by Keith Koffler on December 14, 2011, 10:13 am
The Obama presidential campaign is launching an effort to collect Republican email addresses by inviting its supporters to submit information about their Republican associates to the Obama 2012 website.
The effort could help the Obama campaign build a database that would enable it to target Republican voters during the general election campaign. But, more perniciously, it could also become part of an Democratic effort to influence Republican primary voters to select a candidate Democrats think Obama could most easily defeat.
The Democratic National Committee last month released a video that seemed designed to damage Mitt Romney, the GOP candidate feared most by the Obama campaign.
The Obama information collection effort is cast under the mischievous guise of asking Obama supporters to “have a little fun at the expense of a Republican in your life” by signing them up to get an email from the Obama campaign ribbing them for having “inspired” the Obama supporter to donate.
The result, however, is that the Obama campaign gets a new trove of Republican email addresses that it could never have collected through voluntary submissions.
From the Obama website:
Who inspires you to give?
This holiday season, we’re giving you a chance to have a little fun at the expense of a Republican in your life by letting them know they inspired you to make a donation to the Obama campaign.
Simply enter their name and email address below. Then, we’ll send them a message letting them know they inspired you to donate.
Thank you for supporting this campaign, and happy holidays.
Important: By making a donation today, you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to have dinner with Barack and Michelle Obama. By clicking on the “Submit” button below or otherwise participating in the promotion, you agree to be bound by these Official Rules and represent that you satisfy all of the eligibility requirements.
The effort is being supported by emails from the campaign to members of the vast Obama 2012 email list urging them to participate.
One message, from Deputy Campaign Manager Julianna Smoot, also invites donors to buy something from the Obama 2012 store for their Republican friend.
Really want to fire up your GOP friends? Buy them a gift from the 2012 store. I recommend the birther mugs — they get the message across pretty well.
The email was sent Tuesday. If the Obama supporter sends the gift directly to their Republican friend, then the campaign has a new personal address for its database.
Friday, December 16, 2011
‘Disappearing’ dissenters in Obama’s new Amerika
- Judi McLeod Thursday, December 15, 2011
It now becomes perfectly clear why Obama did not want to close down Guantánamo Bay. It’s the perfect place to ‘disappear’ his Tea Party enemies during Election Year.
Obama’s well covered by mainstream media threat to veto what can only be described as Soviet Union Horror Come to America, was only the drama he could milk during the Final Act.
This bill represents the most daring Marxist monstrosity of the 21st century: The Defence Funding bill will allow American citizens to be arrested as terrorists on home turf to be ‘disappeared’ forever without rule-of-law trial.
With this draconian bill, Obama not only gets to silence all dissent against him by instilling the fear of dissident arrest in everyday people trying to save their beloved country from its fundamental transformation, he gets to do what has long been his coveted intent: a way to engender population hatred for its military.
Patriots, who long clung to the hope that in the end the US military would be on the side of the people, will now live in the real fear of being nabbed off their streets by the military and packed off to Gitmo.
The effects of this bill on American society are truly monstrous and were birthed by someone with a never-ending evil hatred of America and its people.
That the Bill to Disappear Americans by Bureaucracy came into being with a 93-7 vote transcends anything ever said by any talking head, or conspiracy theorist about the existing fellowship that exists between Republicans and Democrats.
The bill is bottom-line irrefutable proof that all politicians of all stripes, perhaps even including so-called Libertarians, work against the people they are paid to represent.
One site aptly pegged the “seven champions of liberty” who voted against the bill, champions of liberty “for the moment”. (Moral Low Ground)
High-flown speeches and rhetoric won’t get a fair trial for anyone the Obama regime ID’s as a terrorist enemy of the state.
If the regime can send to a concentration camp any who work against it, there is no longer any need for Obama to take the risk of imposing martial law before suspending elections.
Instead he has found a novel way of guaranteeing his re-election before a single vote is even cast.
The story of how the bill was passed as revealed to the masses in real time is a also a story in itself. It came nine days before Christmas 2011. Screaming headlines trying to warn the masses came not from the American media, but from the British one. Early this morning Drudge ran Americans face Guantánamo detention after Obama climbdown by the guardian.co.uk.
Only two American stories followed the Guardian one. CBS News: WH OKs military detention of terrorism suspects, followed by Infowars.com Patrick Joseph Watson’s story, which included an update about how Obama had dropped his threat to veto the bill.
Drudge Report readers could see under all three stories how “Even Al Jazeera asks ‘How Did We Get Here’?
Freedom was swallowed whole overnight. In a new, cruel Soviet Union-like Amerika, dissenters of the status quo will be easily and effectively disappeared.
And this morning for the 93 congressional lawmakers who made it happen, it’s just business as usual.
Copyright © Canada Free Press
It now becomes perfectly clear why Obama did not want to close down Guantánamo Bay. It’s the perfect place to ‘disappear’ his Tea Party enemies during Election Year.
Obama’s well covered by mainstream media threat to veto what can only be described as Soviet Union Horror Come to America, was only the drama he could milk during the Final Act.
This bill represents the most daring Marxist monstrosity of the 21st century: The Defence Funding bill will allow American citizens to be arrested as terrorists on home turf to be ‘disappeared’ forever without rule-of-law trial.
With this draconian bill, Obama not only gets to silence all dissent against him by instilling the fear of dissident arrest in everyday people trying to save their beloved country from its fundamental transformation, he gets to do what has long been his coveted intent: a way to engender population hatred for its military.
Patriots, who long clung to the hope that in the end the US military would be on the side of the people, will now live in the real fear of being nabbed off their streets by the military and packed off to Gitmo.
The effects of this bill on American society are truly monstrous and were birthed by someone with a never-ending evil hatred of America and its people.
That the Bill to Disappear Americans by Bureaucracy came into being with a 93-7 vote transcends anything ever said by any talking head, or conspiracy theorist about the existing fellowship that exists between Republicans and Democrats.
The bill is bottom-line irrefutable proof that all politicians of all stripes, perhaps even including so-called Libertarians, work against the people they are paid to represent.
One site aptly pegged the “seven champions of liberty” who voted against the bill, champions of liberty “for the moment”. (Moral Low Ground)
High-flown speeches and rhetoric won’t get a fair trial for anyone the Obama regime ID’s as a terrorist enemy of the state.
If the regime can send to a concentration camp any who work against it, there is no longer any need for Obama to take the risk of imposing martial law before suspending elections.
Instead he has found a novel way of guaranteeing his re-election before a single vote is even cast.
The story of how the bill was passed as revealed to the masses in real time is a also a story in itself. It came nine days before Christmas 2011. Screaming headlines trying to warn the masses came not from the American media, but from the British one. Early this morning Drudge ran Americans face Guantánamo detention after Obama climbdown by the guardian.co.uk.
Only two American stories followed the Guardian one. CBS News: WH OKs military detention of terrorism suspects, followed by Infowars.com Patrick Joseph Watson’s story, which included an update about how Obama had dropped his threat to veto the bill.
Drudge Report readers could see under all three stories how “Even Al Jazeera asks ‘How Did We Get Here’?
Freedom was swallowed whole overnight. In a new, cruel Soviet Union-like Amerika, dissenters of the status quo will be easily and effectively disappeared.
And this morning for the 93 congressional lawmakers who made it happen, it’s just business as usual.
Copyright © Canada Free Press
Democrat mockery of role of legislature moves past 1000 days
“The Horrifying Chart That Democrats and RINOs Don’t Want You to See”.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
It has now been nearly 1,000 days since the Democrats last passed a federal budget. This unprecedented act of fiscal irresponsibility -- one that no other Congress in generations has committed -- allows the most profligate administration in American history to continue racking up more than a trillion dollars in deficit spending each year.
What Democrats and big-government Republicans aren't telling you is this: the Obama-Pelosi-Reid "one-time Stimulus package" was built into the baseline, which means each year that the Obamacrats can avoid writing a budget is another year that this cash furnace can continue burning your children's money.
John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, decent human beings though they may be, haven't even raised this issue with the public. They don't have the spine to enact the drastic cuts this country requires to survive.
This chart illustrates why we Tea Party activists must nominate and elect the most conservative candidates possible in 2012. We have two missions: to politically obliterate the Marxist Left that has subsumed the empty husk of the Democrat Party; and to continue our hostile takeover of the Republican Party, in order to return it to its Reagan-esque roots.
We have no choice if we are to save this Republic.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
It has now been nearly 1,000 days since the Democrats last passed a federal budget. This unprecedented act of fiscal irresponsibility -- one that no other Congress in generations has committed -- allows the most profligate administration in American history to continue racking up more than a trillion dollars in deficit spending each year.
What Democrats and big-government Republicans aren't telling you is this: the Obama-Pelosi-Reid "one-time Stimulus package" was built into the baseline, which means each year that the Obamacrats can avoid writing a budget is another year that this cash furnace can continue burning your children's money.
John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, decent human beings though they may be, haven't even raised this issue with the public. They don't have the spine to enact the drastic cuts this country requires to survive.
This chart illustrates why we Tea Party activists must nominate and elect the most conservative candidates possible in 2012. We have two missions: to politically obliterate the Marxist Left that has subsumed the empty husk of the Democrat Party; and to continue our hostile takeover of the Republican Party, in order to return it to its Reagan-esque roots.
We have no choice if we are to save this Republic.
Bill of Rights Day
Who knew?
Is today. Like every year, I tend to spend it mourning its demise.
Posted in uncategorized on December 15th, 2011 by SayUncle
7 Responses to “Bill of Rights Day”
Mike Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
How ironic.
The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act has passed Congress and is heading to Obama’s desk. He’s cool with it now, so he says he won’t veto it. The detainee provisions remain in place, and rights going back to the Magna Carta are shortly to be expunged by Act of Congress. How the hell did we get here?
comatus Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Just as a thought exercise, consider how much we could pare from the DOD if we just quartered troops in homes.
Boom. Another one gone. It’s so easy.
Steve Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
It’s happening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWXwzcE5P0M&feature=player_embedded
http://uploadingit.com/file/2pdjkgvx8k0n6pj4/Screen+Shot+2011-12-10+at+7.03.23+PM.png
blounttruth Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
I don’t know how it could have happened.
Hey, you all want to go to a Ron Paul site and call his supporters conspiracy theorists, kooks, and nuts? It will be a great time!! I’ll get to use the tin foil hat joke again and then at noon we can get together and listen to Hannity tell us how we should give up our rights in the name of the war on terror, and Bill O. on how the military should confiscate our guns during disasters like Katrina, it’ll be AWESOME!
I wonder why Rush isn’t covering the loss of the 5th, and 6th amendments to the constitution, as well as posse comitatus? He is a great guy anyway, always bashing the left for doing what G.W. Bush was already doing. I’m off, dancing with Donald Trump is coming on followed by survivor New Jersey and I cant miss it.
what were we talking about?
Farewell America, may you rest in peace.
PistolPete Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
A buddy from the UK just offered his condolences about the state of the US civil rights regarding the Defense Authorization Act. Not the best Bill of Rights anniversary ever, perhaps.
daveinga Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 11:39 pm
fyi – today the dept of holder went after the sheriff, who has a posse of retired law enforcement folks investigating obama’s alleged phony credentials, for civil right violations. the good sheriff was planning on making a statement of finding early next year.
now our clown in chief has the power to arrest and make people disappear, thanks to congress. there is also the continuing bill out there somewhere that will let him shut down the i-net.
i don’t much believe in coincidence. i do believe Americans are about to find out what Jefferson was talking about when ha said that bit about spilling the blood of patriots every so many generations to protect freedom. hope i’m wrong, but…
Some Sock Puppet Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
Okay, hypothetically, isn’t this the trigger point for armed revolt?
Is today. Like every year, I tend to spend it mourning its demise.
Posted in uncategorized on December 15th, 2011 by SayUncle
7 Responses to “Bill of Rights Day”
Mike Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
How ironic.
The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act has passed Congress and is heading to Obama’s desk. He’s cool with it now, so he says he won’t veto it. The detainee provisions remain in place, and rights going back to the Magna Carta are shortly to be expunged by Act of Congress. How the hell did we get here?
comatus Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Just as a thought exercise, consider how much we could pare from the DOD if we just quartered troops in homes.
Boom. Another one gone. It’s so easy.
Steve Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
It’s happening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWXwzcE5P0M&feature=player_embedded
http://uploadingit.com/file/2pdjkgvx8k0n6pj4/Screen+Shot+2011-12-10+at+7.03.23+PM.png
blounttruth Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
I don’t know how it could have happened.
Hey, you all want to go to a Ron Paul site and call his supporters conspiracy theorists, kooks, and nuts? It will be a great time!! I’ll get to use the tin foil hat joke again and then at noon we can get together and listen to Hannity tell us how we should give up our rights in the name of the war on terror, and Bill O. on how the military should confiscate our guns during disasters like Katrina, it’ll be AWESOME!
I wonder why Rush isn’t covering the loss of the 5th, and 6th amendments to the constitution, as well as posse comitatus? He is a great guy anyway, always bashing the left for doing what G.W. Bush was already doing. I’m off, dancing with Donald Trump is coming on followed by survivor New Jersey and I cant miss it.
what were we talking about?
Farewell America, may you rest in peace.
PistolPete Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
A buddy from the UK just offered his condolences about the state of the US civil rights regarding the Defense Authorization Act. Not the best Bill of Rights anniversary ever, perhaps.
daveinga Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 11:39 pm
fyi – today the dept of holder went after the sheriff, who has a posse of retired law enforcement folks investigating obama’s alleged phony credentials, for civil right violations. the good sheriff was planning on making a statement of finding early next year.
now our clown in chief has the power to arrest and make people disappear, thanks to congress. there is also the continuing bill out there somewhere that will let him shut down the i-net.
i don’t much believe in coincidence. i do believe Americans are about to find out what Jefferson was talking about when ha said that bit about spilling the blood of patriots every so many generations to protect freedom. hope i’m wrong, but…
Some Sock Puppet Says:
December 15th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
Okay, hypothetically, isn’t this the trigger point for armed revolt?
DOINGS AMONG THE ONE PERCENT:
The New York Times Company today abruptly announced that its 61-year-old chief executive officer, Janet Robinson, will leave at the end of the year, with no permanent successor lined up.
An SEC filing says Ms. Robinson will get $4.5 million plus health insurance for a 12-month retirement and consulting agreement, including “two-year non-competition, non-solicitation and non-disparagement covenants, a three-year cooperation covenant and an indefinite confidentiality covenant.”
The Times itself reported that Ms. Robinson’s pay in 2009 was $4.9 million, so she’ll earn almost as much as a retired consultant as as a full-time CEO.
The handy investment calculator on the Times corporate Web site shows that $10,000 invested in NYT stock the day Ms. Robinson took over as CEO, on December 27, 2004, would be worth $1,855.14 today, a decline of 81.45%. The price of the stock went from $40.59 when she took over to $7.53 today, and though some dividends were paid out early in her tenure as CEO, the dividend has since been suspended.
Consequences for failure are for the little people.
Posted at 10:33 pm by Glenn Reynolds
An SEC filing says Ms. Robinson will get $4.5 million plus health insurance for a 12-month retirement and consulting agreement, including “two-year non-competition, non-solicitation and non-disparagement covenants, a three-year cooperation covenant and an indefinite confidentiality covenant.”
The Times itself reported that Ms. Robinson’s pay in 2009 was $4.9 million, so she’ll earn almost as much as a retired consultant as as a full-time CEO.
The handy investment calculator on the Times corporate Web site shows that $10,000 invested in NYT stock the day Ms. Robinson took over as CEO, on December 27, 2004, would be worth $1,855.14 today, a decline of 81.45%. The price of the stock went from $40.59 when she took over to $7.53 today, and though some dividends were paid out early in her tenure as CEO, the dividend has since been suspended.
Consequences for failure are for the little people.
Posted at 10:33 pm by Glenn Reynolds
Spending bill blocks light bulb standards
By Andrew Restuccia - 12/15/11 10:15 PM ET
Omnibus spending legislation greenlighted by House and Senate negotiators Thursday night blocks Energy Department light bulb efficiency standards that have come under fire from conservatives in recent months.
The legislation, which would avert a government shutdown, prevents funding from being used for the implementation of certain Energy Department light bulb standards. The standards would begin phasing in next year.
The provision was included in a version of the spending legislation unveiled by House Republicans early Thursday without the backing of Senate Democrats.
Jennifer Hing, a House Appropriations Committee spokeswoman, said the language remains in the final version of the bill.
“There is no change in this language from the version that was posted last night,” she said in an email.
Senate Democrats said earlier this week that the GOP-backed language blocking funding for the light bulb standards was one of a handful of obstacles to reaching a deal. But the final spending agreement includes the language, in a symbolic win for Republicans.
House Republicans have sought for months to repeal provisions in a 2007 energy law that require traditional incandescent light bulbs to be 30 percent more efficient starting in 2012.
Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Republicans in Congress, including GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, have blasted the standards, casting them as an egregious example of federal overreach
"President Bachmann will allow you to buy any light bulb you want,” Bachmann said this summer.
Republicans often describe the standards as a “light bulb ban,” arguing that the rules would greatly restrict consumer choice by pushing out traditional incandescent bulbs in favor of more expensive, but more efficient, LED (light emitting diode) and CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs.
Environmental and energy-efficiency groups note that the standards do not ban incandescent bulbs, but instead require them to be more efficient. While more efficient light bulbs are often more expensive at the point of sale, experts say they save consumers money on their electricity bills over the long term.
Omnibus spending legislation greenlighted by House and Senate negotiators Thursday night blocks Energy Department light bulb efficiency standards that have come under fire from conservatives in recent months.
The legislation, which would avert a government shutdown, prevents funding from being used for the implementation of certain Energy Department light bulb standards. The standards would begin phasing in next year.
The provision was included in a version of the spending legislation unveiled by House Republicans early Thursday without the backing of Senate Democrats.
Jennifer Hing, a House Appropriations Committee spokeswoman, said the language remains in the final version of the bill.
“There is no change in this language from the version that was posted last night,” she said in an email.
