Joe Lieberman continues to be steadfast in his support of the president and his efforts to gain the tools to fight terrorism.  Senator Joe voted for the detainee bill that meets the challenge laid down by the SCOTUS in the Hamdan decision.  And, it is even better to see that Joe is leading the nutroot favorite Ned Lamont, endorsed by Al Gore, Teddy Kennedy and others.  Personally, I'd like to see Al come out and endorse more candidates, as he seems to be the best predictor of choosing the loser...

The greatest defeat that I see is when those supported by the nutroots like Daily Kos, Move On, and all those who receive gobs of money from George Soros.  When the investment of these groups goes down in flames, just warms my heart!

The detainee bill just passed the Senate and there was one Republican vote against the bill, Lincoln Chafee, and 12 Dimocrats who crossed party lines and voted for safety and security:

Carper - DE
Johnson - SD
Landrieu - LA
Lautenberg - NJ
Menendez - NJ
Ben Nelson - NE
Bill Nelson - FL
Pryor - AR
Rockefeller - WV
Salazar - CO
Stabenow - MI

Senate Approves Detainee Bill By Large Margin
 
Salazar is in for the fight of his life in Colorado, no wonder he voted for this bill, he would have a hard time explaining to his constituents a nay vote.

The president had lots to say yesterday in a speech singling out Dimocrats for their weakness on securing the homeland from terrorists.

I still love the quote from James Lileks yesterday:

"Are the Dimocrats more interested in protecting America from the Terrorists or in protecting the Terrorists from America."  The reaction of Dimocrats to the detainee bill would have one believe that Dimocrats are more interested in securing Constitutional rights for detainees.  What Constitutional rights do terrorists deserve: in my estimation ABSOLUTELY NONE.  The killers are not trying to support the Constitution of the United States, in fact I could see them burning the most precious documents, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,etc. 

Said the speaker into the mike.  It seems there are some troubles with getting into the blog, so I am wondering if posts are working?

More Later...

 Why do we talk about Constitutional rights for terrorists?   Why, why, why?

Loopy Leaky Leahy ranted today about Habeas Corpus for terrorists.  He is more passionate about ensuring the rights of terrorists than he is about securing and making the United States safe from terrorists.  Why do we want to give the benefit of the doubt to terrorists, when they call into the US, or wire funds between countries, we should be all over them without a warrant.

This is war.  If we fail, there will only be more death and destruction.  If any Dimocrat or Hollywood elite can prove to me that their rights have been violated, then I will be the first to say that the government, the Bush Administration has exceeded it's authority.  At the moment all they have are platitudes, cheap shots at a president whose only attempts are at making us safer.  The terrorists haven't attacked here in 5 years for reason.

When we pull back from a war footing, and move towards the status quo as it was under Bill Clinton, toward law enforcement, then we are doomed to more attacks.

Calls by terrorists for explosive and nuclear experts should send chills down every American's spine.  Defensive remarks by Hillary that if her husband saw a PDB that said that Bin Laden wanted to strike America would have been met by force by her husband is not helpful.  Spelling out how he or she would have reacted would be a better discussion.  Dimocrats never spell out their better plan.  WHY, WHY, WHY? They can't articulate a strategy except to say it would be different and better (more sensitive?).  Make a proposal.  How would they track financial dealings?  Get warrants and serve them before the transaction?  Telegraphing our punches are not way to protect us...

"Thus any vote for any Congressional Dimocrat is a vote against victory and a vote for vulnerability."

Update: Great question posed by James Lileks on Hugh Hewitt regarding Leaky Leahy's comments: "Are we protecting America(ns) from terrorists, or are we protecting terrorists from America?"  the passion from the left does seem focused on the second...

Victor Davis Hanson takes it to Carter and Clinton, following Clinton's purple faced tirade, which by many, now, is being described as staged:

In contrast, Carter and Clinton, as self-appointed moral censors, have a bad habit of campaigning for international approval (remember Carter’s embarrassing lobbying for the Nobel Prize) by ankle-biting current American Presidents, and by extension their very alma mater. It was forgotten in the repulsion over Carter’s smug 2003 wartime criticism of George W. Bush, that after 9/11 Clinton lectured the world on American sins dating back to William Tecumseh Sherman, praised Iranian democracy, and from time to time went off on “right wingers.”

Three explanations explain this postpartum ex-presidential depression: one, the country has moved steadily rightward—Congress, the Presidency, the Supreme Court, and state governments. So much of the whining is from the out-of-power, know-it-all and self-anointed, who, like precious wounded fawns, resent deeply their perceived wounds and lick publicly their scrapes.

Second, there is a lot of acclaim and money to be made by jetting around the globe, finger-pointing about right-wing insensitivity, the environment (so much for the ecological consequences of flying on private planes), third-world poverty, and American hubris.

Third, we are nearing an election, and a blow-up by Clinton can be passed off as yelling out “truth to power” as an out-of-office, unapologetic Democrat takes on “Fox News,” thereby galvanizing the true believers. Clinton as either truthful or without resources is, of course, laughable; but then so were his other roles as serious historian, global humanitarian, lip-biting empath, professorial wonk, and sensual, caring alpha-male. He is what he is—a half-grown-up, but canny chameleon, blessed with considerable skills at the impromptu rant and instant repartee, with a sharp mind and little real knowledge that ensure he has a veneer of impressive knowledge about an inch thick. (Emphasis mine)

Bill Clinton never does anything that is not calculated.  Therefore, I am beginning to lean toward the staged bit.  I must say that both Clinton and Carter are an embarrassment.  Neither could fade into history as Elder Statesmen.  Their acclaim to fame should be the good deeds they perform, and not their criticism of the current administration.  Humanitarian good deeds are admirable, trying to elevate yuor wife to the presidency is not.   I wish both would fade, but I will shudder to hear the words: introducing the First Gentleman: Bill Clinton.  Ughhh..l. let alone hearing President Elect Hillary Clinton, Aghhhh....

From Counter Terrorism blog: analysis from SITE Institute:
   

A new audio message from the Emir of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was issued to the Internet today, Thursday, September 28, 2006, by the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq. The speech, 20:31 in length, is titled: “Come to a Word that is Just Between Us and You,” which is taken from the Qur’an, Surah al-Imran, verse 64. On the occasion of the month of Ramadan, al-Muhajir calls upon every “free Mujahid” to come to Iraq and engage in jihad, which the emir hopes to increase in ferocity. He states: “It pleases me at the end of my speech to announce the beginning of a great militaristic campaign by the name of the clear conquest, by it we will eradicate the limb of the infidel and the apostate”.

In the middle of the speech, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir reminds of the “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdul Rahman, and encourages the Mujahideen to capture some of the “Roman dogs” so as to secure his release from the “darkness of his prison, gratitude, loyalty and love.” He then calls upon the sheikhs of the Sunni tribes in Iraq to not slacken in their support for the Mujahideen and thanks them for their public stance, finance and men.

We are still awaiting the message from Zawahiri.  These new messages are coming more quickly, anything to be worried about?  Well, I also think we need to send the Special Forces into Waziristan and take on the Taliban and al Qaead in their hideouts, take the battle into their lair, and quit waiting for them...

The Zawahiri tape is said to take on the Pope and the Crusaders. 

American Future links to David Brooks' op-ed piece in the NY Times, The Grand Delusion (Subscription required), excerpted here:

To his eternal credit, after 9/11 George Bush quickly understood that the terror threat was fundamentally an ideological threat, a product of deep historical consciousness. To his eternal discredit, he didn't commit enough resources to successfully defeat and discredit that ideology. The chance to deliver the sort of blow that the Six Day War delivered to an earlier version of Arab nationalism may now be lost.

As a result, as the National Intelligence Estimate makes clear, the West now faces a diverse and metastasizing set of foes. The report also makes clear that while the Iraq war has so far enhanced the prestige of the terrorists, Iraq remains the crucial battleground where they will either gain glory or face humiliation.

If we lived in a serious political culture, we'd be discussing what we've learned from Iraq and how to proceed. Instead, all of Washington is involved in a juvenile game of gotcha. Bill Clinton is fighting about what did or didn't happen 10 years ago. The White House is still exaggerating the positive. Democratic senators purr like happy kittens as retired generals slam Donald Rumsfeld, and then stop up their ears when those same generals call for more troops and a longer war.

Voters now confront a Republican Party that understands the breadth of the threat but has bungled the central campaign, and a Democratic Party that is quick to criticize but lacks an understanding of the jihadists and a strategy for confronting them.

