DEAN TOUTS DEMOCRAT'S PLAN

DNC Chairman Howard Dean touted the Democrats’ agenda in their weekly radio address. Here’s some of his key points:

“Democrats are determined to set a different course for our Nation, to tell the truth to the American people, to save the lives of our American soldiers and keep America safe.”

If Democrats are so determined to tell the truth, then why isn’t anyone chastising John Murtha for the whoppers he’s told recently? Why isn’t Nancy Pelosi telling him to stop using the line that an IED killed Iraqi civilians? No one said the IED killed innocent Iraqi civilians. As the Marines reported, the IED killed Marine Sgt. Miguel Terrazas. Why doesn’t Ms. Pelosi tell Mr. Murtha that there really was a gunfight that night in Haditha?

Mr. Murtha has put American soldiers at greater risk because he’s told those whoppers again & again. Soldiers on the ground in Iraq tell their stateside relatives that they’re at greater risk. Mr. Dean would be well advised to keep his mouth shut if his mission is to convince people of the latest Democratic nonsense.

“A majority of Democrats have called upon the President to change course in Iraq.”

TRANSLATION: A majority of Democrats have called on the President to change course before we win in Iraq so that Democrats don’t look like total idiots.

“Democrats have also offered a plan that asks the president to responsibly redeploy our troops.”

Mr. Dean, it’s impossible to “responsibly redeploy our troops” because the end result of Democratic-style redeployment is what most people know as cut-and-run. It’s a plan for defeat, not victory. Democrats got their way with Vietnam, the only war we ever lost. Republicans refuse to let you do to the patriotic Iraqi people what the counterculture crowd did to the courageous Vietnamese people. Period!

“The phased re-deployment strategy proposed by Democrats this week calls on the President to do the following:
– First, work with the Government of Iraq to begin a phased redeployment of United States troops from Iraq by the end of this year;”

Doesn’t this fool pay attention? He should read Mowaffak al-Rubaie’s Washington Post op-ed to familiarize himself with the plan that President Bush has agreed to with the sovereign Iraqi government. Here’s the most important statement Mr. Rubaie makes, in the first paragraph no less:

“There is, however, an unofficial “road map” to foreign troop reductions that will eventually lead to total withdrawal of U.S. troops. This road map is based not just on a series of dates but, more important, on the achievement of set objectives for restoring security in Iraq.”

It’d be nice if Mr. Dean paid attention to that roadmap instead of blustering on about the Democrats’ plan.

– Second, submit a plan to Congress by the end of 2006 with estimated dates for the continued phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq;

Mr. Dean, see above statement by Mr. Rubaie.

– Third, we have also told the President that we demand accountability for the resources being spent in Iraq. The cost of the Iraq war will be at least one trillion dollars, enough to finance a health care program for every single American, including our veterans coming home from the war.

Who are you to demand accountability for the resources being spent there? You don’t have a vote in appropriating money to the war effort. Democratic senators and representatives do. It’s their responsibility to make sure the money’s being spent on the highest priorities in Iraq before they appropriate the money. If they aren’t doing that before the vote is taken, then they should be ashamed of themselves.

– Fourth, expedite the transition of United States forces in Iraq to a limited presence and mission of training, providing logistical support, protecting United States infrastructure and personnel, and participating in targeted counterterrorism activities.

Seriously, have you paid even a minute amount of attention to Iraq? I’d seriously doubt it based on this statement because we’ve been in a mostly logistical and support role for at least six months now. If you’re finally figuring this out now, snap with it. You’re ages behind, which isn’t surprising.

– Finally, our plan recognizes that during and after the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq, the United States will need to sustain a non-military effort to actively support reconstruction, governance, and a durable political solution in Iraq.

Again, where have you been? Mr. Dean, is it that you only pay attention to the things revolving around your head in your make-believe universe? Get a clue.

Most of the ‘Democratic plan’ has been in place for half a year or better, with the lone exception being setting timelines. And that ain’t gonna happen until there’s icicles hanging from the ceiling in Hades.

We see an America where we are all on the same team again, working together to deal with problems American Families face, Defense, Security, Health Care, Jobs.

