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Are You on the Terror List? 509,000 People Are

Trish

The FBI watch list of suspected terrorists is so long, it would be easier to tell you who they’re not monitoring than who they are.

Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the list is growing uncontrollably, threatening its usefulness in the war on terror.

The bureau says the number of names on its terrorist watch list is classified.

You can check the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control list of suspected money launderers yourself

A portion of the FBI’s unclassified 2008 budget request posted to the Department of Justice Web site, however, refers to “the entire watch list of 509,000 names,” which is utilized by its Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force…

“It grows seemingly without control or limitation,” said ACLU senior legislative counsel Tim Sparapani of the terrorism watch list. Sparapani called the 509,000 figure “stunning.”

“If we have 509,000 names on that list, the watch list is virtually useless,” he told ABC News. “You’ll be capturing innocent individuals with no connection to crime or terror.”

“Useless” is probably accurate.

U.S. lawmakers and their spouses have been detained because their names were on the watch list.

Reporters who have reviewed versions of the list found it included the names of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, at the time he was alive but in custody in Iraq; imprisoned al Qaeda plotter Zacarias Moussaoui; and 14 of the 19 Sept. 11, 2001 hijackers, all of whom perished in the attacks.

The same can be said for the OFAC list, which all financial institutions must check before opening a new account. That’s right, before you can open a checking account, some poor teller has to look to see if you’re there.

But unlike the FBI’s “secret” list, you can check the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control list of suspected money launderers yourself by simply going here.

After you get through the A’s, which all start with “Al-” something, the list gets more interesting. But like the FBI’s, it still contains this entry, under a couple of different spellings:

HUSSAIN, Saddam (a.k.a. ABU ALI; a.k.a. AL-TIKRITI, Saddam Hussein;
a.k.a. HUSAYN, Saddam; a.k.a. HUSSEIN, Saddam); DOB 28 Apr 1937;
POB al-Awja, near Tikrit, Iraq; nationality Iraq; named in UNSCR
1483; President since 1979 (individual) [IRAQ2]

Is it any wonder Americans don’t want to hand over their civil liberties in exchange for the “security” offered by our government?

Republican Candidates to Boycott Latino Convention

Trish

I hate going to Disneyworld too, so I understand every major Republican presidential candidate wanting to stay away. But…staging what amounts to a virtual boycott of what is known as the Latino political convention doesn’t seem like a smart move.

Especially when, according to a June 11 press release, all the Democrats will be there.

Do they take the votes of this demographic as a given, or are they writing them off as going Democrat?

Los Angeles, CA – The Democratic contenders in the 2008 presidential campaign will participate in a candidate forum hosted by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) in Orlando on June 30…

The participating candidates will include, in alphabetical order, Senator Joe Biden (DE), Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY), Senator Chris Dodd (CT), former Senator John Edwards (NC), Representative Dennis Kucinich (OH), Senator Barack Obama (IL) and Governor Bill Richardson (NM).

NALEO extended identical invitations to the Republican presidential candidates to participate in a separate forum. All have declined to date.

So the question is, why do the Republicans think they can snub Latinos? Do they take the votes of this demographic as a given, or are they writing them off as going Democrat?

…several factors put the Hispanic vote in play. Among them: Non-Cubans aren’t as likely to have historical ties to the Republican Party as Cuban-Americans.

“Living in Weston, I see it just walking around the neighborhood. There are people from Colombia, Venezuela and Peru. They don’t have the same preconditioning to vote Republican,” said Weston resident Andrew Torres, president of the new Broward chapter of the state Democratic Party’s Hispanic Caucus…

Florida U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said once Castro is gone, “you will see Cuban-Americans shift to the Democratic Party.”

…Torres said the increasing numbers of younger voters and people from countries other than Cuba make this a good time to capitalize on trends favoring Democrats.

The explanation could be simple, of course.

National and state Republican officials did not comment on why GOP hopefuls will not participate in the conference, but the campaigns of Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney cited scheduling conflicts.

Those durn scheduling conflicts. Funny how they never crop up when it’s time to come to South Florida and fund-raise. And no matter how you slice it, boycotting the convention of their fellow elected officials can’t win many friends. Not to mention there are two other groups piggybacking off the event — the National Hispana Leadership Institute and the Orlando Chamber of Commerce’s Hispanic Summit.

Maybe there really is a simple reason. Republicans might just want to distance themselves from immigrants — and please their xenophobic base — as much as possible.

Liz Cheney to Join Fred ‘K Street’ Thompson’s Campaign

Jon Ponder

On MSNBC just now, Tucker Carlson said an announcement will come soon that Liz Cheney, the vice president’s not-gay daughter, is joining the as-yet unannounced presidential campaign of former Washington lobbyist Fred Thompson.

If he were to win in 2008, Thompson would be the first lobbyist elected president.

