Reuters News Service FoxNews.com
January 31, 2010

The head of the Taliban in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. drone attack, Pakistan state television reported Sunday.

Degenerate Islamic Taliban Terrorist Chief Was Sent To The Cornfield.

The report stated Mehsud had been injured in a drone attack in the Shaktoi area January 14 and died three days later. He reportedly was buried in the village of Mamuzai in the North Waziristan region.

The Pakistani army said Sunday that it was investigating the reports.

The militant leader’s death would be an important success for both Pakistan, which has been battling the Pakistani Taliban, and the U.S., which blames Mehsud for a recent deadly bombing against the CIA in Afghanistan.

The army’s announcement came shortly after Pakistani state television, citing unnamed “official sources,” reported that Mehsud died in Orakzai, an area in Pakistan’s northwest tribal region where he was reportedly being treated for his injuries.

“We have these reports coming to us,” army spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas told The Associated Press. “We are investigating whether it is true or wrong.”

A tribal elder told the AP that he attended Mehsud’s funeral in the Mamuzai area of Orakzai on Thursday. He said Mehsud was buried in Mamuzai graveyard after he died at his in-laws’ home. The elder spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the Taliban.

Pakistani intelligence officials have said that Mehsud was targeted in a U.S. drone strike in South Waziristan on Jan. 14, triggering rumors that he had been injured or killed. The strike targeted a meeting of militant commanders in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan.

Mehsud issued two audio tapes after the strike denying the rumors. But Pakistani intelligence officials told the AP on Sunday that they have confirmation that the Taliban chief’s legs and abdomen were wounded in the strike.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Pakistani Taliban officials were not immediately available for comment, but low-level fighters have dismissed rumors of Mehsud’s death in recent days as propaganda.

The drone strike that targeted Mehsud came about two weeks after a deadly suicide bombing he helped orchestrate killed seven CIA employees at a remote base across the border in Afghanistan. Mehsud appeared in a video issued after the bombing sitting beside the Jordanian man who carried out the attack.

The bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, said he carried out the attack in retribution for the death of former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud — Hakimullah Mehsud’s predecessor — in a U.S. drone strike last August.

The U.S. refuses to talk about the covert CIA-run drone program in Pakistan but officials have said privately that the strikes have killed several senior Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders.

Pakistani officials publicly protest the strikes as violations of the country’s sovereignty, but U.S. officials say privately they support the program, especially when it targets militants like Mehsud who the government believes is a threat to the state.

Mehsud, who has the reputation as a particularly ruthless militant, took over leadership of the Pakistani Taliban soon after Baitullah Mehsud’s death.

The 28 year-old militant leader has focused most of his attacks against targets inside Pakistan, but his men have also been blamed for attacking U.S. and NATO supply convoys traveling through the country en route to Afghanistan.

Hakimullah Mehsud first appeared in public to journalists in November 2008, when he offered to take reporters in Orakzai on a ride in a U.S. Humvee taken from a supply truck headed to Afghanistan. He was the Pakistani Taliban’s regional commander in the Orakzai, Khyber and Mohmand tribal areas before taking over the organization.

He has taken responsibility for a wave of brazen strikes inside Pakistan, including the bombing of the Pearl Continental hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar last June and the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore earlier that year.

The group stepped up its attacks after the Pakistani army invaded its stronghold of South Waziristan in mid-October. More than 600 people have been killed in attacks throughout the country since the ground offensive was launched.

Authorities have said Mehsud has been behind threats to foreign embassies in Islamabad, and there is a $120,000 bounty on his head.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

China Protests US Arms Sales-Warns Of “Serious” Impact
The Drudge Report
January 30, 2010
China Hits Back at US Over Taiwan Weapons Sale

China on Friday protested the US decision to sell 6.4 billion dollars in weapons to Taiwan and warned of “serious” damage to relations and cooperation with Washington.
China’s Vice Foreign Minister He Yafai made an urgent official demarche to the US ambassador in Beijing, Jon Huntsman, in the early hours Saturday local time, Wang Baodong, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, told AFP.

“The latest US move to sell weapons to Taiwan, which is part of China, constitutes a gross intervention into China’s internal affairs, seriously endangers China’s national security and harms China’s peaceful reunification efforts,” Wang quoted the protest as saying.

“The US plan will definitely undermine China-US relations and bring about serious negative impact on exchange and cooperation in major areas between the two countries,” he added.

China “strongly urges the US side to fully recognize the gravity of the issue, revoke the erroneous decision on arms sales to Taiwan and stop selling any weapons to Taiwan,” he said.

China snapped off military relations with the United States temporarily after the last US arms package to Taiwan in October 2008.

Beijing considers Taiwan, where China’s nationalists fled in 1949 after losing the mainland’s civil war, to be a territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary.

The United States in 1979 switched recognition to Beijing. But Congress requires the administration to provide Taiwan weapons for defensive purposes.

Wang said that the weapons deal violated the 1982 communique between China and the United States, which said the arms sales to Taiwan “will not exceed, in qualitative or in quantitative terms,” the level in the years before that.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley earlier said that the arms sales were consistent with the three key communiques between the United States and China when they normalized relations.

January 30, 2010
GOP: Obama Has ‘Blind Spot’ on Terror War
(AP) FoxNews.com

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration’s handling of a Nigerian student who allegedly attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas exposed its “blind spot when it comes to the war on terrorism,” a Republican lawmaker said Saturday.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins kept up the Republicans’ drumbeat of criticism following a report by The Associated Press a week ago that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was questioned for 50 minutes without informing him of his right to remain silent.

When he was later advised of his rights, Abdulmutallab refused to speak further with investigators. He was treated as a criminal defendant, not as an “enemy combatant,” she said.

“President Obama recently used the phrase that ‘we are at war’ with terrorists. But unfortunately his rhetoric does not match the actions of his administration,” Collins said in the weekly Republican Internet and radio address. “The Obama administration appears to have a blind spot when it comes to the war on terrorism.”