Senate Democrats said earlier this week that the GOP-backed language blocking funding for the light bulb standards was one of a handful of obstacles to reaching a deal. But the final spending agreement includes the language, in a symbolic win for Republicans.
House Republicans have sought for months to repeal provisions in a 2007 energy law that require traditional incandescent light bulbs to be 30 percent more efficient starting in 2012.
Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Republicans in Congress, including GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, have blasted the standards, casting them as an egregious example of federal overreach
"President Bachmann will allow you to buy any light bulb you want,” Bachmann said this summer.
Republicans often describe the standards as a “light bulb ban,” arguing that the rules would greatly restrict consumer choice by pushing out traditional incandescent bulbs in favor of more expensive, but more efficient, LED (light emitting diode) and CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs.
Environmental and energy-efficiency groups note that the standards do not ban incandescent bulbs, but instead require them to be more efficient. While more efficient light bulbs are often more expensive at the point of sale, experts say they save consumers money on their electricity bills over the long term.
low-budget disaster-prep
SO YESTERDAY’S POST ON LOW-BUDGET DISASTER PREP has produced still more email. Mostly it’s suggestions for what more people can do. That, of course, goes all the way up to a custom bomb-shelter / retreat in the mountains somewhere. But for most people, resources are limited. What are some things you can do that go beyond just keeping some extra groceries and bottled water? But not too far beyond?
You can keep a case or two of self-heating MREs around. They last a long time, they aren’t bad, and they’re more portable than canned foods if you have to leave home, but they don’t need separate water to prepare them like freeze-dried foods.
You might invest in a water filter, which will let you turn iffy water into drinkable water.
You should stock first-aid supplies and extra needed medications, in case you can’t get prescriptions refilled.
You might want some sort of backup power, ranging from a big uninterruptible power supply (keeps laptops and internet going for a long time, recharges cellphones, etc.) to a generator. Generators take annoying degrees of maintenance; a UPS can back up your computer or modem/wireless router until needed for more. But they put out a lot less power than a generator, and won’t keep your freezer from thawing. But generators cross the line into “more serious” as opposed to “slightly serious” preparedness, which is what this post is about.
Some additional source of heat. If you have a gas fireplace, make sure you know how to start it without an electric igniter. If you have a woodburning fireplace or stove, make sure you have plenty of wood, and matches and kindling, etc. (Woodburning fireplaces aren’t much good for heat, really; stoves on the other hand put out a lot). A backup kerosene or propane heater is good, too. Propane is easier to store than kerosene, and there are some propane heaters that are supposed to be safe for indoor use — though I’d invest in a battery-powered carbon monoxide detector to go with any kind of backup indoor heat. Also, extra blankets. And wool socks! Maybe even a Snuggie or two. In case the power goes out in the summer, make sure you have screens on your windows so that you can open them without filling your house with bugs. A small battery-powered fan is nice, too — clip it on to the headboard of your bed and it’ll be easier to sleep on a sticky night. Keep plenty of batteries, too.
Backup lamps and lanterns. One nice thing I have are plug-in nightlights that turn on when the power goes off, so that stairs, etc., remain navigable. I have them at the top and bottom of stairs, and in parts of the house that would be really dark if the power went off. They double as flashlights. These look good, too.
A list of phone numbers for family, friends, neighbors, and various services — plumbers, doctors, etc. — that you won’t be able to look up on the Internet if the power’s out.
A shovel, a crowbar, a water shutoff tool that fits your hookup — make sure you know that it works, how to use it, and where your hookup is in advance — and other simple tools.
A couple of tarps. During the Great Water Incident of a couple of years ago, one of these saved my basement carpet when water started coming out of the ceiling. . . .
Duct tape, duct tape, duct tape. And extra plastic garbage bags. Very versatile.
Any other reader suggestions for things that don’t cost too much, but would take disaster-prep up a level from yesterday’s post?
UPDATE: Reader Thomas Leahy writes: “Don’t forget a little extra food for the pets.” Good point.
Reader Peter Gookins emails:
This goes a bit beyond “prep on the cheap,” but you asked…
Generators-most people get one that’s much bigger than they actually need. Back north, I needed a large 240 volt generator (Honda ES 6500) to power the well pump, fridge and freezer when power went out (“locked rotor current,” which is the technical name for the high amperage required to start an electric motor from rest, on a 1 HP deep well pump is a LOT higher than the 8-12 amps (which, at 240 volts, is 1/2 the amperage it would be at 120; figure starting draw on most motors will be about 4X-5X running current; the 6500 puts out 52 amps and at pump start you could tell it picker up a lot of load) it takes to run the pump, and don’t forget that some stuff – like most -but not all- deep well pumps – are 240 volt only); here in Florida I’m on county water. During the 2004 hurricanes I loaned the big one to a neighbor, and it wound up feeding three houses for refrigerators, fans and TVs. I ran off a portable 120 volt 3K watt portable Honda RV generator (EU 3000) just fine, which powered the fridge, fans, lights and and a window AC at night for sleeping. Since then I’ve picked up a 2K watt Honda to use as “an infinite extension cord” at the gun club – it’ll power ONE saw, or a couple of floodlights and a fan, run cordless drill battery chargers, etc, and it weights 47 lbs. so it’s portable. Turns out it will run my fridge, some lights and a fan OR my window AC and some lights, all on less gas than the 3K watt Honda used. The fuel tank is small, but the RV crowd has solutions for that, just Google “EU2000+fuel tank.” And, Honda sells kits (but it’s cheaper to make your own) that allow tying two EU2000s together to get 3200 watts at 120 volts (about 26 amps) steady output. RVers do it all the time.
Remember, the smaller the generator the less fuel it uses. You can get aftermarket propane conversion kits for the Hondas, which I’ve considered doing with the 6500 when I move back north next year, because even with wheels under it it’s not very portable. I haven’t considered doing it with the 3K or the 2000 because having to drag around a propane tank reduces the portability, but if one expected a semi-stationary use, a propane conversion kit and a couple of 70 lb propane tanks would be a good investment. If I were staying in Florida I’d convert from electric water heater to propane tankless, and replace the electric range with a dual-fuel range, and stick a 250 gallon propane tank in the back corner of the yard. All the propane dealers here brag about how their trucks are propane-powered and they never missed a delivery during the hurricanes.
Speaking of well pumps…there is a great advantage to replacing the small well tank ( about 3.5 gallon draw down – one flush with old style toilets, so your pump is starting up a lot) builders always put in because it’s cheap with multiple large tanks. Well-X-Trol makes one that has a 46 gallon draw down from full before the pump needs to start and refill it. I put in two back north; in daily use the pump starts fewer times and runs longer, which extends its life, and when the power went out I ran the pump on generator until the tanks were full, which gave us 92 gallons before we needed the pump again. With water saving shower heads and minimal flushing we could get through an entire day (BTW, with a little judicious circuit breaker adjusting, one can power only one of the heating elements in an electric water heater with one’s generator, preferably the bottom element; takes a little while, but in 30 minutes or so you have a tank full of hot water. Check what wattage the elements are and replace the bottom one with a 4500 watt or 3800 watt (assuming the original is a 5500 watt) to ease the load on the generator. During normal use you won’t notice the difference.
If I were building my house from scratch, I’d consider putting in an underground propane tank and running everything off propane instead of natural gas, with a propane-powered generator thrown into the mix. A couple of deliveries a year and you’re semi self-sufficient.
Reader Anthony Swenson writes with a low-budget point that’s more in the spirit I meant for this post:
One of the cheapest things you can do – it won’t cost you anything but a nice smell in your laundry – is to make sure you always buy plain, unscented, unflavored chlorine bleach.
“In an emergency, think of this (one gallon of Regular Clorox Bleach) as 3,800 gallons of drinking water.”
Yeah, bleach is good for sanitizing stuff, too. I keep extra around — but it’s harder and harder to find plain old Clorox bleach anymore amid all the scented, splash-resistant, etc. stuff on the shelf. Read the label carefully. . . .
UPDATE: Reader Henry Bowman writes:
Another item to consider if you have a hybrid vehicle: a large inverter. I read an article a couple of years ago about a fellow in Connecticut who ran many of his electric appliances in his house for three days off his Prius, with inverter. He claimed it cost him 5 gallons of fuel. Seems like an inexpensive backup, and one for which you don’t need to worry about starting often, as is the case with a portable generator.
My sister and brother-in-law, who live in the Houston vicinity, were without power for 13 days after Hurricane Ike. They have two Priuses: they could have used a couple of inverters.
A big inverter is a lot cheaper than a comparable generator, and probably safer, too. And you can use it to recharge your UPS. But the hybrid thing isn’t as easy as it sounds. The guy you mention modded his Prius, because the big honking battery that drives the electric motors doesn’t put out 12v DC, and the 12v power system that starts the motor in the Prius (or in my Highlander) is separate. So I’m not sure there’s any special benefit to having a hybrid unless it’s modified, but correct me if I’m missing something.
Speaking of cars, think about when you’re not at home. Reader Mike von Cannon writes:
A note about disaster kits: I work for the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office and starting the morning of Dec 26 our dispatch center was flooded with calls from tourists in rental cabins who were stranded and running out of food (it was even worse during the blizzard in 93, which also hit on a weekend), so even on vacation it would pay to buy extra in case we get more snow than you expect. many tourists who thought they’d be going home sunday were stranded til Wed or Thur.
Good advice. And you should travel with at least a bit of helpful stuff. I keep some emergency stuff in the back of the car — some food bars, water, a spare pair of shoes in case mine get nasty while changing a tire, etc., and assorted minor toiletries and hygiene products and, very important, a roll of toilet paper — which helps. (And if you can produce tampons in a pinch, you can be a hero to women everywhere.)
I use these food bars, because they stand up to the heat in the summer better and they’re not appetizing enough that people will snitch ‘em just for a quick snack, and these water packets because they don’t burst if they freeze. Most of this stuff never gets used, but being stuck by the side of the road for an extended period just once makes it worth having.
Also: Some survival blankets, some basic tools, and a Swiss Army knife or a Leatherman. (Make sure it’s one with a can opener/bottle opener). And a roll of duct tape! I keep all of this in a small pack that takes up very little room in the back; there’s one in Helen’s car, too.
Reader Gary Saffer writes:
A couple of things that I didn’t notice in your disaster preparedness posts.
Chemical light sticks. A friend of mine suggested these for general use. They’re cheap, they provide enough light to move around, and they save batteries for more light intensive tasks. And of course, you can get them at Amazon.
Consider that under most circumstances, it’s going to be 48-72 hours before rescue or relief shows up. If you are planning for much longer periods of being off the grid, consider moving to a rural area where you can build you entire house around being off the grid for long periods of time.
Firearms. You don’t mention them, but everyone should have a means of self defense. The veneer of civilization is thin at the best of times, it vaporizes in a real emergency. The predators will be out fairly quickly because their disaster plan is to use your prepared material to survive on. They don’t know specifically who you are, but they’ll keep looking until they find someone who has the stuff they want. Or a firearm they want no part of.
Yeah, light sticks are cool, even if Joe Biden thinks they’re drug paraphernalia. The gun issue is a whole separate post, but a gun (or several) is important disaster-prep, but that moves beyond the “easy steps” focus of this post. And the rural retreat approach goes way beyond it.
Reader Tina Howard writes:
For those who actually have a landline: an old-fashioned, non-electric telephone that plugs into the phone jack & has the handset attached to the phone. Easy to identify because there is no electric cord with it. Our phone lines worked after 2003′s Hurricane Claudette but the cordless phones wouldn’t. Very cheap at Salvation Army Thrift shops.
In the same vein, keep the necessary cords to plug a computer directly into the phone modem, because the wireless router is also electric. We were able to get online and check weather and news reports, as well as make posts to update others.
Good advice. Yeah, an old-fashioned landline phone that uses line power is good to have. Cellphone batteries die. Phone company line power is more reliable than utility power. Some multi-handset wireless phone setups or answering machines have a handset at the base that still works when the power is out. (Mine does). Most don’t. You can also hook the base into a big UPS — they don’t draw much power so they’ll work for days that way if you do. Ditto your cable/DSL modem and wireless router.
Reader J.R. Ott writes:
Three lengths of sturdy rope,5/8 climbing rope,inexpensive clothesline type,for bundling up stuff,para chute chord,All three are handy for bug out 50′ min and a few short hunks.Each bundle of rope has a snap knife taped to it (about a dollar each from the paint dept) . . . . Lastly if folks can afford it a Westie dog or a Shepard,good alarm and a Westie will shred an attacker as they are very possessive Terriers and if the dogs women folk are attacked you would not believe how damaging the dog can be.
Dogs are good to have around. More advice on low-cost preparation here, from a reader.
I should also note that while having extra stuff is handy — if the roads are blocked, and you don’t have enough food, there’s not much you can do — it’s also important to have skills. Most of the survival books are aimed at somebody lost in the woods, but, again, a low-budget approach means being able to deal with home-based small-scale disasters. This book, When Duct Tape Just Isn’t Enough, is a good focus. My own skillset is nothing to brag about: I can do basic plumbing, electrical, and carpentry stuff, but I don’t really like it because I’m a perfectionist, but not skilled enough to make it perfect very fast so I get frustrated. (Plus, I’ve usually got an article I should be writing, or something) However, it suffices for quick-and-dirty solutions to problems like clogged or burst pipes, etc. Being able to deal with that sort of thing is a big leg-up, and that’s the kind of thing this book addresses.
FINALLY: Good advice from reader Spencer Reiss: Keep some cash around. Preferably in relatively small denominations: “The universal solvent–gets anything else you need. and no power, no phone=no ATM, no credit cards. Post-Andrew desperate Miamians were driving halfway to Orlando to get some (and in some areas systems were down for up to two weeks). Much easier/smarter to keep $1000 stashed somewhere.”
Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 7:58 am
You can keep a case or two of self-heating MREs around. They last a long time, they aren’t bad, and they’re more portable than canned foods if you have to leave home, but they don’t need separate water to prepare them like freeze-dried foods.
You might invest in a water filter, which will let you turn iffy water into drinkable water.
You should stock first-aid supplies and extra needed medications, in case you can’t get prescriptions refilled.
You might want some sort of backup power, ranging from a big uninterruptible power supply (keeps laptops and internet going for a long time, recharges cellphones, etc.) to a generator. Generators take annoying degrees of maintenance; a UPS can back up your computer or modem/wireless router until needed for more. But they put out a lot less power than a generator, and won’t keep your freezer from thawing. But generators cross the line into “more serious” as opposed to “slightly serious” preparedness, which is what this post is about.
Some additional source of heat. If you have a gas fireplace, make sure you know how to start it without an electric igniter. If you have a woodburning fireplace or stove, make sure you have plenty of wood, and matches and kindling, etc. (Woodburning fireplaces aren’t much good for heat, really; stoves on the other hand put out a lot). A backup kerosene or propane heater is good, too. Propane is easier to store than kerosene, and there are some propane heaters that are supposed to be safe for indoor use — though I’d invest in a battery-powered carbon monoxide detector to go with any kind of backup indoor heat. Also, extra blankets. And wool socks! Maybe even a Snuggie or two. In case the power goes out in the summer, make sure you have screens on your windows so that you can open them without filling your house with bugs. A small battery-powered fan is nice, too — clip it on to the headboard of your bed and it’ll be easier to sleep on a sticky night. Keep plenty of batteries, too.
Backup lamps and lanterns. One nice thing I have are plug-in nightlights that turn on when the power goes off, so that stairs, etc., remain navigable. I have them at the top and bottom of stairs, and in parts of the house that would be really dark if the power went off. They double as flashlights. These look good, too.
A list of phone numbers for family, friends, neighbors, and various services — plumbers, doctors, etc. — that you won’t be able to look up on the Internet if the power’s out.
A shovel, a crowbar, a water shutoff tool that fits your hookup — make sure you know that it works, how to use it, and where your hookup is in advance — and other simple tools.
A couple of tarps. During the Great Water Incident of a couple of years ago, one of these saved my basement carpet when water started coming out of the ceiling. . . .
Duct tape, duct tape, duct tape. And extra plastic garbage bags. Very versatile.
Any other reader suggestions for things that don’t cost too much, but would take disaster-prep up a level from yesterday’s post?
UPDATE: Reader Thomas Leahy writes: “Don’t forget a little extra food for the pets.” Good point.
Reader Peter Gookins emails:
This goes a bit beyond “prep on the cheap,” but you asked…
Generators-most people get one that’s much bigger than they actually need. Back north, I needed a large 240 volt generator (Honda ES 6500) to power the well pump, fridge and freezer when power went out (“locked rotor current,” which is the technical name for the high amperage required to start an electric motor from rest, on a 1 HP deep well pump is a LOT higher than the 8-12 amps (which, at 240 volts, is 1/2 the amperage it would be at 120; figure starting draw on most motors will be about 4X-5X running current; the 6500 puts out 52 amps and at pump start you could tell it picker up a lot of load) it takes to run the pump, and don’t forget that some stuff – like most -but not all- deep well pumps – are 240 volt only); here in Florida I’m on county water. During the 2004 hurricanes I loaned the big one to a neighbor, and it wound up feeding three houses for refrigerators, fans and TVs. I ran off a portable 120 volt 3K watt portable Honda RV generator (EU 3000) just fine, which powered the fridge, fans, lights and and a window AC at night for sleeping. Since then I’ve picked up a 2K watt Honda to use as “an infinite extension cord” at the gun club – it’ll power ONE saw, or a couple of floodlights and a fan, run cordless drill battery chargers, etc, and it weights 47 lbs. so it’s portable. Turns out it will run my fridge, some lights and a fan OR my window AC and some lights, all on less gas than the 3K watt Honda used. The fuel tank is small, but the RV crowd has solutions for that, just Google “EU2000+fuel tank.” And, Honda sells kits (but it’s cheaper to make your own) that allow tying two EU2000s together to get 3200 watts at 120 volts (about 26 amps) steady output. RVers do it all the time.
