.

“Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.

“Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.

I admit, while watching this, I was waiting for Obama to say, “I just returned from Pakistan where I, personally, took out Osama bin Laden, with the help of our military. And you thought George Bush was a cowboy. He doesn’t have anything on me.” Sorry, but there were just a few too many “I”‘s in there for someone who has downplayed the whole issue of terrorism.

Yes, he gave the command to proceed, which is good. Yet many are acting as if this is showing great leadership on his part, while to me, it seems like a no-brainer. I mean, really – have our expectations of him sunk so low that the opportunity to take out this mastermind of terror is seen as a sign of “leadership”? Wow.

Back to the comments:

“For over two decades, bin Laden has been al Qaeda’s leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda.

“Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must — and we will — remain vigilant at home and abroad.

“As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not — and never will be — at war with Islam. I’ve made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.

Hillary Clinton just made the point that bin Laden killed many Muslims, too, just as Obama did, and that bin Laden had made threats against Pakistanis themselves. One can make of that what one will…

More from Obama:

[snip] “Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates.

“The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores, and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens. After nearly 10 years of service, struggle, and sacrifice, we know well the costs of war. These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief, have to sign a letter to a family that has lost a loved one, or look into the eyes of a service member who’s been gravely wounded.

“So Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done.

“Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.

“We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day.

“Finally, let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores.[snip]

There is a bit more to this speech, and you can click here to read it.

Can I just say, though, listening and watching Obama last night really puts a lie to the meme that he is such a great speaker. He isn’t. His speech was stilted and halting, with a number of mistakes as he read the teleprompter. It was blatantly clear that he was – you could watch his eyes move.

I am confused as to why they chose to bury bin Laden at sea, and so quickly. I would have thought they would want to perform an autopsy, recover the bullet that killed him, see if he really was ill, all of that. So that choice is interesting to me. Why the rush to dispose of him? Oh, wait – here is why – it is in keeping with Islamic tradition.

Huh? Okay, so Obama makes it crystal clear that bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. However, we do know he was the leader of Al Qaeda, a Muslim organization, but alright. Interesting distinction Obama (and Clinton) are making here. Still,we finally get this mass murderer, we have his body, and we forgo obtaining some answers to uphold his religious tradition? Wow. What do you think about that? Is it an attempt to stave off more attacks?

If so, that is a bit misguided. We KNOW there will be reprisals from Al Qaeda as a result,as Leon Panetta has acknowledged we can expect. Honestly, these people are bound and determined to get us anyway, so taking out this one man who has caused so much damage to our great nation is a reason to be thankful, even if one abhors violence, or killing for any reason.

Bringing justice to this man who has done so much damage to our nation as a result of the tireless efforts of our intelligence community and our highly trained military, is a good day. Thanks to all of those who have worked to this end, though it is not an end to the war on terrorism. Bin Laden may be gone, but there are others out there wishing us harm. Our military and intelligence officers continue to have their work cut out for them, regardless of Obama taking the credit for this, it belongs, IMHO, to those who were on the ground. Well done.

There is a video I want to share with you. It is an impromptu celebration at Ground Zero after learning of bin Laden’s demise. This pretty much says it all, though there are many good videos out there of interviews with family members of those lost on 9/11, and first responders. I urge you to take a look and listen when you have time. Until then, I leave you with this:

UPDATE: A few of you have been kind enough to provide links regarding why Osama bin Laden was buried at sea. Here are the pertinent facts:

[snip] The official described the procedure to NBC News as follows:

* The deceased’s body was washed and then placed in a white sheet.
* The body was placed in a weighted bag.
* A military officer read prepared religious remarks that were translated into Arabic by a native speaker.
* After the words were complete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, whereupon the deceased’s body eased into the sea from the USS Carl Vinson.

The rites sparked a debate about Islamic customs, with some Muslim clerics calling the procedure humiliating and others saying it was proper.

A U.S. official said that the burial decision was made after concluding that it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains. There also was speculation about worry that a grave site could have become a rallying point for militants.

President Barack Obama said the remains had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom, which requires speedy burial. [snip]

Okay, so there weren’t a lot of countries willing to accept his body. There is cremation, after all.

And how do you feel that so much care was taken to prepare his body according to Islamic tradition? Wow…

And what a story this is:

A passenger screener at Philadelphia International Airport is facing charges that he distributed more than 100 images of child pornography via Facebook, records show.

Federal agents also allege that Transportation Safety Administration Officer Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia, who routinely searched airline passengers, uploaded explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site on which he also posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform.[snip](Click here to read the rest.)

I am certainly not implying that all TSA screeners are despicable lowlifes like this guy is, not at all. That there are a number of hard-working, adequate TSA personnel is not in doubt. Still, there are surely a number of people who should NOT be working for this government agency. This man is most definitely one of them. Kinda makes one wonder about the TSA screening of the screeners, doesn’t it? It sure does me.

Really, though, who is surprised by this story following the extremely disturbing, offensive, and gratuitous recent pat-down of a 6 year old child (Pat Racimora did a great piece on this very subject)? Not me. Her parents detail what happened in the video below:

This little girl is by no means the first young child to endure this horrific procedure, one about which I have written several times, having been subjected to it myself (joint replacement will do that for you). But I am an adult, and as horrific as it is for me, how much worse is it for a child, a young, young, child, like this?

One lawmaker, Congressman Jason Chaffetz, is preparing legislation to change the procedures so that parental consent would be required prior to traumatizing a young child. Rep. Chaffetz has his own reasons for this, beside having seen the video: “They claim there is a modified pat-down for 12-year-olds and younger, but when you see those videos, you realize that just isn’t true,” Chaffetz said.

[snip] The proposed legislation would require that a parent must give their consent before a child receives a pat-down, and that the child must remain with the parent while the pat-down is performed.

“I am personally outraged and disgusted by yet another example of mistreatment of an innocent American at the hands of TSA,” wrote Chaffetz in the letter addressed to TSA chief John Pistole. “This conduct is in clear violation of TSA’s explicit policy not to conduct thorough pat-downs on children under the age of 13.”