Collins’ choice of the Christmas Day attack as a topic for the radio address suggests Republicans have found what they consider a weak spot in the Obama administration — the handling of terrorism. That theme is likely to surface frequently during coming campaigns.

White House aides have cited “lapses” and errors in the sharing of intelligence and clues about the Nigerian man accused in the foiled attempt. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said the suspect should have been treated like a potential terrorist and questioned by a special detainee interrogation group before any decisions were made on whether to place him in the civilian court system. But White House officials said they have other options for getting more information from the suspect.

Collins seized on the admission by some intelligence officials that the suspect was mishandled.

“When the Obama administration decided to treat Abdulmutallab as an ordinary criminal, it did so without the input of our nation’s top intelligence officials,” she said, noting that such officials as the director of national intelligence and the director of the National Counterterrorism Center were not contacted.

“They would have explained the importance of gathering all possible intelligence about Yemen, where there is a serious threat from terrorists whose sights are trained on this nation,” she said. “They would have explained the critical nature of learning all we could from Abdulmutallab. But they were never asked.”

Abdulmutallab allegedly was carrying explosives in his underwear, but they failed to detonate and he was detained with the help of passengers and crew members.

After his capture, Abdulmutallab spoke freely and provided valuable intelligence, officials said. Federal agents repeatedly interviewed him or heard him speak to others. But when they read him his legal rights nearly 10 hours after the incident, he went silent

Gandhi’s Ashes Scattered Into Indian Ocean
January 30, 2010
(AP) FoxNews.com

DURBAN, South Africa — Six decades after his death, some of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s ashes were scattered off the coast of South Africa Saturday into the Indian Ocean, which links the country to India.

An early morning service in a harbor in the eastern city of Durban on the 62nd anniversary of Gandhi’s death included the laying of flowers and candles on the water’s surface. Gandhi had lived for 21 years in South Africa, and some of his philosophies were developed while he was in this country.

Gandhi, known as the Mahatma or “great soul,” was shot dead by a Hindu hard-liner in 1948 in New Delhi. His ashes were divided, stored in steel urns and sent across India and beyond for memorial services. It was not unusual for some of the ashes to have been preserved instead of scattered as intended. In 2007, some ashes were sent to a Gandhi museum in Mumbai by an Indian businessman whose father, a friend of Gandhi, had saved them. Those ashes were scattered in the sea off Mumbai in 2008.

In 1997, ashes that had been found in a bank vault in northern India were immersed at the holy spot where India’s Ganges and Yamuna rivers met.

Soon after his arrival in South Africa in 1893, Gandhi, then a young lawyer, was thrown off a train for refusing to leave the “whites only” compartment. As a result, he threw himself into the fight for human rights in South Africa.

Gandhi lived in homes and farms across South Africa, before returning to India at the age of 46 to help fight for independence from Britain.

FOXNews.com And (AP)
January 30, 2010

As the Justice Department searches for a new venue to hold the trial of confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, critics are pouncing on the Obama administration’s steadfast refusal to consider a military tribunal to bring the terror suspect and his four alleged accomplices to justice.

The White House insisted late Friday that no decision has been made to scrap Manhattan as the location for the trial of confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but sources tell FoxNews.com alternative plans will need to be shored up sooner than later.

Law enforcement officials tell FoxNews.com that Lower Manhattan has been “definitely ruled out.”

“My sense is that the terror trials are not going to happen in lower Manhattan,” Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer said.

As the Justice Department searches for a new venue to hold the trial of Mohammed, critics are pouncing on the Obama administration’s steadfast refusal to consider a military tribunal to bring the terror suspect and his four alleged accomplices to justice.

The administration’s critics say moving the trial to a different venue isn’t the solution. They maintain that the terror suspects, who were captured on foreign soil and are being held at the military prison in Guantanamo, shouldn’t be brought to the U.S. at all.

“They belong in a military installation — Guantanamo would be an ideal location,” Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. said of Mohammed and his four alleged accomplices.

“… there is no community in the country that should have this foisted upon them,” King told Fox News. “I said then, I say now, the president’s decision, the attorney general’s decision to hold these trials in New York … was the most irresponsible decision any president has ever made.”

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who originally supported the Justice Department’s plan to hold the trial in Manhattan federal court, reversed his position this week and called Attorney General Eric Holder to lobby for moving the proceedings. The city claims it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to provide security for a court case that is expected to last at least a year.

White House spokesman Bill Burton said Thursday that President Obama is committed to seeing Mohammed and his alleged accomplices brought to justice in a federal court. The president believes that can be done successfully and securely.

“Currently our federal jails hold hundreds of convicted terrorists, and the president’s opinion has not changed on that,” Burton said.

Mayor Nicholas Valentine of Newburgh, N.Y., a small city about 70 miles north of New York City, said his community would be the perfect site for the trial. Valentine said his city has a new state-of-the-art courthouse that can easily be secured, and it is less than a 90-minute commute from Manhattan.

But Victoria Toensing, former deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, said a civilian trial held elsewhere would pose the same problems as in New York City: controlling a media circus and dealing with evidentiary issues for terror suspects captured on the battlefield.

“I say take this into a military commission, and that’s where you have your case and you don’t have a regular criminal process,” she told Fox News.

Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show Friday that he had spoken with several “high level” people in the administration about his concerns. He said the administration understands and is “trying to do something.”

“I said it would be phenomenally expensive and it is very disruptive to people who live in the area and businesses in the area,” Bloomberg said of his conversations with administration officials. “So the economic impact is detrimental, and nobody knows how big. And it would be better to do it elsewhere if they could find a venue.”

King blistered the Obama administration’s attempt to hold the trial in New York.

” They never spoke with the police commissioner. They never spoke with the U.S. Marshals. They never spoke with the community,” the Republican congressman said. “And to think they could bring this trial into New York and tie up Lower Manhattan, costing billions of dollars, was showing an administration driven by ideology — the same ideology that gave Miranda warnings to the bomber in Detroit.”