Remember, the smaller the generator the less fuel it uses. You can get aftermarket propane conversion kits for the Hondas, which I’ve considered doing with the 6500 when I move back north next year, because even with wheels under it it’s not very portable. I haven’t considered doing it with the 3K or the 2000 because having to drag around a propane tank reduces the portability, but if one expected a semi-stationary use, a propane conversion kit and a couple of 70 lb propane tanks would be a good investment. If I were staying in Florida I’d convert from electric water heater to propane tankless, and replace the electric range with a dual-fuel range, and stick a 250 gallon propane tank in the back corner of the yard. All the propane dealers here brag about how their trucks are propane-powered and they never missed a delivery during the hurricanes.
Speaking of well pumps…there is a great advantage to replacing the small well tank ( about 3.5 gallon draw down – one flush with old style toilets, so your pump is starting up a lot) builders always put in because it’s cheap with multiple large tanks. Well-X-Trol makes one that has a 46 gallon draw down from full before the pump needs to start and refill it. I put in two back north; in daily use the pump starts fewer times and runs longer, which extends its life, and when the power went out I ran the pump on generator until the tanks were full, which gave us 92 gallons before we needed the pump again. With water saving shower heads and minimal flushing we could get through an entire day (BTW, with a little judicious circuit breaker adjusting, one can power only one of the heating elements in an electric water heater with one’s generator, preferably the bottom element; takes a little while, but in 30 minutes or so you have a tank full of hot water. Check what wattage the elements are and replace the bottom one with a 4500 watt or 3800 watt (assuming the original is a 5500 watt) to ease the load on the generator. During normal use you won’t notice the difference.
If I were building my house from scratch, I’d consider putting in an underground propane tank and running everything off propane instead of natural gas, with a propane-powered generator thrown into the mix. A couple of deliveries a year and you’re semi self-sufficient.
Reader Anthony Swenson writes with a low-budget point that’s more in the spirit I meant for this post:
One of the cheapest things you can do – it won’t cost you anything but a nice smell in your laundry – is to make sure you always buy plain, unscented, unflavored chlorine bleach.
“In an emergency, think of this (one gallon of Regular Clorox Bleach) as 3,800 gallons of drinking water.”
Yeah, bleach is good for sanitizing stuff, too. I keep extra around — but it’s harder and harder to find plain old Clorox bleach anymore amid all the scented, splash-resistant, etc. stuff on the shelf. Read the label carefully. . . .
UPDATE: Reader Henry Bowman writes:
Another item to consider if you have a hybrid vehicle: a large inverter. I read an article a couple of years ago about a fellow in Connecticut who ran many of his electric appliances in his house for three days off his Prius, with inverter. He claimed it cost him 5 gallons of fuel. Seems like an inexpensive backup, and one for which you don’t need to worry about starting often, as is the case with a portable generator.
My sister and brother-in-law, who live in the Houston vicinity, were without power for 13 days after Hurricane Ike. They have two Priuses: they could have used a couple of inverters.
A big inverter is a lot cheaper than a comparable generator, and probably safer, too. And you can use it to recharge your UPS. But the hybrid thing isn’t as easy as it sounds. The guy you mention modded his Prius, because the big honking battery that drives the electric motors doesn’t put out 12v DC, and the 12v power system that starts the motor in the Prius (or in my Highlander) is separate. So I’m not sure there’s any special benefit to having a hybrid unless it’s modified, but correct me if I’m missing something.
Speaking of cars, think about when you’re not at home. Reader Mike von Cannon writes:
A note about disaster kits: I work for the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office and starting the morning of Dec 26 our dispatch center was flooded with calls from tourists in rental cabins who were stranded and running out of food (it was even worse during the blizzard in 93, which also hit on a weekend), so even on vacation it would pay to buy extra in case we get more snow than you expect. many tourists who thought they’d be going home sunday were stranded til Wed or Thur.
Good advice. And you should travel with at least a bit of helpful stuff. I keep some emergency stuff in the back of the car — some food bars, water, a spare pair of shoes in case mine get nasty while changing a tire, etc., and assorted minor toiletries and hygiene products and, very important, a roll of toilet paper — which helps. (And if you can produce tampons in a pinch, you can be a hero to women everywhere.)
I use these food bars, because they stand up to the heat in the summer better and they’re not appetizing enough that people will snitch ‘em just for a quick snack, and these water packets because they don’t burst if they freeze. Most of this stuff never gets used, but being stuck by the side of the road for an extended period just once makes it worth having.
Also: Some survival blankets, some basic tools, and a Swiss Army knife or a Leatherman. (Make sure it’s one with a can opener/bottle opener). And a roll of duct tape! I keep all of this in a small pack that takes up very little room in the back; there’s one in Helen’s car, too.
Reader Gary Saffer writes:
A couple of things that I didn’t notice in your disaster preparedness posts.
Chemical light sticks. A friend of mine suggested these for general use. They’re cheap, they provide enough light to move around, and they save batteries for more light intensive tasks. And of course, you can get them at Amazon.
Consider that under most circumstances, it’s going to be 48-72 hours before rescue or relief shows up. If you are planning for much longer periods of being off the grid, consider moving to a rural area where you can build you entire house around being off the grid for long periods of time.
Firearms. You don’t mention them, but everyone should have a means of self defense. The veneer of civilization is thin at the best of times, it vaporizes in a real emergency. The predators will be out fairly quickly because their disaster plan is to use your prepared material to survive on. They don’t know specifically who you are, but they’ll keep looking until they find someone who has the stuff they want. Or a firearm they want no part of.
Yeah, light sticks are cool, even if Joe Biden thinks they’re drug paraphernalia. The gun issue is a whole separate post, but a gun (or several) is important disaster-prep, but that moves beyond the “easy steps” focus of this post. And the rural retreat approach goes way beyond it.
Reader Tina Howard writes:
For those who actually have a landline: an old-fashioned, non-electric telephone that plugs into the phone jack & has the handset attached to the phone. Easy to identify because there is no electric cord with it. Our phone lines worked after 2003′s Hurricane Claudette but the cordless phones wouldn’t. Very cheap at Salvation Army Thrift shops.
In the same vein, keep the necessary cords to plug a computer directly into the phone modem, because the wireless router is also electric. We were able to get online and check weather and news reports, as well as make posts to update others.
Good advice. Yeah, an old-fashioned landline phone that uses line power is good to have. Cellphone batteries die. Phone company line power is more reliable than utility power. Some multi-handset wireless phone setups or answering machines have a handset at the base that still works when the power is out. (Mine does). Most don’t. You can also hook the base into a big UPS — they don’t draw much power so they’ll work for days that way if you do. Ditto your cable/DSL modem and wireless router.
Reader J.R. Ott writes:
Three lengths of sturdy rope,5/8 climbing rope,inexpensive clothesline type,for bundling up stuff,para chute chord,All three are handy for bug out 50′ min and a few short hunks.Each bundle of rope has a snap knife taped to it (about a dollar each from the paint dept) . . . . Lastly if folks can afford it a Westie dog or a Shepard,good alarm and a Westie will shred an attacker as they are very possessive Terriers and if the dogs women folk are attacked you would not believe how damaging the dog can be.
Dogs are good to have around. More advice on low-cost preparation here, from a reader.
I should also note that while having extra stuff is handy — if the roads are blocked, and you don’t have enough food, there’s not much you can do — it’s also important to have skills. Most of the survival books are aimed at somebody lost in the woods, but, again, a low-budget approach means being able to deal with home-based small-scale disasters. This book, When Duct Tape Just Isn’t Enough, is a good focus. My own skillset is nothing to brag about: I can do basic plumbing, electrical, and carpentry stuff, but I don’t really like it because I’m a perfectionist, but not skilled enough to make it perfect very fast so I get frustrated. (Plus, I’ve usually got an article I should be writing, or something) However, it suffices for quick-and-dirty solutions to problems like clogged or burst pipes, etc. Being able to deal with that sort of thing is a big leg-up, and that’s the kind of thing this book addresses.
FINALLY: Good advice from reader Spencer Reiss: Keep some cash around. Preferably in relatively small denominations: “The universal solvent–gets anything else you need. and no power, no phone=no ATM, no credit cards. Post-Andrew desperate Miamians were driving halfway to Orlando to get some (and in some areas systems were down for up to two weeks). Much easier/smarter to keep $1000 stashed somewhere.”
Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 7:58 am
Rahm Emanuel seeks big new powers to quell protesters
12/14/11 3:09 p.m.
WLS Radio’s Bill Cameron Reports
CHICAGO (WLS) - Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants big new powers to help stage the NATO and G8 summits here in Chicago next May.
WLS Radio’s Bill Cameron reports from City Hall that the mayor is asking the aldermen to give him temporary authority to close all of the city’s parks, playgrounds and beaches at 11 p.m. during the NATO and G8 summits.
He also wants to add more security cameras, deputize more people to be police officers and dramatically raise fines on protesters who don’t obey the police. Also requested has the ability to give him more freedom to execute contracts for goods and services connected to the NATO and G8 summits.
“Guys, this is not a big deal. This is a one time event. We’re gonna do it in an organized fashion. Be able to hold this conference,” the Mayor told reporters.
But he said demonstrators will be able to enjoy their constitutional rights to protest.
Activists have already started planning protests during the gathering of some of the world's most powerful leaders. Tens of thousands of people may converge for the May meetings between members of NATO and the Group of Eight - France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, Russia and the United Kingdom and the U.S.
The meetings will include discussions about the future of coalition operations in Afghanistan.
Also Tuesday, the mayor apologized in advance for any disruption caused by the summits.
Then the mayor changed the subject, joking with reporters that he’s disappointed with us for not wishing him a happy anniversary today because it’s the one year anniversary of his daylong testimony at Chicago board of election hearings to keep him on the ballot for mayor.
© Content Copyright 2011 WLS Radio 890AM and WLSAM.com. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
WLS Radio’s Bill Cameron Reports
CHICAGO (WLS) - Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants big new powers to help stage the NATO and G8 summits here in Chicago next May.
WLS Radio’s Bill Cameron reports from City Hall that the mayor is asking the aldermen to give him temporary authority to close all of the city’s parks, playgrounds and beaches at 11 p.m. during the NATO and G8 summits.
He also wants to add more security cameras, deputize more people to be police officers and dramatically raise fines on protesters who don’t obey the police. Also requested has the ability to give him more freedom to execute contracts for goods and services connected to the NATO and G8 summits.
“Guys, this is not a big deal. This is a one time event. We’re gonna do it in an organized fashion. Be able to hold this conference,” the Mayor told reporters.
But he said demonstrators will be able to enjoy their constitutional rights to protest.
Activists have already started planning protests during the gathering of some of the world's most powerful leaders. Tens of thousands of people may converge for the May meetings between members of NATO and the Group of Eight - France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, Russia and the United Kingdom and the U.S.
The meetings will include discussions about the future of coalition operations in Afghanistan.
Also Tuesday, the mayor apologized in advance for any disruption caused by the summits.
Then the mayor changed the subject, joking with reporters that he’s disappointed with us for not wishing him a happy anniversary today because it’s the one year anniversary of his daylong testimony at Chicago board of election hearings to keep him on the ballot for mayor.
© Content Copyright 2011 WLS Radio 890AM and WLSAM.com. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Terrorist attack survivors outraged by White House guest
Iraqi’s ties to Iran a concern
By Ashish Kumar Sen
The Washington Times
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Survivors of a 1996 terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen are offended that an Iraqi official with ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was welcomed to the White House this week.
“Outrage at the visit to the White House really doesn’t describe what I feel,” said William M. Schooley, who survived the June 25, 1996, bombing of the Khobar Towers.
“I watched outstanding airmen die that night and witnessed horrific carnage. The survivors of Khobar Towers have been swept under the rug and now have received the greatest insult,” he added.
The Washington Times first reported Tuesday that Hadi Farhan al-Amiri, who serves as Iraq’s transportation minister, was part of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s delegation to the White House on Monday.
The FBI linked Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to the terrorist attack on the Khobar Towers. No Iranians were named in the indictment, and the Saudi Hezbollah was blamed for the blast.
The Revolutionary Guard also has supported Shiite militant groups that have attacked U.S. troops in Iraq, Western officials say.
Mr. Schooley was a staff sergeant in the Air Force when the Khobar Towers were bombed. He was in his room in a building behind the one that was blown up and immediately went to help.
“I cleared the path for the walking wounded to evacuate and then provided first aid to the wounded. Unfortunately, the airman I was working on did not survive. I don’t know how to put arms back on,” he said.
Mr. Schooley was medically retired from the Air Force for post-traumatic stress disorder and now lives in Albuquerque, N.M.
Another survivor of the attack, who was a senior airman at the time and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he feels betrayed that Mr. al-Amiri would be allowed into the White House.
“Given Hadi al-Amiri’s ties to terrorism and potential knowledge of those who committed the yet-unsolved FBI investigation into the brazen murder of 19 USAF airmen at Khobar Towers, his presence in the White House was nothing short of insulting to those who both lost family members and those who survived the horrific attack,” he said.
“It wouldn’t matter whether it was a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, it was just wrong.”
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Tuesday in a letter to President Obama that she had “grave concern” about the White House’s decision to host Mr. al-Amiri.
“Al-Amiri should have no part in a successful future in Iraq, and is unfit to receive a presidential audience,” Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen wrote.
Former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh this week said he was unaware of any evidence linking Mr. al-Amiri to the plot to attack the Khobar Towers. However, he said FBI agents would like to interview Mr. al-Amiri regarding what he knew of purported Iranian involvement in the plot.
As a commander of the Badr Corps, Mr. al-Amiri would have known Brig. Gen. Ahmad Sherifi, the Revolutionary Guard general who is suspected of conducting the attack, he added.
Mr. al-Amiri was commander of the Badr Corps, which was the armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
The Badr Corps was made up of thousands of defectors from the Iraqi army and refugees who fled Saddam Hussein’s regime. It received military and financial support from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
In 2003, the Badr Corps changed its name to the Badr Organization of Reconstruction and Development and pledged to disarm. Western officials and analysts are skeptical about whether the group kept its promise.
Mr. al-Amiri remained active in the Badr Corps during the late 1980s and 1990s, when he was working on resistance efforts against Saddam’s regime.
Eric Ziegler was an Air Force staff sergeant when he lived at the Khobar Towers in June 1996. All four of his roommates — Airman 1st Class Brent E. Marthaler, Technical Sgt. Patrick P. Fennig, Senior Airman Jeremy A. Taylor and Technical Sgt. Thanh V. Nguyen — were killed in the attack.
Mr. Ziegler, who has since retired, said he was appalled that the Iraqi prime minister would include Mr. al-Amiri in his delegation to Washington.
“To have someone like him here and then not be able to interrogate him is a slap in the face,” he said in a phone interview from Phoenix.
The attack took a heavy toll on Mr. Ziegler’s life. His marriage collapsed, and he drifted from one job to the next.
“It changed my life. I relive it every day, but I refuse to let the terrorists win,” he said.
By Ashish Kumar Sen
The Washington Times
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Survivors of a 1996 terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen are offended that an Iraqi official with ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was welcomed to the White House this week.
“Outrage at the visit to the White House really doesn’t describe what I feel,” said William M. Schooley, who survived the June 25, 1996, bombing of the Khobar Towers.
“I watched outstanding airmen die that night and witnessed horrific carnage. The survivors of Khobar Towers have been swept under the rug and now have received the greatest insult,” he added.
The Washington Times first reported Tuesday that Hadi Farhan al-Amiri, who serves as Iraq’s transportation minister, was part of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s delegation to the White House on Monday.
The FBI linked Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to the terrorist attack on the Khobar Towers. No Iranians were named in the indictment, and the Saudi Hezbollah was blamed for the blast.
The Revolutionary Guard also has supported Shiite militant groups that have attacked U.S. troops in Iraq, Western officials say.
Mr. Schooley was a staff sergeant in the Air Force when the Khobar Towers were bombed. He was in his room in a building behind the one that was blown up and immediately went to help.
“I cleared the path for the walking wounded to evacuate and then provided first aid to the wounded. Unfortunately, the airman I was working on did not survive. I don’t know how to put arms back on,” he said.
Mr. Schooley was medically retired from the Air Force for post-traumatic stress disorder and now lives in Albuquerque, N.M.
Another survivor of the attack, who was a senior airman at the time and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he feels betrayed that Mr. al-Amiri would be allowed into the White House.
“Given Hadi al-Amiri’s ties to terrorism and potential knowledge of those who committed the yet-unsolved FBI investigation into the brazen murder of 19 USAF airmen at Khobar Towers, his presence in the White House was nothing short of insulting to those who both lost family members and those who survived the horrific attack,” he said.
“It wouldn’t matter whether it was a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, it was just wrong.”
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Tuesday in a letter to President Obama that she had “grave concern” about the White House’s decision to host Mr. al-Amiri.
“Al-Amiri should have no part in a successful future in Iraq, and is unfit to receive a presidential audience,” Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen wrote.
Former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh this week said he was unaware of any evidence linking Mr. al-Amiri to the plot to attack the Khobar Towers. However, he said FBI agents would like to interview Mr. al-Amiri regarding what he knew of purported Iranian involvement in the plot.
As a commander of the Badr Corps, Mr. al-Amiri would have known Brig. Gen. Ahmad Sherifi, the Revolutionary Guard general who is suspected of conducting the attack, he added.
Mr. al-Amiri was commander of the Badr Corps, which was the armed wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
The Badr Corps was made up of thousands of defectors from the Iraqi army and refugees who fled Saddam Hussein’s regime. It received military and financial support from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
In 2003, the Badr Corps changed its name to the Badr Organization of Reconstruction and Development and pledged to disarm. Western officials and analysts are skeptical about whether the group kept its promise.
Mr. al-Amiri remained active in the Badr Corps during the late 1980s and 1990s, when he was working on resistance efforts against Saddam’s regime.
Eric Ziegler was an Air Force staff sergeant when he lived at the Khobar Towers in June 1996. All four of his roommates — Airman 1st Class Brent E. Marthaler, Technical Sgt. Patrick P. Fennig, Senior Airman Jeremy A. Taylor and Technical Sgt. Thanh V. Nguyen — were killed in the attack.
Mr. Ziegler, who has since retired, said he was appalled that the Iraqi prime minister would include Mr. al-Amiri in his delegation to Washington.