[...]

The congressman’s family had its own run-in with the TSA not long ago when his 15-year-old daughter was whisked away from the family at the airport security checkpoint to have a private pat-down without a parent present.

Yikes. I hate that his daughter had to go through this, too. I wonder what SHE did wrong. (That was snark – I am sure she did nothing.)

I appreciate the Congressman’s thought, and his own problems with this TSA pat-down. But this hardly fixes the problem. Having a parent consent to their child enduring such a horrific event will only further traumatize the child, in my opinion. How much therapy will the government pay for these children, anyway? Yeah, that’s what I thought – none.

Robin Roberts gives a bit too much grace to the TSA, if you ask me. Yes, they are doing what Homeland Security demands they do to US citizens, but patting down a small child does absolutely NOTHING to keep this country safe, and everything to traumatize her, and her family. “Because of the world we live in now” is dangerous, to be sure, but to pick this child out randomly, without setting off any alarms of any kind, is reprehensible.

It seems to me that the TSA needs to be way more diligent about those in their employ than they are about 6 year old (even 3 year old) passengers. But that’s just me…

She is my new hero.

You may recall, I wrote about my recent experience at the, um, hands of the TSA. A full body sexual assault as the result of having an airplane ticket. As I sat in an airport on Tuesday, on my way to a couple of Yankees’ Spring Training Games, and having had to endure yet another sexual assault as a result of my knee replacement, my thoughts turned to Rep. Cissna.

I hated my last experience so much, found it so offensive, that I asked my partner if we could drive to Miami for our cruise, rather than fly. She, of course, agreed. So we made the 9 hour (one way) drive to and from Miami to spare me the unwanted, unwarranted, full body search. Unfortunately, we did not have the luxury of driving this time around, hence my Round 2 of TSA sexual assault. Gee – can’t wait for the return trip home. Ahem.

Before I get into more about Rep. Cissna, though, and in light of my recent pat-downs, I want to share my conversation with the TSA agent this morning. I had to wait in line for my pat-down behind an 88 year old woman who had a knee replacement(hers was 3 years ago). I asked the agent why we could not be wanded down instead, something that would so easily show why we set off the metal detector. She said it was because of the Underwear Bomber. You know the one – the young Somalian man who was on a plane to Detroit that the Powers-That-Be were hesitant to label a terrorist. Yes, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was charged as a civilian, not a terrorist, which included being read his Miranda rights. It is because of this one man, and the failure of the TSA to catch him, that many of us who have health issues are subjected to this invasion of our privacy.

While I was getting my stuff after the TSA assault, I was standing right beside a man who looked like a pilot. He was indeed a pilot, as it turned out, when I could see his “Crew” badge. He, too, was having to get a pat-down. Why? He wore orthotic shoes that he could not take off, lest he “fall over” (his words).

Wow. I feel so much safer, don’t you? And I sure wish someone could tell me why my setting off a metal detector then results in this pat-down to swab for explosives. If it is METAL, then a wand will find it. Just saying.

Now, back to Rep. Cissna. The L.A. Times relates her story in this article, “Alaska’s Legislator’s ‘No’ To TSA Pat-down“:

When Alaska state Rep. Sharon Cissna passed through airport security a few months ago, the false breast she has worn since her mastectomy set off an alert on the new full-body scanner and triggered what she called a “humiliating” pat-down search.

Last week, it happened again. The Anchorage Democrat was leaving Seattle to return to the legislative session in Juneau when her prosthetic breast sent her once again toward the rubber gloves.

“The horror began again,” she recalled, except this time, she refused.

Cissna caught a small plane to British Columbia and boarded a ferry for a two-day journey back to Juneau.

She arrived in the Alaskan capital Thursday to expressions of support from fellow members of the Alaska Legislature, which passed a resolution backing Cissna’s stand that declared “no one should have to sacrifice their dignity in order to travel.”

Alaskans — residents of a state with so few roads that most journeys must be taken by boat or plane — say they do not enjoy the same ability as other Americans to refuse security measures imposed by the Transportation Security Administration.

“We can’t take Amtrak, we can’t take Greyhound, we can’t drive ourselves. Those options aren’t open to us. We have a choice of fly or stay home,” said Republican State Rep. Alan Dick, who spoke on the House floor about Cissna’s case before overwhelming approval of a resolution in support of her. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Anyone who has seen the Discovery show, “Flying Wild: Alaska” knows this is true. Everyone from sports teams to hunters, to mothers returning to their villages after showing off their new babies to family living elsewhere in Alaska, to teachers getting back to their villages in time for school, flying is a way of life in Alaska on par with the rest of us hopping into our cars to go to another town or county.

Rep. Cissna’s colleagues are standing behind her in a big way. The Alaskan House passed a resolution asking that these kinds of pat-downs by the TSA be stopped. To that end, Rep. Cissna has headed to Washington, DC, to discuss this excessive pat-down:

[snip] Cissna says she has heard from people throughout Alaska and across the country expressing their concerns, and she has a clear message to bring to Washington, where she will appear before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Wednesday.

“We’re asking Congress to go back to the physical scanning that was done before. People didn’t have a problem with it. I didn’t have a problem with it. A light pat-down and sometimes they use a wand. The way it used to be.”

The TSA has argued that when anomalies appear on full body scanners the enhanced pat-down is necessary to make sure those anomalies are not dangerous items such as explosives and bomb parts.

Says Cissna, “We want safe skies, believe me. I want people safe. But there’s no proof this (invasive pat-down) is keeping people safe.”

She says her husband has mapped out a route for her trip to Washington that will only include airports that do not yet have full body scanners but rather use metal detectors, which do not red flag her scars.

Cissna will share her own experience with Congress, she says.

“I’ll be talking about the human part. And my fellow representatives have just added a piece of the human part. The people of Alaska will be heard in Washington D.C., will be heard across America,” she says. “This procedure is a feel-up. That may be harsh, but it was harsh.” (Click here to read the rest.)