James Hanson, a former special forces soldier, told Fox News that the decision reflects the mentality the administration has adopted in its fight against terrorism.

“Al Qaeda is at war with us,” Hanson said. “Are we going to be at war with them or are we going to fight them with lawfare?”

Hanson said he’s not sure Obama and Holder will bow to pressure to try the suspects in a military tribunal.

“They’ve been adamantly opposed from the start and I believe they’ve both been wrong on the issue,” he said. “Now the question is, are they going to listen to the combined wisdom of the rest of the counterterrorism groups that do that for a living and go back to what was the correct answer, and that is treating terrorist as enemies of United States of America, not common criminals?”

U.S. Supreme Court Grants NRA Motion
For Divided Argument In McDonald v. City of Chicago
National Rifle Association Press Release
January 30, 2010

Patriots, we will keep you updated regarding this case which is now before the Supreme Court.

On Monday, January 25, the U.S. Supreme Court granted NRA’s motion to allow it to participate in the upcoming oral argument in McDonald v. City of Chicago.

“We are pleased with the Court’s decision to grant our motion,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox. “NRA’s solitary goal in McDonald is to ensure that our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms applies to every law-abiding American in every state. We are hopeful that the Court will share our view that the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment clearly intended to apply the Second Amendment to the states.”

Last September, the Court agreed to consider the McDonald case, on appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. That court incorrectly claimed that prior Supreme Court precedent prevented it from holding in favor of incorporation of the Second Amendment. NRA believes the Seventh Circuit should have followed the lead of the Seventh Circuit , which found that Supreme Court precedent does not prevent the Second Amendment from applying to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. As a party in McDonald, NRA looks forward to participating in the upcoming oral argument.

Bin Laden Blames U.S. for Global Warming in New Tape
January 29, 2010
(AP)

CAIRO — Usama bin Laden sought to draw a wider public into his fight against the United States in a new message Friday, dropping his usual talk of religion and holy war and focusing instead on an unexpected topic: global warming.

The Al Qaeda leader blamed the United States and other industrialized nations for climate change and said the only way to prevent disaster was to break the American economy, calling on the world to boycott U.S. goods and stop using the dollar.

“The effects of global warming have touched every continent. Drought and deserts are spreading, while from the other floods and hurricanes unseen before the previous decades have now become frequent,” bin Laden said in the audiotape, aired on the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera.

The terror leader noted Washington’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse gases and painted the United States as in the thrall of major corporations that he said “are the true criminals against the global climate” and are to blame for the global economic crisis, driving “tens of millions into poverty and unemployment.”

Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders have mentioned global warming and struck an anti-globalization tone in previous tapes and videos. But the latest was the first message by bin Laden solely dedicated to the topic. It was also nearly entirely empty of the Islamic militant rhetoric that usually fills his declarations.

The change in rhetoric aims to give Al Qaeda’s message an appeal beyond hardcore Islamic militants, said Evan Kohlmann, of globalterroralert.com, a private, U.S.-based terrorism analysis group.

“It’s a bridge issue,” Kohlmann said. “They are looking to appeal to people who don’t necessarily love Al Qaeda but who are angry at the U.S. and the West, to galvanize them against the West” and make them more receptive to “alternative solutions like adopting violence for the cause.”

“If you’re looking to draw people who are disenchanted or disillusioned, what better issue to use than global warming,” he said. While the focus on climate may be new, the tactic itself is not, he said: Al Qaeda used issues like the abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay to reach out to Muslims who might not be drawn to Al Qaeda’s ideology but are angry over the injustices.

Bin Laden “looks to see the issues that are the most cogent and more likely to get popular support,” Kohlmann said.

The Al Qaeda leader’s call for an economic boycott helps in the appeal — providing a nonviolent way to participate in opposing the United States.

“People of the world, it’s not right for the burden to be left on the mujahedeen (holy warriors) in an issue that causes harm to everyone,” he said. “Boycott them to save yourselves and your possessions and your children from climate change and to live proud and free.”

Al-Jazeera aired excerpts of the message and posted a transcript on its Web site. The tape’s authenticity could not be independently confirmed, but the voice resembled that of bin Laden on messages known to be from him. The new message comes after a bin Laden tape released last week in which he endorsed a failed attempt to blow up an American airliner on Christmas Day.

In the new tape, bin Laden refers to the Dec. 18 climate conference in Copenhagen — indicated the message was made recently.

The message — whose length Al-Jazeera did not specify — makes only brief passing mentions of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine and instead hits on issues that could resonate at a time of widespread economic woes.

“The world is held hostage by major corporations, which are pushing it to the brink,” he said. “World politics are not governed by reason but by the force and greed of oil thieves and warmongers and the cruel beasts of capitalism.”

To stop global warming, he called for the “wheels of the American economy” to be brought to a halt. “This is possible … if the peoples of the world stop consuming American goods.”

“We must also stop dealings in the dollar and get rid of it as soon as possible,” he said. “I know that this has great consequences and grave ramifications, but it is the only means to liberate humanity from slavery and dependence on America.”

He also called for the “punishing and holding to account” of corporation chiefs, adding, “this should be easy for the American people to do, particularly those who were effected by Hurricane Katrina or those who lost their jobs, since these criminals live among them, particularly in Washington, New York and Texas.”

The message represents a honing of Al Qaeda’s rhetoric. In 2007, bin Laden issued a tape in which he warned that human life is endangered by global warning, and he blamed democratic systems for seeking the interests of major corporations, said the U.S.-based Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamic militant message traffic.

But in Friday’s message, the anti-democracy rhetoric is dropped.

“It’s populism, pure and simple,” Kohlmann said.

Malaysia terror arrests linked to Detroit bomb attempt, officials say

Twelve men arrested in Malaysia this month for alleged terrorist offences had connections to the Nigerian student accused of attempting to blow up a US passenger aircraft on Christmas Day, according to a report from Kuala Lumpur.

