Clueless
by Linda Chavez at Townhall.com
Clueless. It’s the word that best describes the Obama administration’s first year in office. They’ve proven themselves clueless about creating jobs; clueless about handling growing nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea; and now, most devastatingly, clueless about protecting Americans from terrorist attacks on our own soil. And with nearly one year under the belts, they can’t keep blaming the Bush administration for everything that goes awry.
It is hard to imagine a more incompetent handling of the thwarted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. jetliner. First, the commander in chief was too busy enjoying his vacation in Hawaii to do much more than issue platitudinous assurances that he was “actively monitoring” the incident, while dispersing White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to the weekend talk shows to downplay the significance of the event.
When the news media began uncovering evidence that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was exactly who he claimed to be when taken into custody — a terrorist tied to an al-Qaida network in Yemen — the administration began backtracking on its earlier statements that the incident was not part of a larger terrorist plot and that “the system worked.” But it took the president three days to appear before the American public to insist on a thorough investigation. By that time, everyone knew that the would-be suicide bomber’s own father had alerted U.S. intelligence officials of his son’s threat to American security. But the warnings didn’t keep Abdulmutallab off a jetliner headed to the United States.
Even the words the president used in his press conference Dec. 28 suggest how clueless he is. He described Abdulmutallab as a “passenger (who) allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device,” repeatedly referring to Abdulmutallab in his comments as a “suspect.” These are the weasel words we use when talking about ordinary criminals, which is no accident. The Obama administration’s anti-terrorism philosophy is to treat terrorist attacks like criminal actions, not acts of war.
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How Will Importing Dangerous Terrorists Make America Safer?
Today the Obama Administration is announcing it plans to import the terrorists held at the Guantanamo Bay prison – some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world – to the Thomson Correctional Center located outside Chicago, Illinois. This decision puts the interests of liberal special interest groups before the safety and security of the American people. Here’s how I addressed this issue at a press conference on Capitol Hill this morning:
The American people don’t want dangerous terrorists imported on to U.S. soil, and time after time the House and Senate have reaffirmed this position with bipartisan votes rejecting the Administration’s plan. Yet this Administration is defying the will of the American people and importing them anyway. What’s worse, this decision is completely unnecessary considering that these terrorists were already being tried by military commissions, which were specifically designed under the law to prosecute such heinous acts.
Republicans have offered a better solution. In May, we introduced the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act (H.R. 2294) to (1) affirm Congress’ opposition to transferring or releasing terrorists held at the Guantanamo Bay prison into the United States; (2) prohibit the Administration from transferring or releasing any terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay to any state without express approval from the state’s governor and legislature; and (3) prohibit the President from transferring or releasing a terrorist detainee into the United States unless he provides notification and certification to Congress. Our proposal reflects the will of the American people, and it puts a premium on their safety and security first and foremost.
In their rush to bring Guantanamo Bay terrorists on to U.S. soil, Washington Democrats have repeatedly failed to articulate an overarching strategy to confront and defeat the terrorist threat. At the very least, the American people deserve to know how importing these dangerous terrorists and giving them the same rights as U.S. citizens will make us any safer. I have yet to see a good explanation, but Republicans will stand with Illinois families and seek every remedy at our disposal to stop this dangerous plan.
Obama using war, climate change, & jobs as distraction for health care
by John Allison III
After spending the summer and fall trying to cram an unwanted government takeover of the US health care system down the throats of the American people, he’s finally managed to get a bill passed in the House and its companion bill debated on the floor of the Senate. Now’s the time most would expect a final push, a strategic surge, a call on the very reserves of his energy and effort, to cross the finish line with legislation that could ultimately define his presidency.
But, instead of a network news health care infomercial starring the President, he decided to shift gears this week. Suddenly he’s stepped forward with a response to General McChrystal’s request for more troops in Afghanistan, decided to attend the climate change conference in Copenhagen, and Thursday held a “jobs summit” at the White House. Is he counting his chickens before they hatch? Does he believe he has this battle won, so he’s already tackling the next challenge? It’s just hard to imagine after he’s focused on little else for months now, that suddenly the issue no longer draws his attention.
Of course, it could be by design. All smoke and mirrors to confuse and confound.
Sort of like Nancy Pelosi’s Saturday at midnight vote to pass her vision of “reform” that places our health care decisions in the hands of government bureaucrats, or Harry Reid’s choice to hold the vote to move his bill forward on the Saturday night before Thanksgiving, President Obama is now hoping to take the eye of the American taxpayer off the ball in the last seconds of the game.