I concur – it is harsh. And it needs to stop. Now. There are better ways than forcing those with disabilities, or previous illnesses, to endure this kind of harassment.

Apparently, this young man, who is also my hero, Aaron Tobey, concurs that this practice is outrageous. Mr. Tobey, in protest of the illegal search of US citizens, stripped down to his skivvies, revealing the 4th Amendment on his chest:

[snip] The Constitution’s Fourth Amendment outlaws “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Tobey, a 21-year-old University of Cincinnati architecture student, had those very words scrawled across his chest and abdomen when he stripped down to his underwear at a Richmond, Va., airport back in December. He was heading to his grandfather’s funeral at the time. Tobey was arrested and cited for disorderly conduct.

The misdemeanor charge has since been dropped, but Tobey is still suing. The defendants listed in his legal filing are Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the head of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, the Richmond airport authority and several security officers there. He’s seeking $250,000 in damages and reimbursement for legal fees.

“This action seeks vindication of the First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of Aaron Tobey, who … was arrested without probable cause, falsely imprisoned and maliciously prosecuted,” the legal complaint states. The civil lawsuit was filed on Tobey’s behalf by the Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties group. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Good for him. Good for Tobey for standing up for what is right, even though he endured some hardship as a result. He is my hero, too.

Thank heavens for people like Alaskan State Rep. Sharon Cissna, and Aaron Tobey. Cissna is a godsend, given her political clout. I hope, and pray, she is successful in getting this practice abolished. Tobey, too, for also shining a bright light on this un-Constitutional practice, is a brave young man, and I applaud him for his actions. No doubt about it, the TSA assault on American citizens needs to stop, and it needs to stop now. I, for one, cannot take much more of this. And I am not alone…

Yes, recently the former governor of Minnesota suffered the indignity others of us have had to endure, and his response is to sue the Department of Homeland Security and TSA for unlawful, warrantless search. And why was the good former governor given the TSA assault treatment? He had a titanium hip replacement.

Welcome to my world, Governor.

Yes, like me, rather than use a wand to search the former governor, he was subjected to the same sexual assault numerous other Americans have had to suffer. He had this to say about it:

[snip]Rather than being scanned with a hand-held wand, he says he was subjected to an intrusive pat-down that “exposed him to humiliation and degradation through unwanted touching, gripping and rubbing of the intimate areas of his body.”

Ventura, who was governor of Minnesota from 1999 through 2002, says such searches not only intrude on his “personal privacy and dignity” but cause him to be concerned about his “personal health and well-being.”

Ventura asked a federal judge in Minnesota to issue an injunction so he would no longer be subjected to “warrantless and suspicionless” scans and searches. [snip]

Right there with ya, brother. Ventura’s lawyer, David Olsen, cites these reasons for the lawsuit:

[snip] “He’s made a decision that someone needs to make a stand and he’s not one to back down from a fight,” said Olsen. “He sees the erosion of civil liberties here and he’s willing to stand up not only for himself, but for others.”

The suit names Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole as defendants. [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

Good for Governor Ventura. This kind of treatment of law-abiding citizens simply because they/we have purchased an airplane ticket and had to suffer from a joint replacement should not also have to suffer this kind of indignity, this assault. There is no other word for it but that.

I was curious, given the outrage and brouhaha over these illegal searches if Obama would mention it in his SOTU address, you know, like maybe they were going to stop doing them, and return to using a wand should the need arise.

Well, Obama said something about it alright:

Ahahahaha – so very funny, President Obama. What a freakin’ jokester you are. For those of us who have been sexually assaulted by the TSA, elderly people, children, folks with joint replacements, colostomy bags, et. al, this is no laughing matter. Add to that people who have been sexually assaulted previously in their lives. This kind of thing, this public assault and indignity, can make those assaults fly to the fore of someone’s life, doubly victimizing them.

And Obama makes a joke about it. That is just cruel. Cruel and mean-spirited. That is one of the big problems with Obama – he has no compassion, or certainly does not appear to have any.

The ACLU is none too happy about this little “joke” of Obama’s either. The ACLU is collecting information from travelers, including me, about these “pat-downs,” and is working on a case to end this un-Constitutional practice.

As for me, I wish I could join in with Governor Ventura on this lawsuit. I wish I had thought quickly enough to have my partner photograph these assaults/pat-downs. And, for our next upcoming trip, we will be driving – from the Charleston, SC area to Miami, FL (for a cruise) rather than flying. I cannot, I WILL not, go through that again, certainly not so soon after the last indignity.

That the Dept. of Homeland Security, specifically Janet Napolitano, continues to assert this is the way to go, and that the president of the United States, rather than ceasing this horrendous practice, makes a joke about it, is telling indeed. What it says is that our leaders do not have our best interests in mind. That they do not care about our civil liberties being trashed by the very people who have sworn to up hold them. To them, this is a joking manner.

Mr. President, government sanctioned sexual assault is no joke. Shame on you for even treating it as such. This practice should be ended, and now. Oh, and try something new and different next time, like a little bit of compassion, would you? Just a thought…

Overall, Krauthammer’s message is concise: let the legislators legislate, that is their job after all, and let the administrators administrate the laws they have been charged to enforce. Easy, right? Sadly, not much any more:

Last week, a draft memo surfaced from the Department of Homeland Security suggesting ways to administratively circumvent existing law to allow several categories of illegal immigrants to avoid deportation and, indeed, for some to be granted permanent residency. Most disturbing was the stated rationale. This was being proposed “in the absence of Comprehensive Immigration Reform.” In other words, because Congress refuses to do what these bureaucrats would like to see done, they will legislate it themselves.

Regardless of your feelings on the substance of the immigration issue, this is not how a constitutional democracy should operate. Administrators administer the law, they don’t change it. That’s the legislators’ job.

When questioned, the White House played down the toxic memo, leaving the impression that it was nothing more than ruminations emanating from the bowels of Homeland Security. But the administration is engaged in an even more significant power play elsewhere.