“To have someone like him here and then not be able to interrogate him is a slap in the face,” he said in a phone interview from Phoenix.
The attack took a heavy toll on Mr. Ziegler’s life. His marriage collapsed, and he drifted from one job to the next.
“It changed my life. I relive it every day, but I refuse to let the terrorists win,” he said.
Is there a spy inside the U.S. Air Force drone program?
Exclusive: Iran hijacked US drone, says Iranian engineer
In an exclusive interview, an engineer working to unlock the secrets of the captured RQ-170 Sentinel says they exploited a known vulnerability and tricked the US drone into landing in Iran.
By Scott Peterson, Staff writer, Payam Faramarzi*, Correspondent
December 15, 2011
Istanbul, Turkey
Iran guided the CIA's "lost" stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone's systems inside Iran.
Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.
Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.
"The GPS navigation is the weakest point," the Iranian engineer told the Monitor, giving the most detailed description yet published of Iran's "electronic ambush" of the highly classified US drone. "By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain."
The “spoofing” technique that the Iranians used – which took into account precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data – made the drone “land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications” from the US control center, says the engineer.
The revelations about Iran's apparent electronic prowess come as the US, Israel, and some European nations appear to be engaged in an ever-widening covert war with Iran, which has seen assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, explosions at Iran's missile and industrial facilities, and the Stuxnet computer virus that set back Iran’s nuclear program.
Now this engineer’s account of how Iran took over one of America’s most sophisticated drones suggests Tehran has found a way to hit back. The techniques were developed from reverse-engineering several less sophisticated American drones captured or shot down in recent years, the engineer says, and by taking advantage of weak, easily manipulated GPS signals, which calculate location and speed from multiple satellites.
Western military experts and a number of published papers on GPS spoofing indicate that the scenario described by the Iranian engineer is plausible.
"Even modern combat-grade GPS [is] very susceptible” to manipulation, says former US Navy electronic warfare specialist Robert Densmore, adding that it is “certainly possible” to recalibrate the GPS on a drone so that it flies on a different course. “I wouldn't say it's easy, but the technology is there.”
In 2009, Iran-backed Shiite militants in Iraq were found to have downloaded live, unencrypted video streams from American Predator drones with inexpensive, off-the-shelf software. But Iran’s apparent ability now to actually take control of a drone is far more significant.
Iran asserted its ability to do this in September, as pressure mounted over its nuclear program.
Gen. Moharam Gholizadeh, the deputy for electronic warfare at the air defense headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), described to Fars News how Iran could alter the path of a GPS-guided missile – a tactic more easily applied to a slower-moving drone.
“We have a project on hand that is one step ahead of jamming, meaning ‘deception’ of the aggressive systems,” said Gholizadeh, such that “we can define our own desired information for it so the path of the missile would change to our desired destination.”
Gholizadeh said that “all the movements of these [enemy drones]” were being watched, and “obstructing” their work was “always on our agenda.”
That interview has since been pulled from Fars’ Persian-language website. And last month, the relatively young Gholizadeh died of a heart attack, which some Iranian news sites called suspicious – suggesting the electronic warfare expert may have been a casualty in the covert war against Iran.
Iran's growing electronic capabilities
Iranian lawmakers say the drone capture is a "great epic" and claim to be "in the final steps of breaking into the aircraft's secret code."
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told Fox News on Dec. 13 that the US will "absolutely" continue the drone campaign over Iran, looking for evidence of any nuclear weapons work. But the stakes are higher for such surveillance, now that Iran can apparently disrupt the work of US drones.
US officials skeptical of Iran’s capabilities blame a malfunction, but so far can't explain how Iran acquired the drone intact. One American analyst ridiculed Iran’s capability, telling Defense News that the loss was “like dropping a Ferrari into an ox-cart technology culture.”
Yet Iran’s claims to the contrary resonate more in light of new details about how it brought down the drone – and other markers that signal growing electronic expertise.
A former senior Iranian official who asked not to be named said: "There are a lot of human resources in Iran.... Iran is not like Pakistan."
“Technologically, our distance from the Americans, the Zionists, and other advanced countries is not so far to make the downing of this plane seem like a dream for us … but it could be amazing for others,” deputy IRGC commander Gen. Hossein Salami said this week.
According to a European intelligence source, Iran shocked Western intelligence agencies in a previously unreported incident that took place sometime in the past two years, when it managed to “blind” a CIA spy satellite by “aiming a laser burst quite accurately.”
More recently, Iran was able to hack Google security certificates, says the engineer. In September, the Google accounts of 300,000 Iranians were made accessible by hackers. The targeted company said "circumstantial evidence" pointed to a "state-driven attack" coming from Iran, meant to snoop on users.
Cracking the protected GPS coordinates on the Sentinel drone was no more difficult, asserts the engineer.
US knew of GPS systems' vulnerability
Use of drones has become more risky as adversaries like Iran hone countermeasures. The US military has reportedly been aware of vulnerabilities with pirating unencrypted drone data streams since the Bosnia campaign in the mid-1990s.
Top US officials said in 2009 that they were working to encrypt all drone data streams in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan – after finding militant laptops loaded with days' worth of data in Iraq – and acknowledged that they were "subject to listening and exploitation."
Perhaps as easily exploited are the GPS navigational systems upon which so much of the modern military depends.
"GPS signals are weak and can be easily outpunched [overridden] by poorly controlled signals from television towers, devices such as laptops and MP3 players, or even mobile satellite services," Andrew Dempster, a professor from the University of New South Wales School of Surveying and Spatial Information Systems, told a March conference on GPS vulnerability in Australia.
"This is not only a significant hazard for military, industrial, and civilian transport and communication systems, but criminals have worked out how they can jam GPS," he says.
The US military has sought for years to fortify or find alternatives to the GPS system of satellites, which are used for both military and civilian purposes. In 2003, a “Vulnerability Assessment Team” at Los Alamos National Laboratory published research explaining how weak GPS signals were easily overwhelmed with a stronger local signal.
“A more pernicious attack involves feeding the GPS receiver fake GPS signals so that it believes it is located somewhere in space and time that it is not,” reads the Los Alamos report. “In a sophisticated spoofing attack, the adversary would send a false signal reporting the moving target’s true position and then gradually walk the target to a false position.”
The vulnerability remains unresolved, and a paper presented at a Chicago communications security conference in October laid out parameters for successful spoofing of both civilian and military GPS units to allow a "seamless takeover" of drones or other targets.
To “better cope with hostile electronic attacks,” the US Air Force in late September awarded two $47 million contracts to develop a "navigation warfare" system to replace GPS on aircraft and missiles, according to the Defense Update website.
Official US data on GPS describes "the ongoing GPS modernization program" for the Air Force, which "will enhance the jam resistance of the military GPS service, making it more robust."
Why the drone's underbelly was damaged
Iran's drone-watching project began in 2007, says the Iranian engineer, and then was stepped up and became public in 2009 – the same year that the RQ-170 was first deployed in Afghanistan with what were then state-of-the-art surveillance systems.
In January, Iran said it had shot down two conventional (nonstealth) drones, and in July, Iran showed Russian experts several US drones – including one that had been watching over the underground uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom.
In capturing the stealth drone this month at Kashmar, 140 miles inside northeast Iran, the Islamic Republic appears to have learned from two years of close observation.
Iran displayed the drone on state-run TV last week, with a dent in the left wing and the undercarriage and landing gear hidden by anti-American banners.
The Iranian engineer explains why: "If you look at the location where we made it land and the bird's home base, they both have [almost] the same altitude," says the Iranian engineer. "There was a problem [of a few meters] with the exact altitude so the bird's underbelly was damaged in landing; that's why it was covered in the broadcast footage."
Prior to the disappearance of the stealth drone earlier this month, Iran’s electronic warfare capabilities were largely unknown – and often dismissed.
"We all feel drunk [with happiness] now," says the Iranian engineer. "Have you ever had a new laptop? Imagine that excitement multiplied many-fold." When the Revolutionary Guard first recovered the drone, they were aware it might be rigged to self-destruct, but they "were so excited they could not stay away."
In an exclusive interview, an engineer working to unlock the secrets of the captured RQ-170 Sentinel says they exploited a known vulnerability and tricked the US drone into landing in Iran.
By Scott Peterson, Staff writer, Payam Faramarzi*, Correspondent
December 15, 2011
Istanbul, Turkey
Iran guided the CIA's "lost" stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone's systems inside Iran.
Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.
Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.
"The GPS navigation is the weakest point," the Iranian engineer told the Monitor, giving the most detailed description yet published of Iran's "electronic ambush" of the highly classified US drone. "By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain."
The “spoofing” technique that the Iranians used – which took into account precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data – made the drone “land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications” from the US control center, says the engineer.
The revelations about Iran's apparent electronic prowess come as the US, Israel, and some European nations appear to be engaged in an ever-widening covert war with Iran, which has seen assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, explosions at Iran's missile and industrial facilities, and the Stuxnet computer virus that set back Iran’s nuclear program.
Now this engineer’s account of how Iran took over one of America’s most sophisticated drones suggests Tehran has found a way to hit back. The techniques were developed from reverse-engineering several less sophisticated American drones captured or shot down in recent years, the engineer says, and by taking advantage of weak, easily manipulated GPS signals, which calculate location and speed from multiple satellites.
Western military experts and a number of published papers on GPS spoofing indicate that the scenario described by the Iranian engineer is plausible.
"Even modern combat-grade GPS [is] very susceptible” to manipulation, says former US Navy electronic warfare specialist Robert Densmore, adding that it is “certainly possible” to recalibrate the GPS on a drone so that it flies on a different course. “I wouldn't say it's easy, but the technology is there.”
In 2009, Iran-backed Shiite militants in Iraq were found to have downloaded live, unencrypted video streams from American Predator drones with inexpensive, off-the-shelf software. But Iran’s apparent ability now to actually take control of a drone is far more significant.
Iran asserted its ability to do this in September, as pressure mounted over its nuclear program.
Gen. Moharam Gholizadeh, the deputy for electronic warfare at the air defense headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), described to Fars News how Iran could alter the path of a GPS-guided missile – a tactic more easily applied to a slower-moving drone.
“We have a project on hand that is one step ahead of jamming, meaning ‘deception’ of the aggressive systems,” said Gholizadeh, such that “we can define our own desired information for it so the path of the missile would change to our desired destination.”
Gholizadeh said that “all the movements of these [enemy drones]” were being watched, and “obstructing” their work was “always on our agenda.”
That interview has since been pulled from Fars’ Persian-language website. And last month, the relatively young Gholizadeh died of a heart attack, which some Iranian news sites called suspicious – suggesting the electronic warfare expert may have been a casualty in the covert war against Iran.
Iran's growing electronic capabilities
Iranian lawmakers say the drone capture is a "great epic" and claim to be "in the final steps of breaking into the aircraft's secret code."
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told Fox News on Dec. 13 that the US will "absolutely" continue the drone campaign over Iran, looking for evidence of any nuclear weapons work. But the stakes are higher for such surveillance, now that Iran can apparently disrupt the work of US drones.
US officials skeptical of Iran’s capabilities blame a malfunction, but so far can't explain how Iran acquired the drone intact. One American analyst ridiculed Iran’s capability, telling Defense News that the loss was “like dropping a Ferrari into an ox-cart technology culture.”
Yet Iran’s claims to the contrary resonate more in light of new details about how it brought down the drone – and other markers that signal growing electronic expertise.
A former senior Iranian official who asked not to be named said: "There are a lot of human resources in Iran.... Iran is not like Pakistan."
“Technologically, our distance from the Americans, the Zionists, and other advanced countries is not so far to make the downing of this plane seem like a dream for us … but it could be amazing for others,” deputy IRGC commander Gen. Hossein Salami said this week.
According to a European intelligence source, Iran shocked Western intelligence agencies in a previously unreported incident that took place sometime in the past two years, when it managed to “blind” a CIA spy satellite by “aiming a laser burst quite accurately.”
More recently, Iran was able to hack Google security certificates, says the engineer. In September, the Google accounts of 300,000 Iranians were made accessible by hackers. The targeted company said "circumstantial evidence" pointed to a "state-driven attack" coming from Iran, meant to snoop on users.
Cracking the protected GPS coordinates on the Sentinel drone was no more difficult, asserts the engineer.
US knew of GPS systems' vulnerability
Use of drones has become more risky as adversaries like Iran hone countermeasures. The US military has reportedly been aware of vulnerabilities with pirating unencrypted drone data streams since the Bosnia campaign in the mid-1990s.
Top US officials said in 2009 that they were working to encrypt all drone data streams in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan – after finding militant laptops loaded with days' worth of data in Iraq – and acknowledged that they were "subject to listening and exploitation."
Perhaps as easily exploited are the GPS navigational systems upon which so much of the modern military depends.
"GPS signals are weak and can be easily outpunched [overridden] by poorly controlled signals from television towers, devices such as laptops and MP3 players, or even mobile satellite services," Andrew Dempster, a professor from the University of New South Wales School of Surveying and Spatial Information Systems, told a March conference on GPS vulnerability in Australia.
"This is not only a significant hazard for military, industrial, and civilian transport and communication systems, but criminals have worked out how they can jam GPS," he says.
The US military has sought for years to fortify or find alternatives to the GPS system of satellites, which are used for both military and civilian purposes. In 2003, a “Vulnerability Assessment Team” at Los Alamos National Laboratory published research explaining how weak GPS signals were easily overwhelmed with a stronger local signal.
“A more pernicious attack involves feeding the GPS receiver fake GPS signals so that it believes it is located somewhere in space and time that it is not,” reads the Los Alamos report. “In a sophisticated spoofing attack, the adversary would send a false signal reporting the moving target’s true position and then gradually walk the target to a false position.”
The vulnerability remains unresolved, and a paper presented at a Chicago communications security conference in October laid out parameters for successful spoofing of both civilian and military GPS units to allow a "seamless takeover" of drones or other targets.
To “better cope with hostile electronic attacks,” the US Air Force in late September awarded two $47 million contracts to develop a "navigation warfare" system to replace GPS on aircraft and missiles, according to the Defense Update website.
Official US data on GPS describes "the ongoing GPS modernization program" for the Air Force, which "will enhance the jam resistance of the military GPS service, making it more robust."
Why the drone's underbelly was damaged
Iran's drone-watching project began in 2007, says the Iranian engineer, and then was stepped up and became public in 2009 – the same year that the RQ-170 was first deployed in Afghanistan with what were then state-of-the-art surveillance systems.
In January, Iran said it had shot down two conventional (nonstealth) drones, and in July, Iran showed Russian experts several US drones – including one that had been watching over the underground uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom.
In capturing the stealth drone this month at Kashmar, 140 miles inside northeast Iran, the Islamic Republic appears to have learned from two years of close observation.
Iran displayed the drone on state-run TV last week, with a dent in the left wing and the undercarriage and landing gear hidden by anti-American banners.
The Iranian engineer explains why: "If you look at the location where we made it land and the bird's home base, they both have [almost] the same altitude," says the Iranian engineer. "There was a problem [of a few meters] with the exact altitude so the bird's underbelly was damaged in landing; that's why it was covered in the broadcast footage."
Prior to the disappearance of the stealth drone earlier this month, Iran’s electronic warfare capabilities were largely unknown – and often dismissed.
"We all feel drunk [with happiness] now," says the Iranian engineer. "Have you ever had a new laptop? Imagine that excitement multiplied many-fold." When the Revolutionary Guard first recovered the drone, they were aware it might be rigged to self-destruct, but they "were so excited they could not stay away."
Tea-party leader shocked by arrest on gun charges
Faces up to 15 years in prison, despite concealed-carry permit
Posted: December 15, 2011
By Chelsea Schilling © 2011 WND
Mark Meckler, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, one of the largest and most prominent tea-party groups, was arrested today at New York City's LaGuardia Airport on a gun charge – despite showing police his pistol permit and explaining that the weapon is registered in California.
"Mark Meckler, an attorney and national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, who holds a concealed-carry permit from the state of California, today was charged with a firearms violation at LaGuardia Airport in New York City," said Brian Stapleton, Meckler's lawyer, in a statement.
"While in temporary transit through the state of New York in possession of an unloaded, lawful firearm that was locked in a (Transportation Security Administration)-approved safe, he legally declared his possession of the firearm in his checked baggage at the ticket counter as required by law and in a manner approved by TSA and the airline, yet was arrested by port authority for said possession," Stapleton said.
According to the Associated Press, Queens prosecutors say Meckler was taken into custody at about 5:20 a.m. today after he attempted to check in for his Delta flight and presented a box containing a Glock 27 pistol and 19 cartridges of ammunition. Meckler told authorities he carries the gun for protection because he receives threats.
Meckler, 49, declared the weapon and is licensed to carry the gun in his home state of California.
However, the report notes that his California license is not valid in New York, which has strict rules on concealed weapon carry.
Meckler faces up to 15 years in prison on a charge of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, a Class C felony. He was released following arraignment, and his court date was set for Jan. 12.
"Before leaving home, passengers should acquaint themselves with the weapon laws of the jurisdiction that they are visiting and comply with any and all legal requirements if they choose to travel with a weapon," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, according to the New York Daily News. "Otherwise, they may find themselves being arrested and charged with a felony – as is what occurred in this case."
Posted: December 15, 2011
By Chelsea Schilling © 2011 WND
Mark Meckler, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, one of the largest and most prominent tea-party groups, was arrested today at New York City's LaGuardia Airport on a gun charge – despite showing police his pistol permit and explaining that the weapon is registered in California.
"Mark Meckler, an attorney and national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, who holds a concealed-carry permit from the state of California, today was charged with a firearms violation at LaGuardia Airport in New York City," said Brian Stapleton, Meckler's lawyer, in a statement.
"While in temporary transit through the state of New York in possession of an unloaded, lawful firearm that was locked in a (Transportation Security Administration)-approved safe, he legally declared his possession of the firearm in his checked baggage at the ticket counter as required by law and in a manner approved by TSA and the airline, yet was arrested by port authority for said possession," Stapleton said.
