Napolitano has no excuses left . . .

Via Patterico’s Pontifications:

President Obama has ordered a review of the Terrorist Watchlist program following the Northwest Flight 253 terror attack. Last Sunday he named John Brennan, a CIA veteran who helped establish the National Counterterrorism Center, to head the review. Today Brennan received an ethics waiver so he can begin the inquiry.

Brennan may have a lot of work ahead of him. A May 2009 Justice Department audit found problems in the Watchlist program that affect national security:

“The FBI has been slow to update the national terror suspect watchlist — and the lapses pose real risks to U.S. security, a Justice Department audit has found.

A report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General, Glenn Fine, found that 12 terror suspects
who were either not watchlisted or were slow to be added to the list may have traveled into or out of the United States during the period when they were not placed on the list.”

Representatives from Homeland Security and the FBI gave assurances that corrections would be made. In hindsight, their assurances are not reassuring:

“Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the issues have been addressed and her agency is publicly committed to working with the Justice Department “as a shared mission of protecting this country is paramount,” said Sara Kuban, a spokeswoman for Napolitano.

In two of every three cases the auditors examined, the FBI failed to update information in the watchlist, as required.

FBI Assistant Director John Miller said the bureau has already taken steps to improve the system.”

momma

“Give me your tired, your poor, your angry young Muslims yearning to kill Infidels…”

Pakistani police say they plan to ask a court to charge five Americans arrested in early December with terrorism, and will seek life imprisonment sentences against them.

Tahir Gujar, a senior police investigator in Sargodha, said Thursday that the men would appear in an anti-terrorist court on Jan. 4.

Rest here>>>

FreeThinkerNY

Expect any less from President Milquetoast?…

Report: US Iran sanctions to be targeted, mild (JPost)

ZIP

Instead of Leftist propaganda, the Wimp-In-Chief needs to watch “Patton” and learn a little something about how to fight a war…

KANEOHE, Hawaii (AP) — President Obama’s family is spending part of the last day of 2009 watching the futuristic adventure film “Avatar.”

The Obamas visited a movie theater near their rented vacation home in Hawaii on Thursday morning for a screening of the 3-D hit.

Officials say the first family and their friends had the theater to themselves to watch director James Cameron’s tech-heavy film.

FreeThinkerNY

God bless them and their messages. Maybe he will start a ’sign’ trend in every state.

momma

Thanks to BreitbartTV.

Via Jihad Watch (please click, I used his entire post because there wasn’t anything I could leave out):

Rocket launcher? Check. Jihadist writings? Check. But no worries — the Feds found no ties to terrorism! (This was going to be my comment so I kept his -momma)

Keystone Kops Alert from Houston: “Rocket Launcher Found In Apartment: No Charges Filed,” from Click2Houston.com, December 31 (thanks to Rich):

HOUSTON — Police went to a southwest Houston apartment to break up a disturbance but ended up finding something else, KPRC Local 2 reported Wednesday.

A woman called police on Monday and said a man was forcing his way into her apartment in the 5300 block of Elm Street.

When officers went inside, they found something that made them concerned enough to call the bomb squad.

They found an AT-4 shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. It can shoot a missile nearly 1,000 feet through buildings and tanks.

“It gives infantrymen the advantage with an ultra-light weapon that can stop vehicles, armored vehicles as well as main battle tanks and fortifications,” said Oscar Saldivar of Top Brass Military and Tactical
on the North Freeway.

That type of rocket launcher has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The renter of the apartment didn’t want to talk to KPRC Local 2.

“This is my house,” the woman said. ” Get away from here. I don’t want to talk to nobody.”

The woman did tell police that the rocket launcher belonged to
Nabilaye I. Yansane, someone whom she allowed to store items at her apartment.

Police records show that she didn’t want Yansane at her apartment, so she called them.

According to court documents, officers also found Jihadist writings that allegedly belonged to Yansane. The woman didn’t want to talk to KPRC Local 2 about that, either.