His jobs summit isn’t so much about jobs, but it’s just one part of a plan designed to turn the heads of the majority of voters who oppose his vision for the health care system, distracting them long enough to let the bill squeeze through before they realize it.
Think about it…three months after McChrystal issued his request for 40,000 troops, three months of facing harsh criticism for “dithering” while American troops twisted in the wind, he comes forth with a decision that sends the health care story to the inside pages of newspapers across the country. Just one month after we heard the President wouldn’t be attending the climate conference in Copenhagen, Obama has suddenly done a 180 and decided not only to attend but to promise a 17% cut in US carbon emissions by 2020. And now the “jobs summit.”
Don’t be surprised to see the front page too crowded by all these announcements to adequately cover the health care debate over the next couple of weeks. Look for the mainstream media to fall in line and lead with these stories and others to give cover to Democratic Senators trying to tow their party line while their constituents are distracted.
Obama and his Democratic lackeys in the Senate know Americans don’t trust the government to administer the health care system, but THEY DON’T CARE! In their minds, we’re incapable of knowing what’s best for us.
They’re creating a diversion, hoping to distract us and force us to swallow their “reform.”
Don’t take your eyes off the health care debate until it’s dead!
Uncertain Trumpet
by Charles Krauthammer at Townhall.com
We shall fight in the air, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the hills — for 18 months. Then we start packing for home.
We shall never surrender — unless the war gets too expensive, in which case, we shall quote Eisenhower on “the need to maintain balance in and among national programs” and then insist that “we can’t simply afford to ignore the price of these wars.”
The quotes are from President Obama’s West Point speech announcing the Afghanistan troop surge. What a strange speech it was — a call to arms so ambivalent, so tentative, so defensive.
Which made his last-minute assertion of “resolve unwavering” so hollow. It was meant to be stirring. It fell flat. In August, he called Afghanistan “a war of necessity.” On Tuesday night, he defined “what’s at stake” as “the common security of the world.” The world, no less. Yet, we begin leaving in July 2011?
Does he think that such ambivalence is not heard by the Taliban, by Afghan peasants deciding which side to choose, by Pakistani generals hedging their bets, by NATO allies already with one foot out of Afghanistan?
Nonetheless, most supporters of the Afghanistan War were satisfied. They got the policy, the liberals got the speech. The hawks got three-quarters of what Gen. Stanley McChrystal wanted — 30,000 additional U.S. troops — and the doves got a few soothing words. Big deal, say the hawks.
But it is a big deal. Words matter because will matters.
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Shape up, or ship out Mr. President
Received via email claiming the author is one Harold Estes, 23-year US Navy veteran who enlisted in 1934. Snopes.com says the claim is thus far unconfirmed, but regardless who wrote it, it effectively communicates the concerns many of us have with the behavior of our President this year.
Dear President Obama,
My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don’t believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.
I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos’n Mate. Now I live in a “rest home” located on the western end of Pearl Harbor, allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.
One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.
So here goes.
I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.
I can’t figure out what country you are the president of.
You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:
” We’re no longer a Christian nation”
” America is arrogant” – (Your wife even announced to the world,”America is mean-spirited. ” Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)
I’d say shame on the both of you, but I don’t think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.
After 9/11 you said,” America hasn’t lived up to her ideals.”
Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn’t mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.
I don’t think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.
Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.
Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don’t, I’ll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue. You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.
And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don’t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts, who was putting up a fight? You don’t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don’t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.
One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you’re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you’re not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you’re thinking of.
You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president.
You’re not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That’s not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now.
And I sure as hell don’t want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle.
Sincerely,
Harold B. Estes
Thank God for real patriots like Mr. Estes who guaranteed we inherited the freedoms he was born to. Now it’s our turn to do the same for future generations.
Obama ‘Reaches Out’ by Naming ‘Devout’ Muslims to Security Posts
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu at IsraelNationalNews.com
(IsraelNN.com) U.S. President Barack Obama continues to “reach out to Muslims” by appointing them to key security posts amid charges he wrongly ignored internal Muslim terror. One recent appointee was harshly criticized for appearing on a British-based television station whose host is a member of a radical Muslim group.