According to the Associated Press, Queens prosecutors say Meckler was taken into custody at about 5:20 a.m. today after he attempted to check in for his Delta flight and presented a box containing a Glock 27 pistol and 19 cartridges of ammunition. Meckler told authorities he carries the gun for protection because he receives threats.
Meckler, 49, declared the weapon and is licensed to carry the gun in his home state of California.
However, the report notes that his California license is not valid in New York, which has strict rules on concealed weapon carry.
Meckler faces up to 15 years in prison on a charge of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, a Class C felony. He was released following arraignment, and his court date was set for Jan. 12.
"Before leaving home, passengers should acquaint themselves with the weapon laws of the jurisdiction that they are visiting and comply with any and all legal requirements if they choose to travel with a weapon," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, according to the New York Daily News. "Otherwise, they may find themselves being arrested and charged with a felony – as is what occurred in this case."
Holder targets America's only sheriff to crack down on illegals
Feds rebuke immigration tactics of Arizona sheriff
By JACQUES BILLEAUD, Associated Press
PHOENIX (AP) — Sheriff Joe Arpaio's boundary-pushing foray into Arizona's immigration enforcement over the last six years met its most bruising criticism when the U.S. Justice Department said the lawman's office carried out a blatant pattern of discrimination against Latinos and held a "systematic disregard" for the Constitution.
Arpaio, defiant and caught by surprise by the report's release on Thursday, called the allegations a politically motivated attack by President Barack Obama's administration that will make Arizona unsafe by keeping illegal immigrants on the street.
The Obama administration "might as well erect their own pink neon sign at the Arizona-New Mexico border saying welcome illegals to your United States, my home is your home," he said.
The government found that Arpaio's office committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including unjust immigration patrols and jail policies that deprive prisoners of basic Constitutional rights. "We found discriminatory policing that was deeply rooted in the culture of the department, a culture that breeds a systematic disregard for basic constitutional protections," said Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division.
The report will be used by the Justice Department to seek major changes at Arpaio's office, such as new policies against discrimination and improvements of staff and officers. Arpaio faces a Jan. 4 deadline for saying whether he wants to work out an agreement to make the changes. If not, the federal government will sue him, possibly putting in jeopardy millions of dollars in federal funding for Maricopa County.
The fallout from the report was swift. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it is severing its ties with Arpaio, stripping his jail officers of their federal power to check whether inmates in county jails are in the county illegally.
Homeland Security officials also are restricting Arpaio's office from using a program that uses fingerprints collected in local jails to identify illegal immigrants.
Arpaio has long denied the racial profiling allegations, saying people are stopped if deputies have probable cause to believe they have committed crimes and that deputies later find many of them are illegal immigrants. He also said the decision by Homeland Security to sever ties will result in illegal immigrants being released from jail and large numbers.
The sheriff has built his reputation on jailing inmates in tents and dressing them in pink underwear, selling himself to voters as unceasingly tough on crime and pushing the bounds of how far local police can go to confront illegal immigration.
While widely popular among conservatives nationwide, Arpaio faces numerous problems at home that have him facing almost-daily calls to step down.
Apart from the civil rights probe, a federal grand jury also has been investigating Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009 and is specifically examining the investigative work of the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad. The squad launched investigations of officials, lawyers and judges who ran afoul of Arpaio, and the cases all collapsed.
Arpaio has also been under pressure from his opponents to resign in the last week after an Associated Press article brought new attention to his office's bungling of sex crime and molestation cases in a predominantly Hispanic Phoenix suburb. His office said more than 400 sex-crimes investigations had to be reopened after the department learned of cases that hadn't been investigated adequately or weren't examined at all.
Officials discovered at least 32 reported child molestations — with victims as young as 2 years old — where the sheriff's office failed to follow through, even though suspects were known in all but six cases. The cases were originally reported by The Arizona Republic and other local media and received national attention in the last week.
Thursday's report said federal authorities will continue to investigate whether the sex crimes are being properly looked at; complaints of deputies using excessive force against Latinos; and whether the sheriff's office failed to provide adequate police services in Hispanic communities.
The report took the sheriff's office to task for launching immigration patrols, known as "sweeps," based on complaints that Latinos were merely gathering near a business without committing crimes.
Federal authorities single out Arpaio himself and said his office has no clear policies to guard against the violations, even after he changed some of his top aides earlier this year.
The report also said he and some top staffers tried to silence people who have spoken out against the sheriff's office by arresting people without cause, filing meritless lawsuits against opponents and starting investigations of critics.
One example cited by the Justice Department is former top Arpaio aide David Hendershott, who filed bar complaints against attorneys critical of the agency along with bringing judicial complaints against judges who were at odds with the sheriff. All complaints were dismissed.
The anti-corruption squad's cases against two county officials and a judge collapsed in court before going to trial and have been criticized by politicians at odds with the sheriff as trumped-up. Arpaio has defended the investigations as a valid attempt at rooting out corruption in county government.
The civil rights report said Latinos are four to nine times more likely to be stopped in traffic stops in Maricopa County than non-Latinos and that the agency's immigration policies treat Latinos as if they are all in the country illegally. Deputies on the immigrant-smuggling squad stop and arrest Latino drivers without good cause, the investigation found.
A review done as part of the investigation found that 20 percent of traffic reports handled by Arpaio's immigrant-smuggling squad from March 2006 to March 2009 were stops — almost all involving Latino drivers — that were done without reasonable suspicion. The squad's stops rarely led to smuggling arrests.
Deputies are encouraged to make high-volume traffic stops in targeted locations. Latinos who were in the U.S. legally were arrested or detained without cause during the sweeps, according to the report.
During the sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city — in some cases, heavily Latino areas — over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders. Illegal immigrants accounted for 57 percent of the 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps conducted by his office since January 2008, according to figures provided by Arpaio's office.
Police supervisors, including at least one smuggling-squad supervisor, often used county accounts to send emails that demeaned Latinos to fellow sheriff's managers, deputies and volunteers in his posse. One such email had a photo of a mock driver's license for a fictional state called "Mexifornia."
Federal investigators focused heavily on the language barriers in Arpaio's jails.
Latino inmates with limited English skills were punished for failing to understand commands in English by being put in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day or keeping prisoners locked down in their jail pods for as long as 72 hours without a trip to the canteen area or making nonlegal phone calls.
The report said some jail officers used racial slurs for Latinos when talking among themselves and speaking to inmates.
Detention officers refused to accept forms requesting basic daily services and reporting mistreatment when the documents were completed in Spanish and pressured Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms that implicate their legal rights without language assistance.
The Justice Department said it hadn't yet established a pattern of alleged wrongdoing by the sheriff's office in the three areas where they will continue to investigation: complaints of excessive force against Latinos, botched sex-crimes cases and immigration efforts that have hurt the agency's trust with the Hispanic community.
Associated Press Writer Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
By JACQUES BILLEAUD, Associated Press
PHOENIX (AP) — Sheriff Joe Arpaio's boundary-pushing foray into Arizona's immigration enforcement over the last six years met its most bruising criticism when the U.S. Justice Department said the lawman's office carried out a blatant pattern of discrimination against Latinos and held a "systematic disregard" for the Constitution.
Arpaio, defiant and caught by surprise by the report's release on Thursday, called the allegations a politically motivated attack by President Barack Obama's administration that will make Arizona unsafe by keeping illegal immigrants on the street.
The Obama administration "might as well erect their own pink neon sign at the Arizona-New Mexico border saying welcome illegals to your United States, my home is your home," he said.
The government found that Arpaio's office committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including unjust immigration patrols and jail policies that deprive prisoners of basic Constitutional rights. "We found discriminatory policing that was deeply rooted in the culture of the department, a culture that breeds a systematic disregard for basic constitutional protections," said Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division.
The report will be used by the Justice Department to seek major changes at Arpaio's office, such as new policies against discrimination and improvements of staff and officers. Arpaio faces a Jan. 4 deadline for saying whether he wants to work out an agreement to make the changes. If not, the federal government will sue him, possibly putting in jeopardy millions of dollars in federal funding for Maricopa County.
The fallout from the report was swift. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it is severing its ties with Arpaio, stripping his jail officers of their federal power to check whether inmates in county jails are in the county illegally.
Homeland Security officials also are restricting Arpaio's office from using a program that uses fingerprints collected in local jails to identify illegal immigrants.
Arpaio has long denied the racial profiling allegations, saying people are stopped if deputies have probable cause to believe they have committed crimes and that deputies later find many of them are illegal immigrants. He also said the decision by Homeland Security to sever ties will result in illegal immigrants being released from jail and large numbers.
The sheriff has built his reputation on jailing inmates in tents and dressing them in pink underwear, selling himself to voters as unceasingly tough on crime and pushing the bounds of how far local police can go to confront illegal immigration.
While widely popular among conservatives nationwide, Arpaio faces numerous problems at home that have him facing almost-daily calls to step down.
Apart from the civil rights probe, a federal grand jury also has been investigating Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009 and is specifically examining the investigative work of the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad. The squad launched investigations of officials, lawyers and judges who ran afoul of Arpaio, and the cases all collapsed.
Arpaio has also been under pressure from his opponents to resign in the last week after an Associated Press article brought new attention to his office's bungling of sex crime and molestation cases in a predominantly Hispanic Phoenix suburb. His office said more than 400 sex-crimes investigations had to be reopened after the department learned of cases that hadn't been investigated adequately or weren't examined at all.
Officials discovered at least 32 reported child molestations — with victims as young as 2 years old — where the sheriff's office failed to follow through, even though suspects were known in all but six cases. The cases were originally reported by The Arizona Republic and other local media and received national attention in the last week.
Thursday's report said federal authorities will continue to investigate whether the sex crimes are being properly looked at; complaints of deputies using excessive force against Latinos; and whether the sheriff's office failed to provide adequate police services in Hispanic communities.
The report took the sheriff's office to task for launching immigration patrols, known as "sweeps," based on complaints that Latinos were merely gathering near a business without committing crimes.
Federal authorities single out Arpaio himself and said his office has no clear policies to guard against the violations, even after he changed some of his top aides earlier this year.
The report also said he and some top staffers tried to silence people who have spoken out against the sheriff's office by arresting people without cause, filing meritless lawsuits against opponents and starting investigations of critics.
One example cited by the Justice Department is former top Arpaio aide David Hendershott, who filed bar complaints against attorneys critical of the agency along with bringing judicial complaints against judges who were at odds with the sheriff. All complaints were dismissed.
The anti-corruption squad's cases against two county officials and a judge collapsed in court before going to trial and have been criticized by politicians at odds with the sheriff as trumped-up. Arpaio has defended the investigations as a valid attempt at rooting out corruption in county government.
The civil rights report said Latinos are four to nine times more likely to be stopped in traffic stops in Maricopa County than non-Latinos and that the agency's immigration policies treat Latinos as if they are all in the country illegally. Deputies on the immigrant-smuggling squad stop and arrest Latino drivers without good cause, the investigation found.
A review done as part of the investigation found that 20 percent of traffic reports handled by Arpaio's immigrant-smuggling squad from March 2006 to March 2009 were stops — almost all involving Latino drivers — that were done without reasonable suspicion. The squad's stops rarely led to smuggling arrests.
Deputies are encouraged to make high-volume traffic stops in targeted locations. Latinos who were in the U.S. legally were arrested or detained without cause during the sweeps, according to the report.
During the sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city — in some cases, heavily Latino areas — over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders. Illegal immigrants accounted for 57 percent of the 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps conducted by his office since January 2008, according to figures provided by Arpaio's office.
Police supervisors, including at least one smuggling-squad supervisor, often used county accounts to send emails that demeaned Latinos to fellow sheriff's managers, deputies and volunteers in his posse. One such email had a photo of a mock driver's license for a fictional state called "Mexifornia."
Federal investigators focused heavily on the language barriers in Arpaio's jails.
Latino inmates with limited English skills were punished for failing to understand commands in English by being put in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day or keeping prisoners locked down in their jail pods for as long as 72 hours without a trip to the canteen area or making nonlegal phone calls.
The report said some jail officers used racial slurs for Latinos when talking among themselves and speaking to inmates.
Detention officers refused to accept forms requesting basic daily services and reporting mistreatment when the documents were completed in Spanish and pressured Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms that implicate their legal rights without language assistance.
The Justice Department said it hadn't yet established a pattern of alleged wrongdoing by the sheriff's office in the three areas where they will continue to investigation: complaints of excessive force against Latinos, botched sex-crimes cases and immigration efforts that have hurt the agency's trust with the Hispanic community.
Associated Press Writer Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Dems turn viciously anti-Semitic
(And Jews still vote D?)
Posted at 01:14 PM ET, 12/13/2011
Simon Wiesenthal Center: Time to clean up the discourse
By Jennifer Rubin
Over the last week, Ben Smith, my colleague Greg Sargent and I have reported on the controversy concerning the Center for American Progress’s Think Progress bloggers and others in the left blogosphere who have deployed language that invokes anti-Semitic tropes of dual loyalty and who have peddled extreme anti-Israel views.
Perhaps in an effort to distract onlookers from the serious substance, CAP and its defenders have waged a war of words with Josh Block, a prominent Democratic activist who was quoted in Ben Smith’s original column and in subsequent reports. This episode is catnip for the left but ultimately, with all due respect to Block, this is a more substantive and bigger story than simply the dealings of one activist and a handful of bloggers whose rhetorical incontinence has come back to haunt them.
In response to my inquiry, Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center sent the following that puts this all in context:
Simon Wiesenthal Center Response to CAP and Media Matters “Israel Laster” Bloggers
The Middle East is a dangerous place — and not merely for people who live there.
Unfortunately, it’s becoming increasingly difficult in this country to take a position sympathetic to the Jewish state and in favor of the continuation of America’s historic strong alliance with Israel without being called “an Israel Firster” and charged with “dual loyalties.”
A case in point: recent attacks on the Simon Wiesenthal Center by the Center for American Progress (CAP)-associated bloggers on “the far-right Simon Wiesenthal Center, which purports to promote tolerance, [but] basically called Obama a Nazi” for saying that Israel should return to the pre-1967 borders (Ben Armbruster). CAP blogger Eli Clifton joined Media Matters Senior Foreign Policy Fellow MJ Rosenberg in using Twitter to promote an article accusing the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance of pushing “Western groupthink that has for centuries justified wars and countless atrocities against the Arab world . . . [that’s] representative of the way many Americans feel toward Muslims and Arabs — that they are all terrorists.” Rosenberg himself has repeatedly smeared Jewish groups such the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as “Israel Firsters.”
First, let’s admit to the terrible sins that we are indeed concerned about the future of Israel, about U.S. security interests in the Middle East, and about the threat posed to regional and even global peace by Iran’s nuclear program which, according to the International Atomic Energy Commission and other authorities, may be within six to nine months of putting an nuclear weapon in the hands of a regime committed to annihilating Israel.
When it comes to the charges of being “Israel Firsters” and having “dual loyalty,” we not only plead innocent but also counter-charge that these sponsored bloggers are guilty of dangerous political libels resonating with historic and toxic anti-Jewish prejudices.
These odious charges have been around since Henry Ford in 1920 said, “Wars are the Jews’ harvest,” Charles Lindbergh in 1940 condemned Jews for conspiring to plunge America into World War II, and “Jewish neocons” were charged with colluding with Israel to cause the 2003 Iraq War. Recently, University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer, co-author of The Israel Lobby and Foreign Policy, has descended to making the accusation that American Jews — unlike American Poles, Italians, Greeks, Turks, Chinese, Africans, etc., etc. — exercise a uniquely malevolent influence over American foreign policy. Now, he writes publicity blurbs for Gilad Atzmon’s genocidal broadside, The Wandering Who?, accusing the Jews of responsibility for bringing the Holocaust on themselves.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center since its founding in 1977 has always been a mainstream institution. It has never endorsed a political candidate or party in the United States, or anywhere else. It has adhered to the bipartisan consensus that the U.S. has a vital interest in maintaining an alliance with Israel, the Middle East’s only vibrant democracy and reliably pro-American nation. In the 1990s during the era of the Oslo Peace Accords, its senior officials attended the White House ceremony convened by President Clinton where then Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and Palestinian President Arafat shook hands. We had the honor to both visit King Hussein at his Royal Palace in Amman, and later host the late monarch at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. King Hussein was a proud, card-carrying member of our Museum of Tolerance, whose 5 million plus visitors learn about not only the Nazi Holocaust but also all manifestations of contemporary bigotry. Our respected Digital Terrorism and Hate Project, has for 14 years, chronicled the leveraging of Internet technologies by anti-Semites, terrorists, neo-Nazis and Islamophobes. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has repeatedly supported a two-state solution between Israel and a peaceful, democratic Palestinian state with borders to be determined by Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations — not imposed by outside parties.
Far from slandering Islam or demonizing moderate Muslims, we’ve seized every opportunity available for interfaith outreach by organizing and/or attending conferences and dialogues from Spain to Indonesia.
Eli Clifton, ThinkProgress’ National Security reporter, has also recently articulated the view that it is “factually inaccurate” to assume that “Iran has a nuclear weapons program”—and, in any case, that the danger posed by that program is exaggerated for political purposes. Is Clifton’s view in “the political mainstream” or is he guilty of being an “Iranian Firster” by virtue of a reflexive, automatic defenses of the mad mullahs’ regime? For his views do not jive with those of Iran’s Arab neighbors, including those articulated leaders in the Gulf with whom Simon Wiesenthal Center officials personally have met and who expressed their fear of the existential threat posed to them by the Iranian regime that stands quite apart from the threat posed to Israel.
Lastly, about President Obama, Ben Armbruster’s charge that we “basically called . . . [him] a Nazi” —is a low blow that should disqualify Armbruster from participating in future civil discourse. We don’t take partisan political positions, and have never leveled a personal criticism of the President who has an open invitation to visit our Museum of Tolerance, just as other high-ranking world leaders have. About calling him “a Nazi,” we condemned that odious label when it was applied to former President George W. Bush by extreme leftists, the same way we have condemned its application to President Obama by the rightist lunatic fringe.