“I don’t know,” she said. “You’ll have to ask the police.”

Yansane was charged with criminal trespassing and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to three days in jail, which he has already served. No charges related to the rocket launcher or writings were filed.

“Other people could have had access to the apartment, so maybe if a
rocket launcher was located there, as is stated in the offense report, maybe it belonged to somebody else,” attorney Garl Polland said.

Prosecutors said there are no state charges for having the unarmed launcher or possessing Jihadist writings, unless they contain some type of threat.

The former director of Houston’s FBI office said rocket launchers can be dangerous if they’re in the wrong hands.

No kidding, really?

“I don’t know any other use for those weapons except in combat,” Don Clark said. “I’ve had them in combat, used them in combat. That’s what they are used for.”

Houston police said they did a thorough investigation and did not find any ties to terrorists or a terrorist etwork.

momma

Iran kidnaps 5 Brits, kills 4, and then negotiates with Obama to trade Moore (a Brit) and three lifeless bodies for more than 100 members of the League of the Righteous, and several senior Qods Force officers. 

The Weekly Standard asks if BO violated an Executive Order.

Telegraph(UK) – The five men, who were kidnapped from a government ministry building in
Baghdad in 2007, were reportedly taken to Iran just a day after their
abduction where they were held by the al-Quds brigade of the Guard.

An unnamed former Revolutionary Guard told
The Guardian: “It was an Iranian kidnap, led by the
Revolutionary Guard, carried out by the al-Quds brigade.

“My contact works for al-Quds. He took part in the planning of the kidnap
and he watched the kidnapping as it was taking place. He told me that they
spent two days at the Qasser Shiereen camp. They then took them deep inside
Iran.”

A serving Iraqi government minister with links to Iran also told the paper: “This
was an IRG (Iranian Revolutionary Guard) operation. You don’t think for a
moment that those militia groups from Sadr City could have carried out a
high-level kidnapping like this one.”

As late as last month Foreign Office officials privately harboured suspicions
Mr Moore was being held in Iran. The hostages were employed on a project to
install software that would track money movements within the ministry.
Intelligence officials investigated allegations that new equipment would
expose a practice through which coalition funds were routinely diverted by
Shia officials to Iranian security forces in return for arming and training
militias.

“That they were held in Iran is a possibility given the lack of leads about
their whereabouts in Iraq even after the security forces became more
effective,” one British diplomat said.

The US’s former commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, had said he was “90
per cent certain” that the Britons were held in Iran for part of their
period in captivity.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner put the question directly to Gen
Petraeus – who was commander of multi-national forces in Iraq at the time of
the kidnap and now heads US Central Command – at a conference in Bahrain on
December 13.

“He didn’t hesitate. He said ‘I’m absolutely certain. I’m 90% certain’,”
Mr Gardner told Radio 4’s Today programme.

“I said is this a personal view or have you seen hard intelligence, and
he thought for a minute and he said ‘I am pretty sure I’ve seen hard
intelligence on it’ … that they were held in Iran for some of the period
of their captivity.”

But the British Foreign Office has also been accused of ignoring evidence of
an Iranian link. A security consultant for the firm that employed the
security guards revealed last night it had submitted phone records that
demonstrated one of the mens mobiles had been used to text Iranian phones
after the abduction. He said the evidence amounted to intelligence that
should have been used to track the group.

“When we took the records to the Foreign Office there was almost stony
silence. Certainly a feeling initially from our side that this was something
that had been missed,” said Paul Wood, former head of security at Kroll told
Channel 4 News.

momma

Massa is obviously a dick head suffering from ‘assonneck’ disease . . .

momma

Amen, Newt (but you still reek of Scozzafava)…

Gingrich: On Islamic terrorism, it’s time to ‘discriminate’ and ‘profile’ for radicals (The Hill)

The U.S. government should “discriminate” and “profile” for radical Islamic terrorists, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday morning.