A 2007 Supreme Court ruling gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate carbon emissions if it could demonstrate that they threaten human health and the environment. The Obama EPA made precisely that finding, thereby granting itself a huge expansion of power and, noted The Post, sending “a message to Congress.”

It was not a terribly subtle message: Enact cap-and-trade legislation — taxing and heavily regulating carbon-based energy — or the EPA will do so unilaterally. As Frank O’Donnell of Clean Air Watch noted, such a finding “is likely to help light a fire under Congress to get moving.”

Well, Congress didn’t. Despite the “regulatory cudgel” (to again quote The Post) the administration has been waving, the Senate has repeatedly refused to acquiesce. [snip]

Krauthammer’s post s well worth the read, and you can read the rest of it here.

Back to this memo for a second here. If you take the time to read it, you will see exactly to what Krauthammer is referring, a reinterpretation of the law, and an “expansion,” if you will, of the law to permit more people to stay here, even though they are illegal aliens. In fact, it allows people who have already been deemed ineligible to change their status. I believe that boils down to amnesty, does it not? And that is only the second page of an eleven page memo. Yikes.

But here’s the thing, as Krauthammer points out: it is NOT the job of Homeland Security to reinterpret the law, but to administer the law. And it is certainly not their job to craft de facto immigration reform “absent legislative action,” as the memo states.

Despite Obama’s strong-arming of Congress, there is a reason why there are three equal branches of government. It’s about damn time for us to get back to treating each branch equally, and for each branch to act accordingly. Don’t you think?

Bear in mind, as you read this AP article, that Mexico has far, far more Draconian laws than the US would ever even dream of having, yet they are trying to tell one of OUR states how to protect its border from. Suffice it to say, if you are caught being in Mexico illegally, you are in for a world of hurt. And that is what makes this so rich:

Mexico Asks Court To Reject Ariz. Immigration Law

Mexico on Tuesday asked a federal court in Arizona to declare the state’s new immigration law unconstitutional, arguing that the country’s own interests and its citizens’ rights are at stake.

Lawyers for Mexico on Tuesday submitted a legal brief in support of one of five lawsuits challenging the law. The law will take effect July 29 unless implementation is blocked by a court.

The law generally requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there’s a “reasonable suspicion” they’re in the country illegally. It also makes being in Arizona illegally a misdemeanor, and it prohibits seeking day-labor work along the state’s streets.

Citing “grave concerns,” Mexico said its interest in having predictable, consistent relations with the United States shouldn’t be frustrated by one U.S. state.

Mexico also said it has a legitimate interest in defending its citizens’ rights and that the law would lead to racial profiling, hinder trade and tourism, and strain the countries’ work on combatting drug trafficking and related violence.

“Mexican citizens will be afraid to visit Arizona for work or pleasure out of concern that they will be subject to unlawful police scrutiny and detention,” the brief said.

It will be to a U.S. District Court judge to decide whether to accept the brief along with similar ones submitted by various U.S. organizations.

Hold the phone. Mexican citizens “will be afraid to visit Arizona for work or pleasure” because they might be asked for their ID if they commit another crime for which they are stopped? If they are in the country legally, and have a legal right to be working in the United States, why would they be afraid?? Good grief. How is it possible people can get this far in life with logic like this (if it can be called “logic,” that is).

Hopefully, the US District Court will not allow another nation to interfere into a US state law. Oh, and it would have been nice if someone had mentioned this to the governor:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the law on April 23 and changes to it on April 30, has lawyers defending it in court.

In a statement issued late Tuesday, Brewer said she was “very disappointed” to learn of Mexico’s filing and reiterated that “Arizona’s immigration enforcement laws are both reasonable and constitutional.”

“I believe that Arizona will ultimately prevail and that our laws will be found constitutional,” Brewer added.

Brewer and other supporters of the bill say the law is intended to pressure illegal immigrants to leave the United States. They contend it is a needed response to federal inaction over what they say is a porous border and social problems caused by illegal immigration. They also argue that it has protections against racial profiling.

Mexican officials previously had voiced opposition to the Arizona law, with President Felipe Calderon saying June 8 that the law “opens a Pandora’s box of the worst abuses in the history of humanity” by promoting racial profiling and potentially leading to an authoritarian society.

Calderon voiced similar criticism of the law during a May visit to Washington.

U.S. officials have said the Obama administration has serious concerns about the law and may challenge it in court. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton recently went further by saying a lawsuit is planned.

Okay, maybe it’s because I’m getting over being sick, or having an almost 6 year old here for the week and I am, well, let’s say, not young, or both. But my response to this is, “Bite me” to Mexico. The law in Arizona does not violate human rights, does not violate Federal law, since that law requires ALL persons from other countries here legally to carry papers stating as much for 70 years now, and only comes into play when a violation of one sort or another has been committed (not, as Obama stupidly claimed, when a family merely goes out for ice cream).

And honestly, if they are going to go after Arizona, they should go after California, too, since they have some mighty strict laws about immigration themselves. Just saying.

Or, maybe they should treat their citizens better so they aren’t trying to get into the United States illegally (again, almost 60% of illegal immigrants in the US are from Mexico, so I am not picking on them, but stating a fact. And ya don’t hear the Canadian government threatening to sue, do ya? Nope.). Maybe they should work to make their border less porous, too, instead of making the US do the lion’s share to keep their citizens out. Maybe they should just shut the hell up already since they are not bearing the tremendous cost to land, life, and finances that the US is bearing (you won’t even believe what the US Dept. of the Interior is charging the U.S. Border Patrol – you read that right – for “environmental costs” to the border. I am not making this up. Try $50 million dollars. Yup.). Instead of going after one of our states, focusing on the speck in the eye of another, Mexico should focus on the plank in its own eye, to use a biblical metaphor.

What do you think?

President Barack Obama will send 1,200 National Guard troops to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border, an administration official and an Arizona congresswoman said Tuesday, pre-empting Republican plans to try to force votes on such a deployment.