The Center for American Progress ought to stick to fair-minded discussion of serious issues about the U.S’. future. It ought to disown immediately “Israel Laster” bloggers who take the low road and drag down policy debates into the gutter of individual and group defamation.
That says it all.
Posted at 01:14 PM ET, 12/13/2011
Simon Wiesenthal Center: Time to clean up the discourse
By Jennifer Rubin
Over the last week, Ben Smith, my colleague Greg Sargent and I have reported on the controversy concerning the Center for American Progress’s Think Progress bloggers and others in the left blogosphere who have deployed language that invokes anti-Semitic tropes of dual loyalty and who have peddled extreme anti-Israel views.
Perhaps in an effort to distract onlookers from the serious substance, CAP and its defenders have waged a war of words with Josh Block, a prominent Democratic activist who was quoted in Ben Smith’s original column and in subsequent reports. This episode is catnip for the left but ultimately, with all due respect to Block, this is a more substantive and bigger story than simply the dealings of one activist and a handful of bloggers whose rhetorical incontinence has come back to haunt them.
In response to my inquiry, Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center sent the following that puts this all in context:
Simon Wiesenthal Center Response to CAP and Media Matters “Israel Laster” Bloggers
The Middle East is a dangerous place — and not merely for people who live there.
Unfortunately, it’s becoming increasingly difficult in this country to take a position sympathetic to the Jewish state and in favor of the continuation of America’s historic strong alliance with Israel without being called “an Israel Firster” and charged with “dual loyalties.”
A case in point: recent attacks on the Simon Wiesenthal Center by the Center for American Progress (CAP)-associated bloggers on “the far-right Simon Wiesenthal Center, which purports to promote tolerance, [but] basically called Obama a Nazi” for saying that Israel should return to the pre-1967 borders (Ben Armbruster). CAP blogger Eli Clifton joined Media Matters Senior Foreign Policy Fellow MJ Rosenberg in using Twitter to promote an article accusing the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance of pushing “Western groupthink that has for centuries justified wars and countless atrocities against the Arab world . . . [that’s] representative of the way many Americans feel toward Muslims and Arabs — that they are all terrorists.” Rosenberg himself has repeatedly smeared Jewish groups such the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as “Israel Firsters.”
First, let’s admit to the terrible sins that we are indeed concerned about the future of Israel, about U.S. security interests in the Middle East, and about the threat posed to regional and even global peace by Iran’s nuclear program which, according to the International Atomic Energy Commission and other authorities, may be within six to nine months of putting an nuclear weapon in the hands of a regime committed to annihilating Israel.
When it comes to the charges of being “Israel Firsters” and having “dual loyalty,” we not only plead innocent but also counter-charge that these sponsored bloggers are guilty of dangerous political libels resonating with historic and toxic anti-Jewish prejudices.
These odious charges have been around since Henry Ford in 1920 said, “Wars are the Jews’ harvest,” Charles Lindbergh in 1940 condemned Jews for conspiring to plunge America into World War II, and “Jewish neocons” were charged with colluding with Israel to cause the 2003 Iraq War. Recently, University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer, co-author of The Israel Lobby and Foreign Policy, has descended to making the accusation that American Jews — unlike American Poles, Italians, Greeks, Turks, Chinese, Africans, etc., etc. — exercise a uniquely malevolent influence over American foreign policy. Now, he writes publicity blurbs for Gilad Atzmon’s genocidal broadside, The Wandering Who?, accusing the Jews of responsibility for bringing the Holocaust on themselves.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center since its founding in 1977 has always been a mainstream institution. It has never endorsed a political candidate or party in the United States, or anywhere else. It has adhered to the bipartisan consensus that the U.S. has a vital interest in maintaining an alliance with Israel, the Middle East’s only vibrant democracy and reliably pro-American nation. In the 1990s during the era of the Oslo Peace Accords, its senior officials attended the White House ceremony convened by President Clinton where then Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and Palestinian President Arafat shook hands. We had the honor to both visit King Hussein at his Royal Palace in Amman, and later host the late monarch at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. King Hussein was a proud, card-carrying member of our Museum of Tolerance, whose 5 million plus visitors learn about not only the Nazi Holocaust but also all manifestations of contemporary bigotry. Our respected Digital Terrorism and Hate Project, has for 14 years, chronicled the leveraging of Internet technologies by anti-Semites, terrorists, neo-Nazis and Islamophobes. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has repeatedly supported a two-state solution between Israel and a peaceful, democratic Palestinian state with borders to be determined by Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations — not imposed by outside parties.
Far from slandering Islam or demonizing moderate Muslims, we’ve seized every opportunity available for interfaith outreach by organizing and/or attending conferences and dialogues from Spain to Indonesia.
Eli Clifton, ThinkProgress’ National Security reporter, has also recently articulated the view that it is “factually inaccurate” to assume that “Iran has a nuclear weapons program”—and, in any case, that the danger posed by that program is exaggerated for political purposes. Is Clifton’s view in “the political mainstream” or is he guilty of being an “Iranian Firster” by virtue of a reflexive, automatic defenses of the mad mullahs’ regime? For his views do not jive with those of Iran’s Arab neighbors, including those articulated leaders in the Gulf with whom Simon Wiesenthal Center officials personally have met and who expressed their fear of the existential threat posed to them by the Iranian regime that stands quite apart from the threat posed to Israel.
Lastly, about President Obama, Ben Armbruster’s charge that we “basically called . . . [him] a Nazi” —is a low blow that should disqualify Armbruster from participating in future civil discourse. We don’t take partisan political positions, and have never leveled a personal criticism of the President who has an open invitation to visit our Museum of Tolerance, just as other high-ranking world leaders have. About calling him “a Nazi,” we condemned that odious label when it was applied to former President George W. Bush by extreme leftists, the same way we have condemned its application to President Obama by the rightist lunatic fringe.
The Center for American Progress ought to stick to fair-minded discussion of serious issues about the U.S’. future. It ought to disown immediately “Israel Laster” bloggers who take the low road and drag down policy debates into the gutter of individual and group defamation.
That says it all.
Obama's Watergate
Officials cover up culpability for gun smuggling and murder
By Jeffrey T. Kuhner
The Washington Times
Thursday, December 15, 2011
A year ago this week, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. He died protecting his country from brutal Mexican gangsters. Two AK-47 assault rifles were found at his death site. We now know the horrifying truth: Agent Terry was killed by weapons that were part of an illegal Obama administration operation to smuggle arms to the dangerous drug cartels. He was a victim of his own government. This is not only a major scandal; it is a high crime that potentially reaches all the way to the White House, implicating senior officials. It is President Obama’s Watergate.
Operation Fast and Furious was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and overseen by the Justice Department. It started under the leadership of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Fast and Furious enabled straw gun purchases from licensed dealers in Arizona, in which more than 2,000 weapons were smuggled to Mexican drug kingpins. ATF claims it was seeking to track the weapons as part of a larger crackdown on the growing violence in the Southwest. Instead, ATF effectively has armed murderous gangs. About 300 Mexicans have been killed by Fast and Furious weapons. More than 1,400 guns remain lost. Agent Terry likely will not be the last U.S. casualty.
Mr. Holder insists he was unaware of what took place until after media reports of the scandal appeared in early 2011. This is false. Such a vast operation only could have occurred with the full knowledge and consent of senior administration officials. Massive gun-running and smuggling is not carried out by low-level ATF bureaucrats unless there is authorization from the top. There is a systematic cover-up.
Congressional Republicans, however, are beginning to shed light on the scandal. Led by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Rep. Darrell Issa of California, a congressional probe is exposing the Justice Department’s rampant criminality and deliberate stonewalling. Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, who heads the department’s criminal division, helped craft a February letter to Congress that denied ATF had ever walked guns into Mexico. Yet, under pressure from congressional investigators, the department later admitted that Mr. Breuer knew about ATF gun-smuggling as far back as April 2010. In other words, Mr. Breuer has been misleading Congress. He should resign - or be fired.
Instead, Mr. Holder tenaciously insists that Mr. Breuer will keep his job. He needs to keep his friends close and potential witnesses even closer. Another example is former acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson. Internal documents show Mr. Melson directly oversaw Fast and Furious, including monitoring numerous straw purchases of AK-47s. He has admitted to congressional investigators that he, along with high-ranking ATF leaders, reassigned every “manager involved in Fast and Furious” after the scandal surfaced on Capitol Hill and in the press. Mr. Melson said he was ordered by senior Justice officials to be silent regarding the reassignments. Hence, ATF managers who possess intimate and damaging information - especially on the role of the Justice Department - essentially have been promoted to cushy bureaucratic jobs. Their silence has been bought, their complicity swept under the rug. Mr. Melson has been transferred to Justice’s main office, where he serves as a “senior adviser” on forensic science in the department’s Office of Legal Policy. Rather than being punished, Mr. Melson has been rewarded for his incompetence and criminal negligence.
Mr. Holder and his aides have given misleading, false and contradictory testimony on Capitol Hill. Perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power - these are high crimes and misdemeanors. Mr. Holder should be impeached. Like most liberals, he is playing the victim card, claiming Mr. Issa is a modern-day Joseph McCarthy conducting a judicial witch hunt. Regardless of this petty smear, Mr. Holder must be held responsible and accountable - not only for the botched operation, but for his flagrant attempts to deflect blame from the administration.
Mr. Holder is a shameless careerist and a ruthless Beltway operative. For years, his out-of-control Justice Department has violated the fundamental principle of our democracy, the rule of law. He has refused to prosecute members of the New Black Panthers for blatant voter intimidation that took place in the 2008 election. Career Justice lawyers have confessed publicly that Mr. Holder will not pursue cases in which the perpetrators are black and the victims white. States such as Arizona and Alabama are being sued for simply attempting to enforce federal immigration laws. Mr. Holder also opposes voter identification cards, thereby enabling fraud and vote-stealing at the ballot box. What else can we expect from one who, during the Clinton administration, helped pardon notorious tax cheat Marc Rich and Puerto Rican terrorists?
Mr. Holder clearly knew about Fast and Furious and did nothing to stop it. This is because the administration wanted to use the excuse of increased violence on the border and weapons-smuggling into Mexico to justify tighter gun-control legislation. Mr. Holder is fighting ferociously to prevent important internal Justice documents from falling into the hands of congressional investigators. If the full nature of his involvement is discovered, the Obama presidency will be in peril.
Fast and Furious is even worse than Watergate for one simple reason: No one died because of President Nixon’s political dirty tricks and abuse of government power. But Brian Terry is dead; and there are still 1,500 missing guns threatening still more lives.
What did Mr. Obama know? Massive gun-smuggling by the U.S. government into a foreign country does not happen without the explicit knowledge and approval of leading administration officials. It’s too big, too risky and too costly. Mr. Holder may not be protecting just himself and his cronies. Is he protecting the president?
By Jeffrey T. Kuhner
The Washington Times
Thursday, December 15, 2011
A year ago this week, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. He died protecting his country from brutal Mexican gangsters. Two AK-47 assault rifles were found at his death site. We now know the horrifying truth: Agent Terry was killed by weapons that were part of an illegal Obama administration operation to smuggle arms to the dangerous drug cartels. He was a victim of his own government. This is not only a major scandal; it is a high crime that potentially reaches all the way to the White House, implicating senior officials. It is President Obama’s Watergate.
Operation Fast and Furious was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and overseen by the Justice Department. It started under the leadership of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Fast and Furious enabled straw gun purchases from licensed dealers in Arizona, in which more than 2,000 weapons were smuggled to Mexican drug kingpins. ATF claims it was seeking to track the weapons as part of a larger crackdown on the growing violence in the Southwest. Instead, ATF effectively has armed murderous gangs. About 300 Mexicans have been killed by Fast and Furious weapons. More than 1,400 guns remain lost. Agent Terry likely will not be the last U.S. casualty.
Mr. Holder insists he was unaware of what took place until after media reports of the scandal appeared in early 2011. This is false. Such a vast operation only could have occurred with the full knowledge and consent of senior administration officials. Massive gun-running and smuggling is not carried out by low-level ATF bureaucrats unless there is authorization from the top. There is a systematic cover-up.
Congressional Republicans, however, are beginning to shed light on the scandal. Led by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Rep. Darrell Issa of California, a congressional probe is exposing the Justice Department’s rampant criminality and deliberate stonewalling. Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, who heads the department’s criminal division, helped craft a February letter to Congress that denied ATF had ever walked guns into Mexico. Yet, under pressure from congressional investigators, the department later admitted that Mr. Breuer knew about ATF gun-smuggling as far back as April 2010. In other words, Mr. Breuer has been misleading Congress. He should resign - or be fired.
Instead, Mr. Holder tenaciously insists that Mr. Breuer will keep his job. He needs to keep his friends close and potential witnesses even closer. Another example is former acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson. Internal documents show Mr. Melson directly oversaw Fast and Furious, including monitoring numerous straw purchases of AK-47s. He has admitted to congressional investigators that he, along with high-ranking ATF leaders, reassigned every “manager involved in Fast and Furious” after the scandal surfaced on Capitol Hill and in the press. Mr. Melson said he was ordered by senior Justice officials to be silent regarding the reassignments. Hence, ATF managers who possess intimate and damaging information - especially on the role of the Justice Department - essentially have been promoted to cushy bureaucratic jobs. Their silence has been bought, their complicity swept under the rug. Mr. Melson has been transferred to Justice’s main office, where he serves as a “senior adviser” on forensic science in the department’s Office of Legal Policy. Rather than being punished, Mr. Melson has been rewarded for his incompetence and criminal negligence.
Mr. Holder and his aides have given misleading, false and contradictory testimony on Capitol Hill. Perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power - these are high crimes and misdemeanors. Mr. Holder should be impeached. Like most liberals, he is playing the victim card, claiming Mr. Issa is a modern-day Joseph McCarthy conducting a judicial witch hunt. Regardless of this petty smear, Mr. Holder must be held responsible and accountable - not only for the botched operation, but for his flagrant attempts to deflect blame from the administration.
Mr. Holder is a shameless careerist and a ruthless Beltway operative. For years, his out-of-control Justice Department has violated the fundamental principle of our democracy, the rule of law. He has refused to prosecute members of the New Black Panthers for blatant voter intimidation that took place in the 2008 election. Career Justice lawyers have confessed publicly that Mr. Holder will not pursue cases in which the perpetrators are black and the victims white. States such as Arizona and Alabama are being sued for simply attempting to enforce federal immigration laws. Mr. Holder also opposes voter identification cards, thereby enabling fraud and vote-stealing at the ballot box. What else can we expect from one who, during the Clinton administration, helped pardon notorious tax cheat Marc Rich and Puerto Rican terrorists?
Mr. Holder clearly knew about Fast and Furious and did nothing to stop it. This is because the administration wanted to use the excuse of increased violence on the border and weapons-smuggling into Mexico to justify tighter gun-control legislation. Mr. Holder is fighting ferociously to prevent important internal Justice documents from falling into the hands of congressional investigators. If the full nature of his involvement is discovered, the Obama presidency will be in peril.
Fast and Furious is even worse than Watergate for one simple reason: No one died because of President Nixon’s political dirty tricks and abuse of government power. But Brian Terry is dead; and there are still 1,500 missing guns threatening still more lives.
What did Mr. Obama know? Massive gun-smuggling by the U.S. government into a foreign country does not happen without the explicit knowledge and approval of leading administration officials. It’s too big, too risky and too costly. Mr. Holder may not be protecting just himself and his cronies. Is he protecting the president?
Internet architects oppose US online piracy bills
Dec 15 03:24 PM US/Eastern
A group of prominent architects of the Internet added their voices Thursday to those opposing legislation in the US Congress intended to crack down on online piracy.
In an open letter to Congress, more than 80 engineers, inventors and software developers expressed concerns about the bills introduced in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Their letter came a day after the founders of Google, Twitter, Yahoo! and other Internet giants voiced opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act being considered in the House and the Senate version known as the Protect IP Act.
The legislation has received the backing of Hollywood, the music industry, the Business Software Alliance, the National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce and other groups.
But it has come under fire from digital rights and free speech organizations for allegedly paving the way for US authorities to shut down websites accused of online piracy, including foreign sites, without due process.
"If enacted, either of these bills will create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation, and seriously harm the credibility of the United States in its role as a steward of key Internet infrastructure," the Internet architects said in their letter.
"Both bills will risk fragmenting the Internet's global domain name system and have other capricious technical consequences," they said, such as promoting censorship.
"All censorship schemes impact speech beyond the category they were intended to restrict, but these bills are particularly egregious in that regard because they cause entire domains to vanish from the Web, not just infringing pages or files," they said.
"An incredible range of useful, law-abiding sites can be blacklisted under these proposals."
The signatories, who included Vint Cerf, considered one of the "Fathers of the Internet," said censorship of Internet infrastructure "will inevitably cause network errors and security problems.
"This is true in China, Iran and other countries that censor the network today; it will be just as true of American censorship," they said.
"If the US begins to use its central position in the network for censorship that advances its political and economic agenda, the consequences will be far-reaching and destructive."
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
A group of prominent architects of the Internet added their voices Thursday to those opposing legislation in the US Congress intended to crack down on online piracy.
In an open letter to Congress, more than 80 engineers, inventors and software developers expressed concerns about the bills introduced in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Their letter came a day after the founders of Google, Twitter, Yahoo! and other Internet giants voiced opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act being considered in the House and the Senate version known as the Protect IP Act.
The legislation has received the backing of Hollywood, the music industry, the Business Software Alliance, the National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce and other groups.
But it has come under fire from digital rights and free speech organizations for allegedly paving the way for US authorities to shut down websites accused of online piracy, including foreign sites, without due process.
"If enacted, either of these bills will create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation, and seriously harm the credibility of the United States in its role as a steward of key Internet infrastructure," the Internet architects said in their letter.
"Both bills will risk fragmenting the Internet's global domain name system and have other capricious technical consequences," they said, such as promoting censorship.
"All censorship schemes impact speech beyond the category they were intended to restrict, but these bills are particularly egregious in that regard because they cause entire domains to vanish from the Web, not just infringing pages or files," they said.