The Georgia Republican said in an op-ed in the conservative Events magazine that the U.S. for years has shied away from profiling for radical Islamic terrorists because of “political correctness” that has prevented “honesty” from guiding anti-terror policy. policy.”

ZIP

It is because some of us (soldiers, War Hawks, Bush, etc.) have always taken the threats/enemy seriously, that the Left is safe/free to wallow in their ignorance and denial . . .

Via AoSHQ: Via Instapundit, this exquisite distillation of the left’s Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella defense against terrorism:

Some idiot set firecrackers off on a jet and [we're supposed] to be afraid of that? Al-Q is a joke

And that’s from Spence Ackerman, a light of the left (at least of the dimmer variety), not some random Twit-wit.

And it’s not just him; another dim light of the left, Matthew Yglesias,
is similarly unilaterally lowering his personal Terrorist Threat
Condition Chart from “Orange” to “Hakuna Matada:”

Obviously, people shouldn’t be lighting anything on
fire inside airplanes. That said, all the big Christmas airline
incident really shows to me is how little punch our dread terrorist
adversaries really pack. Once again, this seems like a pretty
unserious plot. And even if you did manage to blow up an airplane in
mid-air, that would be both a very serious crime and a great tragedy,
but hardly a first-order national security threat….

Ultimately, it does no favors to anyone to blow this sort of thing out
of proportion. The United States could not, of course, be “devastated”
by anything resembling this scheme. We ought to be clear on that fact.
We want to send the message around the world that this sort of vile
attempt to slaughter innocent people is not, at the end of the day,
anything resembling a serious challenge to American power. It’s attempted murder, it’s wrong, we should try to stop it, but it’s really not much more than that.

momma

Did the Obama administration, by releasing Qais and Laith Qazali and more than 100 members of the Iranian-backed Asaib al Haq, violate an executive order put in place by President Ronald Reagan to prevent negotiations with hostage takers?

Senators Jeff Sessions and Jon Kyl asked that very question to the Obama administration in a letter sent to the president in July. The full text of the letter is below, or you can read the signed letter here in PDF form.

According to a congressional staffer, the Obama administration has yet to answer the letter.

The body of the letter by Senators Jeff Sessions and Jon Kyl to President Obama, dated July 1, 2009:

We are deeply concerned by recent news reports that suggest your administration may be negotiating directly or indirectly with terrorist organizations for the release of dangerous terrorist detainees. It has long been the policy of the United States that our government does not negotiate with or provide concessions to terrorists. We strongly believe this is a wise policy for the long-term security interests of the United States and believe it should not be changed.

On January 20, 1986, President Ronald Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive Number 207, which prohibits negotiations with terrorist organizations regarding the release of hostages. The Directive sets forth in unequivocal terms the United States’ “firm opposition to terrorism in all its forms” and makes clear the government’s “conviction that to accede to terrorist demands places more American citizens at risk. This no-concessions policy is the best way of protecting the greatest number of people and ensuring their safety.” The Directive continues to say: “The [United States government] will pay no ransoms, nor permit releases of prisoners or agree to other conditions that could serve to encourage additional terrorism. We will make no changes in our policy because of terrorist threats or acts.” This policy is further articulated in Department of State Publication 10217, which makes clear the United States “will not support the freeing of prisoners from incarceration in response to terrorist demands.”

Rest here>>>

FreeThinkerNY

After Pakistan, the UK is the biggest threat to the US homeland (and the Brits still see nothing wrong with their suicidal “multiculturalism” policies)…

Americans blame Britain for rise of Islamic extremism (Telegraph)

Britain has been accused of being a “menace to the outside world” as American anger over the UK’s perceived failure to tackle Islamic extremism intensified.

ZIP

Obama’s bleeding-heart liberal approach to national security issues is failing. The Left is pushing their insane agenda too far for most Americans…

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of U.S. voters say waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques should be used to gain information from the terrorist who attempted to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 30% oppose the use of such techniques, and another 12% are not sure.