The Malaysian Home Minister, Hishamuddin Hussein, refused to confirm the report in the New Straits Times, a newspaper which follows the lead of the Government.

He insisted however that the detained men, who were arrested eight days ago at a gathering of Muslims in Kuala Lumpur, were “a serious security threat to the country”.

They included at least one Malaysian, four Syrians, one Yemeni, one Jordanian and two Nigerians, and are being held under Malaysia’s Internal Security Act (ISA). Under the Act suspects can be detained indefinitely without charge or trial.

Mr Hishamuddin said that the arrests were part of a broader international terrorist investigation, although he stopped short of confirming the report in the New Straits Times that they were members of a group connected to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who allegedly attempted to detonate explosives on a flight to Detroit.

“We were working with other international anti-terrorism agencies and nabbed the ten suspects who are on the international wanted list,” he said. “If you are talking about international linkages, international terrorism, it cannot stop with just the people we apprehended because we don’t know who else is out there.

“I think this is a very good wake-up call because the playground for the terrorist is no longer one location. In this borderless world that we live in now, the whole world is their playground.”

The detainees were among about 50 people attending a religious study group led by Aiman Al Dakkak, a Syrian academic who has lived in Malaysia since 2003. All those present were arrested but most were released the following morning after five hours of questioning.

One of those released, a Malaysian named Muhamad Yunus Zainal Abidin, said that the police asked him in detail about Mr Aiman and the character of his teachings. Mr Muhamad said that they were confined to religious subjects and did not touch on terrorism or violence.

It has been a tense month in Malaysia. A dispute over the use of the word Allah in Malaysian translations of Christian scripture led to arson and vandalism against churches. This week, in what appeared to be an act of retaliation for those attacks, the heads of boars, a creature abhorrent to many Muslims, were thrown into two mosques.

Two weeks ago the US Government issued a warning of the attacks against foreigners in the Malaysian state of Sabah in northwest Borneo — although no such incidents have so far taken place.

READ MORE

Times Online

Joint Patrol Finds 40 Kg of Opium

ISAF Joint Command

Date: 01.29.2010

KABUL, Afghanistan – An Afghan-international security patrol searched a building in the Garm ser district of Helmand this morning and found 40 kg of opium.

The owner of the house was questioned and released. The drugs were confiscated and brought to a military base for disposition.

ANSF-ISAF Patrol in Helmand Finds HME

ISAF Joint Command
Date: 01.29.2010

KABUL, Afghanistan – An ANSF-international joint force patrolling in the Yekken Baba Ziarat district of Helmand province discovered 227 kg of homemade explosives this afternoon.

Three suspects were detained. The explosives will be destroyed.

ISAF Joint Command

Date: 01.29.2010

KABUL, Afghanistan – ANSF forces reacted quickly to contain an insurgent attack on the Afghan National Army’s Sharwali Barracks, located on the western edge of Lashkar Gah this morning and are currently in the process of providing additional troops.

According to initial reports, the small arms fire attack was primarily from an unoccupied four story building to the south of the barracks. Insurgents fired two rockets from the area to the west of the Helmand River (known as the Bolan Desert) at approximately 10 a.m., and the rockets are believed to have landed west of the barracks.

This coordinated attempt by insurgents to launch an attack on the Afghan National Army is on-going, but is being contained by ANA and ISAF forces. The main group of attackers was contained in a vacant building to the south of Sharwali Barracks. Attack helicopters are over the city and have fired upon insurgents.

No casualties have been reported at this time.

ANNIVERSARY TEA PARTY
Sat. Feb. 27th, 2010
11:00AM – 12:30PM
Half a block N. of the Star of India
N. Harbor Dr., San Diego

http://www.socaltaxrevoltcoalition.org

MAP: http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=1667+N.+Harbor+Dr.,+San+Diego&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=xyJKSqH1BomCMeXxlaYB&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1

FLIER: Please download the flier and share with your friends and neighbors:

http://www.box.net/shared/b0li10mfol

PARKING: FREE parking is available across the street at the County Admin Building. There is also two hour metered parking along Harbor Blvd.

TROLLEY: http://www.sdmts.com/Trolley/Trolley.asp

MESSAGE: Please bring your California related signage…Repeal AB32, Support the Citizen Power Campaign, Part Time Legislator, your favorite candidates, etc.

FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=271087863588&index=1

SPEAKERS:

1) Our favorite local Historian and Author, Marc Stockwell-Moniz, will be our M.C. http://tiny.cc/3WrGz

2) Stephanie Jan will share details on the history and function of the Independence Caucus and the critical work they are doing to vet and support fiscally conservative candidates.

http://icaucus.us/

3) A representative from the Part Time Legislature effort will provide details on campaign and host a petition booth.

http://www.reformcal.com/cms/

4) An expert on CARB will share how critical it is we all support the effort to repeal AB32, California’s Cap & Trade which is putting thousands of people out of work this year.

http://www.suspendab32.org/

5) Richard Rider, long time San Diego taxpayer activist and founder of the San Diego Tax Fighters will discuss the Citizen Power Campaign in support of the petition drive we will hold at the tea party.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/richard-rider/5/a9/74

http://UnplugThePoliticalMachine.org/

6) Roger Hedgecock, nationally syndicated talk show host and long time champion of the Tea Party, will give the keynote speech of the day and highlight California’s unique roll in the 2010 election. Many of you may not realize, but Roger gave Dawn her very first interview BEFORE the Feb. 2009 Tea Party.

http://www.rogerhedgecock.com

http://templeofmut.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/roger-hedgecock-to-speak-at-san-diego-tea-party-2010-this-feb-27th/

7) And more speakers/highlights to be announced soon!!

So Cal Tax Revolt Coalition, LLC is not responsible for the safety of those who attend this event. Participate at your own discretion.

Massachusetts Awakens From It’s Deep Freeze Coma (I Can Die Now)
January 23, 2010
by Marc Stockwell-Moniz ChandlersWatch.com

Many Boston Red Sox baseball fans felt blessed when the Sox finally won the World Series six-years ago in 2004, after an eighty-six year hiatus. After that victory, the joke making its’ rounds in the baseball world was, “Now I can die, the Red Sox have finally won it all.” I will include myself in that group. I am family and was a team member from 1969 to 1971 and was born in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. However, that is just baseball and sport, and that should not count for much in “real-life.”

The long awaited victory in Massachusetts that really counts and mattered took place recently, as a Republican candidate won the vacant Massachusetts senate seat to the U.S. Congress. It was the first senatorial victory for the Grand Old Party in Massachusetts in thirty-eight years. This was the “real” victory worth living to see happen. This victory surpasses and dwarfs the Red Sox achievement. And in sports crazy Boston, this is a really big deal.

There have been plenty of reasons that pundits have given for the Scott Brown victory over Democratic party candidate Martha Coakley. My favorite reason is her utter disrespect of Red Sox-legend, Curt Shilling. She referred to him as a Yankee fan. That’s a treasoness statement in Boston. How clueless can you be? That statement alone should stand-out as a reason not to vote for Coakley and showed the people how out of touch she is with the real world. That’s total hallucinogenic-insanity, and we are only talking about a sport. When you jump into the real policies that matter, the Brown victory was a complete rebuttal of all the nonsense that has come from President Obama’s Administration.

The current president has been traveling the world bad-mouthing our nation. He has taken over one of the giant car companies of the nation in General Motors. Mr. Obama has attempted to implement the “Cap and Trade” bill, which if passed will redistribute middle-America’s money to the undeserving foreign rich of the world. He has attempted to ram-down-the-throats of Americans a health-care bill that a vast majority do not want. And all of this would have been much easier for Mr. Obama had Martha Coakley not been so inept, pompous and condescending. Even Mr. Obama himself could not salvage this most precious senate-seat.

The fact that this contested-senate seat was held by the “champion’ for national health-care for many, many years, Ted Kennedy made Coakley’s defeat that more sweet for those of us who do not want the Federal Government to be running one-sixth of the nation’s economy.

I contend that the socialist-redistribution of wealth stopped in Massachusetts this past week by the good people of Massachusetts. As liberal as they can be, the folks in the Bay State still displayed fiscal-sanity in the nation’s economic struggle with an executive branch of government that is socialist in nature and foreign to America.

I can die now, Massachusetts is turning red, as in blood finally received to the brain and awakening from a deep freeze coma of nearly forty-years.

Marc Stockwell-Moniz is the Official American Historian of ChandlersWatch.com
The opinion offered in this article is the sole opinion of the author and not necessarily those of ChandlersWatch.com (although it probably is.)

Divided Kansas Enters The Union
by Marc Stockwell-Moniz ChandlersWatch.com

The territory of Kansas was admitted into the Union as the 34th state, one-hundred-and-forty-nine-years ago this week. Kansas, deeply divided over the issue of slavery, was granted statehood as a free state in a gesture of support for Kansas’ militant anti-slavery forces, which had been in armed conflict with pro-slavery groups since Kansas became a territory in 1854.

Trouble in territorial Kansas began with the signing of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act by President Franklin Pierce. The act stipulated that settlers in the newly created territories of Nebraska and Kansas would decide by popular vote whether their territory would be free or slave. In early 1855, Kansas’ first election proved a violent affair, as more than 5,000 so-called Border Ruffians invaded the territory from western Missouri and forced the election of a pro-slavery legislature. To prevent further bloodshed, Andrew H. Reeder, appointed territorial governor by President Pierce, reluctantly approved the election. A few months later, the Kansas Free State forces were formed, armed by supporters in the North and featuring the leadership of militant-abolitionist John Brown.

Most settlers who had come to Kansas from the North and the South only wanted to homestead in peace. They were not interested in the conflict over slavery, but they found themselves in the midst of a battleground. Violence erupted throughout the territory. Southerners were driven by the rhetoric of leaders such as David Atchison, a Missouri senator. Atchison proclaimed the Northerners to be “negro thieves” and “abolitionist tyrants.” He encouraged Missourians to defend their institution “with the bayonet and with blood” and, if necessary, “to kill every God-damned abolitionist in the district.”

The northerners, however, were not all abolitionists as Atchison claimed. In fact, abolitionists were in the minority. Most of the Free State settlers were part of a movement called Free Soil, which demanded free territory for free white people. They hated slavery, but not out of concern for the slaves themselves. They hated it because plantations took over the land and prevented white working people from having their own homesteads. They hated it because it brought large numbers of black people wherever it went. The Free Staters voted 1,287 to 453 to outlaw black people, slave or free, from Kansas. Their territory would be white.

As the two factions struggled for control of the territory, tensions increased. In 1856 the proslavery territorial capital was moved to Lecompton, a town only 12 miles from Lawrence, a Free State stronghold. In April of that year a three-man congressional investigating committee arrived in Lecompton to look into the Kansas troubles. The majority report of the committee found the elections to be fraudulent, and said that the free state government represented the will of the majority. The federal government refused to follow its recommendations, however, and continued to recognized the proslavery legislature as the legitimate government of Kansas.

There had been several attacks during this time, primarily of proslavery against Free State men. People were tarred and feathered, kidnapped, killed. But now the violence escalated. On May 21, 1856, a group of proslavery men entered Lawrence, where they burned the Free State Hotel, destroyed two printing presses, and ransacked homes and stores. In retaliation, the fiery abolitionist John Brown led a group of men on an attack at Pottawatomie Creek. The group, which included four of Brown’s sons, dragged five proslavery men from their homes and hacked them to death.

The violence had now escalated, and the confrontations continued. John Brown reappeared in Osawatomie to join the fighting there. Violence also erupted in Congress itself. The abolitionist senator Charles Sumner delivered a fiery speech called “The Crime Against Kansas,” in which he accused proslavery senators, particularly Atchison and Andrew Butler of South Carolina, of [cavorting with the] “harlot, Slavery.” In retaliation, Butler’s nephew, Congressman Preston Brooks, attacked Sumner at his Senate desk and beat him senseless with a cane.