Worse, more and more people are falling for the Grand Delusion — the notion that if we just leave the extremists alone, they will leave us alone. On the right, some believe that if we just stop this Wilsonian madness of trying to introduce democracy into the Arab world, we can return to an age of stability and balance. On the left, many people can't seem to fathom an enemy the U.S. isn't somehow responsible for. Others think the entire threat has been exaggerated by Karl Rove for the sake of political scaremongering.

Perhaps it's understandable that many Americans would fall for this Grand Delusion. The Israelis, who have more experience with Islamic extremism, recently did. They imagined that they could build a security barrier and unilaterally withdraw from their historical reality. It took the war in south Lebanon to make them see there is no way to unilaterally withdraw. There is no way to become a normal society. Even if they pulled out of Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, they would still have to confront an existential foe, so long as the forces of political Islam continued to wage their competition for anti-Semitic glory all around.

The blunt fact is that groups of Islamic extremists will continue to compete and grow until mainstream Islamic moderates can establish a more civilized set of criteria for prestige and greatness. Today's extremists are not the product of short-term historical circumstances, but of consciousness and culture. They are not the fault of the United States, but have roots stretching back centuries. They will not suddenly ignore their foe — us — when their hatred of us is the core of their identity.

The National Intelligence Estimate predicts terror violence will get worse in the years ahead. The scarier estimate was made by a veteran of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, in conversation with his grandson who now lives in Boston: "This is forever." (Emphasis mine)


Spot on!  Reality will set in eventually.

Breakthrough in Iraq, Sunni's and Shi'ites plan on cooperating to defeat al Qaeda and foreign terrorists:

BAGHDAD, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Sunni tribal leaders who have vowed to drive al Qaeda out of Iraq's most restive province met the Shi'ite premier on Wednesday, marking what Washington hopes will be a breakthrough alliance against militants.

Sattar al-Buzayi, a Sunni sheikh from Anbar province who has emerged in recent weeks as a leader of a tribal alliance against Osama bin Laden's followers, said he and about 15 other sheikhs had offered their cooperation to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Promising!

Threats Watch has a great post about the Clinton kerfuffle, and what it really means, The Enemy Wears No Jersey, and he quotes the following from The Weekely Standard, Warning Signs Hillary Clinton attempts to rewrite history.
by Thomas Joscelyn

"The Intelligence Community has strong indications that Bin Laden intends to conduct or sponsor attacks inside the United States."

-Classified document signed by President Clinton in December 1998

YESTERDAY, in the wake of President Clinton's interview on Fox News, Senator Hillary Clinton defended her husband's counterterrorism track record. Reacting to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's assertion that the Bush administration "was at least as aggressive" in the eight months preceding September 11, 2001 as the Clinton administration was in the years prior, the former first lady remarked:

"I'm certain that if my husband and his national security team had been shown a classified report entitled 'Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States' he would have taken it more seriously than history suggests it was taken by our current president and his national security team."

Apparently referring to the August 6, 2001 presidential daily briefing, which was entitled "bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US," Senator Clinton suggested that her husband did not receive the same type of warnings that President Bush did.

In fact, President Clinton signed a similar classified document--which contained an explicit warning from the U.S. Intelligence Community that bin Laden intended to strike inside the United States, more than two years prior to leaving office. And the U.S. intelligence community collected numerous pieces of intelligence concerning bin Laden's determination to strike inside the United States during President Clinton's tenure.

I had wondered if Bill Clinton knew more than he was letting on in the Wallace interview.  He is a liar, he lost his law license for lying, why should we believe him now?  (Was the PDB that Bill signed the one that Sandy Berger took?) And, now Hillary is going to step into the fray and lie, too.  Afterall, she has to look tough on terrorism.  (Side note): I read somewhere yesterday the difference between Bill and Hill, and the comment was that Hillary is Euro-Socialist, the likes of Sweden and others who promote socialism as an answer to our free democracy.  Universal healthcare is just the beginning.  (I must confess, I have never seen the term Eurosocialist, and must do more research and posting)

More later...

Boy, have I missed a bunch of stuff onthe web of late:

New Zawahiri tape is on it's way, Wizbang has the goods:

 

The above banner is from Laura Mansfield and is carried on various al Qaeda websites that announce upcoming terror threats/tapes/video's etc.