The only division in America is the Democratic-caused division. The Bush administration is dealing with defending this nation and providing for true national security. The Bush economic plan dug us out of a recession and 9/11. Since then, it’s creating jobs at a rate comparable to the Clinton record.

Simply put, it’s time for Mr. Dean’s Democrats to take the blinders off and to stop Bush-hating.

HOW ABOUT A NICE GLASS OF...........

By Michelle Malkin

The New York Times and their traitorous, leaking sources have done it again. (Hat tip: LGF) This time they're broadcasting classified information on troop levels. Hey, Bill Keller--al Qaeda thanks you:

The top American commander in Iraq has drafted a plan that projects sharp reductions in the United States military presence there by the end of 2007, with the first cuts coming this September, American officials say.

According to a classified briefing at the Pentagon this week by the commander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the number of American combat brigades in Iraq is projected to decrease to 5 or 6 from the current level of 14 by December 2007...

...General Casey's briefing has remained a closely held secret, and it was described by American officials who agreed to discuss the details only on condition of anonymity.

"Closely held secret." Not. Anymore.

(Ed Morrissey thinks it's a controlled leak. But the law, as I've noted before, does not distinguish between "good" and "bad" leaks, "controlled" or "uncontrolled" ones. As Ed rightly notes, whatever the case, "the New York Times has once again specialized in publishing classified material on a story with only marginal news value.")

Special coverage at The Truth Laid Bear. And now...

Time for Round III from the Anti-Blabbermouth Army of Photoshoppers:

Slublog:

Impacted Wisdom Truth:

Richard Pucillo:

Are We Lumberjacks?:

George Ratton:

Russell Paine:

Larry Sweeney:

Kathy Yoder:

Doug Morris:

Blogs of War:

Anonymous:

John Schrenko:

Verum Serum:

Darleen's Place:

Solomonia:

Jane:

Rick A.:

Six Meat Buffet:

Dan Riehl:

Carl McCaskey:

***
Previous:

More blabbermouth posters
Messages for the blabbermouths
Backlash against the blabbermouths
NYTimes blabbermouths strike again

NY TIMES BLABBERMOUTHS STRIKE AGAIN

By Michelle Malkin

***update: The Los Angeles Times piles on and flaps its mouth, too...The story is the blabbermouth media's refusal to act responsibly and learn when to shut up...***

Dammit. These people don't know when to stop. The anonymous leak-addicted NYTimes tag team of Eric Lichtblau and James Risen is at it again. Their front-page, splashy piece posted on the web tonight and top-linked on Drudge:

Bank Data Sifted in Secret by U.S. to Block Terror

"Secret?" Not anymore.

Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions. The records mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas and into and out of the United States. Most routine financial transactions confined to this country are not in the database.

Viewed by the Bush administration as a vital tool, the program has played a hidden role in domestic and foreign terrorism investigations since 2001 and helped in the capture of the most wanted Qaeda figure in Southeast Asia, the officials said.

"Hidden?" Not anymore.

The blabbermouths who have just blown the cover on this program don't seem to care that they've sabotaged a successful counterterrorism tool:

[The program] has provided clues to money trails and ties between possible terrorists and groups financing them, the officials said. In some instances, they said, the program has pointed them to new suspects, while in others it has buttressed cases already under investigation.

Among the successes was the capture of a Qaeda operative, Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, believed to be the mastermind of the 2002 bombing of a Bali resort, several officials said. The Swift data identified a previously unknown figure in Southeast Asia who had financial dealings with a person suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda; that link helped locate Hambali in Thailand in 2003, they said.

In the United States, the program has provided financial data in investigations into possible domestic terrorist cells as well as inquiries of Islamic charities with suspected of having links to extremists, the officials said.

The data also helped identify a Brooklyn man who was convicted on terrorism-related charges last year, the officials said. The man, Uzair Paracha, who worked at a New York import business, aided a Qaeda operative in Pakistan by agreeing to launder $200,000 through a Karachi bank, prosecutors said.