In September of 1856, a new territorial governor, John W. Geary, arrived in Kansas and began to restore order. The last major outbreak of violence was the Marais des Cynges massacre, in which Border Ruffians killed five Free State men. In all, approximately 55 people died in “Bleeding Kansas.”

Several attempts were made to draft a constitution which Kansas could use to apply for statehood. Some versions were proslavery, others free state. Finally, a fourth convention met at Wyandotte in July 1859, and adopted a free state constitution. Kansas applied for admittance to the Union. However, the proslavery forces in the Senate strongly opposed its free state status, and stalled its admission. Only in January of 1861, after the Confederate states seceded, did the constitution gain approval and Kansas became a state.

The territory’s admittance into the Union in January 1861 only increased tension, but just three and a half months later the irrepressible differences in Kansas were swallowed up by the full-scale outbreak of the American Civil War. During the Civil War, Kansas suffered the highest rate of fatal casualties of any Union state, largely because of its great internal divisions over the issue of slavery.

Atheist Group Blasts Postal Service for Mother Teresa Stamp
January 28, 2010
By Diane Macedo USPS.com FoxNews.com

Atheists, meet my cousin Vinnie Corleone. He wants to talk to you. Now.

The Mother Teresa Stamp is set to be issued Aug. 26, 2010, on what would have been her 100th birthday.

An atheist organization is blasting the U.S. Postal Service for its plan to honor Mother Teresa with a commemorative stamp, saying it violates postal regulations against honoring “individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings.”

The Freedom from Religion Foundation is urging its supporters to boycott the stamp — and also to engage in a letter-writing campaign to spread the word about what it calls the “darker side” of Mother Teresa.

The stamp — set to be released on Aug. 26, which would have been Mother Teresa’s 100th birthday — will recognize the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner for her humanitarian work, the Postal Service announced last month.

“Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary U.S. citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years,” the Postal Service said in a press release. “Her humility and compassion, as well as her respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind, inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to work on behalf of the world’s poorest populations.”

But Freedom from Religion Foundation spokeswoman Annie Laurie Gaylor says issuing the stamp runs against Postal Service regulations.

“Mother Teresa is principally known as a religious figure who ran a religious institution. You can’t really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did,” Gaylor told FoxNews.com.

Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts expressed surprise at the protest, given the long list of previous honorees with strong religious backgrounds, including Malcolm X, the former chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

“In fact we honored Father Flanagan in 1986 for his humanitarian work. This has nothing to do with religion or faith,” Betts told FoxNews.com.

Gaylor said the atheist group opposed Father Flanagan’s stamp but not those for King and Malcolm X, because she said they were known for their civil rights activities, not for their religion.

Martin Luther King “just happened to be a minister,” and “Malcolm X was not principally known for being a religious figure,” she said.

“And he’s not called Father Malcolm X like Mother Teresa. I mean, even her name is a Roman Catholic honorific.”

Gaylor said Mother Teresa infused Catholicism into her secular honors — including an “anti-abortion rant” during her Nobel Prize acceptance speech — and that even her humanitarian work was controversial.

“There was criticism by the end of her life that she turned what was a tiny charity into an extremely wealthy charity that had the means to provide better care than it did,” Gaylor said. “…There’s this knee jerk response that everything she did was humanitarian, and I think many people would differ that what she was doing was to promote religion, and what she wanted to do was baptize people before they die, and that doesn’t have a secular purpose for a stamp.”

But the Postal Service said the commemorative stamp has nothing to do with Mother Teresa’s religion.

“Mother Teresa is not being honored because of her religion, she’s being honored for her work with the poor and her acts of humanitarian relief,” Betts told FoxNews.com.

“Her contribution to the world as a humanitarian speaks for itself and is unprecedented,” he added.

Some atheists, too, spoke out against the group’s objections, including Bruce Sheiman, author of “An Atheist Defends Religion.” He said the Freedom from Religion Foundation is being “hypocritical” and really “stepping over the line.”

“Clearly there are a number of things that you can point to and say it’s religious and a number of things you can point to and say that it’s areligious,” Sheiman told FoxNews.com. “So it really doesn’t make sense to protest it.”

He said the Foundation’s campaign stems from concern that the abundance of humanitarian work done by believers will overshadow that done by atheists.

“Like billboards and bus ads, this is just part of the whole campaign that they’re doing to make non-belief more visible,” he said.

Gaylor said the foundation’s only concern is the “other things that deserve to be commemorated but are not because the people behind it didn’t have the power of the Catholic church.”

“It’s enormously difficult to get them,” she said, referring to commemorative stamps, “and people have huge campaigns, and to me this speaks of the power of the Roman Catholic Church in hierarchy.

“They want to make her a saint and this is part of the PR machine.”

The Foundation is encouraging its supporters to purchase the new stamp honoring the late actress Katharine Hepburn, who was an atheist, instead — or any of the other 2010 stamps, which include cartoonist Bill Mauldin, singer Kate Smith, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, painter Winslow Homer and poet Julia de Burgos.

Betts said that despite the Foundation’s accusations and letter-writing campaign, “The response to Mother Teresa has been overwhelmingly in favor of this stamp.”

He said the Mother Teresa stamp, like other stamp subjects, will “stand the test of time, reflect the cultural diversity of our nation and have broad national appeal.”

Militants Stage Attack on NATO Trucks in Pakistan
January 28, 2010
FoxNews.com

Note to Mr. Drone: Please send these Islamic scum-bags, that are resposible for the attack on NATO troops, to the “cornfield”.

KARACHI, Pakistan — Police say suspected militants have staged a rare attack in southern Pakistan against trucks carrying supplies for NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan, wounding three people.

Police official Mohammed Ali says the militants attacked the trucks with guns and grenades early Thursday as they traveled on a main highway on the outskirts of the southern city of Karachi.