Since 2005, Cheney has served in the specially created job of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Near Eastern Affairs, in the U.S. State Dept. Assuming Carson is correct, at the Thompson campaign, she will join other GOP operatives said to include Cheney-family lackey Mary Matalin and U.S. attorneys scandal figure Tim Griffin, the former Bush White House official who recently resigned as the federal prosecutor in Arkansas after evidence implicated him in Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign voter suppression activities.

If he were to win in 2008,Thompson would be the first lobbyist elected president. During his 18 years as a lobbyist, his clients included General Electric and Westinghouse, and he successfully pushed the passage of the deregulatory legislation that led to the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s.

Thompson also briefly served as a U.S. senator representing Tennessee.

State Approves Using Taxpayer Computers for Wiki Whitewash of Republican Florida Lt. Gov.

Trish

Is it vandalism or is it the way of the wiki?
Either way, Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s administration says it’s O.K. to do it on the taxpayer’s dime. Um, as long as whatever you’re doing is favorable to his folks.

The Florida Progressive Coalition knew something was up when almost all the bad
stuff in their wiki on Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp was replaced with good. Most of the changes concerned stories about the state having to pay $50,000 in an age discrimination suit brought after Kottkamp fired an older state worker. See actual examples of the vandalism/editing. Oddly, references to Kottkamp’s support of flying the Confederate flag, long before Charlie picked him as his running mate, were left in.

As you know (but evidently no one in the White House or Justice Department does), computers can be identified. Tracing the IP address of the computer improving Kottkamp’s wiki info showed it belonged to the Florida Department of Management Services. Further checking placed the computer on the desk of Larry Ringers, the Lieutenant Governor’s chief of staff.

After weeks of demanding an explanation of how this does not violate the state’s own policy concerning the proper use of taxpayer-funded time and equipment, FPC received a reply on June 8 from Crystal Armstrong, the deputy secretary for Enterprise Information Technology Services at the Florida Department of Management Services.

Mr. Harper,

Modifications were made to the Lt. Governor’s biographical information. Changes were made from the computer of Larry Ringers who works for the Lt. Governor. By nature, and as referenced in your correspondence, wiki pages are publicly editable.

Thank You,

Crystal Armstrong

I guess we can take that as a “Yeah, we did it. So what?”

Rev. Huckabee Jokes about Edwards’ Haircut – But Does He Wear a Rug?

Jon Ponder

Is it a rug or the lighting? Left: Huckabee at the studios of WNYC in January 2007. Right: Another view.

Rev. Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and current vice-presidential hopeful, is leading the Republican charge to diffuse Democrat John Edwards’ campaign to alleviate poverty by joking about Edwards’ expensive haircuts:

It is as instructive as it is unsurprising that the rightwinger leading the charge against helping the poor is an ordained Baptist minister.

“We’ve had a Congress that spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop,” former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said to roaring laughter.

It is as instructive as it is unsurprising that the rightwinger leading the charge against helping the poor is an ordained Baptist minister.

But it is also interesting that he seems to have his own hair issues, as illustrated in the two photos above.

According to the Ten Commandments, it is a mortal sin to covet thy neighbor’s ass. But what about his hair, Reverend?

Since the Republicans and their cohorts in the media have made hair styles an important issue in the presidential campaign, I wonder if anyone will ask the good reverend if he wears a wig and, if so, how much does it cost, and who pays for its styling and upkeep.

If he’s not wearing a toupe, here’s a question our breathless TV newsers might then want to pursue: Should he? After all, we haven’t had a bald president since Eisenhower.

Senate GOP Kills Gonzo ‘No Confidence’ Vote

Jon Ponder

The move by Democrats to register a “no confidence” vote against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales failed in a procedural vote. The measure received 53 votes out of the 60 required to move forward. From my count via C-SPAN, all the Democrats voted for the measure.

The 38 votes against holding the vote all came from Republicans, except for Sen. Joe Lieberman, the former Democrat from Connecticut.

Republicans voting with the Democrats to proceed to the no-confidence vote included Arlen Specter, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and others who are up for re-election next year in states that could swing to the Democrats, including Olympia Snowe of Maine, Norm Coleman of Minnesota and others.

As Hurricane Season Starts, Entire 82nd Airborne Redeploys Overseas

Jon Ponder

The 82nd’s Robert Stanley patrols the flooded streets of New Orleans in 2005. He was killed March 2007, in Samarra, Iraq.

Earlier this year, with recruitment tanking and its forces strapped down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army’s famed 82nd Airborne Division was forced to disband one of its best known missions, the “division ready brigade” — a contingent of troops on stand-by at all times ready to deploy anywhere in the world within 18 hours.

The 82nd’s ready brigade — an integral part of domestic disaster preparedness — has been disbanded.