"An incredible range of useful, law-abiding sites can be blacklisted under these proposals."
The signatories, who included Vint Cerf, considered one of the "Fathers of the Internet," said censorship of Internet infrastructure "will inevitably cause network errors and security problems.
"This is true in China, Iran and other countries that censor the network today; it will be just as true of American censorship," they said.
"If the US begins to use its central position in the network for censorship that advances its political and economic agenda, the consequences will be far-reaching and destructive."
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
State hopes to break car owners' habit of changing oil too often
California launches a campaign against the widespread notion that oil changes are needed every 3,000 miles. Officials say the practice wastes millions of gallons of oil a year.
By Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times
December 15, 2011
Many automobile owners are spending more than they need on motor oil, believing that it should be changed every 3,000 miles even though almost no manufacturer requires such an aggressive oil-change schedule.
The long-held notion that the oil should be changed every 3,000 miles is so prevalent that California officials have launched a campaign to stop drivers from wasting millions of gallons of oil annually because they have their vehicles serviced too often.
"Our survey data found that nearly half of California drivers are still changing their oil at 3,000 miles or even sooner," said Mark Oldfield, a spokesman for the California Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery, which has launched the Check Your Number campaign to encourage drivers to go with the manufacturer's recommendations.
Improvement in oils, friction proofing and car engines have lengthened the oil-change interval, typically 7,500 miles to 10,000 miles for most vehicles.
Changing motor oil according to manufacturer specifications would reduce motor-oil demand in California by about 10 million gallons a year, the agency said. The state has created a website, checkyournumber.org, where drivers can look up the suggested motor-oil change interval number for their vehicles.
The agency and other groups said slashing motor-oil consumption would be good for the environment and won't hurt the longevity or reliability of autos.
"Drivers have a number of ways to reduce the environmental impact of their vehicles, which can also save them money," said Don Anair, senior engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Besides following the manufacturers recommendations for oil changes, drivers can reduce oil consumption by keeping their tires properly inflated and by avoiding idling their engines, Anair said.
"The 3,000-mile oil change just says that the marketing campaign by quick-lube companies has been effective," said Steve Mazor, manager of the Auto Club of Southern California's Automotive Research Center. It made sense years ago, when "we had cast-iron block engines with cast-iron pistons that would expand when they got hot and older lubricants," Mazor said.
Nationally 51% of vehicle owners said they believe oil should be changed every 3,000 miles or three months, according to an August survey by market research firm NPD Group. And just 33% wait more than 4,000 miles between oil changes, NPD said.
Drivers should be confident in the oil service advice offered by automakers, Mazor said.
Vehicle warranties, especially for power trains, have grown longer in recent years, he noted, and automakers would not give advice that could hurt engines and increase their warranty expenses.
Ford Motor Co. recommends oil changes for most of its new vehicles at 10,000 miles, although some still require the service at 7,500 miles.
"Our new generation of engines have tighter internal tolerances, which reduces the amount of carbon and other products from combustion that gets into the oil," said Richard Truett, a Ford spokesman.
The latest engines also run at more optimum temperatures, which diminishes the degradation of oil.
Honda Motor Co. and its luxury marque, Acura, no longer have a set interval for motor-oil changes.
Both Honda and Acura vehicles are equipped with a maintenance minder system that recommends oil changes and other services based on a number of vehicle-usage factors, including mileage and climate. Other manufacturers have similar systems that alert drivers to the need for an oil change.
"The idea is to prevent either over- or under-maintaining a car by following a set schedule," said Chris Martin, a Honda spokesman. "Now, there is no guesswork."
Typically, the indicator for an oil change lights up every 5,000 to 10,000 miles in Honda and Acura vehicles.
Owners of late-model BMWs can go as many as 15,000 miles between oil changes, depending on driving conditions. BMWs also have sensors alerting drivers to the need to change motor oil based on conditions like driving in stop-and-go traffic, making short trips and prolonged idling.
Despite these improvements, many drivers insist on changing the oil often even if it isn't recommended.
This has prompted some new car dealers to ask customers who come in for an oil change when it's not recommended to sign a document stating that they understand that the maintenance guidelines for their auto don't require a change at that time. The dealers are worried that someone might later accuse them of selling unnecessary maintenance services.
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
By Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times
December 15, 2011
Many automobile owners are spending more than they need on motor oil, believing that it should be changed every 3,000 miles even though almost no manufacturer requires such an aggressive oil-change schedule.
The long-held notion that the oil should be changed every 3,000 miles is so prevalent that California officials have launched a campaign to stop drivers from wasting millions of gallons of oil annually because they have their vehicles serviced too often.
"Our survey data found that nearly half of California drivers are still changing their oil at 3,000 miles or even sooner," said Mark Oldfield, a spokesman for the California Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery, which has launched the Check Your Number campaign to encourage drivers to go with the manufacturer's recommendations.
Improvement in oils, friction proofing and car engines have lengthened the oil-change interval, typically 7,500 miles to 10,000 miles for most vehicles.
Changing motor oil according to manufacturer specifications would reduce motor-oil demand in California by about 10 million gallons a year, the agency said. The state has created a website, checkyournumber.org, where drivers can look up the suggested motor-oil change interval number for their vehicles.
The agency and other groups said slashing motor-oil consumption would be good for the environment and won't hurt the longevity or reliability of autos.
"Drivers have a number of ways to reduce the environmental impact of their vehicles, which can also save them money," said Don Anair, senior engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Besides following the manufacturers recommendations for oil changes, drivers can reduce oil consumption by keeping their tires properly inflated and by avoiding idling their engines, Anair said.
"The 3,000-mile oil change just says that the marketing campaign by quick-lube companies has been effective," said Steve Mazor, manager of the Auto Club of Southern California's Automotive Research Center. It made sense years ago, when "we had cast-iron block engines with cast-iron pistons that would expand when they got hot and older lubricants," Mazor said.
Nationally 51% of vehicle owners said they believe oil should be changed every 3,000 miles or three months, according to an August survey by market research firm NPD Group. And just 33% wait more than 4,000 miles between oil changes, NPD said.
Drivers should be confident in the oil service advice offered by automakers, Mazor said.
Vehicle warranties, especially for power trains, have grown longer in recent years, he noted, and automakers would not give advice that could hurt engines and increase their warranty expenses.
Ford Motor Co. recommends oil changes for most of its new vehicles at 10,000 miles, although some still require the service at 7,500 miles.
"Our new generation of engines have tighter internal tolerances, which reduces the amount of carbon and other products from combustion that gets into the oil," said Richard Truett, a Ford spokesman.
The latest engines also run at more optimum temperatures, which diminishes the degradation of oil.
Honda Motor Co. and its luxury marque, Acura, no longer have a set interval for motor-oil changes.
Both Honda and Acura vehicles are equipped with a maintenance minder system that recommends oil changes and other services based on a number of vehicle-usage factors, including mileage and climate. Other manufacturers have similar systems that alert drivers to the need for an oil change.
"The idea is to prevent either over- or under-maintaining a car by following a set schedule," said Chris Martin, a Honda spokesman. "Now, there is no guesswork."
Typically, the indicator for an oil change lights up every 5,000 to 10,000 miles in Honda and Acura vehicles.
Owners of late-model BMWs can go as many as 15,000 miles between oil changes, depending on driving conditions. BMWs also have sensors alerting drivers to the need to change motor oil based on conditions like driving in stop-and-go traffic, making short trips and prolonged idling.
Despite these improvements, many drivers insist on changing the oil often even if it isn't recommended.
This has prompted some new car dealers to ask customers who come in for an oil change when it's not recommended to sign a document stating that they understand that the maintenance guidelines for their auto don't require a change at that time. The dealers are worried that someone might later accuse them of selling unnecessary maintenance services.
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
High school athletes suspended for Tebowing
Updated: December 15, 2011, 11:32 PM ET
By Christopher Hunt
Special to ESPNNewYork.com
No running in the halls -- and no Tebowing either.
That's what one Long Island administration said Wednesday when it suspended a group of high school athletes for replicating Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow's popular pose in the hallway at school.
Tebow
Jordan Fulcoly, Wayne Drexel and brothers Tyler and Connor Carroll of Riverhead High School were all handed a one-day suspension Wednesday, after three days of taking a knee with their foreheads resting on their fists, the same way Tebow does in the end zone and on the sidelines. The news was first reported by Yahoo! Prep Rally earlier Thursday.
Riverhead superintendent Nancy Carney said that two of the students' suspensions were later rescinded, citing that administrators found that those students were not given the same warnings that the other two were.
Tebow has made headlines for the move, a display of his devotion to his Christian faith. The students were not suspended for bringing religion into the school, but instead for clogging the hallway.
Carney said that she supported the administration's efforts to maintain a safe environment and was surprised that the incident has received this much attention. Since the news broke, Carney said she has been receiving hate mail from people charging that the suspension is due to religious prejudice.
"It's very unsettling," she told ESPNNewYork.com on Thursday. "It's a shame that people out there are so ready to judge when they weren't there to see what happened."
Reports said that the students had been Tebowing all week, starting Monday. It was meant to be a joke, only paying homage to one of pro football's newest stars. But other students started joining in and administrators claimed it had become a disturbance. District officials reportedly told the students that the celebration was making it unsafe for students walking the hall in between classes.
The incident saw about 40 students engaging in the popular Tebowing. Only the four students, all athletes, were suspended. Caroll told Prep Rally that the administration told them "that our Tebowing was blocking the halls and could potentially cause a riot, because they were growing in number and if the wrong kid gets pushed a brawl could ensue."
Carney said students have three minutes to reach their next class.
"It's just high school kids being kids and administrators doing what they do on a daily basis -- keeping kids safe," Carney said, "and with today's world and cell phones and people taking pictures and video, it can be taken out of context."
Tyler and Connor Carroll are on the football team along with Drexel.
By Christopher Hunt
Special to ESPNNewYork.com
No running in the halls -- and no Tebowing either.
That's what one Long Island administration said Wednesday when it suspended a group of high school athletes for replicating Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow's popular pose in the hallway at school.
Tebow
Jordan Fulcoly, Wayne Drexel and brothers Tyler and Connor Carroll of Riverhead High School were all handed a one-day suspension Wednesday, after three days of taking a knee with their foreheads resting on their fists, the same way Tebow does in the end zone and on the sidelines. The news was first reported by Yahoo! Prep Rally earlier Thursday.
Riverhead superintendent Nancy Carney said that two of the students' suspensions were later rescinded, citing that administrators found that those students were not given the same warnings that the other two were.
Tebow has made headlines for the move, a display of his devotion to his Christian faith. The students were not suspended for bringing religion into the school, but instead for clogging the hallway.
Carney said that she supported the administration's efforts to maintain a safe environment and was surprised that the incident has received this much attention. Since the news broke, Carney said she has been receiving hate mail from people charging that the suspension is due to religious prejudice.
"It's very unsettling," she told ESPNNewYork.com on Thursday. "It's a shame that people out there are so ready to judge when they weren't there to see what happened."
Reports said that the students had been Tebowing all week, starting Monday. It was meant to be a joke, only paying homage to one of pro football's newest stars. But other students started joining in and administrators claimed it had become a disturbance. District officials reportedly told the students that the celebration was making it unsafe for students walking the hall in between classes.
The incident saw about 40 students engaging in the popular Tebowing. Only the four students, all athletes, were suspended. Caroll told Prep Rally that the administration told them "that our Tebowing was blocking the halls and could potentially cause a riot, because they were growing in number and if the wrong kid gets pushed a brawl could ensue."
Carney said students have three minutes to reach their next class.
"It's just high school kids being kids and administrators doing what they do on a daily basis -- keeping kids safe," Carney said, "and with today's world and cell phones and people taking pictures and video, it can be taken out of context."
Tyler and Connor Carroll are on the football team along with Drexel.
School District Bans Christmas Cookies, Cake, Candy, Soda
Westford Students Told To Leave The Christmas Cookies At Home
December 15, 2011 4:58 PM
WESTFORD (CBS) – Westford school officials are getting tough on classroom holiday parties.
They’re banning sugary snacks and sweetened beverages from the celebrations this year.
Students are being told to leave the Christmas cookies, cakes, candy bars, and soda at home and to bring fruits, unsweetened juices, popcorn and raisins instead.
Superintendent Everett Olsen says the ban on holiday sweets has nothing to do with being politically correct, rather, his motive is simply promoting a healthy lifestyle.
“We aren’t trying to take the Christmas out of Christmas. We’re not trying to take the enjoyment out of children’s lives. We’re just trying to act responsible,” he told WBZ NewsRadio 1030’s Mike Macklin.
The school’s goal is to avoid the types of sweets that pile on empty calories and contribute to childhood obesity.
School officials say they’re also hoping to protect the growing number of children with severe food allergies.
The new policy comes as schools across Massachusetts get set to implement stricter state-mandated food policies aimed at reducing child obesity.
December 15, 2011 4:58 PM
WESTFORD (CBS) – Westford school officials are getting tough on classroom holiday parties.
They’re banning sugary snacks and sweetened beverages from the celebrations this year.
Students are being told to leave the Christmas cookies, cakes, candy bars, and soda at home and to bring fruits, unsweetened juices, popcorn and raisins instead.
Superintendent Everett Olsen says the ban on holiday sweets has nothing to do with being politically correct, rather, his motive is simply promoting a healthy lifestyle.
“We aren’t trying to take the Christmas out of Christmas. We’re not trying to take the enjoyment out of children’s lives. We’re just trying to act responsible,” he told WBZ NewsRadio 1030’s Mike Macklin.
The school’s goal is to avoid the types of sweets that pile on empty calories and contribute to childhood obesity.
School officials say they’re also hoping to protect the growing number of children with severe food allergies.
The new policy comes as schools across Massachusetts get set to implement stricter state-mandated food policies aimed at reducing child obesity.
COMING SOON: AMERICANS IN GITMO
Military given go-ahead to detain US terrorist suspects without trial
Civil rights groups dismayed as Barack Obama abandons commitment to veto new security law contained in defence bill
Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 December 2011
Americans can be arrested on home soil and taken to Guantánamo Bay under a provision inserted into the bill that funds the US military. Photograph: John Moore/Getty
Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay.
Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual rights for the duration of "a war that appears to have no end".
The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military, effectively extends the battlefield in the "war on terror" to the US and applies the established principle that combatants in any war are subject to military detention.
The legislation's supporters in Congress say it simply codifies existing practice, such as the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. But the law's critics describe it as a draconian piece of legislation that extends the reach of detention without trial to include US citizens arrested in their own country.
"It's something so radical that it would have been considered crazy had it been pushed by the Bush administration," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. "It establishes precisely the kind of system that the United States has consistently urged other countries not to adopt. At a time when the United States is urging Egypt, for example, to scrap its emergency law and military courts, this is not consistent."
There was heated debate in both houses of Congress on the legislation, requiring that suspects with links to Islamist foreign terrorist organisations arrested in the US, who were previously held by the FBI or other civilian law enforcement agencies, now be handed to the military and held indefinitely without trial.
The law applies to anyone "who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaida, the Taliban or associated forces".
Senator Lindsey Graham said the extraordinary measures were necessary because terrorism suspects were wholly different to regular criminals.
"We're facing an enemy, not a common criminal organisation, who will do anything and everything possible to destroy our way of life," he said. "When you join al-Qaida you haven't joined the mafia, you haven't joined a gang. You've joined people who are bent on our destruction and who are a military threat."
Graham added that it was right that Americans should be subject to the detention law as well as foreigners. "It is not unfair to make an American citizen account for the fact that they decided to help Al Qaeda to kill us all and hold them as long as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next," he said. "And when they say, 'I want my lawyer,' you tell them, 'Shut up. You don't get a lawyer.'"
Other senators supported the new powers on the grounds that al-Qaida was fighting a war inside the US and that its followers should be treated as combatants, not civilians with constitutional protections.
But another conservative senator, Rand Paul, a strong libertarian, has said "detaining citizens without a court trial is not American " and that if the law passes "the terrorists have won".
"We're talking about American citizens who can be taken from the United States and sent to a camp at Guantánamo Bay and held indefinitely. It puts every single citizen American at risk," he said. "Really, what security does this indefinite detention of Americans give us? The first and flawed premise, both here and in the badly named Patriot Act, is that our pre-9/11 police powers were insufficient to stop terrorism. This is simply not borne out by the facts."
Paul was backed by Senator Dianne Feinstein.
"Congress is essentially authorising the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge," she said. "We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge."
Paul said there were already strong laws against support for terrorist groups. He noted that the definition of a terrorism suspect under existing legislation was so broad that millions of Americans could fall within it.
"There are laws on the books now that characterise who might be a terrorist: someone missing fingers on their hands is a suspect according to the department of justice. Someone who has guns, someone who has ammunition that is weatherproofed, someone who has more than seven days of food in their house can be considered a potential terrorist," Paul said. "If you are suspected because of these activities, do you want the government to have the ability to send you to Guantánamo Bay for indefinite detention?"
Under the legislation suspects can be held without trial "until the end of hostilities". They will have the right to appear once a year before a committee that will decide if the detention will continue.
The Senate is expected to give final approval to the bill before the end of the week. It will then go to the president, who previously said he would block the legislation not on moral grounds but because it would "cause confusion" in the intelligence community and encroached on his own powers.
But on Wednesday the White House said Obama had lifted the threat of a veto after changes to the law giving the president greater discretion to prevent individuals from being handed to the military.
Critics accused the president of caving in again to pressure from some Republicans on a counter-terrorism issue for fear of being painted in next year's election campaign as weak and of failing to defend America.
Human Rights Watch said that by signing the bill Obama would go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.
"The paradigm of the war on terror has advanced so far in people's minds that this has to appear more normal than it actually is," Malinowski said. "It wasn't asked for by any of the agencies on the frontlines in the fight against terrorism in the United States. It breaks with over 200 years of tradition in America against using the military in domestic affairs."
In fact, the heads of several security agencies, including the FBI, CIA, the director of national intelligence and the attorney general objected to the legislation. The Pentagon also said it was against the bill.