Reading deeper into the Wizbang post was a warnig for all Muslims to leave America during Ramadan, an expected Nuclear Attack(?)...Hot Air had the goods.  Ramadan is Sept. 24 through October 23rd...

And then there's the word that future attacks will be carried out by Richard's, David's and/or Peter's.  SHowing the global reach of terrorism, across all boundaries.  I will belive it when I see it.  All threats have to be taken seriously, but we can't let our lives stop.  If there is a nuclear attack of any kind in the US, rest assure that there will be little left of Waziristan, Iran, Syria, etc...there will be no stopping any US president.  The events after 9/11 will pale in comparison, the Middle East will be rocked.  That much I know.

Cox and Forkum: The Clinton Legacy 



According to the Bill and Hill show, if they are in charge, or were in the case of 9/11, the world can breath easier, they would make us safer.  Ya know, all those other attacks, notwithstanding...

Yeah, I want Sandy Berger back, I want to see Richarde Clarke in charge of counter-terrorism...I want Hillary in the White House, God help us...

It is NFL time, a time when the weekends are spent watching football.  Are you ready for some football?  Life revolves around the NFL season, right?  The Dallas Cowboy's epitomize America's team

T.O. has had a rough go of late, and now there is word that he was rushed to the hospital late last night:

DALLAS -- Terrell Owens was taken to the emergency room Tuesday night after suffering an adverse reaction to painkillers taken for treatment of his fractured hand, a source close to Owens told ESPN's Ed Werder.

"This is not serious," Owens' publicist Kim Etheridge said in Wednesday's online edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Now it is coming to light that he might have attempted to commit suicide, this according to FOXNews and it's affiliate KDFW.  While I do not like the actions that T.O. tends to have, he's a pompous fool at times, I'd perfer he just play the game and quit flapping his gums!  I don't get what would be so desparate in his life that suicide would be the only way out.  Can it be so bad, earning his millions, having all his toys?  What is he lacking?  Perhaps he is missing faith in Jesus Christ...

Well, anyway, regardless of his situation he is lying in a Dallas hospital and will get my prayers for a speedy recovery and for someone in his life to show him the love of Christ...

Taking a breather from the seriousness that is terrorism, and the threats that face us: Go Padre's!!!

After winning 5 in a row, beating the St. Louis Cardinals in their house, and taking a 2 game lead over the Dodgers!!!

I told my neighbor, big Dodger fan, that when the Padre's win the Pennant I will put up the banner...

                        

               6               5

Mgraves over at Coming Up Crows askes a great question: What Constitutes Victory?

Great question.  What does victory look like?  When there are so many disparate cells not to mention organizations; Hamas, Hizbollah, al Qaeda, Islamic Brotherhood, etc.  How do you defeat them?

I hold that we will never get even close to defeating our enemies until we have an honest discussion between the left and the right, between Conservatives and Liberals, between Dimocrats and Republicans.  We can't define our enemy, therefore we will not defeat it...

We can't move toward victory until we define the evil that at our doorstep.  When we give moral equivelence to Ahminawhackjob and Chavez, and tolerate the calling of our President "the devil" we are not going to defeat our enemies.  When there are countries out there calling for the destruction of Israel, we can't find victory.

Step One: define the enemy (is that part of Sun Tzu's Art of War?)
Step Two: define the battlefield
Step Three: destroy the Enemy
Step Four: Declare victory and secure the peace

I would hold that one HUGE impediment to peace is the United Nations.  Dismantle it and create the Democratic Free Nations.  Those countries that are committed to peace, democracy, human rights.  Each member nation must be looked at from the perspective of how it measures up to the standards.  No more Iran, no more Cuba, Somalia, etc...

After watching Bill's performance in his interview with Chris Wallace I come up with a couple of additional insights:

1) He's a great shill for Richard Clarke's book, kind of died in it's first printing...

2) Bill wasn't willing to make a decision on his own.  If he was so concerned about UBL he need not have waited for the FBI or the CIA to certify that UBL was a target...

3) If he was acting, creating a point of contention for Dimocrats to follow in the upcoming elections, I wish the Dimocrats the best, as a wipe out will ensue, he looked pathetic!  He help out the Dimocrats or Hillary in their efforts to look strong on terror?