In terrorism prosecutions, intelligence officials have been careful to "sanitize," or hide the origins of evidence collected through the program to keep it secret, officials said.

Now all their careful efforts have been destroyed by Bush-deranged reporters who fashion themselves the true protectors of America. Here's editor Bill Keller explaning why he ignored the Bush administration's argument for keeping the legal program secret:

Bill Keller, the newspaper's executive editor, said: "We have listened closely to the administration's arguments for withholding this information, and given them the most serious and respectful consideration. We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest."

"Public interest," my you-know-what.

As Stephen Spruiell at The Media Blog points out (hat tip: Allah):

According to the NYT's own reporting, the program is legal. The program is helping us catch terrorists. The administration has briefed the appropriate members of Congress. The program has built-in safeguards to prevent abuse. And yet, with nothing more than a vague appeal to the "public interest" (which apparently is not outweighed in this case by the public's interest in apprehending terrorists), the NYT disregards all that and publishes intimate, classified details about the program. Keller and his team really do believe they are above the law. When it comes to national security, it isn't the government that should decide when secrecy is essential to a program's effectiveness. It is the New York Times.

National security be damned. There are Pulitzers to be won.

And more fat book advances to be chased, no doubt.

***

The NYTimes has in-house produced video showcasing Licthblau as he "reveals a secret Bush administration program to access to financial records."

Aren't we so proud of ourselves?

***

ABP:

Can anyone tell me why this program is a matter of public interest? The monitoring is done overseas, and does not involve monitoring purely domestic transactions (although I wouldn’t see the problem if it did). An outside auditor was hired to safeguard against abuses, and under International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the President had the “investigate, regulate or prohibit” foreign transactions in responding to “an unusual and extraordinary threat.”

But now, thanks to fine folks at The New York Times, yet another effective tool in the war on terror has been exposed to the enemy, despite the fact that no one can point to any legal problem with the program and that it has been effective in capturing those who would kill us...Much like the NSA Terrorist Surveillance program, I predict the Dems and the MSM will overplay their hand. Americans with common sense and who actually want to win the war on terror won’t be able to see what the big deal is about this program, and in fact would probably be upset if we weren’t doing it.

Bryan Preston:

Call me crazy, but since the program is legal and since the administration argues it has helped stop terror attacks, isn’t the weight of the public’s interest in this story on the side of keeping the program under wraps so that it can continue to stop terrorists?

When the terrorists finally do succeed, will the Times rush out with an apology for having outed two major anti-terror programs that just might have helped stop it–if they had remained secret? Of course not. We all know what the Times will do–blame Bush.

Patterico:

I am biting down on my rage right now. I’ll resist the temptation to say Ann Coulter was right about where Timothy McVeigh should have gone with his truck bomb. I’ll say only this: it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that the people at the New York Times are not just biased media folks whose antics can be laughed off. They are actually dangerous...The article is likely to do far more than “jeopardize [the program’s] effectiveness.” It’s clear to me that the publication of the article will shut it down entirely. The article says that, in 2003, officials of the banking cooperative “were discussing pulling out because of their concerns about legal and financial risks if the program were revealed, one government official said.” But our top officials did a “full-court press” and promised to institute even tighter controls, which had apparently been quite successful.

Now that the program has been splashed all over the pages of the New York Times, I think that Swift’s era of cooperation with the U.S. Government is over.

What exactly is in the public interest about revealing classified information that has been successful in tracking and apprehending murderous terrorists?

Jeff Goldstein:

[W]hat is most ironic about these leak stories is that dubious decision-making by today’s “adversarial” media will doubtless create a climate in which it is far more likely that future administrations will take extraordinary measures to keep information secret. All because some in the press have forgotten that with access and freedom comes great responsibility. That the NYT is willing to trade that responsibility for a “scoop” it pretends is in the “public interest” is, frankly, embarrassing—and one of the reasons Americans are increasingly unhappy with the mainstream press.

And in the long-run, we could find ourselves less informed because of it. Which is a net negative for a truly free society.

***

Contact info:

Send a letter to the editor by e-mailing letters@nytimes.com or faxing (212)556-3622.