The FBI director, Robert Mueller, said he feared the law could compromise the bureau's ability to investigate terrorism because it would be more complicated to win co-operation from suspects held by the military.
"The possibility looms that we will lose opportunities to obtain co-operation from the persons in the past that we've been fairly successful in gaining," he told Congress.
Civil liberties groups say the FBI and federal courts have dealt with more than 400 alleged terrorism cases, including the successful prosecutions of Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber", Umar Farouk, the "underwear bomber", and Faisal Shahzad, the "Times Square bomber".
Elements of the law are so legally confusing, as well as being constitutionally questionable, that any detentions are almost certain to be challenged all the way to the supreme court.
Malinowski said "vague language" was deliberately included in the bill in order to get it passed. "The very lack of clarity is itself a problem. If people are confused about what it means, if people disagree about what it means, that in and of itself makes it bad law," he said.
Civil rights groups dismayed as Barack Obama abandons commitment to veto new security law contained in defence bill
Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 December 2011
Americans can be arrested on home soil and taken to Guantánamo Bay under a provision inserted into the bill that funds the US military. Photograph: John Moore/Getty
Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay.
Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual rights for the duration of "a war that appears to have no end".
The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military, effectively extends the battlefield in the "war on terror" to the US and applies the established principle that combatants in any war are subject to military detention.
The legislation's supporters in Congress say it simply codifies existing practice, such as the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. But the law's critics describe it as a draconian piece of legislation that extends the reach of detention without trial to include US citizens arrested in their own country.
"It's something so radical that it would have been considered crazy had it been pushed by the Bush administration," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. "It establishes precisely the kind of system that the United States has consistently urged other countries not to adopt. At a time when the United States is urging Egypt, for example, to scrap its emergency law and military courts, this is not consistent."
There was heated debate in both houses of Congress on the legislation, requiring that suspects with links to Islamist foreign terrorist organisations arrested in the US, who were previously held by the FBI or other civilian law enforcement agencies, now be handed to the military and held indefinitely without trial.
The law applies to anyone "who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaida, the Taliban or associated forces".
Senator Lindsey Graham said the extraordinary measures were necessary because terrorism suspects were wholly different to regular criminals.
"We're facing an enemy, not a common criminal organisation, who will do anything and everything possible to destroy our way of life," he said. "When you join al-Qaida you haven't joined the mafia, you haven't joined a gang. You've joined people who are bent on our destruction and who are a military threat."
Graham added that it was right that Americans should be subject to the detention law as well as foreigners. "It is not unfair to make an American citizen account for the fact that they decided to help Al Qaeda to kill us all and hold them as long as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next," he said. "And when they say, 'I want my lawyer,' you tell them, 'Shut up. You don't get a lawyer.'"
Other senators supported the new powers on the grounds that al-Qaida was fighting a war inside the US and that its followers should be treated as combatants, not civilians with constitutional protections.
But another conservative senator, Rand Paul, a strong libertarian, has said "detaining citizens without a court trial is not American " and that if the law passes "the terrorists have won".
"We're talking about American citizens who can be taken from the United States and sent to a camp at Guantánamo Bay and held indefinitely. It puts every single citizen American at risk," he said. "Really, what security does this indefinite detention of Americans give us? The first and flawed premise, both here and in the badly named Patriot Act, is that our pre-9/11 police powers were insufficient to stop terrorism. This is simply not borne out by the facts."
Paul was backed by Senator Dianne Feinstein.
"Congress is essentially authorising the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge," she said. "We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge."
Paul said there were already strong laws against support for terrorist groups. He noted that the definition of a terrorism suspect under existing legislation was so broad that millions of Americans could fall within it.
"There are laws on the books now that characterise who might be a terrorist: someone missing fingers on their hands is a suspect according to the department of justice. Someone who has guns, someone who has ammunition that is weatherproofed, someone who has more than seven days of food in their house can be considered a potential terrorist," Paul said. "If you are suspected because of these activities, do you want the government to have the ability to send you to Guantánamo Bay for indefinite detention?"
Under the legislation suspects can be held without trial "until the end of hostilities". They will have the right to appear once a year before a committee that will decide if the detention will continue.
The Senate is expected to give final approval to the bill before the end of the week. It will then go to the president, who previously said he would block the legislation not on moral grounds but because it would "cause confusion" in the intelligence community and encroached on his own powers.
But on Wednesday the White House said Obama had lifted the threat of a veto after changes to the law giving the president greater discretion to prevent individuals from being handed to the military.
Critics accused the president of caving in again to pressure from some Republicans on a counter-terrorism issue for fear of being painted in next year's election campaign as weak and of failing to defend America.
Human Rights Watch said that by signing the bill Obama would go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.
"The paradigm of the war on terror has advanced so far in people's minds that this has to appear more normal than it actually is," Malinowski said. "It wasn't asked for by any of the agencies on the frontlines in the fight against terrorism in the United States. It breaks with over 200 years of tradition in America against using the military in domestic affairs."
In fact, the heads of several security agencies, including the FBI, CIA, the director of national intelligence and the attorney general objected to the legislation. The Pentagon also said it was against the bill.
The FBI director, Robert Mueller, said he feared the law could compromise the bureau's ability to investigate terrorism because it would be more complicated to win co-operation from suspects held by the military.
"The possibility looms that we will lose opportunities to obtain co-operation from the persons in the past that we've been fairly successful in gaining," he told Congress.
Civil liberties groups say the FBI and federal courts have dealt with more than 400 alleged terrorism cases, including the successful prosecutions of Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber", Umar Farouk, the "underwear bomber", and Faisal Shahzad, the "Times Square bomber".
Elements of the law are so legally confusing, as well as being constitutionally questionable, that any detentions are almost certain to be challenged all the way to the supreme court.
Malinowski said "vague language" was deliberately included in the bill in order to get it passed. "The very lack of clarity is itself a problem. If people are confused about what it means, if people disagree about what it means, that in and of itself makes it bad law," he said.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Obama: "Where Congress Is Not Willing To Act, We re Going To Go Ahead And Do It Ourselves"
In an interview with KOAA-TV, a local news channel from Colorado Springs, Colorado, President Obama says if Congress is not willing to pass legislation he wants, he will do it himself in order to win another term. Read the transcript below.
Rob Quirk, KOAA-TV: "And one year from today we will know if this a one-term or two-term president. So, I asked the president what will it take from now until then to not only win Colorado again, but reelection as well."
President Obama: "Well, what we're going to have to do is continue to make progress on the economy over the next several months. And where Congress is not willing to act, we're going to go ahead and do it ourselves. But it would be nice if we could get a little bit of help from Capitol Hill."
Rob Quirk, KOAA-TV: "And one year from today we will know if this a one-term or two-term president. So, I asked the president what will it take from now until then to not only win Colorado again, but reelection as well."
President Obama: "Well, what we're going to have to do is continue to make progress on the economy over the next several months. And where Congress is not willing to act, we're going to go ahead and do it ourselves. But it would be nice if we could get a little bit of help from Capitol Hill."
MSNBC PLAYS KLAN CARD
MSNBC Likens Romney To The KKK For Saying "Keep America American"
MSNBC daytime anchor Thomas Roberts seizes on Mitt Romney's use of the phrase "Keep America American." The network claims the phrase plays homage to the Ku Klux Klan slogan of "Keep America American." According to left-leaning news outlets, the "Keep America American" expression was apparently used by the KKK in the early 1900s.
Somehow the folks at MSNBC believe Mitt Romney is acknowledging his Klan roots by using a similar phrase in his 2012 campaign for the presidency.
UPDATE: On tonight's edition of MSNBC's "Hardball," host Chris Matthews apologized for the "irresponsible" and "incendiary" attack on Mitt Romney.
UPDATE: Al Sharpton, on his show tonight, gave his seal of approval for MSNBC to apologize. Sharpton says he believes Romney deserved the apology because he has also been a "victim" of half-truths.
MSNBC daytime anchor Thomas Roberts seizes on Mitt Romney's use of the phrase "Keep America American." The network claims the phrase plays homage to the Ku Klux Klan slogan of "Keep America American." According to left-leaning news outlets, the "Keep America American" expression was apparently used by the KKK in the early 1900s.
Somehow the folks at MSNBC believe Mitt Romney is acknowledging his Klan roots by using a similar phrase in his 2012 campaign for the presidency.
UPDATE: On tonight's edition of MSNBC's "Hardball," host Chris Matthews apologized for the "irresponsible" and "incendiary" attack on Mitt Romney.
UPDATE: Al Sharpton, on his show tonight, gave his seal of approval for MSNBC to apologize. Sharpton says he believes Romney deserved the apology because he has also been a "victim" of half-truths.
GRAND JURY PROBES SOLYNDRA
Attorneys’ billing shows preparation
By Jim McElhatton
The Washington Times
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
A grand jury has begun investigating Solyndra LLC, the failed California solar-panel maker that lost more than a half-billion dollars in federal loans, according to law-firm billing records.
Weeks after Solyndra filed for bankruptcy in September, a judge allowed the company to hire a law firm to represent it in what court records at the time called a “federal criminal investigation.”
Now the firm, K&L Gates, has filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware a detailed, hour-by-hour account of how attorneys have been spending their time. Most of their efforts have focused on what the firm called the U.S. attorney’s office and Department of Justice investigation of Solyndra.
In an 18-page invoice from the law firm dated Dec. 9, the words “grand jury” appear numerous times: “Prepare response to grand jury subpoena,” one entry reads. Another said, “Review and prepare documents to respond to grand jury subpoena.”
The invoices also point to a meeting on Oct. 14 between K&L Gates attorney Jeffrey L. Bornstein, a former federal prosecutor in San Francisco, and an assistant U.S. attorney identified in the billing records only as “J. Nedrow.”
Jeffrey Nedrow is an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, which is the same office overseeing the Solyndra investigation. Mr. Nedrow was a prosecutor in the criminal trial against former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds.
Yet another entry refers to a telephone call with “AUSA” — an abbreviation in legal circles that refers to assistant U.S. attorney — “regarding grand jury subpoena.”
The formation of an investigative grand jury would mark a significant development in the criminal investigation into Solyndra, which saw its offices raided by the FBI within days of its bankruptcy filing in September.
“The subpoenas would be just the tip of the iceberg,” said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and now a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “The first things to happen in grand juries are subpoenas to collect every possible document you can.”
Federal authorities aren’t commenting on the probe. Jack Gillund, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, declined to comment Tuesday when asked about a grand jury.
In an email Tuesday, Mr. Bornstein said, “Solyndra is continuing to cooperate with the United States Attorney’s Office in connection with its investigation.”
Grand jury subpoena
When Solyndra first sought to hire K&L Gates as special counsel, attorneys for the solar company cited the firm’s familiarity with the federal investigation and “many of the potential issues that may arise in the context of that investigation and potential litigation.”
K&L Gates attorneys reported 326 hours of work from Sept. 12 to Nov. 30, with rates ranging from $310 per hour for a paralegal to $640 per hour for Mr. Bornstein, who worked just over 80 hours. Another attorney worked about 50 hours at a rate of $525 per hour.
In recent court papers, the law firm described its work representing Solyndra as being “in connection with the United States Attorney’s Office & Department of Justice investigation of debtors.” The firm said in the filings that it worked with Solyndra on the production and review of documents, as well as responding “to subpoenas and other law enforcement requests.”
The first mention of a grand jury in the billing records came on Oct. 9, when Mr. Bornstein reported nearly an hour’s worth of work that included reviewing “grand jury subpoena.” The next day, another attorney worked on drafting correspondence to “AUSA regarding grand jury subpoena.” Records also refer to “AUSA’s expedited request for materials.”
Customer contracts
The law firm’s billing records shed little light on the nature of the investigation, but it’s clear federal authorities are interested in contracting issues.
In October, Benjamin Schwartz, a vice president and lawyer at Solyndra, testified in a bankruptcy hearing that customer contract matters were “called out” in the FBI search warrant. During the FBI raid, he also said the federal agents had copied the company’s electronic database, and so investigators would have access to any information at Solyndra in an electronic format.
Mr. Schwartz’s testimony came after the U.S. Office of the Trustee, an arm of the Justice Department, accused Solyndra of refusing to discuss the company’s contracts in a bid to have a trustee take over the failed company. A judge denied the request.
Contracts also surface in the K&L billing records.
On Oct. 13, Mr. Bornstein participated in a conference call with “B. Schwartz regarding customer contract,” while another attorney reported participating in a conference “regarding customer contract” that same day, records show.
The attorneys’ hourly bills make apparent reference to the ongoing investigation into Solyndra by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. K&L Gates attorneys reported reviewing congressional testimony and discussing “congressional issues,” billing records show.
The committee has been investigating Solyndra since early this year. So far, committee hearings have exposed sharp partisan divides on Solyndra. Republicans have pushed to learn whether politics played any role in the award of federal loans to the company or in the failed efforts to keep the company afloat. Democrats have said the loans were given based on the merits.
Either way, elected officials from both parties have questioned whether Solyndra executives misled Congress when assuring key lawmakers that the company’s prospects were good just weeks before going bankrupt.
The company remains a political headache for the Obama administration. Solyndra was awarded more than a half-billion dollars in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy in 2009.
The bankrupt company’s troubles have been magnified by the public backing it won from the top reaches of government, including a tour of the company last year by President Obama and remarks by Vice President Joseph R. Biden and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a 2009 ceremony announcing the federal loan guarantees.
By Jim McElhatton
The Washington Times
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
A grand jury has begun investigating Solyndra LLC, the failed California solar-panel maker that lost more than a half-billion dollars in federal loans, according to law-firm billing records.
Weeks after Solyndra filed for bankruptcy in September, a judge allowed the company to hire a law firm to represent it in what court records at the time called a “federal criminal investigation.”
Now the firm, K&L Gates, has filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware a detailed, hour-by-hour account of how attorneys have been spending their time. Most of their efforts have focused on what the firm called the U.S. attorney’s office and Department of Justice investigation of Solyndra.
In an 18-page invoice from the law firm dated Dec. 9, the words “grand jury” appear numerous times: “Prepare response to grand jury subpoena,” one entry reads. Another said, “Review and prepare documents to respond to grand jury subpoena.”
The invoices also point to a meeting on Oct. 14 between K&L Gates attorney Jeffrey L. Bornstein, a former federal prosecutor in San Francisco, and an assistant U.S. attorney identified in the billing records only as “J. Nedrow.”
Jeffrey Nedrow is an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, which is the same office overseeing the Solyndra investigation. Mr. Nedrow was a prosecutor in the criminal trial against former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds.
Yet another entry refers to a telephone call with “AUSA” — an abbreviation in legal circles that refers to assistant U.S. attorney — “regarding grand jury subpoena.”
The formation of an investigative grand jury would mark a significant development in the criminal investigation into Solyndra, which saw its offices raided by the FBI within days of its bankruptcy filing in September.
“The subpoenas would be just the tip of the iceberg,” said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and now a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “The first things to happen in grand juries are subpoenas to collect every possible document you can.”
Federal authorities aren’t commenting on the probe. Jack Gillund, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, declined to comment Tuesday when asked about a grand jury.
In an email Tuesday, Mr. Bornstein said, “Solyndra is continuing to cooperate with the United States Attorney’s Office in connection with its investigation.”
Grand jury subpoena
When Solyndra first sought to hire K&L Gates as special counsel, attorneys for the solar company cited the firm’s familiarity with the federal investigation and “many of the potential issues that may arise in the context of that investigation and potential litigation.”
K&L Gates attorneys reported 326 hours of work from Sept. 12 to Nov. 30, with rates ranging from $310 per hour for a paralegal to $640 per hour for Mr. Bornstein, who worked just over 80 hours. Another attorney worked about 50 hours at a rate of $525 per hour.
In recent court papers, the law firm described its work representing Solyndra as being “in connection with the United States Attorney’s Office & Department of Justice investigation of debtors.” The firm said in the filings that it worked with Solyndra on the production and review of documents, as well as responding “to subpoenas and other law enforcement requests.”
The first mention of a grand jury in the billing records came on Oct. 9, when Mr. Bornstein reported nearly an hour’s worth of work that included reviewing “grand jury subpoena.” The next day, another attorney worked on drafting correspondence to “AUSA regarding grand jury subpoena.” Records also refer to “AUSA’s expedited request for materials.”
Customer contracts
The law firm’s billing records shed little light on the nature of the investigation, but it’s clear federal authorities are interested in contracting issues.
In October, Benjamin Schwartz, a vice president and lawyer at Solyndra, testified in a bankruptcy hearing that customer contract matters were “called out” in the FBI search warrant. During the FBI raid, he also said the federal agents had copied the company’s electronic database, and so investigators would have access to any information at Solyndra in an electronic format.
Mr. Schwartz’s testimony came after the U.S. Office of the Trustee, an arm of the Justice Department, accused Solyndra of refusing to discuss the company’s contracts in a bid to have a trustee take over the failed company. A judge denied the request.
Contracts also surface in the K&L billing records.
On Oct. 13, Mr. Bornstein participated in a conference call with “B. Schwartz regarding customer contract,” while another attorney reported participating in a conference “regarding customer contract” that same day, records show.
The attorneys’ hourly bills make apparent reference to the ongoing investigation into Solyndra by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. K&L Gates attorneys reported reviewing congressional testimony and discussing “congressional issues,” billing records show.
The committee has been investigating Solyndra since early this year. So far, committee hearings have exposed sharp partisan divides on Solyndra. Republicans have pushed to learn whether politics played any role in the award of federal loans to the company or in the failed efforts to keep the company afloat. Democrats have said the loans were given based on the merits.
Either way, elected officials from both parties have questioned whether Solyndra executives misled Congress when assuring key lawmakers that the company’s prospects were good just weeks before going bankrupt.
The company remains a political headache for the Obama administration. Solyndra was awarded more than a half-billion dollars in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy in 2009.
The bankrupt company’s troubles have been magnified by the public backing it won from the top reaches of government, including a tour of the company last year by President Obama and remarks by Vice President Joseph R. Biden and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a 2009 ceremony announcing the federal loan guarantees.
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