Obama will also request $500 million for border protection and law enforcement activities, they said.

The National Guard troops will work on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support, analysis and training, and support efforts blocking drug trafficking. The troops will temporarily supplement border patrol agents until Customs and Border Patrol can recruit and train additional officers and agents to serve on the border, the administration official said.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of a public announcement, disclosed the plans shortly after Obama met at the Capitol with Republican senators who pressed him on immigration issues including the question of sending Guard troops to the border.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s popularity has gone through the roof since signing the new Arizona immigration law, despite the bullying of the President himself, not to mention the derogatory comments of both Attorney General Holder and Janet Napolitano, his head of Homeland Security. Brewer stood up for the safety and rights of her constituents, asking the President to step up and do his job and…he blinked.

That’s what happens when you call out a bully.

Both the Bush and the Obama administrations have abdicated their responsibility to secure the border – since it is such a difficult hot button issue and I can only assume both were afraid of risking the ire of Latino voters. This is not about discouraging immigration, but as many others pointed out, we cannot even move forward on immigration reform until we secure the border and protect our citizens – of all ethnicities.

MSNBC further reports…

Arizona Republican Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl have been urging such a move and Republicans planned to try to attach it as an amendment to a pending war spending bill.

I guess the President needed to cut McCain and Kyl off at the pass.
In a speech Tuesday on the Senate floor, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the situation on the border has “greatly deteriorated.” He called for 6,000 National Guard troops to be sent to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I appreciate the additional 1,200 being sent … as well as an additional $500 million, but it’s simply not enough,” McCain said.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., said in a statement that the administration would announce the deployments later in the day Tuesday.

It may not be enough but it’s a start. Can’t wait to see what happens from here. Clearly, the President did not want to look like was standing on the sidelines once again.

I sincerely hope more of our representatives stand up for their principles and their constituents. Whether or not we agree with them on a specific issue is less important than the fact that someone is willing to make an honest case for their actions. Only then – when governance and choice is out in the open – can we have an effective debate on legislation, making decisions that will have a positive effect.

Better that than offering a small bandaid or merely paying lip service to a hot button issue.

What say you?

Wowie zowie – no mincing words, just putting it out there. Welcome to the party, Mr. Kneale:

Will someone please rein in our relentlessly hectoring President? Barrack Hussein Obama has taken his gift for inspirational oratory—one of the traits that got him elected—and turned it into something darker and more insidious.

Oh, just stop right there. “Inspirational oratory”? You mean the vapid statements written for him that he read off TOTUS, or this:

I couldn’t listen to it all, either. Hardly eloquent, though, by any stretch of the imagination. Back to the point at hand:

Bam is a bully. Bad enough that he bashes Wall Street, but this President has gone farther than any in modern history in putting the wrong kind of “bully” back into what Teddy Roosevelt had called the bully pulpit.

Obama’s latest broadside came over the weekend, when he vehemently criticized the state of Arizona and its (Republican) governor for passing a tough new law on illegal immigration.

The President called the measure “misguided” and all but labeled it un-American. He even ordered the Department of Justice, before the ink on this bill-signing has even dried, to examine the civil-rights “implications” of the new law. Seems like the courts and rights groups could handle that once any problem actually emerges.

Can you remember any other modern President, wagging a finger from on high, so directly and bitterly criticizing a new law passed by any state?

This is hubris at best and ignorance of the Constitution at worst. The U.S. was founded in part on the precept of states’ rights as an important counterweight to a rapacious federal government. Thus a President must step softly here, questioning gently but avoiding rancor and browbeating.

Hold the phone – are you saying this so-called(by himself and his image creators) Constitutional Scholar doesn’t know the Constitution? Maybe it’s because this is a trumped up title, especially according to those who actually had to work with him at Chicago Law School. You know, at the position he was given by a Board member because he couldn’t get it on his own merits. That one. I know – a mere technicality, especially for his supporters.

Back to the article:

The new state law itself is disturbing, even detestable, and I don’t like it. It forces immigrants to carry with them proof of their legal status and lets cops demand to see the “papers” of anyone (read: any foreign-looking person) to make sure he didn’t sneak into the country. It smacks of Nazis in the Jewish ghetto in Poland.

HOW does this smack of Nazism? Legal immigrants in this country are REQUIRED to carry their Green Cards anyway. Why, if not to be able to produce them on demand? No one is talking about rounding up a bunch of people and putting them in ghettos or concentration camps. They are talking about, with probable cause, to ensure that someone who is engaging in questionable activities is an American citizen or LEGAL immigrant. This is a red herring, meant simply to distract from the issue. Sheesh.

Back to the Obama the Bully:

But it is the law, and Arizona’s people duly elected the legislators who voted for it. They acted, moreover, on an issue the feds clearly have botched—immigration—and are trying to protect the state’s citizens from an influx of drug-cartel violence from Mexico.

Rather than trash an entire state, Bam could have privately lobbied Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and urged her to veto the bill. Or he could have said, simply, that he hoped to pass better solutions at the federal level.

That would have been statesmanlike, but this President gets pouty whenever anyone dares to disagree with him. He seems to view dissension not as healthy public debate but as a suspicious, pernicious challenge to his omnipotence and popularity.

Obama the Bully, at his State of the Union address, had the temerity to criticize the Supreme Court of the United States for its new ruling that companies have a right to free speech in political campaign advertising (a right that unions already enjoyed, by the way). He did this as the justices themselves sat before him in the audience, paying their respects to a leader who showed them none.

Perhaps President Obama had forgotten an American civics lesson: The Supreme Court is the supreme law of the land. It is unseemly and disrespectful for a President to so bluntly and blatantly question the justices’ judgment and intent—especially right in front of their faces.

I can’t remember of any other President in my memory having done this. Nixon maybe? An unfortunate comparison, indeed.