His “reaching out Muslims” speech in Cairo last June has been followed by action, the latest being this past week’s swearing-in of a Muslim rights advocate to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, shortly after the Fort Hood massacre. HSAC members are involved in expertise on national security.
The new member is Syrian-born Kareem Shora, who was the national executive director of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination (ADC), which previously has called on the United States to stop providing Israel with weapons because of alleged “atrocities” against Arabs. Her background for her new security post is having been a legal counsel and advocate for Muslim civil rights.
She also has been a frequent guest on the pro-Hamas al-Jazeera satellite network.
Shora, who has been described as a “devout Muslim, joins another devout member of the faith, Arif Alikhan, who was appointed as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development in the Department of Homeland Security. His qualifications for the job were listed as having been in charge of public safety in Los Angeles during his term of deputy mayor. One of his actions was to remove the plan that tracked Muslims in the city who were suspected of terrorist activities.
Americans have been jolted by several lethal attacks and confrontations with Muslims over the past year, including a plot to attack synagogues and down U.S. military aircraft, the manufacture of bombs, an alleged attempt to explode a Texas skyscraper, a plot to blow up malls in Boston, and last month’s Fort Hood massacre by a Muslim psychiatrist who was an officer in the army.
A desire to avoid the appearance of labeling all Muslims as terrorists lunged out from the shadows last month after President Obama faced criticism for not taking seriously the threat of Muslim terrorism within American society as well as in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
Several months ago, President Obama appointed Dalia Mogahed, a “devout Muslim,” to his Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She quickly came under fire for appearing in a telephone interview on a London-based Muslim television station, whose host is a member of an extreme Islamic group.
She said was unaware of the affiliations of her host, whose program included questions and comments favoring the implementation of Islamic Law (“sharia”).
Mogahed explained that she did not hang up the phone in the middle of the interview because “I assumed that very few people would watch this show but that doing something more dramatic would bring more attention.”
In the current issue of Newsweek, columnist Jacob Weisberg, citing former Secretary of State Colin Powell, wrote that “Obama’s [Muslim] heritage feeds a broader suspicion that he is too casual about the threat from America’s Islamist enemies.”
The journalist added, “With the massacre in Texas, Obama now confronts something that George W. Bush did not face in the years after September 11—not just a major act of domestic terrorism, but one struck from inside our security apparatus…. America does not face a threat from the perversion of faith in general. We face a threat from the perversion of one faith in particular.”
Fire General Casey!
by Linday Chavez at Townhall.com
“What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.” Those words were spoken not by some diversity guru but by the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. George Casey, on ABC last week in the aftermath of the slaughter of 13 people at the hands of a fellow officer. Nor were they isolated comments open to misinterpretation. Casey repeated them, in virtually identical form, in interviews with NBC and CNN.
Casey’s remarks should lead to his immediate firing. But, of course, that won’t happen because he is merely echoing the official government line. From the moment word leaked out that the suspected shooter at Fort Hood was Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, government officials began to weave their Orwellian cocoon. The commander in chief warned Americans not “to jump to conclusions,” while Casey and others dismissed as “anecdotal evidence” eyewitness reports that Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” before pumping 100 rounds of ammunition into his fellow soldiers. The only ones that jumped to conclusions were the U.S. government; immediately after the attack, the Obama administration shot down the notion that this was an act of terrorism.
But not even the mainstream media are buying this nonsense. Journalists have tracked down Hasan’s colleagues at Walter Reed Army Hospital, where Hasan served as a staff psychiatrist until he was transferred to Fort Hood prior to his intended deployment overseas. They’ve talked to local imams with whom he had contact, and have even found investigators willing to reveal, albeit anonymously, details of botched investigations of Hasan. And the story line emerging is increasingly clear: Hasan had become a radical Islamist who reached out to jihadists in Yemen, and perhaps elsewhere, as he prepared to launch a terrorist attack on a military installation.
Hasan initiated contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born imam now living in Yemen, who had ties to three of the 9/11 hijackers. Hasan sent 10-20 e-mails to Awlaki before the Fort Hood shooting, and Awlaki has since praised Hasan for the attack.
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Newsflash: Ft Hood Jihadist NOT a Tea Partier!
From Townhall.com
And he probably didn’t watch Glenn Beck either!
Excuse me Mr. President. It was an act of terror!
