Sunday, September 30, 2007

Mad Dog Murtha should testify.

Article from Politico is Wrong...




The following article was written by John Bresnahan from the Politico blog. He doesn't support Mad Dog in the post but does provide him cover by getting the issue completely wrong.




Federal judge orders Murtha to testify in Haditha defamation case


A federal judge has ordered Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.) to testify in a defamation case related to the deaths of Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha in 2005, according to the Associated Press.

Murtha, a former Marine. accused Marines of "cold-blooded murder and war crimes'' during the Haditha incident. Frank Wuterich, a Marine sergeant involved in the incident, has sued Murtha for libel and invasion of privacy over his comments.

According to AP, U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer wants Murtha to explain why he made this statement and any documents he has related to the incident.

From the AP: 'You're writing a very wide road for members of Congress to go to their home districts and say anything they choose about private persons and be able to do so without any liability. Are you sure you want to do that?'' Collyer said, adding later, ''How far can a congressman go and still be protected?"

Frankly, I don't understand this ruling at all, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is appealed by the Justice Dept. and/or House general counsel's office on behalf of Murtha. Murtha, who can say some inappropriate things once in a while, was clearly acting in his capacity as a lawmaker when he made the comments and is thus protected by the Speech or Debate Clause from any type of prosecution for official acts.

Therefore, this case should have been dismissed, and I hope it will be. It's not that I agree with what Murtha said. I don't know enough about the incident to have an opinion whether Wuterich or the other Marines did anything improper or illegal. But Murtha has a right to say what he did under the Speech or Debate Clause, even if he was wrong about what happened. When we start restricting what members and senators can say in the performance of their jobs, then we are really in trouble as a country.

Update: There is a lot of confusion on the Speech or Debate Clause among Crypt readers, lawmakers, lawyers, public officials and the world at large, so I will try to explain it a little bit.

The Speech or Debate Clause does not protect members, senators or staff from arrest for a crime, and I am not suggesting that it does. If a member of Congress were to rob a bank or steal a car, he or she can be arrested and prosecuted for that crime. They have no constitutional privilege shielding them from the law on that front.

In addition, a lawmaker could libel someone if he or she were acting as a private citizen. That is entirely possible. Say I am a car dealer who sells Congressman X a new car, but he is unhappy about his purchase. Congressman X holds a press conference to announce to the world that I am "a damned crook who steals from everyone I sell cars to or have any other dealings with," including my own mother. It is obvious that I can sue Congressman X for libel based on the fact that our interaction had nothing to do with his official duties as a member of Congress, but rather as Private Citizen X. He has no constitutional privilege there.

But what Murtha did was comment on an incident involving Wuterich and other Marines at a press conference and in a follow-up TV interview. These interviews were related to his opposition to the Iraq war. The courts have found that such press-related activities are a normal part of the duties of a member of Congress, and are therefore covered by the Speech or Debate Clause. Murtha did not have to be on the floor of the House making a speech in order to enjoy the protection of the Speech or Debate Clause. My apologies to the commenters who believe otherwise, but you are incorrect on that front. Read up on the case of former Rep. Cass Ballenger (R-N.C.) and his comments about a mosque near his home, and you'll see what I'm saying.

Update 2 - To those who commented that the Ballenger was dismissed on grounds other than Speech or Debate, you are right. I cited the Ballenger case as an example of how courts have ruled that a member giving a press conference or answering questions in a TV interview is considered within the scope of official duties of a lawmaker, not as an example of the Speech or Debate Clause. I should have made that clearer in my earlier comments.

In addition, Murtha said what he said about Haditha using information he received from Defense Dept. officials as the then ranking member of the Defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. This information was gleaned from his contacts inside the Pentagon, contacts he has made as a member of Congress for the last 35 years (Murtha was elected to the House in 1972).

Therefore. his comments are covered by the Speech or Debate Clause, and he cannot be charged with defaming Wuterich or anyone else. I am not saying Murtha is correct in what he said about Wuterich and his fellow Marines. I do not know whether his statement was accurate or not, and it would probably have been better if he'd never made ir. But Murtha clearly had the right to say it, and hopefully this decision will be overturned on appeal.

One final note -- Wuterich may end up standing trial soon over his role in the death of 17 Iraqi civilians in the Nov. 19, 2005, incident in Haditha. If he were to go on trial and be found guilty of some crime in that case, then this lawsuit against Murtha would go away as well. Truth is the ultimate defense against libel, as any first year law or journalism student knows. I am not saying it will happen, and Wuterich is innocent of any wrongdoing as far as I know. But if it does happen, his legal action against Murtha would disappear. And my guess is that Wuterich's fate will likely be decided before this lawsuit is resolved.

So, to restate what I said before, this is a very bad ruling by a judge who is clearly unfamiliar with how the Speech or Debate Clause works. I hope the decision is appealed by the Justice Dept. (which has represented Murtha in this lawsuit) or the House general counsel's office and overturned. It is a legally unsound precedent and should be reversed as soon as possible.

By John Bresnahan 05:53 PM



Here is the Clause in question as it appears in that Bothersome Document the Constitution.

Speech or Debate Clause in Article I, Section 6, Clause 1

United States Constitution, Article I, Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.




Mad Dog Murtha was NOT on the Floor of the House when his comments were made. This clause in NO WAY gives any member of Congress freedom from prosecution for liable or defamation of a soldier. He was in NO WAY performing ANY of his duties as a member of the House, unless we are willing to admit that a duty of a member of congress is to use raw privileged (probably classified) data to make a purely political attack on ANYONE that represents an opposing view of your party.

If anything this clause spells out exactly a reason to prosecute Murtha. Mad Dog with his statements and actions regarding the Marines involved in the Haditha incident is in Violation of "Breach of the Peace". Not only are his statements prosecutable but they very well could have incited attacks on those Marines and were used by the enemy to incite attacks on our other Military personnel.

Murtha should be tried and brought up on articles of impeachment for violating the very clause that he uses as his defense. Soldiers were attacked and died because of Mad Dog Murthas statements. Al-Qaeda used his words for recruitment. Murtha was also both Trying and Convicting these Marines in the court of public opinion, inciting his base to attack our soldiers as they did Vietnam Vets. That's a Breach of the Peace!

Monday, September 24, 2007

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE

PARTY CRASHER
By NEWT GINGRICH


September 23, 2007 -- The decision of the leading Republican candidates for president to skip the debate being organized by African-American talk show host Tavis Smiley this week is shortsighted, not just for the party but for the country.
Contrary to what candidates in either party may think, the political dividing line in America doesn’t run between the GOP and minorities. For most Americans, it’s not even found between Republicans and Democrats, or the red-versus-blue-state invention of the media.

The real division is between hardworking, tax-paying Americans - of both parties and all races - and an entrenched, permanent governing system in Washington and state capitals designed to serve its own needs and not the needs of the American people.

Over the 42 years since the beginning of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the increasing power of public employee unions, the growth of the bureaucracies, the rise of lawyers, the development of complex regulatory legalism, and the entrenchment of an elite establishment that imposes political correctness have combined to create this permanent governing class system.

And the values of this permanent government are not those of the Americans who pay the taxes and the union dues that support it. Its bureaucracies value process more than achievement; its lawyers value rules over results; and its politically correct elite value avoiding embarrassment more than telling the truth about failure.

In stark contrast, the American people, regardless of race and party affiliation, are overwhelmingly united on key values and on the need for real change in the way America governs itself.