Another civics lesson Obama seems to have missed is what is in the Constitution of the United States, and what is in the Declaration of Independence, again, not so great for an alleged scholar:

Right. I don’t know why Kneale is so surprised by this lack of decorum from Obama. He has done nothing but demonstrate a complete and utter lack of regard for decorum, stepping lightly, or exhibiting any modicum of humility, despite his claim that he is humble (missing the point of the word):

Similarly, President Obama maligns Wall Street for trying to have a say in financial reform and lobbying for its interests, though this input is a vital ingredient in any democratic process. Yet Obama doesn’t criticize giant unions like the AFL-CIO and the SEIU when they similarly lobby on fin-reg.

Why? Because the unions agree with him. Even though Wall Street has a far more legitimate claim to get involved in this debate than do the unions, which represent only 7% of the private work force and essentially should have no dog in this fight at all.

Hmm, now that I think about it, nor can I recall any other modern President who has spent so much effort lambasting his immediate predecessor. Reagan didn’t do it to Carter. Clinton didn’t do it to the first George Bush.

And the worst part is, we’re barely calling out Obama the Bully on this behavior at all. We are becoming entirely too accustomed to it, failing to see it for what it really is: a striking lack of civility, and an overflow of divisiveness, from a President who had promised to give us precisely the opposite.

Great – more from SEIU, the union that represents about 2 million people. Someone tell me again why they are so powerful? Are they now taking over for their sister organization, ACORN, since ACORN has been disgraced? Regardless, it is obscene for them to wield as much power in this country as they do, especially with Obama.

Yes, Obama is a bully. Anyone who TRULY watched him throughout the Primary Campaigns, or the Election Campaigns, knew that.

If you continue to doubt the bullying nature of Obama, check out this article in which he and his team call out SWAT cops on a peaceful gathering of Tea Partiers in Quincy, IL, Team Obama Calls Out Swat Team on Tea Party Patriots!. As you can see from the photo below, there was real cause for concern on the part of Obama and his people:

Ooohhhh, scary grandmotherly-looking women singing patriotic songs as you can hear in this clip (H/t to Logistics Monster):

Quite a difference from this recent protest in Arizona:
Yep, there is no doubt that Obama is a bully. There is also no doubt we are living in Upside Down World when SWAT cops are brought in against peaceful protesters, yet there is not an overwhelming presence in AZ when people are completely out of control. It is simply astonishing. Don’t you think?

For immediate release
For additional information please contact
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Re: The Lessons of Flight 253

As the “Christmas Bomber” once again showed us – fortunately without loss of life – today’s passenger checkpoint, which was designed to find the guns and knives of the 1970’s hijacking era, is woefully inadequate for today’s IED threat. Putting our hope into body imaging systems alone is likewise foolhardy. Only a layered approach combining intelligence and passenger information with a careful selection of data-redundant and data-integrated technologies will have a chance of countering the IED threat.

While all travelers must be screened, they do not need to be screened to the same level. For watch-list and some normal passengers, one out of 3 or 4 checkpoint lanes should be converted to a High Security Lane, which uses intelligence and passenger data coupled with effectively selected, integrated technologies for primary- and especially, secondary search. Everyone else would be screened by baseline methods.

The current security system only screens bag-by-bag or passenger-by-passenger and does not integrate passenger and scanner data to permit detection of a possible threat dispersed across one or more individuals. A layered data-integrated approach represents the best option for detecting and deterring such threats.

Several post-911 initiatives have been proven to lead to real, measurable security improvements but many aviation security experts believe that the TSA is not strategically addressing the above shortfalls, focusing instead on adding more “boxes”. A change of focus, mentality and organization at the TSA is urgently needed; otherwise the next bombing attempt may well succeed.

Sincerely,

The Association of Independent Aviation Security Professionals

Steve Wolff – Former VP Product Development, InVision Technologies, Inc.

R.Adm. Cathal Flynn – Former FAA Associate Administrator for Security

Douglas R. Laird, former Director of Security for Northwest Airlines

Jim Welna – Former Airport Police Chief at Minneapolis Airport; former Security Committee Chair of the Airports Council International

Peter Reiss – Former IFALPA Security Chairman and Representative to International Civil Aviation Organization Panels. Retired NWA Captain.

Larry Johnson – Former Deputy Director for Transportation Security and Anti-Terrorism Assistance at the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism

What you may NOT have heard was the connection between this same man and Hillary Clinton:

The Politiken newspaper reported Sunday that Danish intelligence knew the 28-year-old Somali man was held in Kenya in September for allegedly plotting an attack against U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper said he was later released due to lack of evidence.

But Denmark’s ambassador to Kenya, Bo Jensen, told the news agency Ritzau the man was arrested in Kenya for incomplete travel documents. He said Kenyan authorities never told the embassy he was suspected in any terror plot.

I don’t remember hearing word ONE about an attempted assassination on Secretary Clinton’s life. It wasn’t all that recent, either. It was on August 5th of 2009. If you do a search, the first date you’ll find for any mention of this attempt (or at least the first one I found) was from September 8th, 2009. In a blog, I might add, but even it backed off from the assertion:

A plot by al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants to bomb the hotel where Secretary Clinton was staying during her visit to Nairobi, Kenya, last month (shown above) was foiled at the last minute, The Australian reports. Very scary.

[Update (Sept. 10): This story might not be true -- see stacyx's comment below. FP regrets any error; at the time of posting, the story seemed credible.]

Here is “Stacyx’s” comment:

I covered this story on my blog and was initially concerned that there was no MSM coverage. Then I spoke to someone at ABC news and they said the reason the US and British media were not covering the alleged terror plot story was because all their inside sources said there was no truth to the story.

Except there was some truth to it, apparently, and the newssource that claimed otherwise, was, well, lying. What a big surprise. And what a HUGE surprise that the US and British MSM didn’t bother to cover this story.

We find out a full five months after the fact only because one of the Al Qaeda members who tried to blow our Secretary of State to smithereens in Nairobi, was caught in another country trying to kill someone else.

