By GottaLaff
Rudy's BFF in prison? I wonder if they'll allow conjugal visits:
Former New York City police Commissioner Bernard Kerik has been sentenced to four years in federal prison.Kerik was hailed as a hero after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He admitted last year that he lied to the White House while being vetted for chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
He also pleaded guilty to tax fraud and six other felonies.
Good choice for Homeland Security, BushCo.
I hate to say it, but doesn't this just make sense? And what the hell took them so long?
WASHINGTON - All travelers flying into the U.S. from nations considered high risk will be patted down and have carry-on luggage searched under new security procedures starting Monday, the Transportation Security Administration said Sunday.
In addition, all international passengers will see enhanced random screening, which may include pat-downs, explosive detection testing (swabbing of luggage) or body scans, the TSA said.
At least seven countries are on the high risk list: Nigeria, Pakistan and Yemen due to extremist activities there, and Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria because they are listed as "state sponsors of terrorism" by the United States, NBC reported.
Dance Jimmy, Dance!!
And no one is defending from our side. Should have been out in front of this.
Every D talking head in THE WHOLE FREAKING WORLD should be pounding this into the public's brains over and over and over. G-d damn this pisses me off. Via Ben-
Perhaps the largest impediment to change at the agency: South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint has a hold on the appointment of a TSA chief, over his concern that the new administration could allow security screeners to unionize.
Republicans have cast votes against the key TSA funding measure that the 2010 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security contained, which included funding for the TSA, including for explosives detection systems and other aviation security measures. In the June 24 vote in the House, leading Republicans including John Boehner, Pete Hoekstra, Mike Pence and Paul Ryan voted against the bill, amid a procedural dispute over the appropriations process, a Democrat points out. A full 108 Republicans voted against the conference version, including Boehner, Hoekstra, Pence, Michelle Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn, Darrell Issa and Joe Wilson.
The conference bill included more than $4 billion for "screening operations," including $1.1 billion in funding for explosives detection systems, with $778 million for buying and installing the systems.
By GottaLaff
[I]n the book, Ridge reveals that he considered resigning because he was urged to issue a politically-motivated security alert on the eve of Bush’s re-election.
He considered resigning, but he didn't resign. Way to put America first, Tom.
See how safe BushCo kept us? If you read Jane Mayer's book, The Dark Side, you can see how they made a habit of blindsiding, shunning, withholding information, and politicizing. But remember... whatever we do, we shouldn't look back, just keep looking forward.Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was “blindsided” by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.
Playing politics with terror was a relatively frequent occurrence in the Bush administration.
This stuff is just so damn scary.
WASHINGTON The Department of Homeland Security is investigating whether one of its employees used a government e-mail account to post racially insensitive comments on a newspaper Web site in western New York.
The postings were made in late June in a public comments section in the Wayne County Star.
They were in response to an article about U.S. border patrol agents detaining Mexican farmworkers.
The comments were made anonymously, but the newspaper traced them to Internet protocol addresses in the border patrol division of the Department of Homeland Security.
I hope "shitcanned" is their final decision.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A multicolored terror alert system that was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks could be getting an overhaul -- or could be eliminated entirely.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is expected to appoint a panel Tuesday to reevaluate the system, a senior administration official said.
The five-tiered system that goes from green, which signals a low danger of attack, to red, which signals a severe threat of attack, has proven to be confusing at times, and critics say the different colors are too vague to deliver enough information to be useful.
By GottaLaff
[F]ormer NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington on charges of making false statements to White House officials during his vetting for the position of Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.Aww, come on, he's just a hard-workin' guy who's being misunderstood... you know, kind of like, ohhhh, Blagojevich?
The new indictment was handed up Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Washington, and means Kerik will face trials in New York and Washington, D.C. [...]
According to the new indictment, Kerik, in 1999 and 2000 when he was NYPD commissioner, spoke to city regulators on behalf of contractors who were seeking one or more permits to do business in and with the city.
The contractors then spent more than $255,000 renovating Kerik's apartment in Riverdale. In 2004, when Kerik was under consideration by the White House for the Homeland Security position, he gave false and misleading answers to questions by White House officials about his relationship with the contractors.
The indictment alleges that Kerik falsely denied that there was any possible concern the president should have about his relationship with the contractors, and that as a public official he had had any financial dealings with individuals seeking to do business with the City.
It also alleges Kerik sent an e-mail to a White House official containing false and misleading statements concerning the renovations to the apartment in Riverdale.
"Today's indictment of Mr. Kerik -- the third separate prosecution against him arising out of the same purported corruption allegations from 10 years ago -- is the latest example of the Department of Justice's overzealous pursuit of high-profile public figures.I bet he even thinks he can clear his name. Quel foolish notion:
"Mr. Kerik looks forward to finally clearing his name of these corruption charges at his federal trial in New York set for October..."Throw him in the hoosegow and swallow the key!