Men and younger voters are more strongly supportive of the aggressive interrogation techniques than women and those who are older. Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party favor their use more than Democrats.

Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters think the attempt by the Nigerian Muslim to blow up the airliner as it landed in Detroit should be investigated by military authorities as a terrorist act. Only 22% say it should be handled by civilian authorities as a criminal act, as is currently the case.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been forced to backtrack on some of her earlier assurances about the quality of the government response to the incident, and news reports have revealed that U.S. intelligence had prior warnings about the bomber. Thirty-four percent (34%) of voters now rate the government’s response to the attempted bombing as good or excellent, but 35% say the response has been poor.

All these findings are explained in part by the belief of 43% that when it comes to national security the U.S. legal system worries too much about protecting individual rights. That’s up four points from November.

Rest here>>>

FreeThinkerNY

Everyone of the 31 pictures eats at your soul.  The memories are still strong and the fear still present.  Here are just a few of the pictures they selected:

March 21, 2003: Smoke covers the presidential palace compound in Baghdad during a massive US-led air raid on the Iraqi capital

April 9, 2003: US Marine Corp Assaultman Kirk Dalrymple watches as a statue of Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein falls in central Baghdad

December 14, 2003: Iraq’s former president Saddam Hussein is examined after he was captured by American forces near his hometown of Tikrit

This picture was found in another their Heroes of 2009:

momma

Rasmussen’s health-care polling results since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid orchestrated the Christmas Eve vote are full of undeniably bad news for Democrats. In roughly ascending order of bad news (if one is a Democrat)…

Likely voters oppose Obamacare by more than the (18-point) margin by which Ronald Reagan beat Walter Mondale: 58 percent to 39 percent.

There are far more likely voters who “strongly” oppose Obamacare (46 percent) than there are likely voters who support it even “somewhat” (39 percent).

Only 24 percent of likely voters think that the quality of health care would get better under Obamacare, while 54 percent think it would get worse — a gap of 30 percent.

Only 13 percent of likely voters think that the cost of health would go down under Obamacare, while 63 percent think it would rise — a gap of 50 percent.

Seniors oppose Obamacare by more than 2 to 1: 63 percent to 31 percent.

And the worst news of all for Democrats…

Independents oppose Obamacare by the head-turning tally of 66 percent to 28 percent.

Rest here>>>

FreeThinkerNY

If BO had said this the reporters would still be laughing. Since Putin said it, even the reporters are starting to wear jock straps.

NB - This video
of Russian ex-President (now Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin’s response
to a question about terrorism at a G-8 summit press conference was
posted in early 2008. However, his answer is worth noting now in light
of  Barack Obama’s rather dispassionate first response to the Nigerian
Christmas Day bomb plot terrorist which came off as sounding like a
tepid legalistic statement from a deputy district attorney. Here is a
transcipt of the question from a French journalist and the blunt
response from Putin which stunned  the press conference to silence:

FRENCH JOURNALIST:  …Don’t you think that by trying to
eradicate terrorism in Chechnya you are going to eradicate the civilian
population of Chechnya?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: If you want to become an Islamic fundamentalist
and be circumcised, come to Moscow. We are multiconfessional. We have
very good specialists. I can recommend one for the operation. He’ll
make sure nothing grows back.

momma

momma

This borders on is treasonous . . .

Via Long War Journal (READ IT ALL): The US has released the leader of an Iranian-backed Shia terror
group behind the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala
in January 2007.

Qais Qazali, the leader of the Asaib al Haq or the League of the
Righteous, was set free by the US military and transferred to Iraqi
custody in exchange for the release of British hostage Peter Moore, US
military officers and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal. The US military directly implicated Qais in the kidnapping and murder of five US soldiers in Karbala in January 2007.

“We let a very dangerous man go, a man whose hands are stained with
US and Iraqi blood,” a military officer said. “We are going to pay for
this in the future.”

The US military has maintained that the release of members and
leaders of the League of the Righteous is related to a reconciliation
agreement between the terror group and the Iraqi government, but some
US military officers disagree.