American Solutions for Winning the Future is a new, nonpartisan organization I created that is built around three goals: to defend America and our allies and defeat our enemies, to strengthen and revitalize America’s core values and principles, and to move the government into the 21st century. Our research found that 86 percent of Americans agree that there are key values such as family, freedom, faith and work ethic that unite a large majority of us. And this support for basic American principles is true across the board. Among African-Americans, 78 percent agree, as do 79 percent of Hispanic Americans, that we have such unifying values.

Ninety-two percent of Americans believe that we need to provide long-term solutions instead of short-term fixes.

Eighty-four percent - including 81 percent of African-Americans and 78 percent of Hispanics - believe the scale of change we need is bigger than the presidency and has to involve citizens and public officials at all levels of government.

And a full 74 percent of Americans support changing the way government works by bringing in ideas successfully used in the private sector.

PERMANENT PROBLEMS

Democracies fail when the values of the voters are so clearly at odds with the values of the permanent governing establishment who control the nation’s and the states’ capitals. How did we get to this point?

We’ve witnessed failure after failure of the permanent government: failure to secure the border; failure to adequately respond to Hurricane Katrina; failures in implementation in Iraq and Afghanistan; failure to control the grotesque explosion of congressional pork; failure to make our urban school systems produce educated children; failure to make English the official language of government; failure to balance the federal budget; failure to fix our healthcare delivery system; and failure to reform - Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

These failures of the permanent government are clearly unacceptable to most Americans. But for the permanent government and its interest group allies, the system works just fine because it serves their needs.

For example, from the standpoint of the bureaucracy, the Detroit public schools are a great success, which they prove every time they issue a check. To think the bureaucracy would be horrified over its catastrophically low graduation rate that destroys young lives would assume that their most important metric is how well they serve the students.

Changing Detroit’s dismal performance will not be possible without citizen intervention and their insistence for accountability and the leverage needed to ensure accountability. Detroit parents must be given immediate recourse for underperforming or failing schools beyond waiting for the next election.

One idea for fundamental change would be to give parents the leverage they need by allowing them to take their child out of a failing school and put them into a performing school. The money to educate that child would go with the child to the new school thus giving the parents the leverage and the schools the incentive to perform. Without both leverage and incentives, no change is possible. But the fact is that neither exist today in the Detroit public school system.

This system of self-reinforcing power can never be reformed from within. Change, if it is to come, must come from without.

HEALTH-CARE FOLLIES

The problem is that our current political system is tragically ill-equipped to bring about fundamental change and not just in Detroit but throughout America’s aging and increasingly ineffective bureaucracies.

The model for our bureaucracies were invented in the later 19th century and codified into law during the 1930s. While they worked marginally well in the agrarian and industrial ages, they are increasingly inadequate for the information age.

Health care provides one of the most vivid examples. In health care, there exist few, if any, of the required elements for well-served consumers: products and services of higher quality with more choices, at the lowest cost and with the greatest convenience. Yet, at the moment we need to innovate and transform health care, we have proposals from presidential candidates based upon this now failed model and moves instead toward a Washington bureaucratic-controlled healthcare system.

We need to go in the opposite direction by putting citizens in the driver’s seat by making the price and quality of health-care services transparent so that they can make informed choices.

Florida has already posted pharmacy drug prices online so consumers can compare prices. They have also posted hospital medical procedure prices and their outcomes.

There are many solutions to both improve health care and lower the cost. Health Savings Accounts (HSA) are a good start. But even more price-lowering, quality-improving competitive elements are needed like cross-state insurance purchasing so that health consumers can choose a policy from anywhere in the country that makes sense for them. Getting as many people insured as possible would have enormous benefits to health-care price and quality, and we could insure a substantial number of today’s uninsured by providing a refundable tax credits so the poor can purchase health insurance.

A NEW WAY

In all areas that challenge our nation, we need collaborative, citizen-based solutions, but our political process is designed to give us consultant-led partisan warfare.

We need dramatically new ideas, but the system is designed to give us safe, poll-tested sound bites.

We need a genuine dialogue that transcends party and race, but the system gives us bitterly partisan, highly choreographed political theater and calls it “debate.”

And when someone dares to depart even slightly from the current debate formula - as Tavis Smiley did when he invited Republican candidates to an African-American-organized debate - the front-runners discover that they have “scheduling conflicts.”

For their part, the Democrats are no better. The major Democratic candidates would rather the people not hear their views than attend a debate sponsored by the Fox News Network. Like the Republicans, they’d rather play it safe than risk a genuine conversation about our future.

What America needs in 2008 is the opposite of modern political campaigning.

This requires the creation and sustaining of a citizens movement that reaches out beyond the presidency to the more than 500,000 elected officials at every level of government, from school boards to the White House. To begin the process of creating such a movement, my organization, American Solutions, will hold a series of nationwide workshops on the challenges facing America this Thursday and Saturday, the 13th anniversary of the Contract with America (americansolutions.com).

In substance, this requires reclaiming our country from the permanent governing elite and some difficult choices for both parties.

For Democrats, it means taking positions that may alienate key interest groups but will appeal to a majority of Americans. For instance, the Democratic Party cannot support the overwhelmingly popular positions like controlling the border, English as the official language of government, consumer-based health care, and providing parents who have kids in failing schools with an education coupon redeemable for a good education at another school because their leftist interest groups will not allow them to.

For Republicans, it means offering a clean break from the status quo. The model for the GOP comes from - of all places - France. There, newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy demonstrated that it is possible to produce a decisive election victory in favor of more conservative reform. His most “radical” proposal was to let workers be able to work overtime tax free. This allowed him to stake out a positive position to entice workers who traditionally looked to the Socialist Party to support their interests.

It remains to be seen which political party can create the next governing majority. The time is right for bold leadership that recognizes that in order for America to succeed, the entrenched, permanent government in Washington and our state capitals can and must be defeated. If it sounds like a tall order, that’s because it is. But here’s a modest start: Democrats agree to debate on Fox News, and Republicans agree to debate with Tavis Smiley.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is the chairman of American Solutions and author of “Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8” (St. Martins Press)

Sunday, September 23, 2007

DEATH TO AMERICA....

Iran's Ahmadinejad issues new threats against Israel, U.S.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BY ADAM NICHOLS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, September 23rd 2007, 4:00 AM

On the eve of his trip to New York City, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood before a banner blaring "Death to America," showed off his military might and declared his extremist regime will not bow to Western pressure.

"Those who think, that by using such decayed tools as psychological warfare and economic sanctions, they can stop the Iranian nation's progress are making a mistake," Ahmadinejad said yesterday outside of Tehran.

As the hatemonger spoke, a parade of anti-aircraft guns, missiles and military hardware moved before him. Three jet fighters flew overhead.

In a menacing move, Ahmadinejad's military henchmen said the medium-range missiles could reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf.

Ahmadinejad, who is coming to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly, is expected to land at Kennedy Airport today.

The White House and U.S. military leaders have accused Iran of supplying training and weapons to terrorists who are attacking and killing U.S. troops in Iraq.

Large protests will greet Ahmadinejad - an accused terrorist, Holocaust denier and member of the Axis of Evil - when he speaks at Columbia University on Monday and when he addresses the UN Tuesday.

Ahmadinejad sparked outrage last week by requesting an official tour of Ground Zero. The proposed visit, which was promptly rejected by the NYPD, sickened victims' relatives and U.S. leaders.

Ahmadinejad said he was "amazed" by the negative reaction. But he has said he will abandon his plans to lay a wreath on the hallowed ground where nearly 3,000 people were killed by terrorists - an attack he has suggested was an inside job carried out by U.S. intelligence agents.

Columbia has refused to cancel Ahmadinejad's appearance at its School of International and Public Affairs. University President Lee Bollinger has vowed to challenge Ahmadinejad on his denial of the Holocaust, his alleged sponsorship of terrorism, his pursuit of nuclear weapons and the imprisonment of journalists and scholars in Iran.

But several political leaders and religious groups have slammed Columbia for inviting the madman to mouth off.

"Anyone who supports terror, pledges to destroy a sovereign nation [Israel], punishes by death anyone who 'insults' religion ... denies the Holocaust and thumbs his nose at the international community has no legitimate role to play at a university," Catholic League President Bill Donohue said.

The State Department has issued Ahmadinejad an extremely restrictive C-2 visa. It lasts 29 days and the holder must remain within a 25-mile radius of Columbus Circle.

The NYPD and a Secret Service detail will accompany Ahmadinejad during his visit - and protect him despite his repeated threats against the U.S.

At the military parade in Iran yesterday, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said Western powers would regret it if they attacked the Islamic republic over Tehran's nuclear activities.

"They will regret it, as they are regretting it in Iraq," Jafari said.

Asked how Iran would respond if a neighboring country let its territory be used to launch attacks, Jafari said, "You have seen the missiles - just pull the trigger and shoot."

anichols@nydailynews.com

Report: IDF raid seized nuclear material before Syria air strike

By Haaretz Service

Israel Defense Forces commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a raid on a secret military site in Syria before the Israel Air Force allegedly bombed it this month, British newspaper The Sunday Times reported Sunday.

The report, based on what the newspaper called "informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem," said the air strike was carried out with United States approval after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related.

The paper quoted Israeli sources as saying Israeli special forces had been gathering intelligence for several months in Syria, and had located the nuclear material at a compound in the country's north.

In another report, Newsweek quoted Uzi Arad, a former senior Mossad official and ex-policy advisor to then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as saying of the reported operation: I do know what happened, and when it comes out, it will stun everyone."

Netanyahu stirred anger among aides to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week when he appeared to confirm reports of the operation - about which Israeli officials have maintained a rare silence - during an interview with Israel Channel One Television.

The Sunday Times reported that diplomats in North Korea and China believe a number of North Koreans were killed in the strike, based on reports reaching Asian governments about conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials. The officials noted that ballistic missile technicians and military scientists had been working for some time with the Syrians.

According to the report, the Bush Administration was given Israeli intelligence suggesting North Korean personnel and nuclear-related material were at the Syrian site over the summer, but the administration demanded "clear evidence of nuclear-related activities before giving the operation its blessing."

As a result, the newspaper said, IDF commandos "almost certainly dressed in Syrian uniforms" seized samples of the nuclear material and took them back to Israel for testing. The sources confirmed that the samples were identified as being from North Korea.

According to the Sunday Times, the site - near Dayr az-Zawr - now lies in ruins following the IAF strike.

The report said the operation was personally directed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who according to The Sunday Times is said to have been largely preoccupied with it since taking up his post on June 18. The newspaper quoted military experts as saying that the operation probably could not have taken place under former defense minister Amir Peretz.

Syria has said IAF planes violated its airspace and fired missiles at targets on the ground, but both Damascus and Pyongyang have vehemently denied the reports of nuclear cooperation.

The Sunday Times also quoted an Israeli intelligence expert as saying, "Syria has retaliated in the past for much smaller humiliations, but they will choose the place, the time and the target."

The IAF dispatched several fighter jets toward Syria Saturday, after a Syrian airplane disappeared from the Israeli radar screens, army sources said.

The jets returned to base after they ascertained that the Syrian plane had crashed.

Barak: Israel must operate as though war is around the corner
Israel must act as though the next war is right around the corner, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Sunday at the state's official commemoration of soldiers killed in the Yom Kippur War.

Barak said that the lesson from the 1973 war is that "on security matters, we cannot be deceived by apparent and imagined calm. We need self-control, vigilance, and an experienced and stable hand at the helm."

The defense minister also said that "on matters pertaining to our national security, the strength of Israel must be alert and fit at all times. We must always cultivate and enhance the decisive and quality advantage of this strength, along with the warrior spirit and the tools of war."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday morning during a cabinet meeting that the "security establishment operates incessantly in all sectors and brings the most successful of achievements.

"Many times, these achievements are not exposed to the public, but this doesn't mean that successful operations are not carried out."

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Murtha Always worth a Raspberry




UPDATE: Murtha: GOP will turn on Iraq when ’08 pick is made
By Mike Soraghan
September 17, 2007
House Appropriations Defense subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) said Monday that he expects that Republican lawmakers will begin abandoning President Bush’s Iraq policy after the GOP picks a presidential candidate next year.

“As soon as the primaries are over, you’ll see Republicans start jumping ship,” Murtha said in remarks at the National Press Club.

Murtha also predicted that, despite the unpopularity of Congress, Democrats will make broad gains in next year’s election because voters are upset with the war.

“People are frustrated, but you’re going to see a big Democratic increase,” he told reporters after his speech. “I think we’ll pick up 40 [to] 50 seats.”

The lawmaker, a key adviser to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on military issues, is not waiting on the presidential calendar to push for a broad troop withdrawal from Iraq. Murtha said he expects the Iraq war supplemental spending bill, up for debate in October or November, to include a specific date for withdrawal.

During his hour-long presentation, Murtha said he was not familiar with legislation by Reps. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) and John Tanner (D-Tenn.) calling on President Bush to report on his withdrawal planning. Many centrists in both parties see the legislation as a vehicle for bipartisan action on Iraq in Congress.

Murtha also tersely said he would denounce the newspaper advertisement taken out by the liberal group MoveOn.org criticizing commanding Gen. David Petraeus as “General Betray Us.” Without elaborating, he said “Yes” when asked if he would distance himself from the ad.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Mohamed ElBaradei, speaking out his ASS

IAEA Chief Warns Against Striking Iran

By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- The chief U.N. nuclear inspector urged Iran's harshest critics Monday to learn from the Iraq invasion and refrain from "hype" about a possible military attack, saying force was an option of last resort.

Mohamed ElBaradei, speaking outside a 144-nation meeting of his International Atomic Energy Agency, invoked the example of Iraq in urging an end to the threats of force against Iran - most recently over the weekend by France. (Oh yes we mustn't threaten the Mad Little Persians, it's OK if they threaten us and the Jews though)

"I would not talk about any use of force," said ElBaradei, noting that only the Security Council can authorize such action. (the UN is NOT the World Government, and The Security Council does not control the worlds Armies) "There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons." (Oh BULLSHIT they were attacked because they supported TERROR and Sadam did everything in his power to make the WORLD believe he was working on WMD. Not to mention the 7 TONs of Uranium that was removed from the country after his defeat)

He was alluding to a key U.S. argument for invading Iraq in 2003 without Security Council approval - that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear arms. Four years later, no such weapons have been found. (oh don't count all those biological weapons that have been destoyed a little nerve gas never hurt anyone)

"I do not believe at this stage that we are facing a clear and present danger that require we go beyond diplomacy," ElBaradei said, adding that his agency had no information "the Iran program is being weaponized." (it won't be clear and present danger until the Mushroom cloud settles over Tel Aviv)

"We need not to hype the issue," he told reporters. (Bomb em and Bomb em NOW)

On Sunday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned the world should prepare for war if Iran obtains nuclear weapons and said European leaders were considering their own economic sanctions against the Islamic country. (Because the UN is useless like Tits on a boar pig)

Speaking on RTL radio, Kouchner said that if "such a bomb is made ... we must prepare ourselves for the worst," specifying that could mean a war. (The first thing France has said in 5years that makes any sense)

Iranian state media lashed out at France on Monday, saying its officials have "become translators of the White House policies in Europe and have adopted a tone that is even harder, even more inflammatory and more illogical than that of Washington

The U.S. has refused to rule out the possibility of force against Iran if it continues to enrich. Still, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday the U.S. administration is committed, for now, to using diplomatic and economic means to counter the potential nuclear threat from Iran. (until the bombing begins..LOL)

On Monday, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon sought to play down Kouchner's comments, saying "everything must be done to avoid war." (tell that to the Iranians)

"France's role is to lead the way to a peaceful solution," Fillon said, while at the same time calling for the "the most severe sanctions possible against the Iranian government if it continues" with its disputed nuclear program. (yes lets start a food for Nukes program)

Negotiations and two sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions have failed to persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium. Iran insists its atomic activities are aimed only at producing energy, but the U.S., its European allies and other world powers suspect the country is seeking nuclear weapons. (especialy since they are saying daily that Israel must cease to exist)

Alluding to the U.S. and its Western allies, Iranian Vice President Reza Aghazadeh accused unnamed countries of forcing the international community onto the "unjustified, illegal, deceptive and misleading path ... by imposing restrictions and sanctions." (LOL)

And he again ruled out scrapping Iran's uranium enrichment program, telling delegates Iran would "never give up its inalienable and legal right in benefiting from peaceful nuclear technology." (in other words they will build their bomb unless we stop them)

ElBaradei called on nations critical of his last-ditch effort to entice Iran into revealing past nuclear activities that could be linked to a weapons program to wait until the end of the year - when the deadline for Iran to provide answers runs out. (How many Deadlines have they already flaunted in the worlds face?)

"By November or December we will be able to know if Iran is acting in good faith or not," he said, suggesting that was the time to think of tougher diplomacy if needed - but not military action. (So lets bomb them in October)

He also urged the declared nuclear weapons states - the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France - to set the example and reduce the incentive to proliferate by initiating "deep cuts in their nuclear arsenal." (LOL yeah right after Russia disarms so will we)

This Man is a bafoon...



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Sunday, September 16, 2007

The Government Pelosi & Kucinich "Can Negotiate With" build up a NUCLEAR CACHE'

Nancy Pelousy and Dennis the menace Kookcinich Love President Bashar al-Assad. They find him as someone that they can negotiate with and open alternative lines of communication with. The "current" administration is wrong to treat this poor soul as an enemy and a supporter of Terror. So what is it that they see in this misunderstood man and regime? Oh I guess nothing that any Democrat would be concerned about. Those pesky Jews need to be Nuked. They are the real enemy as this current regime here in the US is. The EVIL NEO-CONS are responsible for the problems because they have the nerve to want to deny Hezbooha the ability to fry up a million Jew barbecue....


Israelis ‘blew apart Syrian nuclear cache’
Secret raid on Korean shipment

IT was just after midnight when the 69th Squadron of Israeli F15Is crossed the Syrian coast-line. On the ground, Syria’s formidable air defences went dead. An audacious raid on a Syrian target 50 miles from the Iraqi border was under way.

At a rendezvous point on the ground, a Shaldag air force commando team was waiting to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up position near a large underground depot. Soon the bunkers were in flames.

Ten days after the jets reached home, their mission was the focus of intense speculation this weekend amid claims that Israel believed it had destroyed a cache of nuclear materials from North Korea.

The Israeli government was not saying. “The security sources and IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] soldiers are demonstrating unusual courage,” said Ehud Olmert, the prime minister. “We naturally cannot always show the public our cards.”

The Syrians were also keeping mum. “I cannot reveal the details,” said Farouk al-Sharaa, the vice-president. “All I can say is the military and political echelon is looking into a series of responses as we speak. Results are forthcoming.” The official story that the target comprised weapons destined for Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite group, appeared to be crumbling in the face of widespread scepticism.

Andrew Semmel, a senior US State Department official, said Syria might have obtained nuclear equipment from “secret suppliers”, and added that there were a “number of foreign technicians” in the country.

Asked if they could be North Korean, he replied: “There are North Korean people there. There’s no question about that.” He said a network run by AQ Khan, the disgraced creator of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, could be involved.

But why would nuclear material be in Syria? Known to have chemical weapons, was it seeking to bolster its arsenal with something even more deadly?

Alternatively, could it be hiding equipment for North Korea, enabling Kim Jong-il to pretend to be giving up his nuclear programme in exchange for economic aid? Or was the material bound for Iran, as some authorities in America suggest?

According to Israeli sources, preparations for the attack had been going on since late spring, when Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, presented Olmert with evidence that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea.

The Israeli spy chief apparently feared such a device could eventually be installed on North-Korean-made Scud-C missiles.

“This was supposed to be a devastating Syrian surprise for Israel,” said an Israeli source. “We’ve known for a long time that Syria has deadly chemical warheads on its Scuds, but Israel can’t live with a nuclear warhead.”

An expert on the Middle East, who has spoken to Israeli participants in the raid, told yesterday’s Washington Post that the timing of the raid on September 6 appeared to be linked to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying North Korean material labelled as cement but suspected of concealing nuclear equipment.

The target was identified as a northern Syrian facility that purported to be an agricultural research centre on the Euphrates river. Israel had been monitoring it for some time, concerned that it was being used to extract uranium from phosphates.

According to an Israeli air force source, the Israeli satellite Ofek 7, launched in June, was diverted from Iran to Syria. It sent out high-quality images of a northeastern area every 90 minutes, making it easy for air force specialists to spot the facility.

Early in the summer Ehud Barak, the defence minister, had given the order to double Israeli forces on its Golan Heights border with Syria in anticipation of possible retaliation by Damascus in the event of air strikes.

Sergei Kirpichenko, the Russian ambassador to Syria, warned President Bashar al-Assad last month that Israel was planning an attack, but suggested the target was the Golan Heights.

Israeli military intelligence sources claim Syrian special forces moved towards the Israeli outpost of Mount Hermon on the Golan Heights. Tension rose, but nobody knew why.

At this point, Barak feared events could spiral out of control. The decision was taken to reduce the number of Israeli troops on the Golan Heights and tell Damascus the tension was over. Syria relaxed its guard shortly before the Israeli Defence Forces struck.

Only three Israeli cabinet ministers are said to have been in the know ? Olmert, Barak and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister. America was also consulted. According to Israeli sources, American air force codes were given to the Israeli air force attaché in Washington to ensure Israel’s F15Is would not mistakenly attack their US counterparts.

Once the mission was under way, Israel imposed draconian military censorship and no news of the operation emerged until Syria complained that Israeli aircraft had violated its airspace. Syria claimed its air defences had engaged the planes, forcing them to drop fuel tanks to lighten their loads as they fled.

But intelligence sources suggested it was a highly successful Israeli raid on nuclear material supplied by North Korea.

Washington was rife with speculation last week about the precise nature of the operation. One source said the air strikes were a diversion for a daring Israeli commando raid, in which nuclear materials were intercepted en route to Iran and hauled to Israel. Others claimed they were destroyed in the attack.

There is no doubt, however, that North Korea is accused of nuclear cooperation with Syria, helped by AQ Khan’s network. John Bolton, who was undersecretary for arms control at the State Department, told the United Nations in 2004 the Pakistani nuclear scientist had “several other” customers besides Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Some of his evidence came from the CIA, which had reported to Congress that it viewed “Syrian nuclear intentions with growing concern”.

“I’ve been worried for some time about North Korea and Iran outsourcing their nuclear programmes,” Bolton said last week. Syria, he added, was a member of a “junior axis of evil”, with a well-established ambition to develop weapons of mass destruction.

The links between Syria and North Korea date back to the rule of Kim Il-sung and President Hafez al-Assad in the last century. In recent months, their sons have quietly ordered an increase in military and technical cooperation.

Foreign diplomats who follow North Korean affairs are taking note. There were reports of Syrian passengers on flights from Beijing to Pyongyang and sightings of Middle Eastern businessmen from sources who watch the trains from North Korea to China.

On August 14, Rim Kyong Man, the North Korean foreign trade minister, was in Syria to sign a protocol on “cooperation in trade and science and technology”. No details were released, but it caught Israel’s attention.

Syria possesses between 60 and 120 Scud-C missiles, which it has bought from North Korea over the past 15 years. Diplomats believe North Korean engineers have been working on extending their 300-mile range. It means they can be used in the deserts of northeastern Syria ? the area of the Israeli strike.

The triangular relationship between North Korea, Syria and Iran continues to perplex intelligence analysts. Syria served as a conduit for the transport to Iran of an estimated £50m of missile components and technology sent by sea from North Korea. The same route may be in use for nuclear equipment.

But North Korea is at a sensitive stage of negotiations to end its nuclear programme in exchange for security guarantees and aid, leading some diplomats to cast doubt on the likelihood that Kim would cross America’s “red line” forbidding the proliferation of nuclear materials.

Christopher Hill, the State Department official representing America in the talks, said on Friday he could not confirm “intelligence-type things”, but the reports underscored the need “to make sure the North Koreans get out of the nuclear business”.

By its actions, Israel showed it is not interested in waiting for diplomacy to work where nuclear weapons are at stake.

As a bonus, the Israelis proved they could penetrate the Syrian air defence system, which is stronger than the one protecting Iranian nuclear sites.

This weekend President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran sent Ali Akbar Mehrabian, his nephew, to Syria to assess the damage. The new “axis of evil” may have lost one of its spokes.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Clinton and Obama Play Race Card in ILLEGAL CONTRIBUTIONS

When you get caught doing something illegal first card out of the deck is the race card...LOL

Rival charges Hillary Clinton turned blind eye to Hsu's past
Bill Sammon, The Examiner
2007-09-11 22:15:00.0
Current rank: # 1 of 5,320

WASHINGTON -
Hillary Clinton's links to illegal fundraising by Asian-Americans in 1996 should have made her wary of accepting $850,000 from a fugitive Asian-American this year, a rival presidential campaign said Tuesday.

The criticism came from an adviser to former Republican Sen. Fred Thompson, who chaired a Senate investigation into illegal contributions by Asian-Americans to Bill Clinton's re-election campaign and the couple's legal defense fund in the 1996 election cycle.

Thompson adviser Rich Galen said Clinton's 2008 campaign has become "the sequel" to her husband's scandal-plagued 1996 campaign.

Late Monday, Clinton announced she was returning $850,000 raised by fugitive Norman Hsu, who jumped bail in 1992 after being convicted of defrauding investors of $1 million. Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said the campaign was "unaware" of a warrant for Hsu's arrest.

Galen was unconvinced.

"You have to look at this with a great deal of skepticism that - having been through this sort of thing in '96 - that nobody thought to say, 'Hey, you know, we better take another look at this before we take all this money,' " he said.

"And the fact that nobody did - or if they did, they decided to just put their finger in front of their lips and say shhh and try to sneak off into the distance - tells you a great deal about the fact that the Hillary Clinton campaign is the Bill Clinton campaign redux."

Wolfson said, "We reject the suggestion that suspicion should be based on ethnicity in America.

"Mr. Hsu donated to numerous charities and more than two dozen candidates and committees," he told The Examiner. "Despite conducting a thorough review of public records, our campaign, like these others, was unaware of Mr. Hsu's decade-plus-old warrant."

In 2005, prior to raising funds for Clinton, Hsu co-hosted a fundraiser for Barack Obama, who later became a Democratic presidential candidate. Obama's campaign is now investigating the validity of $19,000 in contributions it accepted from people associated with Hsu.

"Are you suggesting we should have racially profiled Hsu because he's Asian?" Obama spokesman Bill Burton asked.

Clinton is returning donations to 260 people who were recruited by Hsu. The FBI is investigating whether these were merely "straw" donors who were funneling money from Hsu to Clinton to skirt campaign finance laws.

In March 1996, Bill and Hillary Clinton's legal defense fund accepted money from straw donors recruited by Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie. The Taiwan-born Democrat hand-delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of checks and money orders in two manila envelopes to the defense fund.


The Following 3 Posts

Are from last year. I am working and can't create anything new, but as I work my mind goes back to that day. I have already shed a tear today and have gotten angry.

As you read the following posts and Remember those we have lost. I want you to also remember the spectacle that the Democrats put on yesterday as they push for our unconditional surrender in the Middle East.

9/11 a Timeline by Cox and Forkum

Cox and Forkum Always seem to hit it right on target. Capturing the issue or the momment with feeling that a lot of times words or at least mine can't always paint.

Remember this Day our brothers and sisters were murdered. They were murdered in the name of Islam and Allah (piss be upon him). They were murdered by people who do not care if you are a Democrat or a Republican. If you are not a muslim that follows strict Sharia law than you are to be killed that is the teachings of their crazed Mullahs. ALL terrorism is born in Iran which is building a Nuke to USE, and Iraq is part of the War on Terror. The Republicans arent doing a great job but the Democrats will do much much worse and raise your taxes to do it.



The Black Day

World Trade Center
The World Trade Center Victims
The Flight 11 Victims
The Flight 175 Victims
The Falling Man by Tom Junod

The Pentagon
The Pentagon Victims
The Flight 77 Victims
The Pentagon Memorial

Flight 93
The Flight 93 Victims
The Story

Some past 9/11 cartoons:
FDNY 9/11
Ground 0
Crescent of Embrace
That Day
The 184
Heart Attack
Profiled
Confronting Terrorism V

9/11

On September 11th 2001 I was working as the Operations Manager in the Express Operations Tower in Philadelphia International Airport. We recieved word that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We had no outside radios or tv, only air to ground airline communications and ground to ground ramp communications. I called home to get my wife to turn on the TV to see what she could find out. With in minutes of turning the TV on the second plane hit. My 5yr old Daughter asked my wife if there were babies aboard that plane....


The Most Devistating Clip of 9/11


Saturday, September 08, 2007

A Trollcast


If my background music is playing hit the stop button on your browser before you hit play.


Monday, September 03, 2007

Mario Cuomo foams at the mouth.

all comments in blue are from the Troll
What the Constitution says about Iraq (which is nothing)

Congress and the courts must recommit to the legislative branch's sole authority to declare war. (I would love to see them try)
By Mario M. Cuomo
September 3, 2007

Most Americans want the war in Iraq ended, (with victory) but it continues and Americans are killed, mutilated or wounded every day, (that happens in War sadly it also happens in Democrat controlled cities like here in Philly) as the Democratic majorities in Congress struggle to produce legislation that will take our forces out of harm's way. (SURRENDER) Meanwhile, President Bush continues to insist that as commander in chief, he has the constitutional power to go to war and decide when to end it, unilaterally. (NO Congress authorized military action for the War on Terror, a fact Mario can't come to grips with. It can only end with victory or defeat.) At the same time, another possible disaster emerges from the shadows: Bush appears to be considering a military assault on Iran, again apparently without Congress declaring war first. (if he did, it would still be part of the war on terror. I guess Mario thinks it will be less of a disaster when Iran Nukes Israel)

How did we get to this point and what, if anything, can we do now? (We got to this point because since 1979 when the Terror war began, Congress and past Presidents did nothing to confront the problem. All we can do now is fight the enemies we allowed to build against us)

The war happened because when Bush first indicated his intention to go to war against Iraq, Congress refused to insist on enforcement of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. (BULLSHIT the War began this time when Islamic Terrorists flew Airplanes into 3 of our buildings killing over 3000 people. Iraq is part of that war no matter how much the left wants to deny it.) For more than 200 years, this article has spelled out that Congress -- not the president -- shall have "the power to declare war." Because the Constitution cannot be amended by persistent evasion, this constitutional mandate was not erased by the actions of timid Congresses since World War II that allowed eager presidents to start wars in Vietnam and elsewhere without a "declaration" by Congress. (True and even after we were attacked on American Soil in your old State NY Mario, this bunch of weasels couldn't muster the balls to Declare War.)

Nor were the feeble, post-factum congressional resolutions of support of the Iraq invasion -- in 2001 and 2002 -- adequate substitutes for the formal declaration of war demanded by the founding fathers.

What can be done now? (Congress could commit to Victory, but they won't)

First, Democrats should make clear that it is the president who is keeping the war in Iraq from ending. (no the Enemy is, both over there and here in the hallowed halls of congress) Even if Congress were able to pass a veto-proof bill with respect to withdrawal, (SURRENDER) the president would resist enforcement of the bill, insisting that as commander in chief, he is immune from Congress' decision. That would raise a constitutional issue for the courts. (wishful thinking Mario)

But judging by the courts' history concerning constitutional war powers, including decisions involving the Iraq war in the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Massachusetts, the judiciary would, in all probability, choose not to intervene, claiming that the disagreement between the president and Congress is a political question. (that statement is pure nonsense, brought on by Mario's distraught feelings that the courts when it comes to Presidential Authority actually follow the Constitution and not the politics of an overstepping Congress)

However, the political-question thesis is nowhere referred to in the Constitution, and it denies the people the protection of the Constitution in dealing with perhaps the most serious question the nation has to face: "Should we go to war?" That position should be challenged as an abdication of constitutional duty by the courts, but the sad truth is that the current conservative-dominated Supreme Court would probably support our current conservative president. As a practical matter, that means only the president can end this war or change our strategy in Iraq. (Mario your a total ASS. The question of whether or not to go to war was decided when we were attacked. Assholes like you refuse to understand that one side in a conflict can't "withdraw" and then call it a victory. You either win or lose. A concept the Liberal mind has been trying to cleanse from reality since the rise of Lenin)

Even if it is too late for Congress to remedy its failure to comply with the Constitution with respect to Iraq, at the very least our candidates for president and our congressional leaders should assure us that they will not allow this lapse to result in further unilateral acts of war -- against Iran, Pakistan or any other nation -- by this president or any other. Our leaders must make it clear that in the future, Congress will insist on compliance with Article I, Section 8 for any military action that is not fairly deemed an unexpected emergency. (This Idiot wants us to put our faith, and our lives into the hands of people who couldn't even declare war after 3000 of us lay dead in the streets of NY and DC. While at the same time tie the hands of whoever is President into not reacting when the two Islamic radical countries he names use their Nukes on us or an ally)

It is frightening that our government has permitted this fundamental and costly constitutional transgression to persist for more than four years. (no your STUPIDITY is frightening Mario)

We must do everything we can to end the war in Iraq and avoid a new tragedy abroad by recommitting to strict adherence to the rule of law and to the Constitution by the president, Congress and the courts -- especially with respect to war powers.

Mario M. Cuomo, the governor of New York from 1983 to 1995, now practices law in New York.

Mario Cuomo is an ASS, he has failed at everything he has done since he stopped being a Governor. In my opinion he failed at that also. Iraq is part of the War on Terror. The enemy must be defeated not withdrawn from. The Heart of all Terror in the world since 1979 has been Iran. Iran is building a Nuclear Bomb. They are building it to USE. They believe the can bring their Second Coming of the 12th Imam by bathing the world in the blood of the infidels. If we withdraw they will still attack us. We either beat them or die. That is the concept that Mario and his liberal loonies can't grasp.

Sunday, September 02, 2007

The "GOOD" work of the Democrat Congress

With Friends Like This

Last update - 15:26 30/08/2007
U.S. coordinator plans 5 new Palestinian battalions in W. Bank
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent

A new plan by the U.S. security coordinator in the territories, General Keith Dayton, calls for the deployment of five new Palestinian battalions throughout the West Bank.

The plan, whose aim is to bolster Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, requires the approval of Israel if arms and equipment are to be transferred for the new force, political sources in Jerusalem said Wednesday.

The plan, which is still in its early development, is likely to call for the staged creation of the force, with relatively small units undergoing the necessary training.

Last week, the U.S. Congress authorized for the first time the transfer of $80 million to the security delegation headed by Dayton, which will be used to bolster the security forces of Abbas. No funding has ever before been transferred to Dayton, and the money will now allow him to carry out his plans.

With friends like do we really need Hamas and Fatah?

Just what Israel needs in five battalions of American trained terrorist in Judea and Samara.

The addition of about 5,000 trained and armed terrorist will cost Jewish lives. Every time America has trained and equipped Palestinians the weapons have been turned against Israel. The CIA trained and equip Palestinians as snipers it took no time for the Palestinians to turn their .50 caliber sniper rifles against the apartments of innocent Israeli civilian in Jerusalem.

General Dayton pushed the same thing for Gaza as a way to bolster Abbas, today those weapons are in the hands of Hamas.

So why should we repeat this same mistake?

Israel needs to stand up to America and say enough is enough. (no just to the Democrats)

Posted by Yoni Tidi at 04:50 PM


Great Post from Israpundit

NYT: The Media’s “New IAEA Report Says Iran Is Not A Problem” Spin Is Basically A Lie

by Omri Ceren

Wrap your mind around this: the NYT is actually not burying the lede on the IAEA’s report of massive Iranian advancement in the development of weapons-grade nuclear material. Of course, just about everybody else has found an anti-American, pro-Iranian spin in the report: “yeah, but they’re slowing down the new ways that they’re violating UN resolutions”. But for some reason, not the NYT. Wonders never cease:


Iran is expanding its nuclear program in defiance of United Nations’
resolutions, even as it has promised to answer questions about an array of
suspicious nuclear activities in the past, the International Atomic Energy
Agency said Thursday. The assessment by the nuclear agency states that Iran is
now simultaneously operating nearly 2,000 centrifuges, the machines that produce
enriched uranium, at its vast underground facility at Natanz, an increase of
several hundred machines from three months ago. More than 650 additional
centrifuges are being tested or are under construction, the agency said.


Then they go on to say that the rate of increase is slowing, which they understand is not particularly comforting. If Iran keeps slowing down in how fast they’re violating UN sanctions, they might almost not be building any more centrifuges after they reach 25,000 or so! Super! But compare the NYT’s take - which does nothing except point out that Iran is continuing to engage in activities that violate UN sanctions, but is violating them in new ways more slowly - with the reports from other MSM sources:

AP: UN agency hails Iran’s nuclear progress
PRNewswire: Latest Report From IAEA on Iran: a Reason to Ratchet Down Threatening Rhetoric
IHT: U.S. and ElBaradei at odds over Iran’s nuclear program
Fars: IAEA Report Dismisses US Charges against Iran

The Fars report is expected of course. But it’s still kind of eerie on how the spin from most Western media sources exactly matches the spin of the Iranian state-controlled press. And by “eerie” we mean “predictable.” Then again, does the AP really count as “Western” any more?

Posted by Omri Ceren @ 4:51 pm ET


Saturday, September 01, 2007

A Reminder of Who the Clintons are Owned By

For those that have short memories or are members of the Press and just refuse to report thr truth about the ChiCom Clintons. Here are some reminders of the Chinese control over the Clinton family. As more money pours from China into the coffers of the Clinton Machine the MSM refuse to report and investigate the damage done by the Chinese owned Clintons. So I thought I would just remind you of a few things.


When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, China presented no threat to the United States. Chinese missiles "couldn’t hit the side of a barn," notes Timothy W. Maier of Insight magazine. Few could reach North America and those that made it would likely miss their targets.

Thanks to Bill Clinton, China can now hit any city in the USA, using state-of-the-art solid-fueled missiles with dead-accurate, computerized guidance systems and multiple warheads.

China probably has suitcase nukes as well. These enable China to strike by proxy – equipping nuclear-armed terrorists to do its dirty work while the Chinese play innocent. Some intelligence sources claim that China maintains secret stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons on U.S. soil, for just such contingencies.

In 1997, Clinton allowed China to take over the Panama Canal. The Chinese company Hutchison Whampoa leased the ports of Cristobal and Balboa, on the east and west openings of the canal, respectively, thus controlling access both ways.

A public outcry stopped Clinton in 1998 from leasing California's Long Beach Naval Yard to the Chinese firm COSCO. Even so, China can now strike U.S. targets easily from its bases in Panama, Vancouver and the Bahamas.

How did the Chinese catch up so fast? Easy. We sold them all the technology they needed – or handed it over for free. Neither neglect nor carelessness is to blame. Bill Clinton did it on purpose.

As a globalist, Clinton promotes "multipolarity" – the doctrine that no country (such as the USA) should be allowed to gain decisive advantage over others.

To this end, Clinton appointed anti-nuclear activist Hazel O'Leary to head the Department of Energy. O'Leary set to work "leveling the playing field," as she put it, by giving away our nuclear secrets. She declassified 11 million pages of data on U.S. nuclear weapons and loosened up security at weapons labs.

Federal investigators later concluded that China made off with the "crown jewels" of our nuclear weapons research under Clinton’s open-door policy – probably including design specifications for suitcase nukes.

Meanwhile, Clinton and his corporate cronies raked in millions.

In his book "The China Threat," Washington Times correspondent Bill Gertz describes how the system worked.

Defense contractors eager to sell technology to China poured millions of dollars into Clinton's campaign. In return, Clinton called off the dogs. Janet Reno and other counterintelligence officials stood down while Lockheed Martin, Hughes Electronics, Loral Space & Communications and other U.S. companies helped China modernize its nuclear strike force.

"We like your president. We want to see him re-elected," former Chinese intelligence chief Gen. Ji Shengde told Chinagate bagman Johnny Chung.

Indeed, Chinese intelligence organized a massive covert operation aimed at tilting the 1996 election Clinton's way.

Clinton's top campaign contributors for 1992 were Chinese agents; his top donors in 1996 were U.S. defense contractors selling missile technology to China.

Clinton recieved funding directly from known or suspected Chinese intelligence agents, among them James and Mochtar Riady, who own the Indonesian Lippo Group; John Huang; Charlie Trie; Ted Sioeng; Maria Hsia; Wang Jun and others.

Commerce Secretary Ron Brown served as Clinton's front man in many Chinagate deals. When investigators began probing Brown's Lippo Group and Chinagate connections, Brown died suddenly in a suspicious April 1996 plane crash.

Needless to say, China does not share Clinton's enthusiasm for globalism or multipolarity. The Chinese look out for No. 1.

"War [with the United States] is inevitable; we cannot avoid it," said Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Chi Haotian in 2000. "The issue is that the Chinese armed forces must control the initiative in this war."

Bill Clinton has given them a good start. by Richard Poe

Meng v. Schwartz

Judicial Watch filed this important political corruption lawsuit on behalf of shareholders of a well-connected U.S. corporation that transferred sensitive U.S. missile technology to China in the 1990s. From approximately 1994 to 1998, Bernard Schwartz, who was the chairman of Loral Space & Communication Ltd., became the single largest donor to the Democratic Party by making contributions totaling approximately $1.5 million to various Democratic Party entities, including President Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign.

During this same time period, Schwartz and Loral also persuaded the Clinton Administration to transfer technology export licensing authority from the State Department to the more politically-influenced Commerce Department. Schwartz and Loral then obtained licenses from the Commerce Department that were needed to launch Loral-manufactured communications satellites into orbit from China. Congressional and other related investigations subsequently found that, when a Chinese rocket attempting to launch a Loral-manufactured satellite failed, Loral helped China to identify the cause of the failure, thereby advancing China’s missile program and threatening U.S. national security. Loral subsequently paid a $14 million fine relating to this transfer of sensitive U.S. technology.

Judicial Watch’s shareholder lawsuit sought to hold Schwartz and the Clinton Administration accountable under federal racketeering law, arguing that Schwartz’s campaign contributions constituted a form of bribery. The lawsuit ultimately did not go forward, but it succeeded in bringing additional public scrutiny to this very serious case of political corruption.

How Chinagate Led to 9/11
As the 9/11 Commission tries to uncover what kept intelligence agencies from preventing September 11, it has overlooked two vital factors: Jamie Gorelick and Bill Clinton. Gorelick, who has browbeaten the current administration, helped erect the walls between the FBI, CIA and local investigators that made 9/11 inevitable. However, she was merely expanding the policy Bill Clinton established with Presidential Decision Directive 24. What has been underreported is why the policy came about: to thwart investigations into the Chinese funding of Clinton’s re-election campaign, and the favors he bestowed on them in return.

In April, CNSNews.com staff writer Scott Wheeler reported that a senior U.S. government official and three other sources claimed that the 1995 memo written by Jamie Gorelick, who served as the Clinton Justice Department’s deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1997, created "a roadblock" to the investigation of illegal Chinese donations to the Democratic National Committee. But the picture is much bigger than that. The Gorelick memo, which blocked intelligence agents from sharing information that could have halted the September 11 hijacking plot, was only the mortar in a much larger maze of bureaucratic walls whose creation Gorelick personally oversaw.

Nearly from the moment Gorelick took office in the Clinton Justice Department, she began acting as the point woman for a large-scale bureaucratic reorganization of intelligence agencies that ultimately placed the gathering of intelligence, and decisions about what – if anything – would be done with it under near-direct control of the White House. In the process, more than a dozen CIA and FBI investigations underway at the time got caught beneath the heel of the presidential boot, investigations that would ultimately reveal massive Chinese espionage as millions in illegal Chinese donations filled Democratic Party campaign coffers.

When Gorelick took office in 1994, the CIA was reeling from the news that a Russian spy had been found in CIA ranks, and Congress was hungry for a quick fix. A month after Gorelick was sworn in, Bill Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 24. PDD 24 put intelligence gathering under the direct control of the president’s National Security Council, and ultimately the White House, through a four-level, top-down chain of command set up to govern (that is, stifle) intelligence sharing and cooperation between intelligence agencies. From the moment the directive was implemented, intelligence sharing became a bureaucratic nightmare that required negotiating a befuddling bureaucracy that stopped directly at the President’s office.

The only place left to go with intelligence information – particularly for efforts to share intelligence information or obtain search warrants – was straight up Clinton and Gorelick’s multi-tiered chain of command. Instead, information lethal to the Democratic Party languished inside the Justice Department, trapped behind Gorelick’s walls.

It is no coincidence that this occurred at the same time both the FBI and the CIA were churning up evidence damaging to the Democratic Party, its fundraisers, the Chinese and ultimately the Clinton administration itself. Between 1994 and the 1996 election, as Chinese dollars poured into Democratic coffers, Clinton struggled to reopen high-tech trade to China. Had agents confirmed Chinese theft of weapons technology or its transfer of weapons technology to nations like Pakistan, Iran and Syria, Clinton would have been forced by law and international treaty to react.

By the time Gorelick wrote the March 1995 memo that sealed off American intelligence agencies from each other and the outside world, all of the most critical Chinagate investigations by American intelligence agencies were already underway. Some of their findings were damning:

In an investigation originally instigated by the CIA, the FBI was beginning its search for the source of the leak of W-88 nuclear warhead technology to China among the more than 1,000 people who had access to the secrets. Despite Justice Department stonewalling and the Department’s refusal to seek wiretap authority in 1997, the investigation eventually led to Wen Ho Lee and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The FBI first collected extensive evidence in 1995 linking illegal Democratic Party donations to China, according to the Congressional Record. But Congress and the Director of the CIA didn’t find out about the Justice Department’s failure to act upon that evidence until 1997, safely after the 1996 election.
According to classified CIA documents leaked to the Washington Times, between 1994 and 1997, the CIA learned that China sold Iran missile technology, a nuclear fission reactor, advanced air-defense radar and chemical agents. The Chinese also provided 5,000 ring magnets to Pakistan, used in producing weapons-grade uranium. The Chinese also provided uranium fuel for India's reactors.

In many cases the CIA resorted to leaking classified information to the media, in an effort to bypass the administration’s blackout.

But those in the Clinton administration weren’t the only ones to gain from the secrecy. In 1994, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation transferred military-use machine tools to the China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation that ended up in the hands of the Chinese army. The sale occurred despite Defense Department objections. McDonnell Douglas was a client of the Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin, L.L.P. (now called Baker Botts), the Washington, D.C., law firm where Gorelick worked for 17 years and was a partner. Ray Larroca, another partner in the firm, represented McDonnell in the Justice Department’s investigation of the technology transfer.

In 1995, General Electric, a former client of Gorelick’s, also had much to lose if the damaging information the CIA and the FBI had reached Congress. At the time, GE was publicly lobbying for a lucrative permit to assist the Chinese in replacing coal-fired power stations with nuclear plants. A 1990 law required that the president certify to Congress that China was not aiding in nuclear proliferation before U.S. companies could execute the business agreement.

Moreover, in 1995, Michael Armstrong, then the CEO of Hughes Electronics – a division of General Electric and another client of Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin – was publicly lobbying Clinton to switch satellite export controls from the State Department to the Commerce Department. After the controls were lifted, Hughes and another company gave sensitive data to the Chinese, equipment a Pentagon study later concluded would allow China to develop intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles aimed at American targets. Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin partner Randall Turk represented Hughes in the Congressional, State Department, and Justice Department investigations that resulted.

The Cox Report, which detailed Chinese espionage for Congress during the period, revealed that FBI surveillance caught Chinese officials frantically trying to keep Democratic donor Johnny Chung from divulging any information that would be damaging to Hughes Electronics. Chung funneled $300,000 in illegal contributions from the Chinese military to the DNC between 1994 and 1996.

It was this web of investigations that led Gorelick and Bill Clinton to erect the wall between intelligence agencies that resulted in the toppling of the Twin Towers. The connections go on and on, but they all lead back to Gorelick, the one person who could best explain how the Clinton administration neutered the American intelligence agencies that could have stopped the September 11 plot. Yet another high crime will have been committed if the September 11 Commission doesn’t demand testimony from her.

The Timeline of Chinese espionage against the U.S. is a chronology of information relating both to the 1996 U.S. Campaign finance scandal (also known as Chinagate) and the People's Republic of China's alleged nuclear espionage against the United States detailed in the Congressional reports known as the 1997 Special Investigation in Connection with 1996 Federal Election Campaigns and the Cox Report respectively. The timeline also includes documented information relating to relevant nvestigations and reactions by the White House, the U.S. Congress, the Federal Bureau of investigation (FBI), and United States Department of Justice.

Released publicly in May 1999, the Cox Report stated China had acquired information on seven of the United States' most advanced nuclear warheads. According to the report, the information was stolen via an espionage campaign that stretched from the late 1970s through the mid-1990s. In addition to nuclear espionage, the Cox Report also detailed China's legal and illegal 1990s acquisition of detailed information about the United States' advanced satellite, encryption, MIRV, ICBM, anti-submarine radar, neutron bomb, and high performance computer technology. The Cox Committee was formed in 1998 after allegations arose regarding bribery charges and illegal transfers of missile technology involving two American satellite companies.

Released in March of 1998, the Senate report on the campaign finance scandal detailed China's attempts to influence the U.S. elections by using conduits to donate non-American money to the Democratic National Committee and Clinton administration. The report also detailed the ability of both a Chinese Lt. General
and a well-known Chinese arms merchant to gain access to fund-raising meetings with President Clinton.

White House steels itself for Chinagate
THE White House is bracing itself for next week's release of a Senate report condemning the fund-raising tactics on behalf of President Clinton's 1996 re-election, with Chinese intelligence able to "orchestrate" the laundering of Communist state cash into Democratic campaign coffers.

While the suspicion is that Beijing used Chinese-American and Asian friends of President Clinton from his days as Arkansas governor to funnel at least $2 million (£1.25 million) into the campaign, the FBI and the CIA have been wary about telling senators just what they know for fear of compromising methods and tactics.

All they are allowing to be stated in public is that they have "indications" that Chinese "intelligence agencies" were involved in a covert operation. A top secret appendix to the document contains much of the detail.

The unclassified part refers to Mochtar Riady, an Indonesian billionaire friend of Mr Clinton since the early Eighties when he became involved in a bank venture in Little Rock, Arkansas, as having had "a long-term relationship with a Chinese intelligence agency". His son, James, is also linked to spies in Beijing. The Riadys control the Jakarta-based Lippo Group conglomerate. The son has visited Mr Clinton in the Oval Office at least twice, once to lobby for favourable trade relations with China.

The CIA and the FBI tapped calls in and out of the Chinese embassy in Washington, while the National Security Agency intercepted international calls between Washington and cities in Asia. The unclassified report describes the relationship of the Riadys with Chinese undercover agents as appearing to be "based on business interests" with the two men obtaining assistance from Beijing "in exchange for large sums of money and other help". There is also evidence of possible Chinese penetration of the United States government. Inquiries centre on John Huang, a former Lippo executive, who was given a job with top-secret security clearance at the Commerce Department.

William Safire, a New York Times columnist, said that Mr Huang received 37 personal briefings from a CIA officer on the findings of US agents in Asia.

During that time, he made 261 calls from his government office to Lippo officials in Los Angeles and Indonesia. Often just after CIA briefings, Mr Huang regularly visited a "drop" across the street maintained by a Lippo ally, where he sent and received faxes and packages, and made calls "he did not want to appear on Commerce records". Safire gave details of a suspicious meeting on Sept 13, 1995, when Mr Huang entered the White House, listing that he was visiting Nancy Hernreich, a presidential secretary, "a subterfuge to conceal his presence" at a meeting with Mr Clinton and the younger Mr Riady.

In the talks, the President "re-assigned" Mr Huang to the Democratic National Committee as a fund-raiser. He was able to keep his security clearance.

The Senate investigators apparently have unearthed 67 visits to the White House and the executive office building made by Mr Huang without the knowledge of his colleagues.