Up to 75 percent of the supplies for Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan arrive at Karachi port and then head north.

Militants have carried out a wave of attacks against the supply trucks in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border, but such attacks are rare in Karachi.

January 27, 2010
Boehner: ‘No Way’ Terrorist Trials Will be Held in New York
FOXNews.com

All of us should support Rep. John Boehner’s statement that there shouldn’t be trials for the 9-11 terrorists in New York City. Write, fax, call or e-mail your congressional representatives and tell them to stop this fiasco attempted by Obama’s clueless administration.

The top Republican in the House is vowing to prevent any trial of terror detainees at Guantanamo Bay from being held in New York City as leading Senate Republicans question Attorney General Eric Holder on the civilian status given to the Christmas Day bombing suspect.

House Minority Leader John Boehner said Wednesday the Obama administration doesn’t have the votes to change the law to move detainees to U.S. territory for trial or to spend $500 million to refurbish the Thompson prison in Illinois to host the detainees who would be held there while awaiting trial in New York City.

“There is not going to be a trial in New York, I guarantee it. There is no appetite for the trials in Congress,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said.

The leader added that any effort to do so will be used in the midterm election campaign.

“This is a big issue … and a big issue we will campaign on this year,” he added.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg also said Wednesday that he’d be “very happy” if the administration moved the trials out of lower Manhattan. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Sept. 11 suspects should not be tried in civilian court, calling the idea of trying alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City “stunning.”

The Justice Department pushed back, though, defending its ability to “safely and securely” handle such international terrorism cases in Manhattan.

“The Justice Department is confident that it can safely prosecute this case in the Southern District of New York while minimizing disruptions to the community to the greatest extent possible, consistent with security needs,” spokesman Dean Boyd said in a statement.

Lawmakers pressured the department on the Sept. 11 trials as the leading Republicans on four Senate committees demanded answers from Holder on why alleged Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was given civilian defendant status and a reading of Miranda rights rather than being treated “as an intelligence resource to be thoroughly interrogated in order to obtain potentially life-saving information.”

The letter, signed by McConnell as well as Intelligence Committee ranking member Kit Bond, homeland security committee vice chair Susan Collins, armed services panel ranking Republican John McCain and top GOPer on the Senate Judiciary Committee Jeff Sessions, asks who were the decision-makers to label Abdulmutallab a civilian criminal defendant and why the decision was made so quickly after he was in custody.

They also want to know whether the Obama administration has a policy for interrogating terrorists captured on American soil and why so little time was given to interrogating the man who had burns on his legs from carrying an explosive in his underwear on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

The senators asked why the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group was not involved in the questioning or whether it’s operational at all despite a task force on interrogation and transfer policy having been formed a year ago.

But the Justice Department has defended itself against claims no one was in the loop on the decision to charge the bomber, saying the department informed President Obama’s “national security team about its planned course of action.”

The White House confirms a video conference took place with members of the NSC, but has not identified which aides were present. Questions also remain about the veracity of the claim the suspect was interrogated for 30 hours.

“That’s one of the questions I have,” Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday, adding, “The FBI did have an opportunity to interrogate Mr. Abdulmutallab, that they got intelligence — useful and actionable intelligence — that was then transmitted back to officials throughout the government. This was done by experienced FBI interrogators. And that’s all I have on that.”

Though Abdulmutallab has been charged as a civilian defendant, based on other terror cases of Al Qaeda operatives Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi, Abdulmutallab can be remanded to Department of Defense custody as an “unprivileged enemy belligerent,” said Sessions committee spokesman Stephen Miller.

The Supreme Court ruled in both cases that American citizens can be held as enemy combatants, as long as they are not held indefinitely and are provided due process rights. Padilla is now serving a sentence in federal prison while Hamdi was sent to Saudi Arabia and gave up his citizenship.

The court laid out even less restrictive rules on indefinitely detaining non-citizen enemy combatants, which Abdulmutallab fits, Miller said.

“The president has the authority to rescind Abdulmutallab’s civilian status and have him transferred from DoJ to DoD custody and … by doing so this will allow this government to gather further information in the course of a military interrogation to learn more about Al Qaeda activities in Yemen and beyond,” Miller said.

“The administration made a severe mistake in reading (Miranda rights) to Abdulmutallab but the president has the opportunity to right that wrong,” he added.

“Moreover, federal law now unquestionably provides authority for the detention and military prosecution of anyone who is a part of Al Qaeda,” Miller said. “The law was amended by Sen. Sessions last summer during the debate over the annual defense authorization bill to make clear detainees who are ‘part of Al Qaeda’ are deemed ‘unprivileged’ enemy combatants under the law.”

In their letter, the senators ask Holder first to “provide written answers to the questions above and; second, that you testify promptly before the appropriate committees of jurisdiction as to these questions and any lessons your department may have learned from this incident.”

This is the second letter in just over a week from Sessions to Holder, who has not yet responded to the first one asking for an explanation of the department’s decision to classify Abdulmuttalab as a civilian, according to Sessions’ office.

Al Qaeda Front Claims Deadly Hotel Blasts in Baghdad
January 27, 2010
FoxNews.com

BAGDHAD — An Al Qaeda front group in Iraq claimed Wednesday it carried out the deadly bombings against Baghdad hotels earlier this week, boasting its suicide car bombers were able to breach extensive Iraqi security. The same group, the Islamic State of Iraq, has claimed responsibility for three previous waves of coordinated bombings in Baghdad going back to August. The attacks have hit government offices or high-profile sites in the Iraqi capital. In a statement posted Wednesday on a militant Web site, the Al Qaeda group claimed responsibility for the triple suicide blasts on Monday that targeted three hotels favored by Western journalists and security contractors. At least 41 people were killed. It claimed the suicide car bombers were able to get through checkpoints and bypass security barriers.

