The Westhampton News reports on a woman who was found taking photographs of a nearby military base, packing heavy firepower (all legal and registered in her trunk). She’s a firm believer FEMA is setting up concentration camps in this country, so it’s been speculated (she denies it) she thought the base was such a camp.
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Archive for the 'Terrorism' Category
The wacky world of the Daily News letter column
August 10th, 2009, 12:08 pm by fshermanFrom Sunday, first we have Jim Blanchard of Crestview, who in one paragraph asserts that Obama is a Marxist creating a fascist state. Dude, fascism and Marxism are not the same thing–and Obama is neither.
I’m also amused by the outrage Blanchard and other Republicans are expressing lately over the idea Washington is run by “corrupt politicians, power brokers and financiers”—are they under the impression this is something new? (Ditto the complaints that bills are so long and complicated nobody reads them–that’s hardly novel, either).
Then we have John Leuenberger of Mary Esther explaining that he has no objection to Obama taking “prudent steps to protect the nation” (i.e., warrantless wiretapping) but is very upset that the president is “expanding the intrusion of government into our lives” in the form of cap and trade and health care bills (apparently eavesdropping on people’s calls isn’t intrusive).
I’d always figured Republicans would do a 180 on illegal detention, warrantless wiretapping, torture and other presidential powers claimed under Bush, but apparently I was wrong: For a lot of them, it wasn’t politics to defend Bush’s powers, it was principle: They like having a president who can do the kind of things we used to condemn the USSR for.
If they’re not hypocrites, that’s actually scarier.
Creepy stuff
July 14th, 2009, 9:03 am by fshermanA Stars and Stripes article on neo-Nazis and Skinheads in the military.
Chilling
July 8th, 2009, 11:35 am by fshermanFrom The Washington Independent :
“Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective. Asked by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) the politically difficult but entirely fair question about whether terrorism detainees acquitted in courts could be released in the United States, Johnson said that “as a matter of legal authority,” the administration’s powers to detain someone under the law of war don’t expire for a detainee after he’s acquitted in court. “If you have authority under the law of war to detain someone” under the Supreme Court’s Hamdi ruling, “that is true irrespective of what happens on the prosecution side.”
Martinez looked surprised. “So the prosecution is moot?” he asked.
“No, no, not in my judgment,” Johnson said. But the scenario he outlined strongly suggested it is. If an administration review panel “determines this person is a security threat” and “for some reason is not convicted of a lengthy prison sentence, I think we have the authority to continue to detain someone” under “law of war authority” as granted by the September 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, Johnson said. And beyond that source of authority “we have the authority in the first place.” ”
I find the idea of locking someone up who’s been declared not guilty (or even guilty but not with a big enough sentence to suit Obama) truly horrifying. It’s unjust in itself, and I can’t help thinking this is one of those principles that could easily lead us down the slippery slope: The next kidnapper, rapist, murderer or drug-dealer who gets found not guilty, hey, why not just lock him up anyway? Sure, at this point it’s only the president who can authorize this, but if the principle of post-trial detention becomes accepted, it would be very tempting to a lot of people in law enforcement. I’ve read of a few cases where prosecutors have argued against releasing an innocent man–proven so by DNA evidence–on the grounds that some technical T hasn’t been crossed or that there’s no law requiring the man be released (and if you just release people because they’re innocent, there could be chaos!). I don’t understand the mindset, but giving the authorities more power to lock people up, even without evidence, is not a good thing.
Glenn Beck supports terrorist attacks
July 7th, 2009, 9:38 am by fshermanFrom Beck’s show this weekend: Terrorism expert Michael Scheuer asserts that “The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it’s going to take a grassroots, bottom-up pressure, because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. Only–it’s an absurd situation. Again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary.”
Beck’s response: “Which is why I was thinking this weekend if I were him, that would be the last thing I would do right now.”
More right-wing insight on the Smithsonian shooting
June 12th, 2009, 11:32 am by fshermanThe Gawker blog reports receiving an angry voice-mail from pundit Andrew Breitbart about calling accused shooter James von Brunn a “right wing extremist.” Breitbart, to the contrary, describes him as a “multiculturalist just like the black studies and the lesbian studies majors on college campuses … This guy’s political philosophy is more akin to the drivel that you hear on a college campuses that delineates us by group and not by individuality…. It’s deeply offensive that you would use this for political gain.”
Yes, anti-semites with an obsession about the federal reserve and Obama’s birth certificate just scream “left wing multiculturalist” don’t they?
Further inspiring thoughts about the Smithsonian shooting
June 12th, 2009, 9:01 am by fshermanFrom right-wing blogger Terresa Monroe-Hamilton:
“How long though will it be before we see more violence in America as our government merrily dismantles our free market place and nationalizes every area of society and business they can get their hands on? As millions are unemployed or in the process of losing their jobs as well as their homes and life savings, how long do you think it will be before more and more anger bubbles up and over the brim of American society?
“Sure, today it was a nut job who should have been shot and killed like the rabid dog he is, but tomorrow? It could be some hard working stiff who can’t stand seeing his kids go hungry, or some tired mother who has lost her home and doesn’t know where to go. Obama can tell Americans to eat cake all he wants, but sooner or later this squishing of America and the crushing of Americans under his fascist heel will cause Mr. and Mrs. average American to finally scream, “We have had enough!” And when that day comes, you won’t be able to say it was a random act or that it won’t happen again. When that day comes, the French Revolution may very well be rerun and it won’t be pretty.”
Yet another example of the “He shouldn’t have committed that crime but he had a darn good reason!” school of terrorism-excusing.
One more point about Joseph Hunt
June 12th, 2009, 6:13 am by fshermanIt should be kept in mind those Chilean students were in this country legally. So why assume Donnie Baker was acting out a protest against illegal immigrants rather than against Latino immigrants generally? Or simply assumed they were illegal because they were Latinos?
Of course, that would make him a bigot rather than someone motivated by what Hunt thinks is justifiable outrage against illegals.
Memorable quote of the week
June 12th, 2009, 5:56 am by fshermanJohn De Nugent on the Smithsonian shooting: “The responsible white separatist community condemns this. It makes us look bad.”
The right-wing’s firm anti-terrorist stance: Part Two
June 10th, 2009, 8:52 am by fshermanIn The Log today, we have guest columnist Joseph Hunt’s comment on the murder of those Chilean students a while back: “Despite the horror of the deed, it clearly reflects the mounting frustration that most taxpaying Americans are feeling regarding the trampling and curtailment of our constitutional rights and freedoms by too much immigration.”
Even though he calls the shooting a “criminal travesty” that sounds close to “Hey, he had good reasons for it.” I wonder if his response after 9/11 was to discuss the “mounting frustration” some Muslims feel with US policy toward the Palestinians and the Middle East?
Although Hunt focuses his column illegal immigration, I notice he says there’s “too much immigration”—which would suggest that if all these Latino immigrants came in legally, he’d have just as big a problem with them. He also encourages people to join the Minutemen groups who are, as document in detail by David Neiwert a racist and violent lot under their “We’re just trying to stop illegal immigration” pose.