Holy freakin’ cow. (Clinton in Nairobi, AFP photo)

Not for nothing, but someone else almost died because the authorities did not pass along the information about this terrorist and his attempts.

Not to be a complete and total cynic about this, but I cannot help but wonder why the media decided this was not newsworthy. I have my suspicions, including that Obama’s poll numbers were already tanking then, and Clinton’s were rising. Take a look at Obama’s numbers in August:

Or could it be that if we were told about this attempt on Secretary Clinton’s life by an Al Qaeda operative, Obama would have to admit that there were actually honest-to-goodness terrorists out there, trying to do us harm? That attempted terrorist attacks were not attempted “man-made disasters“?

Uh, yeah. There is that. And then there is the total incompetence of our media, or the attempt to cover up by the media, either one of which is completely unacceptable.

And to think, we found out about this attempt on our beloved Hillary Clinton’s life because of an attempt on a cartoonist. Feel free to craft the next line to THAT set-up…

Not so great, according to this article, Barack Obama Is Vulnerable On Terror – And He Knows It; Barack Obama is playing politics over the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack and Republicans sense he is weak on the issue, writes Toby Harnden in Washington.

Oh, dear. As we know from recent experience, this is just a tad problematic:

In his weekly radio address yesterday, President Barack Obama patted himself on the back for having “refocused the fight – bringing to a responsible end the war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks”.

He then told people to remember that “our adversaries are those who would attack our country, not our fellow Americans”, before decrying “fear and cynicism” and “partisanship and division” – the code phrases for horrid Republicans used during his 2008 election campaign.

Complacency, faux moralising and partisan shots at Republicans. It was a neat summary of where Obama is going wrong after the Christmas Day debacle when the Nigerian knicker bomber managed to waltz onto a Detroit-bound flight.

For a man who campaigned denouncing the politicisation of national security under President George W Bush, it is worth noting how intensely political Obama’s treatment of what might henceforth be known as Underpantsgate has been.

This is simply not a time to be making partisan attacks, Mr. President. Seriously. These kinds of attempts do not target one party over another, after all:

His White House recognised its political vulnerability more readily than it comprehended the level of danger faced by Americans.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s father had courageously contacted the American Embassy in Abuja in November and met the CIA station chief to tell him that his son was involved with fundamentalist elements in Yemen. American intelligence had also intercepted discussions in Yemen about a possible attack by “the Nigerian”.

The Obama administration knew most, if not all, of this by last Sunday, 48 hours after the attack was thwarted. But the priority in Obamaland was to play things down and take pot shots at the Bush administration.

Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security chief – who prefers the term “man-caused disasters” to “terrorism” – blithely stated that there was “no indication that it is part of anything larger”. She then insisted that the “system is working”.

Although Napolitano has taken a lot of flak for these comic utterances, she was not “misspeaking” but trotting out the agreed talking points of the day.

No doubt Napolitano was saying what she was told to say, but by going along with this absurd talking point, she has discredited herself and her office. Maybe the truth would have been better. Just a thought, and it goes for Obama’s main spokes-weasel, too:

Robert Gibbs, Obama’s chief mouthpiece, also stated that “in many ways this system has worked” and would say nothing about a possible wider plot.

In Hawaii, where Obama was holidaying, Gibbs’s deputy Bill Burton told the press that “we are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us” and that Obama was reviewing “procedures that have been in place the last several years” (i.e. Bush instituted them). He added, without apparent irony, that “the President refuses to play politics with these issues”.

Meanwhile, the White House was working overtime to build a case against Bush. A source in the White House counsel’s office told The American Spectator of memos frantically seeking information that would “show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps than we ever could”.

Republicans smell blood. There is a pattern in the Obama administration of dismissing Islamist terrorist attacks as regrettable random acts. In his radio address after Major Nidal Hassan’s slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas, Obama made no mention of terrorism or militant Islam, instead blandly promising that the “ongoing investigation into this terrible tragedy” would “look at the motives of the alleged gunman”.

The Obama Administration, as noted above, is discrediting itself by making these kinds of missteps, minimizing that these acts are not the least bit random:

Hassan was a committed Islamist who had corresponded with the fanatical Yemeni imam Anwar al-Awlaki. In June, Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert being watched by the FBI and who had previously travelled to Yemen, murdered a US Army recruit in Arkansas. That rated only a tepid statement by Obama about a “senseless act of violence”.

But the violence wasn’t senseless, it had a calculated objective – just as Abdulmutallab was not, as Obama described him, an “isolated extremist”. No wonder many Americans want to grab Obama by the lapels and scream: “It’s the Jihad, stupid.” Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, clearly struck a nerve when he charged last week that Obama was “trying to pretend we are not at war”.

The White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer eagerly descended into the political fray, responding to Cheney with the obligatory jibe about Iraq and also a litany of examples of Obama’s “public statements that explicitly state we are at war”.

It’s a sure sign that you’re losing the argument when you have to research quotes from your boss’s speeches to prove that he gets it that America is at war. The problem for Obama is that people are now judging him by his actions as well as his words.

The incompetence of the US intelligence bureaucracy is not the only thing that makes Underpantsgate so damaging for Obama. More serious is his failure to understand or acknowledge the nature of the enemy – and to view war as mere politics.

And it’s about time, too, that Obama was judged by his actions. Many of us were calling for that very thing when he was running for office. Had people bothered to do that, they would have seen that there was no there there. And maybe, just maybe, we would have someone for more capable in office to deal with these not-at-all random attacks.

As it turns out, and I am sure this will not surprise any of you, Al Qaeda is working in a concerted effort to launch more attacks against us, according to the National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter, who said Al Qaeda is refining its methods to thwart American defenses, and launch another attack on our soil.

To be absolutely clear:

Leiter said in a statement Saturday that officials “know with absolute certainty” that Al Qaeda and others are trying to refine their methods.

The center is part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It draws experts from the CIA, FBI, Pentagon and other agencies who try to ensure that clues about potential attacks are not missed.

Make no mistake, Mr. Leiter is saying it is not a matter of IF, it is a matter of WHEN.