Update–US knew Ft Hood Terrorist Tried to Contact Al-Qaeda
That’s right! Even though the Apologist-In-Chief, the Great Empathizer with Radical Islam, the Socialist Leader of the United States doesn’t want to call the latest slaughter of Americans on US soil by a Muslim Jihadist a terror attack, anyone who opens their eyes can now see this was exactly that!
Even the former Democrat Senator Joe Liebermann (I-CT) is now calling the murderous rampage by the American-born Muslim radical, Nidal Hasan, a terror attack. But not our illustrious Nationalizer of Private Industry! No. His Justice Department immediately concluded that terrorism was NOT involved, before a single FBI agent arrived at the scene! The first statement from the Great Orator Reader of Teleprompters to the American public he believes is foolish enough to believe anything he says was “Don’t jump to conclusions!”
Now how on Earth could our Omnipotent Oracle and his underlings divine that terror wasn’t involved when the attack was minutes old? When they couldn’t have received much more information than the name of the shooter and a rough sketch of how the carnage was carried out?
Simple. The Prophet of Partakers of Entitlement Programs didn’t want it to be terrorism.
That might interfere with his most pressing priority, to force Americans to enjoy the services of a new government-run health care system. It also might impede his planned heart-to-heart talk with the President of Persia, the Virulent Victor of last summer’s elections in Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It might cause Americans to question our Dithering Dear Leader’s indecisiveness on General McChrystal’s request for more troops in Afghanistan.
In short, a terror attack at this time would just be too inconvenient, so the Propagandist President Obama just decided to call it something else. Anything else. Or nothing at all. Just not terrorism.
But those pesky pests in the Out-of-the-Mainstream Press just kept digging, and the evidence shows the Administration’s assumptions may be off the mark. Comments to colleagues and internet postings paint a clear picture of a developing Jihadist in the months preceding the attack. Referring to the War on Terror as a “war on Islam” and berating the US with “anti-American rants” motivated his colleague Dr. Val Finnell to complain to superiors when the two worked together in 2007-2008. Now, Finnell says he’s not surprised at Hasan’s violence.
And leave it to our friends across the pond (because it’s certain our mainstream media wouldn’t cross the hand that feeds it) to get the scoop on Hasan’s ties to the September 11 hijackers. The Telegraph.co.uk has discovered Hasan attended mosque with two of the terrorists who killed almost 3,000 on American soil in 2001. Led at the time by a radical imam who now lives in Yemen and has been forbidden from preaching in the UK due to his ties to terrorism and support for terror attacks on British troops, the mosque and its influence on Hasan must be considered as possible motivation for, not just this attack, but his motivation for joining the US military in the first place.
Hasan only completed his studies at the Uniformed Services University Of The Health Sciences F. Edward Herbert School Of Medicine – Bethesda MD in 2003. His residency wasn’t completed until 2007. According to the USUHS website, its MD, PhD programs consist of three phases. The first phase or Graduate Program is generally completed in 3 years, 2 years of classes and the final year spent in research. The entire program takes 7-8 years to complete.
It’s been reported that his father died in 1998 and his mother in 2001, so he would have matriculated at USUHS just before, or right around, the time of his father’s death according to the time line for his med school program. Last week’s tragedy reeks of a terrorist act when all these facts are compiled. But it’s possible administration officials didn’t have all this information compiled immediately following the tragic events. But that still doesn’t excuse the knee-jerk denial of any possibility of links to terrorism by the monster Hasan.
And even though it’s possible White House officials’ statements were made without knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Hasan, the FBI should most certainly have had the information. Especially since Hasan had shown up as a blip on their radar screen months before. In the months following the Omnipotent One’s inauguration, Hasan seemed to become more open about his radical ideology. Internet posts defending suicide bombers, conversations with a young Muslim mentee, and a presentation given in his fellowship program depict a terrorist sympathizer at best, and a “ticking time bomb” at worst.
All of this evidence contradicts the stance taken by the Administration of the Great Admirer of Himself, that this was not a terrorist act. Still, in his weekly address to the nation, our President who continues to refuse to give our troops in the field the resources to protect themselves and perform their mission, “honored” those who fell at Ft. Hood, but never once did the words Terror, Terrorism, or Terrorist escape his lips.
Call it what you want Mr. President. A rose by any other name is still a rose, and a terrorist is a terrorist regardless of the label you give him.
Major Malik Nidal Hassan slaughtered 13 unsuspecting men and women who devoted their lives in the defense of this country, and wounded dozens more.
He’s a terrorist, plain and simple.
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