Snail mail:

Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036

The Los Angeles Times thumbs its nose and national security:

Administration officials were concerned that news reports of the program would diminish its effectiveness and could harm overall national security.

"It's a tough call; it was not a decision made lightly," said Doyle McManus, the Los Angeles Times' Washington bureau chief. "The key issue here is whether the government has shown that there are adequate safeguards in these programs to give American citizens confidence that information that should remain private is being protected."

Treasury Department officials spent 90 minutes Thursday meeting with the newspaper's reporters, stressing the legality of the program and urging the paper to not publish a story on the program, McManus said in a telephone interview.

"They were quite vigorous, they were quite energetic. They made a very strong case," he said.

And they blew the Bush administration off anyway.

Write the Los Angeles Times here.

***

Round-ups: Instapundit * Pajamas Media

***
Previous:

Red Alert: Chicken Littles on the loose
How the NYTimes is ringing in 2006
Take a leak
Finally: Justice Dept. opens NSA leak probe
How to stop dangerous press leaks
Pulitzer Day

Jihad In Miami

By Michelle Malkin

You've seen tonight's headlines: FBI detains 7 in domestic terror probe

Seven people are in custody after a sweep by law enforcement authorities in connection with an alleged plot against targets that may have included the Sears Tower, officials told CNN on Thursday.

Officials said no weapons or bomb-making materials had been found in the searches in the Miami area by FBI and state and local law enforcement officials. The city is under no imminent threat, according to the FBI.

Law enforcement sources told CNN that the arrests disrupted what may have been the early stages of a domestic terrorist plot to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois, the FBI building in Miami, and possibly other targets

Allah has all the late-breaking developments, video, and early blog reax. More coverage: ABC * Miami Herald.

Some of the suspects are black Muslim radicals.

Law enforcement sources told CNN that some of the suspects are members of a radical African-American Muslim group and that at least one had taken "an al Qaeda oath." They had carried out surveillance on the Sears Tower and FBI building in Miami, the sources said.

Sources told CNN that the arrests culminated a monthslong undercover operation. The suspects believed they were dealing with an al Qaeda operative, but the person was actually a government informant, the sources said...The FBI said one search warrant was executed in a warehouse near a housing project in Liberty City, a predominantly black and low-income area of Miami.

There have been several black Muslim jihadi plots and prosecutions before and after 9/11.

In April 2003, James Ujaama pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to provide goods and services to the Taliban.

The Portland 7 consisted of several black Muslim converts:

Most recently, black Muslim inmates at New Folsom State Prison in California who swore allegiance to Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (Arabic for "Assembly of Authentic Islam" and known as JIS) were implicated in a jihadi plot to plan attacks on synagogues and a military recruiting center in Santa Monica, Calif.

Gates of Vienna and the Politics of CP have reported extensively on the homegrown black Muslim terrorist group, al Fuqra.

Black militant Muslim American Clement Rodney Hampton-El was convicted of 3 counts including seditious conspiracy, bombing conspiracy, and attempted bombing in the 1993 World Traade Center bomb plot.

And don't forget freelancers like the Beltway snipers. And the old school black Muslim thugs (and Jesse Jackson pals) of the Chicago-based El Rukn. Ken Timmerman has the goods.

Like I say: It's the jihad, stupid.

***

Bob Owens catches the Democratic Underground already playing the race card.

Reader Martin sends a reminder about this March 2006 story about Sears Tower casing that was pooh-poohed.

HUNDREDS OF WMD FOUND IN IRAQ SINCE 2004

Republicans Senator Rick Santorum and Congressman Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee held a news conference today reporting that about 500 weapons munitions have been found in Iraq since May 2004.

A declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit reports:

Subject: Iraqi Chemical Munitions

Purpose: This summary provides an unclassified overview of chemical munitions recovered in Iraq since May 2004.

Key Points:

–Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agents.

–Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist. **(in addition to the 500 already found)

– Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the black market . Use of these weapons by terrorists or insurgent groups would have implications for Coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside Iraq cannot be ruled out.

–The most likely munitions remaining are sarin and mustard-filled projectiles.

–The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives, and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.