That is disconcerting, to say the very least. And when we have a president who is playing partisan politics with issues of terrorism, it makes it even more so. At some point, Obama is going to have to admit that terrorism is most definitely real, not just some isolated, random attacks, but a concerted effort against our country and our citizens by a determined enemy. That point needs to be now for all of our safety.

Enough dawdling, hemming,hawing, and blaming of everyone else, Mr. Obama. It’s all squarely on you. Maybe it’s time to put down those golf clubs and get to work already. Don’t you think?

Turns out, we should be mighty concerned:

“I sleep like a baby,” says U.S. Air Force Colonel Randy Larsen (Ret). “Every three hours, I wake up screaming.”

It’s little surprise that Larsen has such trouble getting shuteye. As executive director of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, Larsen spends his days and many nights visualizing mushroom clouds over U.S. cities and emergency rooms clogged with victims of biological attacks. Among his many solutions to America’s WMD challenges, this may be the easiest: Let Americans get immunized against smallpox and anthrax.

“Smallpox and anthrax are our two biggest biological threats,” Larsen tells journalists gathered here on November 16 by the Heritage Foundation. “Smallpox and anthrax are the only biological threats for which we have FDA-approved vaccines. We have enough smallpox vaccines for every American, but not enough anthrax vaccines even for 10 percent of our population. Once we increase that supply, we can take these two risks off the table.”

Let’s stop there – why is there only sufficient vaccinations for 10% of the population for a deadly biological threat? Why are we not getting them? Why are they not discussing this as a critical component of ANY health care reform? Just wondering. And for good reason:

Voluntarily immunizing Americans against these two diseases would deter terrorists from plotting such attacks. Even vaccinating some Americans would create “herd immunity,” whereby those who stay healthy would impede an epidemic’s progress, much as firebreaks retard advancing infernos.

Larsen’s commission offered this sobering conclusion last December: “Unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.”

Holy crapoli – that is a most sobering assessment. It gets worse: In an October 21 progress report, this bipartisan board cautioned that “a one- to two-kilogram release of anthrax spores from a crop duster plane could kill more Americans than died in World War II,” specifically, 380,000 (emphasis mine). “Clean up and other economic costs could exceed $1.8 trillion.” “Dark Winter,” a June 2001 high-level simulation exercise, assumed that a covert smallpox attack would infect 3.3 million Americans, one-third fatally.

A biological attack’s psychological impact would be incalculable, especially if healthy Americans saw their smallpox-infected neighbors as contagious “enemies” to be shunned.

That is a staggering number – more people could be killed by a relatively small amount of anthrax than died in WWII. And the idea that smallpox-infected people would be shunned, and viewed as “enemies” is a threat I can see played out in my mind’s eye, unfolding like a Hollywood movie.

There is more, and this will make you sit up straight in your chair:

America’s Islamofascist enemies have stayed busy in this sphere.

“I was directly in charge…[of] the Cell for the Production of Biological Weapons, such as anthrax,” Khalid Sheik Mohammed told a Guantanamo military tribunal on March 10, 2007. KSM was 9/11’s chief architect and al-Qaeda’s self-described “Military Operational Commander.”

The Commission’s crop-duster scenario was conceived after Americans discovered two Afghan anthrax laboratories. “The 9/11 Commission Report” says Jemaah Islamiah agent Yazid Sufaat “would spend several months attempting to cultivate anthrax for al Qaeda in a laboratory he helped set up near the Kandahar airport.”

Interestingly enough, Sufaat was captured thanks to information that American interrogators gleaned after waterboarding KSM. Had America not dampened KSM’s nose, US soldiers or civilians already might have had Sufaat’s anthrax up their nostrils.

“Four pounds of anthrax…carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the US, are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour,” laughed Kuwaiti professor and terrorist sympathizer Abdallah Al-Nafisi in a speech broadcast February 2 on Al-Jazeera and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute. “One person, with the courage to carry four pounds of anthrax, will go to the White House lawn, and will spread this ‘confetti’ all over them, and then will do these cries of joy. It will turn into a real ‘celebration.’”

Four pounds – smaller than a regular size bag of flour – is all it would take to kill 350,000 Americans. It boggles the mind, or at least, mine.

Oh, and yes – THAT KSM. The one who is being provided a civilian trial courtesy of Eric Holder and Barack Obama (h/t to SFIndie for highlighting that important aspect).

With our current border control issues, I think we can all see how this kind of attack could happen. Especially when I tell you that the Obama Administration, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to CUT the number of border patrol agents, by a total of 384. I thought that was ridiculous when it was just a matter of the current stream of illegal immigrants getting into our country as is, much less when the specter is raised of an Anthrax-bearing al Qaeda terrorist is coming through the tunnels.

There are, of course, issues with widespread vaccinations:

Today’s dilatory federal rollout of swine flu shots offers little confidence that government can deliver smallpox and anthrax inoculations with speed and tranquility, especially after a shocking attack turbocharged public anxiety.

Instead, these vaccines should reach thousands of hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices now. Americans calmly could request them during routine medical visits, rather than overwhelm government agencies amid widespread panic after thousands of citizens have fallen ill — or worse.

Al-Qaeda and other vicious killers surely have a “To Do” list of horrors they would love to hurl at us infidels. Let’s deny them at least these two potential murder weapons.

Mr. Murdock, a New York-based commentator to HUMAN EVENTS, is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.

I don’t know about you, but this scares the bejesus out of me. Our borders are already porous, through no fault of the border control guards – there are simply too few of them, and fewer now, thanks to Obama. I cannot even IMAGINE the logic – or lack thereof – that went into that decision, but this very real scenario, by a respected member of the Intelligence Community, should give us all pause.

There is a solution, though, and a relatively painless one at that. Vaccinations would solve the immediate problem, and minimize the potential threat. The time is not soon enough, especially if an attack of Anthrax is imminent. Even still, better to begin now than wait until it is too late.

Now, about those border guards…

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.