Iraqi authorities have faced an outcry over apparent security lapses and the latest attacks could increase pressure on the Shiite-led government before national elections on March 7. The authenticity of the Islamic State of Iraq claim could not be independently verified, but it was posted on a Web site commonly used for militant messaging. The statement said the latest attacks — which it called “a fourth thunderous wave” — seek to show that government leaders and foreigners are not safe in Baghdad. The three previous multiple bombings — in August, October and December — claimed more than 380 lives. The group warned of more attacks. “What is coming will be tougher on them,” the statement said.

Following the hotel bombings, a suicide bomb attack Tuesday against Baghdad’s main crime lab killed at least 22 people. There has been no claim of responsibility for that attack so far. The attacks are a stark counterpoint to the overall decline in violence around Iraq.

Iraqi officials, meanwhile, are investigating their use of a handheld bomb-detecting device that Britain banned for export because of questions about whether it works. The ADE651 device made by the British company ATSC is used at security checkpoints across Baghdad, and its makers claim it can detect explosives at a distance. Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi told The Associated Press that the devices will continue to be used at checkpoints while a committee looks into their effectiveness. He said security officials and explosives experts on the committee will present their findings within two weeks. Elsewhere Wednesday, two people were killed in a drive-by shooting targeting buses carrying Iranian Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, two police officials said.

Gunmen in a speeding car opened fire on the buses as they passed through a Sunni-dominated neighborhood on their way to the shrine of Imam Mousa al-Kazim, a much revered saint. An Iranian woman and an Iraqi bus driver were killed in the attack, the officials said. Five pilgrims also were injured.

In northern Iraq, four gunmen ambushed and killed a district official as he was leaving his home in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, another police official said. Police believe Jassim Atiyah Khalaf was targeted because he works closely with security forces, the official said. Meanwhile, Iranian forces stationed near Iraq’s al-Fakkah oil field along the two countries’ disputed border since Dec. 17 have pulled back to the Iranian border, a security official said. The Iranians pulled back to Iran on Wednesday, following bilateral meetings earlier this month. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Guest Post by Rep. Duncan Hunter and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Link)

With unemployment nationwide stagnating at 10 percent, Americans are growing tired of failed recovery efforts and seemingly unending excuses.  What is abundantly clear is that the problems facing our economy and plaguing the job market cannot be corrected through the same policies that continue falling short for so many Americans.

The top issue for Americans today is the economy.  People are rightly worried about the availability of jobs and the projected impact of policies such as a government takeover of health care or cap and trade legislation on long-term recovery and growth.  Plenty of ideas have been put forward that depart from the current course of government expansion and intervention, yet these proposals are routinely pushed aside in favor of the status quo.

There is no shortage of talent among those who stand ready to work but, through no fault of their own, are unable to rejoin the workforce.  Our focus must now turn to getting these individuals back to work, which is an attainable goal as long as we direct the necessary attention toward creating real jobs that are accessible to working families.

For all that was promised, the stimulus plan enacted last year failed to make job growth a reality.  Instead, it created more bureaucracy and authorized new federal spending that is doing a far better job stimulating government expansion and the deficit than it is improving the economy.  This in turn has created greater uncertainty, led to more misguided threats of tax increases and onerous regulation, and contributed to higher debt levels.

It is indisputable that the stimulus is among a long list of initiatives putting significant strain on the already over-sized federal budget.  This past year, the budget shortfall was $1.4 trillion, almost four times greater than the previous year.  Such a sizeable gap is the reason why Congress will soon be forced to increase the debt limit beyond its current level of $12.1 trillion, making it the fifth debt limit increase since leadership in Congress changed hands just three years ago.

These running deficits are a threat to our immediate and long-term stability, offering perhaps the single greatest reason to undertake a more responsible approach to revitalize the economy.  Emphasizing job growth can begin moving us in that direction.

When talking about jobs, the real solution rests with small business — the foundation of the American economy.  These are the jobs that will help revive our economy and provide sustainable employment to millions of Americans for years to come.  We can start by reducing the multitude of economic burdens facing these businesses so they can expand and begin hiring workers again.  In the process, we should rescind the unspent portions of the stimulus bill and apply existing or repaid bailout funds to reduce the federal debt.

It is also important that we work to restore our nation’s industrial base and return the five million manufacturing jobs that have been lost to China and other trading partners in the last ten years.  This sector of our economy currently employs 14 million Americans and indirectly supports another 8 million workers.  Restoring lost manufacturing jobs over time would provide new opportunities to workers and give the economy a much needed shot in the arm.

These are good places to refocus our efforts.  Of course, more will need to be done over time in order to fully restore America’s workforce.

Simply put, broader economic recovery depends on job growth and our ability to harness the unlimited innovation, productivity and endurance of American workers.  Any solution moving forward must underscore this fact and reflect the principle that it is markets, businesses and individuals – not government spending — that create jobs.

Congressman Hunter represents California’s 52nd Congressional District and Congressman Chaffetz represents Utah’s 3rd Congressional District.

Tonight we are going to talk a little bit more about the State of the Union in my own humble opinion.

Then when President Obama is done flapping his gums we will be joined by

Debbie Lee – Gold Star Mother – Director of Military Relations
Based in Surprise, Arizona, Debbie Lee is available for comment in-studio and for phone interview anytime both before and after The President’s address. Debbie Lee is the mother of U.S. Navy SEAL Marc Alan Lee, who was the first SEAL killed in the war in Iraq. Marc gave his life for his buddies in Ramadi, Iraq in August of 2006 and since then Debbie has devoted her life to carrying on Marc’s legacy and supporting his fellow troops as they fight to keep America safe in the war on terror. Debbie has worked with Move America Forward since 2006 and traveled to Guantanamo Bay in 2008 and Baghdad, Iraq in 2007. During that trip to Iraq Debbie had the unprecedented opportunity to visit the base in Ramadi where Marc served, and which now carries his name (Camp Marc Lee).

Click HERE to join us

Who could’ve predicted this?

Since singer Susan Boyle ( who professes being a virgin) has been on TV, there’s been a marked drop in suicide bombings.

Apparently many of the terrorists didn’t realize what a virgin looked like!

(h/t Mike Sr)