“The official line is the release of Qazali is about reconciliation,
but in reality this was a prisoner swap,” a military intelligence
official said.

Moore and four members of his personal bodyguard were kidnapped at
the Finance Ministry in Baghdad in May 2007 by a group that calls
itself the Islamic Shia Resistance, which is in fact a front for the
League of the Righteous. The group had always insisted that Qais, his
brother Laith, and other members of the Asaib al Haq be released in
exchange for Moore and the others. Three of Moore’s bodyguards were
executed while in custody, and the fourth is thought to have been
murdered as well.

“This was a deal signed and sealed in British and American blood,” a US military officer told The Long War Journal.
“We freed all of their leaders and operatives; they [the League of the
Righteous] executed their hostages and sent them back in body bags. And
we’re supposed to be happy about it.”

As of mid-October, the US had released more than 100 members of the League of the Righteous. The US has also released several senior Qods Force officers, including Mahmud Farhadi, the leader of the Zafr Command, one of three units subordinate to the Qods Force’s Ramazan Corps. Farhadi was among five Iranians turned over to the Iraqi government and then subsequently turned over to the Iranians in July.

momma

Politico HONOLULU — There is a sense of déj

American Thinker Some guy named Ibrahim Shkupolli allegedly killed his ex-wife, went to a shopping mall and randomly killed four more people, then went home and killed himself. This all happened in Helsinki, Finland.

The Associated Press was not satisfied with simple reporting on this story, however. It went on to note that Finland has 1.6 million firearms in private hands for a population of 5.3 million. It also notes that “politicians, social workers and religious leaders have all urged tighter gun laws.”

Read the rest here

LAM

People chant anti-American slogans and burn an effigy of U.S. President
Barack Obama in Jalalabad, south Afghanistan, Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009
during a protest against the recent killings of 10 civilians allegedly
by the coalition forces in Kunar province. The head of a presidential
delegation investigating the deaths of 10 people in eastern Afghanistan
concluded Wednesday that civilians, including schoolchildren, were
killed in an attack involving foreign troops, disputing NATO reports
that the dead were insurgents. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

momma

. . .will start Obama's first FULL year.

Good times.  Good times.

Seriously, what are your hopes for next year?  How do they differ from your expectations?  What are your predictions?

For the parents: I have two young children and I'm looking for cool traditions I could start for New Years.  We already do a 'time jug' which holds pics, art, etc., but I have nothing else for the kids to look forward to.  For Christmas, we have a 'Three Day' tradition where Christmas lasts three days which must be spent together without the comp., cartoons, news, cell phones (unless talking to family).  For New Years, I draw a blank every year.  Please help. Thanks!

Judicial Watch Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes:

Read the rest here

Try to not act too surprised at the names on the list, OK…?

LAM

Townhall Did Saddam Hussein’s fall and the formation of a fledging democracy in Iraq encourage and embolden regime-threatening dissent in Iran?
The anti-Iraq War crowd, many of whom suffer from Give-George-W.-Bush-No Credit-for-Anything Disease, says, “No, of course not.” How dare anyone even suggest that the former President was correct, if not about the rightfulness of the war itself, then about his argument that a “free and peaceful” Iraq would provide a “dramatic and inspiring example” to the Middle East and the Muslim world. Good Lord!

The Iraq War-achieved-zero crowd begrudged Bush nothing even after the democratic Cedar Revolution in Lebanon. Never mind that Walid Jumblatt, a Lebanese Druze Muslim leader, said: “It’s strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting (in 2005), 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world.”

As to Iran, The New York Times quoted a pundit-blogger who, when protests began this past summer, wrote, “(N)o Iranian … has mentioned Iraq as an inspiration for the demonstrations, nor has any leader of their opposition cited their Iraqi neighbors as a model or a source of guidance.”

None?

Read the rest here

LAM

As a bonus: Jews For Palestine!

momma