4) Once again Bill is remaking his legacy.  He is out to resurrect his image by fighting for AIDS and Poverty, both admirable efforts, but to score political points or a truly heartfelt effort? (Remember, everything Bill does is calculated, as some would have us believe with his performance).

5) That VRWC is alive and thriving!  It gets him at every turn.  Evidently, we had 8 months to impact terrorism, to get UBL, and we failed!  Man, we are good, we are everywhere, we are even bringing down the mighty Air America!

6) He is the answer to fighting terror, his comment that if he were still president he would have more than 20,000 troops looking for Bin Laden.  Bill, would that include Waziristan?  Would that have included Iraq?  How about Iran?  Not such an easy answer is it Bill?  Did you have a plan to topple the Taliban, too?

7) His comprehensive plan to fight terror that left for the Bush Administration, why did he wait so long to bring it to the fore?  Why isn't Hillary out making new recommendations other than, Bush is wrong, he lied about intel, he's wrong on Iraq...that was what got me about Dickey Clarke, if he was adamant about terrorism, why wasn't he on the front page of the NYTimes, say in February, March, April, MAy, June, July of 2001?
 
Nothing gets me going like Old Bill, and he is looking old...

8) Just thought of another question:  What did you send Sandy Berger to steal from the National Archives?  What did it reveal about the efforts to get Bin Laden?  Was it a transcript of your effort to get the Saudi's to take Bin Laden from Sudan?  What was it?

Does he really think the grilling that President Bush takes from the media is anything like the timid question from Chris Wallace?  Rumsfeld gets hammered almost daily.  What a joke the interview was...

9) If terrorism was such a huge concern for you and your administration why was there never any mention of it during the debates for president and/or vice president?  Did you not brief Al Gore?  Joe Lieberman? It was the econmy, right?  Tax Cuts, right?  The Rich getting richer? 

Pathetic...

Bill Clinton proved once again why I have no respect for him.  Instead of admitting that errors were made by him, his administration, his intelligence units, etc.  Instead, he comes off as a pompous a$$.  He did more than anyone else to capture and try to kill Bin Laden.  Well, what he is not saying is that he protected us from the greater threat.  You see bin Laden is a symptom in a larger illness, Islamo-fascism.  His over the top defense on Chris Wallace's FOXNews Sunday was incredible.  I, I, I.  It's all about Bill.

So very disappointing.  It is the disease of the Dimocrats, the plan with out a plan.  50 million people live without tyranny, without the Taliban and Saddam.  Did Bill have that plan, too?  Oh, yeah, his defense included the barb that there would be more than 20,000 troops wearching for bin Laden, "if I were president."  Thank God for term limits...

So disappointing...and let's look to Hillary for more of the same...

Which, he claims, is more than others (rightwingers) did for eight months.  Nice, blame game Mr. President, appearing on Chris Wallace's FOXNews Sunday, video at Stop the ACLU.

There is enough blame to go around, and instead of being wise he goes on the attack.  The Path to 9/11 must really have gotten under his skin.  He and the Dimocrats take their eye off the enemy, instead of attacking Republican's or the VRWC Clinton should focus on the Islamofascist threat to Western Civilization.

He should admit that mistakes were made, afterall the Dimocrats got Bush to admit the same.  The administration is constantly defending it's policies of defending America, mare than can be said of Dimocrats.  I get tired of hearing that the Dimocrats have a plan, and that plan is just "we oppose Bush, Bush lied, yada, yada, yada..."

We can only hope that if true it can be confirmed.  But, US officials are downplaying the report: A U.S. official told FOX News that he had seen no evidence to suggest the Al Qaeda leader was dead. "Don't believe it," he said. "I would not give credence to that report."

The death of OBL is not the end all though.  As the Dimocrats will remind us, WE didn't get him, so it doesn;t matter.  Just like getting rid of Saddam, it didn't matter because we are not safer.

Zawahiri is just as threatening, and no doubt, there is a larger role for some heretofre unknown Jihadist.  The Islamofascist movement does not die with OBL, it just needs a new figurehead.

Better news this week: Mortgage rates have fallen to 6 month lows!  The economy is headed for a soft landing...the FED hold rates steady, gas prices have fallen, the price of a barrell of oil has fallen, nearly 20%.  I love this axiom: "The answer to high gas prices is hig gas prices."  In other words the market works!  The Dimocrats have lost a talking point
.