The 82nd’s ready brigade has been an integral part of the United States’ relief preparations for domestic disasters such as hurricanes for years. But now, as the 2007 hurricane season begins, the entire 82nd Division is leaving United States for the first time since it was deployed to Iraq in 1990 as part of Operation Desert Storm — and none of its divisions will return until September, when the season is over:

When a jet lifts off Sunday at Pope Air Force Base with the commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team and the last load of his 3,300 paratroopers aboard, the 82nd Airborne Division will notch one more hard-earned mark in a history so often described as “storied.”

For only the second time since World War II, all of the division’s combat infantry brigades will be at war. Other 82nd units are deployed also, bringing the total overseas to nearly 17,000 paratroopers.

One of the most memorable successful stateside deployments of the 82nd’s ready brigade was to South Florida in response to the Hurricane Andrew disaster in August 1992. The 82nd provided food, shelter and medical attention in the region for 30 days.

In 2005, however, Pres. George Bush’s incredible six-day delay after Katrina before sending the 82nd’s ready brigade to New Orleans was the worst of a cluster of bad decisions that came out of the White House. It was this failure of leadership that finally woke many Americans up to the depth of the president’s incompetence.

On Monday, August 30, 2005, the day after Katrina’s storm surge breached the levies and flooded New Orleans’ low-lying neighborhoods, the 82nd was put on alert at Fort Bragg, N.C., for deployment into the region:

[A] battalion would have been ready to move as early as Tuesday, said Major Gen. Bill Caldwell, commander of the 82nd .

“We could have immediately responded within 18 hours,” he said. “We could have come here, had we been asked, at any point.”

As the days dragged on in New Orleans — while thousands of people were stranded in the Superdome, dozens were rescued off roofs and others drowning in the flooded streets — millions of Americans watching the disaster on television were wondering — Where is the 82nd?

It wasn’t until six days after Katrina struck, at 10 o’clock Saturday morning, September 3, that the 82nd was called into New Orleans. Even then, Pres. Bush made the announcement to the media before he or anyone in his government officially notified commanders of the 82nd’s ready brigade.

The 2006 storm season was comparatively mild, but now as the 2007 season gets underway, the American South faces its first hurricane season without the 82nd Airborne on alert and ready to move in if the unthinkable happens — again.

Bush Disses the Pope to His Face – Twice

Jon Ponder


Papal bull: Hard to find the good guy in this one. During his visit with Pope Benedict XVI Saturday, Pres. George W. Bush twice addressed the pope disrespectfully by using an improperly casual honorific:

Maybe George Bush heard the rumors that Pope John Paul II believed he was the Antichrist.

“Good to be with you, sir,” Bush said. (Italian journalists immediately noted the breach in protocol: The pope is formally to be addressed as “Your Holiness.”)…

The two leaders also exchanged gifts; Bush’s presents included a walking stick engraved by a formerly homeless man with words and images of the Ten Commandments.

“The Ten Commandments?” Benedict asked.

Bush replied: “The Ten Commandments, yes, sir.”

Imagine the brouhaha if a normal president — especially a Democrat — had made a similar faux pas. I’ve seen nothing about it on TV today, and don’t expect to. Besides, in the unlikely event a controversy brews, Bush-lovers and their running dogs in the media will write it off as just his usual muddling.

And yet it is unfathomable, or should be, that a thorough briefing on papal protocol was not fresh in his mind when he entered the room.

Why would Bush deliberately insult the pope? During the president’s European trip three years ago this month, Benedict’s predecessor and ally, Pope John Paul II, called Bush to Rome, forcing an unprecedented change in the presidential schedule, in order to deliver a public scolding over the war in Iraq and, particularly, the torture of prisoners by U.S. forces at the Abu Grahib prison. Adding sting to the slap was the fact it came a few months after Bush had bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom, his highest honor, on John Paul. (The nerve.)

It’s also possible Bush heard the rumors that John Paul was said to believe he is the Antichrist.

Update: Trish spotted this via WTF – Bush in holy gaffe”

US President George W Bush drew gasps at the Vatican on Saturday by referring to Pope Benedict XVI as “sir” instead of the expected “His Holiness”, pool reporters said…

On his way to see the 80-year-old pontiff, the US leader apparently recognised someone he knew, and could be heard greeting the person with a casual “How ya doin’?”

The pool reporters also noted Bush’s relaxed posture, crossing his legs “Texan style” while facing the pope across his desk in the private study of the apostolic palace.

Update on GOP Gay Ex-Congressmen Accused of Chickenhawking Page Boys

Jon Ponder

Former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Florida, who was forced to resign last year after he was caught sending X-rated emails to congressional page boys, is reportedly returning to his career as a real estate broker. He is remembered around Palm Beach for once netting a $500,000 commission on the sale of a golf course to a local school district.

Former Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, who was for years the only openly gay Republican in the House, has been cleared by the Justice Dept. of charges he was overly avuncular with pages. In particular, he was found not to have behaved inappropriately with youngsters on a wilderness camping trip in 1996. Kolbe had already announced his retirement before the charges were made.

There is at least one allegedly closeted gay Republican remaining in the house, Rep. David Drier of California.