–It has been reported in open press that insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons.

As of right now, many major networks are not covering the story. Check out CNN.com. Liberal guests on Fox News fully discounted the news as meaningless.

“This says weapons have been discovered, more weapons exist and they state that Iraq was not a WMD-free zone, that there are continuing threats from the materials that are or may still be in Iraq,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Rick Santorum said: “Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.”

Remember what the Dems said about WMD and Saddam as late recently as 2003.

When my husband was in Baghdad, Iraq in 2003, soldiers found munitions buried in the backyards of a couple high ranking Baathist officials. I recall seeing the reports on CNN and other places, but not much came of the reports. Back in June 2005 I wrote that the United Nations reported 109 sites in Iraq had missing WMD:

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.

U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003 so they have been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses.

Liberals will argue that these are pre-Gulf War WMD, but are they not the very ones Saddam told the U.N. he destroyed yet we all knew he had, based on various intelligence? Liberals will also say they WMD are useless and ineffectual, but how then does the classified report say that they could be sold on the black market or that they could be “used” outside of Iraq? And why would Iraqi groups and insurgents try to obtain the WMD that were unusable?

Could it be that Pres. George W. Bush is owed a huge apology? Al Sharpton said on Fox’s Bill O’Reilly tonight that if WMD were ever found in Iraq that he would apologize to the President on the O’Reilly Factor. I’ve got the DVD-R on record…

HOUSE GOP ON THE ROAD TO KILLING THE SENATE IMMIGRATION BILL

The prayers of many Americans that the Senate Immigration Reform Bill will be killed by Republicans in House of Representatives may be answered in the next few days — perhaps hours.

Amid growing opposition to the Senate immigration plan by GOP conservatives and moderates, CNN reported Tuesday night that a move by the House of Representatives could prevent immigration legislation from passing Congress this year. The House Republican leadership says they will begin a fresh series of hearings on immigration next month.

The hearings will be held in Washington and across the country “so we understand what the American people are saying,” said House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois.

The push for the hearings is led by Hastert, an aide to the GOP leadership told CNN. The hearings on Capitol Hill will occur in July, the aide said, but most of those outside of Washington will be held in August.

Another House Republican aide told CNN that the hearings were meant to “increase the negatives [of the Senate bill] while accentuating the positives of the House bill.”

In May the Senate passed immigration legislation that appeared weak on border security, but would create a program permitting illegal immigrants who had resided in the United States for five years or more to “earn” their citizenship after paying a fine and back taxes, learning English and holding a job for six years.

But conservatives began digging deeper into the bill and discovered a grab-bag full of goodies for people viewed by many as lawbreakers. The Senate bill also would allow illegal immigrants who have resided in the United States from two to five years to apply for a guest worker program.

A House Republican staffer, however, told CNN that said the hearings would effectively be “a final nail in the coffin” of the Senate’s legalization program.

“If it weren’t already in the the ground, it’s going there,” the House aide said.

President Bush supports the Senate’s “comprehensive” approach to immigration reform. Many conservative Republicans, especially those in the House, said the Senate’s approach amounted to “amnesty” and vociferously oppose any legalization program before border security has been strengthened.

Democrats are attempting to make this a Bush defeat, but most Americans understand that the Democrat Party by and large favors amnesty and, as one GOP staffer said, “pays lip service to those wishing tough border security.”

Speaker of the House, Denny Hastert says that the “top thing needed is to secure the borders and we need to have the law enforcement to go along with that.

Immigration is the most important issue for the Republicans and conservatives, a House Republican aide said, and will drive conservatives to the polls — unlike the recent Senate debate on gay marriage or the upcoming vote on an amendment to ban flag burning.

As evidence, House Republicans point to the victory by Rep. Brian Bilbray in a special election in California earlier this month. Bilbray ran against the approach favored by President Bush and the Senate and argued that the borders must be secured first. His opponent lost the election partly because she was recorded telling illegal aliens they didn’t need “papers” to vote.

—

Read more by this author on our site here. (Scroll down)

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance. He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He’s a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com. He’s also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he’s syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He’s appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc.