Tehran plans nuclear weapon test by March

BOMB THEM NOW!!!

Intl. Intelligence
Tehran plans nuclear weapon test by March
WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 (UPI) --

Tehran is planning a nuclear weapons test before the Iranian New Year on March 20, 2006 says a group opposed to the regime in Tehran.
The Foundation for Democracy citing sources in the U.S and Iran offered no further information.
The FDI quotes sources in Iran that the high command of the Revolutionary Guards Air Force have issued new orders to Shahab-3 missile units, ordering them to move mobile missile launchers every 24 hours in view of a potential pre-emptive strike by the U.S. or Israel. The order was issued Tuesday, Jan. 16.
The group says the launchers move only at night, and have been instructed to change their positions "in a radius of 30 to 35 kilometers." Prior to the new orders the Shahab-3 units changed position on a weekly basis. Advance Shahab-3 units have been positioned in Kermanshah and Hamadan province, within striking distance of Israel. Reserve mobile launchers have been moved to Esfahan and Fars province.

ADD ON:

Iran warns against UN referral
By Roula Khalaf and Gareth Smyth in Tehran
Published: January 22 2006 21:56 Last updated: January 22 2006 21:56
Iran’s top nuclear official on Sunday warned Tehran would resume efforts to enrich uranium on an industrial scale if its case was reported to the UN Security Council, further raising the stakes in the crisis over its nuclear programme. link

What Would Jack Bauer Do?

January 22, 2006
What Would Jack Bauer Do?
By Pat Buchanan

Ex-President Palmer had saved Jack Bauer's life.
Yet, the "military option" against Iran is the talk of the town.
The Chinese wanted agent Bauer extradited to execute him for the killing of their Los Angeles consul, gunned down in a crossfire between Chinese security and Bauer's Counter-Terrorism Unit team that had penetrated the consulate on an espionage mission.
Palmer, though out of office, conspired in a CTU scheme where Jack would appear dead, to the satisfaction of the duped Chinese, and be sent to Mexico with a fake identity.
As this year's series of Fox's "24" opened Sunday, President Palmer is shot through an office window and assassinated. Word reaches Bauer, working in the California oil patch.
Emotional at the death of the president he loved, for whom he had often risked his life, Jack returns. He is intercepted and almost killed by the team that murdered Palmer. Wounding the leader of the terrorists, Bauer interrogates him, warning the bleeding man he will die unless Bauer helps him get to a hospital. The terrorist talks.
After he spills all his information, Bauer starts to walk away. The terrorist demands to be taken to the hospital.
Were you the one who shot President Palmer? Bauer asks. Yes, replies the wounded terrorist, in agony on the floor. Bauer stares at him for two seconds -- then shoots him.
It is a Jack Bauer moment, and all addicted to "24" knew what would happen to that assassin. For Bauer is a take-no-prisoners patriot who puts love of country and loyalty to friends first, and fights by his own rules. To Jack Bauer, the only good terrorist is a dead terrorist.
What is the appeal of "24"?
It is the fastest-paced, most exciting TV out there. But at bottom, the appeal is that, as in the Westerns of old and "Dirty Harry" movies of the 1970s, Jack Bauer is a flawed but good man in a struggle against evil, who is there to see that his loved ones are secure and justice is done. To Jack Bauer, as to Clint Eastwood's Detective "Dirty Harry" Callahan, vigilante justice is not only preferable to no justice at all, it is the best kind. Evil men should get what they deserve, without legal complications.
"24" satisfies the innate demand in all of us that, the law aside, evil should be punished and justice done.
That the audience for "24" is so loyal and large should tell us something about America and our divisions over the war we are in.
For weeks, Democrats and their media allies have been on Bush's case for using the National Security Agency to intercept, without warrant, phone calls and e-mails to terror suspects abroad. Before that, Bush was charged with using secret detention centers in Eastern Europe to interrogate suspects. Before that, the military was accused of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Afghanistan. Before that, the Justice Department was charged with violating the civil rights of Jose Padilla and the Shoe-bomber.
Bush thus stands accused of violating the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners of war, ignoring constitutional protections of U.S. citizens, and violating international agreements prohibiting torture and the "rendition" of prisoners to countries where torture is practiced.
Where do the American people stand?
The left may be right on the law, but the people seem to be standing by Bush. Believing the character of this war, where the enemy's preferred tactic is to slaughter civilians with terror bombings, people seem to agree that we have to follow Jack Bauer's rules, not ACLU rules.
Yet one senses that Americans are conflicted. We want to think of ourselves as decent people who fight wars honorably. But we believe the enemies of 9-11 are so evil, so depraved, they forfeit the right to be treated honorably. And while we believe in constitutional rights, human rights, civil rights, Miranda warnings and all that, we also believe in winning our wars. For without victory in the war on terror, freedom may not survive.
"Success alone justifies war," said Von Moltke, as Germany prepared to violate Belgium's neutrality to outflank France in 1914. Americans appear to believe that, too.
President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and blockaded Southern ports, without congressional authorization. President Wilson locked up Eugene V. Debs in World War I and never let him out. FDR interned 110,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans in relocation camps, in a wartime act of racial profiling approved by the Supreme Court. Truman dropped atom bombs on defenseless cities, killing 100,000 women and children. Yet all are judged by liberal historians to be great or near-great presidents.
Now, Jack Bauer does not exist, and "24" is made-for-TV escapist entertainment. As we cheer or laugh out loud at his daring exploits, however, one wonders what liberal Democrats of the ACLU variety would do to a real-life Jack Bauer?
My guess: Put him in Leavenworth for life. But President Palmer knew his value, because President Palmer knew the real world.
Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate

The Perfect Platform for the Dems

Please Democrats listen to this woman and run on the platform she suggests, PLEEEAASSSEE

Molly Ivins
I will not support Hillary Clinton for president
January 20, 2006
AUSTIN, Texas --- I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president. Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes. The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

Iran calls for oil output cut

So when Gas is $5-10 a gallon and old people are dying from the cold because they refuse to pay their gas bills to heat their homes. Will the government finally lift the restrictions on Drilling for oil and building refineries in this country, or will they allow the enviro wackos to continue with their nonsense. The development of domestic oil is a matter of national security that is not being dealt with due to the propaganda machine of the left. With our dependency on foreign oil our whole economy is in jeopardy. Their are NO alternative fuels that can replace oil at this time or any time in the near future. Get over it and start producing.

By Gareth Smyth and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
and Carola Hoyos in LondonPublished:
January 20 2006 12:03
Last updated: January 20 2006 20:21

Iran has called for a cut in global oil production while simultaneously preparing to shift its foreign assets out of Europe.
The moves were widely interpreted as a signal that Iran is preparing for a long stand-off with the west and sees oil production as a counter weight to international economic pressure.
Tehran's call on Friday for the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to reduce production by 1m barrels a day helped take prices up to a four-month high of more than $68 a barrel, even though Iran is the only Opec member to call for the cut and is unlikely to find much support for the measure at Opec's meeting in Vienna on January 31.
Some traders said Iran

Just a Little aside Post

Christopher Hitchens a writer that I like, disappointed me the other day when he joined the ACLU Law Suit. I now know why. His sources have stopped talking to him. Mr. Hitchens who has been very pro-Iraq war has a lot of Middle East contacts, and guess what ? Since the NY Times released their story about the NSA listening to phone calls of People calling into and out of the ME they have all stopped talking. Now I am still pissed that Mr. Hitchens has allowed himself to part of this suit, it PROVES without a doubt that the LEAKING of this story has damaged our intelligence gathering ability. If innocent news sources won't talk on the phone now you know TERRORISTS won't. So we are now more at risk of NOT knowing what the TERRORISTS are doing thanks to the NY Times. Remember that the next attack.

ADD ON: Rosenberg’s granddaughter sues NSA over “spying”
By: Cao
Rachel Meeropol
See this posted at Free Republic with a wealth of wonderful comments from readers. Also see Sweetness & Light. Check out Sweetness and Light because there is a lot more there than what you see below.

Rachel Meeropol is the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 for helping to pass US atom bomb secrets to the Soviet Union. Julius’s KGB nom de guerre was “Liberal.”

Rachel is a Communist in her own right. She is a Vice President of the New York City chapter of the communist National Lawyers Guild.
Ms Meerpol is also a fixture in may of the most ultra left organizations out there, such as The Children Of Resistance.
But you’d never know any of that from the DNC’s Associated Press.

Go to CAOs Blog to Read the Rest.

Senator Clinton accepts money from supporters of Iranian Mullahs

Yonkers, NY –
Date: 1/19/2006

Senator Clinton has accused President Bush of downplaying the threat from Iran while accepting money from supporters of the Iranian regime.
Wealthy businessmen Hassan Nemazee and Faraj Aalaei are associated with the American Iranian Council, a pro-regime anti-sanctions group. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Namazee has contributed $4,000 to Clinton's reelection while Aalaei has given $1,000.
The press describes their lobby this way "the American-Iranian Council [AIC], a pro-regime lobbying group trying to get Congress and the Bush administration to lift the trade embargo on Iran."
Hillary Clinton is also raising money from Gati Kashani, another figure linked with the Mullahs.
On its website, the Iranian American PAC noted, "On Friday June 3rd, Iranian American friends of the Hillary Clinton Senate re-election campaign hosted a fundraising event in honor of Senator Clinton. The event took place at the home of Gita and Behzad Kashani in Los Altos Hills, California."
The PAC favors looser Visa rule for Iranians coming to the United States. The FBI opposes liberalized visas for the terrorist state. But in full pander mode, the PAC reported Clinton attacked United States Visa policy. "Senator Clinton went on to address the audience on topics specifically relevant to the Iranian American community. She discussed immigration and acknowledged the difficulties Iranian nationals have in obtaining visas to visit family members residing in America. 'Our visa policy is not only unfair but it's not good for America.'"
John Spencer, the former Yonkers Mayor and Vietnam combat veteran who will challenge Senator Clinton in November, made the following statement. "Senator Clinton voted against the very munitions necessary to avoid a nuclear confrontation with Iran while at the same time accepting money from supporters of the Iranian Mullahs. Senator Clinton lacks the credibility to keep New York safe and she should return this tainted money."

Memories

A beginning


A Sharing of Great Minds





relaxed







Special moments




Challenger


The Gipper



In His Prime


At WAR


2 Geniuses a Fill in and an Idiot




Good bye Ronnie

NSA Data Mining Is Legal, Necessary, Sec. Chertoff Says

I like Mort I don't usually agree with him, but this time I do.

January 20, 2006
By Mort Kondracke

"I think it's important to point out," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told me in an interview, "that there's no evidence that this is a program designed to achieve political ends or do something nefarious."
He was talking about the National Security Agency's warrantless "domestic spying" program, and I couldn't agree with him more. Despite the alarms sounded by the American Civil Liberties Union, former Vice President Al Gore and various Members of Congress, "there hasn't even been a hint" that the program is targeted at domestic dissidents or innocent bystanders, Chertoff said. It's designed to find and stop terrorists.
"If you go back to the post-Sept. 11 analyses and the 9/11 commission, the whole message was that we were inadequately sensitive to the need to identify the dots and connect them," he said.
"Now, what we're trying to do is gather as many dots as we can, figure out which are the ones that have to be connected and we're getting them connected," he said.
While refusing to discuss how the highly classified program works, Chertoff made it pretty clear that it involves "data mining" -collecting vast amounts of international communications data, running it through computers to spot key words and honing in on potential terrorists.
A former prosecutor, federal judge and head of the Justice Department's criminal division, he convincingly defended the program's legal basis and intelligence value.
I asked him why the Bush administration can't comply with the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the government to conduct "emergency" wiretaps for 72 hours.
"It's hard to talk about classified stuff," he said, "but suffice it to say that if you have a large volume of data, a large number of [phone] numbers you're intercepting, the typical model for any kind of warrant requires you to establish probable cause [that one party is a foreign agent] on an individual number."
FISA warrant applications are inches thick, he said, and "if you're trying to sift through an enormous amount of data very quickly, I think it would be impractical." He said that getting an ordinary FISA warrant is "a voluminous, time-consuming process" and "if you're culling through literally thousands of phone numbers ... you could wind up with a huge problem managing the amount of paper you'd have to generate."
What I understood Chertoff to be saying is that when data mining produces evidence of a terrorist contact, the government will then seek a FISA warrant to actually tap the person's phones or "undertake other kinds of activity in order to disrupt something."
As legal authority for the program, Chertoff cited a 2002 decision of the FISA Court of Review, which is one level down from the U.S. Supreme Court, holding that a president has "inherent [constitutional] authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information."
"We take it for granted that the president does have that authority," the court said, "and, assuming it is so, FISA could not encroach on the president's constitutional powers."
Chertoff also said that the courts have given wide latitude to the government in controlling and monitoring activity across international borders. All reports on the NSA activity assert that it's limited to international communications.
What about the assertion in The New York Times on Tuesday that virtually all of the thousands of NSA leads sent to the FBI in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks led to dead ends or innocent persons?
Chertoff said, "You're going to bat well below .100 any time you do intelligence gathering. That's true even in conventional law enforcement. If you get even a small percentage of things to pan out, you've succeeded to a significant degree.
"What I can tell you is this," Chertoff said. "The technique of electronic surveillance, which is gathering information about who calls whom or intercepting actual conversation, is the most significant tool in the war against terrorism.
"If we didn't have it, I'm quite sure we'd have disrupted fewer attacks and identified fewer [terrorists]."
Buried at the bottom of the Times story were a number of cases where actual terrorist operations had been disrupted, apparently as a result of NSA eavesdropping, including efforts to smuggle a missile launcher into the United States, to cut Brooklyn Bridge cables with a blowtorch and an attempt to blow up a fertilizer bomb in London.
"I would rather move quickly and remove somebody when we've got a legal basis to do so, charge them with a lesser offense [than terrorism] or deport them, than wait till I have a big case with a big press conference. If we wait until people get operational, it's a failure. Somebody could get killed."
The idea that someone could bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch has been ridiculed, but Chertoff said, "People kid about the shoe bomber, but had the bomb gone off and 150 people were killed, I don't think a lot of families would be laughing about it."
Civil libertarians seem to fear that the government is collecting huge quantities of data that it can later use politically, but Chertoff said, "I don't think anybody has an interest in accumulating a lot of information. We can barely manage the stuff we care about for avoiding terrorism.
"I can actually make the case that the more intelligence we've got, the more we actually protect civil liberties. In a world without intelligence, where we don't have a good idea where the threats are, it means searching people, screening names, barriers and checkpoints, questioning people when they get on an airplane."
To me, the bottom line of the NSA spying case is this: Congress should investigate whether President Bush has authority to conduct anti-terrorist data mining. And, if he doesn't, Congress should give it to him - with legislative oversight.
As Chertoff told me, "the name of the game here is trying to figure out, with all the billions of pieces of data that float around the world, what data do you need to focus on? What is the stuff you need to worry about?
"If you don't use all the tools of gathering these kinds of leads, then you're leaving very valuable tools on the table." And, if and when another 9/11 occurs, the first question that will be asked is: Why?
Mort Kondracke is the Executive Editor of Roll Call.

The Wrong Approach to Immigration Reform

This guy should NOT hold this office!

The Wrong Approach to Immigration Reform

By Thomas J. Donohue,
President and CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

The key to effective immigration reform is a comprehensive approach that strikes the right balance between security and opportunity. In other words, we must take steps to better secure our borders against terrorists and criminals, but, for the sake of our economy, we must also provide immigrants with the opportunity to fill jobs for which there are not enough Americans.
The key Mr. Donohue is IMMIGRANTS not ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Last month, the House of Representatives passed legislation that is anything but comprehensive and balanced. "The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005," H.R. 4437, mandates that all employers of all sizes comply with a new government-run electronic/telephonic verification system to ensure that all employees are authorized to work in the United States.
Once again proof that these IDIOTS, profesional bureaucrats don't get it. We can NOT address the ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION problem if we can't stop them from coming in. The House Bill goes along way in stopping ILLEGAL immigrants. It puts a 750 mile long fence on our border to help stem the flow of ILLEGALS into our country. It also puts HARSH penalties on Employers who hire ILLEGALS.
This concept is based on a limited pilot project that involved just 3,600 employers and applied to new hires only. Even with that narrow scope, there have been many practical, documented reliability problems with the program. However, that didn’t stop the House from voting to apply the same system to more than seven million employers and 140 million employees.
It is only a problem for the TEN Million ILLEGALS in the country, and the Employers that employ them. The only people that it creates a problem for even now are the ones with FAKE Social Security numbers.
Also of great concern is the massive, in some cases uncapped, increases in penalties against employers. The bill calls for up to a 25-fold increase in paperwork violation penalties--up to $25,000 per individual.
Thats right if you have ILLEGALS working for you and you have not verified their documents you get fined. Its called enforcing the LAW you IDIOT.
Equally troublesome is what the bill lacks. H.R. 4437 ignores the need for an efficient temporary worker program that allows employers to recruit immigrant workers when there is a shortage of domestic workers, as well as the need to provide legal status for qualified, screened undocumented migrants now in our country.
There is NO problem with recruiting LEGAL immigrants it is an ENFORCEMENT bill to penalize those that hire ILLEGALS. This is NOT an amnesty or a guest worker bill. This is a bill to SECURE our borders. Why should we give LEGAL status to people that BROKE THE LAW in how they got here?
Make no mistake - the Chamber supports increased national security and control of our nation’s borders. We do support the creation of an electronic employment verification system. But it must be practical, fast, and reliable. New laws that simply place more burdens on employers and make them pay for lapses in border security and law enforcement are not the answer.
The Bill does NOT make them pay for LAPSES in border security it FINES them for hiring ILLEGALS. If you want a guest worker or an amnesty Bill Mr. Donohue propose one. In the meantime worry about how the Commerce of this Country is affected by the cost of ILLEGAL immigration.

We all need to write this man and tell him to go scratch.

The Peoples' (Conditional) Right to Know

More News Buried by the MSM

January 19, 2006
By Jack Kelly
Last month Italian authorities arrested three Algerians who were members of the al Qaida -linked terror group GSPC.
The three were plotting attacks on ships, railway stations and stadiums in the United States in a bid to outdo the casualties caused on 9/11, said Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu.
The arrests made front page news in newspapers in Italy, Britain and France. But apparently the only U.S. newspaper to mention them was the Philadelphia Inquirer, in a short AP dispatch on page A-6. The AP did not mention that the principal targets of the plotters were in the U.S.
The incuriosity of our news media about the plotters and their plots is curious, especially in light of the mysterious death of Joel Hinrichs, 21, a Muslim convert who, wearing a suicide vest, blew himself up Oct. 1 on a park bench outside the stadium in Norman where the university of Oklahoma football team was playing Kansas State. When Hinrichs' apartment was searched after his death, the FBI found a plane ticket to Algeria.
Perhaps the Algerian plotters went unmentioned because describing how they were caught -- the Italian authorities were listening in on their telephone conversations -- would interfere with a current journalistic meme.
On December 16th, the New York Times published a story revealing that the National Security Agency has been listening in on conversations between al Qaida suspects abroad and people in the United States without first obtaining warrants.
The editors of the New York Times are in high dudgeon. The Bush administration has instituted "a major shift in intelligence gathering practices," the Times declared in an editorial.
The editors knew this wasn't true, because on May 27th, 1999, the Times printed a story by reporter Niall McKay about Echelon, a much broader electronic intercept program begun during the Clinton administration. I could find no editorials in the New York Times criticizing Echelon. Apparently, warrantless electronic intercept programs threaten civil liberties only when a Republican is president.
Journalists who are not supposed to be expressing opinions in the news columns make their views known by the term they use -- "whistle blower" -- to describe the person or persons who told the New York Times about the ultra-secret NSA program.
What, you may ask, is the difference between a whistle blower and a leaker?
A whistle blower is someone who discloses secrets helpful to Democrats or embarrassing to Republicans.
A leaker, on the other hand, is someone who discloses secrets helpful to Republicans or embarrassing to Democrats. The person or persons who told journalists that Valerie Plame, wife of Joseph C. Wilson of uranium-in-Niger fame, worked at the CIA invariably are described as "leakers."
It remains to be seen whether the person or persons who outed Ms. Plame committed a crime. It is clear that the person or persons who revealed the existence of the NSA program have done so.
And this is a crime that could have serious consequences. Those who have something to hide change their behavior when alerted they may be under surveillance. Since the New York Times story appeared, there has been a surge in the purchase of large quantities of disposable cell phones by people from the Middle East and Pakistan, ABC News reported Jan. 12th.
Disposable cell phones are popular with drug dealers and terrorists because they are all but impossible to track. Such phones were used as detonators in the Madrid train attacks in 2004.
Journalists excuse putting Americans at risk by disclosing information helpful to terrorists on the grounds of "the peoples' right to know." But "the peoples' right to know" apparently doesn't extend to major portions of the Barrett report, which is due to be released Thursday.
David Barrett is the independent counsel who investigated Henry Cisneros, secretary of housing and urban development in the Clinton administration.
Mr. Barrett reportedly found evidence of abuses of power by Clinton administration officials in the Justice department and the Internal Revenue Service.
Much of the Barrett report has been suppressed, without a murmur from journalists who complain about the NSA intercept program.
The entire Barrett report could be released without endangering national security, and it is about actual abuses of power, while critics have been unable to identify any in the NSA intercept program.
Apparently if the information is embarrassing to Democrats, the people don't have a right to know about it.