If convicted Kerik could face up to five years in prison.That's it? Up to? A measly five years? Up to...? So much for overzealousitude.
I watched Fox for a bit this morning, and other than this absolutely batshit crazy talk, some other guy went on and got teary eyed because he claimed the report "made his father, a veteran of WWII, who put his life on the line for his country, is labeled a terrorist!" Guys, I'm getting worried, there is no tether to reality here at all.
By GottaLaff
Herridge’s report comes in at the end of the video.
Paddy posted earlier about the outrage--the outrage!-- of the Rushpublics over the Department of Homeland Security report that was leaked about the rising radicalization of “rightwing extremists”. How dare the Obama administration! Sputter! Froth! Spitty protest!
But wait! What did a little Think Progress birdie just tell me? Why... this!
[T]his morning, Fox News’s Catherine Herridge revealed that the report, along with an earlier report on radicalized left-wing groups, was actually “requested by the Bush administration” but not completed until recently:HERRIDGE: Well this is an element of the story which has largely gone unreported. One looks at right-wing groups, as you mentioned. And a second is on left-wing groups. Significantly, both were requested by the Bush administration but not finished until President Bush left office.
Herridge’s reporting undermines her network’s own “reporting” over the past 24 hours. Since news of the DHS assessment broke yesterday, Fox anchors and guests have been seizing upon the report as evidence that the administration is trying to intimidate tea party goers or “stifle speech”.
Who knew Bush was such a commie pinko socialist fascist traitor? Hands? Hmm, whassat? Oh, okay, let me rephrase: Who knew Bush was such a fascist traitor? Look at that! Everyone's hands went up at the same time!
[T]he Obama administration was apparently following the lead of the Bush Homeland Security Department in assessing the very real threat of violent right-wing extremism. Indeed, Bush appointees such as FBI Director Robert Mueller have acknowledged the threat of right-wing extremism multiple times.As Emily Litella would say:
By GottaLaff
If you think the conservative "Tea Party" movement is daunting then take a look at a new report issued by the Department of Homeland Security that says right-wing extremism is on the rise throughout the country.
Reuters sums up some of the information in the report [...]:
DHS had no specific information about pending violence and said threats had so far been "largely rhetorical."But it warned that home foreclosures, unemployment and other consequences of the economic recession "could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists"...
The report is getting a lot of push back from angry conservative bloggers like Michelle Malkin:
By contrast, the piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives. [...] My b.s. detector went off the chart, and yours will, too, if you read through the entire report -- which asserts with no evidence that an unquantified "resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalizations activity" is due to home foreclosures, job losses, and...the historical presidential election.Moe Lane from RedState.com asks "Are you a Rightwing Extremist, too?":
Why? Well, it's a document that discusses the potential threats that we can expect from "rightwing extremists" (no hyphen, for some reason) in the coming months; there's the usual stuff about guns, illegal immigration, and disgruntled war veterans, plus the new wrinkle of our having elected an African-American President. The report concludes, unsurprisingly, that we have to worry more about "lone wolves and small terrorist cells" than anything else.American Legion National Commander David K. Rehbein also responded to a segment of the report warning that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans might be ripe recruits because of their combat skills.
The best that I can say about your recent report is that it is incomplete. [...]The American Legion is well aware and horrified at the pain inflicted during the Oklahoma City bombing, but Timothy McVeigh was only one of more than 42 million veterans who have worn this nation's uniform during wartime. To continue to use McVeigh as an example of the stereotypical "disgruntled military veteran" is as unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam.
Read the whole report here.
By GottaLaff
Oh goody. He says we only waterboarded people until 2003. That's a relief. I bet he can't wait for those who were brutally tortured to get wind of this... the ones that survived.America's first homeland security secretary has accepted some criticisms of the US "war on terror" made in a recent report by legal experts.
Tom Ridge told the BBC that the report's attacks on extended detention and torture were justified. [...]
The report the International Commission of Jurists said anti-terror measures worldwide had seriously undermined international human rights law.
After a three-year global study, the ICJ said many states had used the public's fear of terrorism to introduce measures including detention without trial, illegal disappearance and torture.
It said the framework of international law that existed before the 9/11 attacks was robust and effective, but had been actively undermined by the US and the UK.
Mr Ridge, who was appointed to the new post of homeland security secretary after the 11 September, 2001 attacks on the US, said the ICJ was on "solid ground" in its commentary "with regard to torture and sustained detention without due process".
In an interview with the BBC's World Today programme he said that regardless of what terrorism suspects had done, the US still needed "to afford them some sense of due process."
"It has taken a while for us to get to that point but we are certainly there now," he said.
He added that there was now a consensus in the US and beyond that water-boarding - a harsh interrogation technique that simulates drowning - was torture, saying there had been no allegations of its use since 2003.
But are we in the due process of dealing with it?However, Mr Ridge also defended US policy, saying counter-terrorism work was now about detaining people before they were able to commit terrorist acts. [...]
Many suspects had "embraced an ideology, a belief system, that said it's perfectly all right in order to advance a cause to kill innocents along the way", he said.
"They had no loyalty to a country so they're not the traditional prisoner of war, they don't wear the uniform of a country so we can't treat them as we have done in previous wars."
Mr Ridge added: "How we dealt with them in terms of returning them to their potential country of origin was a difficult issue that not only the United States but other countries have had to deal with.
"So, we're in the process of dealing with it."
By GottaLaff
I'm not sure how many more realists I can take. It's dizzying. First, the ObamAdministration takes the environment seriously, and now this? Where am I?
Just days after she was sworn in, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has ordered a comprehensive review of security efforts along the border between the U.S. and Canada.Remember this?Agencies including Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard and her department's intelligence branch have been asked to assess the vulnerabilities along the 4,000-mile northern border — the longest undefended border in the world — and recommend what can be done to improve security.
While more attention has been focused on the southern border with Mexico, the department has said that the terrorist threat is greater on the U.S.-Canadian border, given its length and limited law enforcement. [...]
Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, has asked for reviews of other Department of Homeland Security programs, including such things as cybersecurity. [...]
Lawmakers from northern states have long complained that U.S.-Canada border issues have been shortchanged with the southern border a higher priority.In a report late last year, the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, said the Homeland Security Department hadn’t been fully responsive in providing information on the northern border to Congress. The GAO said that there were gaps in the information presented and that budget documents didn't "reflect the resources needed" to achieve control of the northern border. [...]
With the 2010 Winter Olympics coming to Vancouver, British Columbia, meeting security challenges was a top priority, Larsen said.
In December of 1999, upon arriving on a ferry from Canada, al-Qaida operative Ahmed Ressam was arrested with a trunk full of explosives. His plan: to blow up Los Angeles International Airport.He was stopped by a customs agent who said " it was her gut instincts — not meetings in Washington — that helped her make the arrest." Now Washington is finally giving customs a helping hand.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
By GottaLaff
Yes, it's election season, so the Department of Homeland Security wants to make sure we're good and a'feared. They're issuing a vague statement about vague reasons for vague threats. They need a reason? Here's their reason: They're desperately seeking votes for John Sidney McBush.
According to drafts of government memos described to ABC News, the period would run roughly from this August through July 2009. [...]The reasons: There are no specifics indicating an attack on the U.S. is imminent, and U.S. officials do not want to be accused of trying to inject themselves into the presidential campaign.
"That's a balancing act," said Jerry Hauer, former Homeland Security official and ABC News consultant. "They really have to focus on these events and this critical time we're going through as a nation, but they have to be very careful about the public message to not make it look political or like they're fearmongering."
Yeah, they wouldn't want to be accused of that. They wouldn't want to tarnish their stellar reputations.
By GottaLaff
[I]n March, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services declared that the county registrar of voters must not hand out those [voter-registration] cards until the recipients are officially citizens. And now voter registration has plunged by 82 percent.
"Everybody's really disappointed," said Diane Moore, precinct operations division manager for the county registrar's office. "Before this processing change, we were one of the models in the state of California..."
With new citizens unable to fill out the cards at their own pace during the ceremony, registrar workers found it nearly impossible to catch the new citizens as they rushed toward the door after the ceremony to get back to jobs or to family obligations.
Plus, one Citizenship and Immigration Services staffer has been "telling new citizens to leave the building while they are still filling out their voter registration cards," according to an internal county memo obtained by the Mercury News.
The impact was definitive: The county registered 3,140 new voters at naturalization ceremonies in the four months before the new policy went into effect, but only 557 new voters registered in the four months since. Registrars signed up as many as 65 percent of new citizens before the change, but just 8 percent registered at the most recent ceremony in June. [...]
"Homeland Security has no jurisdiction over this. They can't limit voter registration," said U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, chairwoman of the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee. "Who do they think they are?"
Some are concerned that the new policy is an attempt to suppress voter participation by new citizens.
...U.S. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Salinas, said he's mystified.
"It's ironic that the agency tasked with promoting citizenship in our country would throw up obstacles to voting, one of the fundamental actions of a citizen," he said. "DHS should be trying to make the process easier, not harder."
Shoulda, woulda, coulda... didn't.
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