op ed review 1/3/10

THIS WEEK’S NEWS

Tragedy was only averted on Northwest flight 253 because a makeshift detonator failed to work properly.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/northwest-flight-saved-failed-detonator/story?id=9426532

“The fact that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was able to trigger his home-made incendiary device on board a US airliner represents an intelligence and security failure of staggering proportions.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6891356/Analysis-Detroit-terror-attack-is-a-major-intelligence-and-security-failure.html

The Nigerian suspect had his suicide mission personally blessed in Yemen by Anwar al-Awlaki, the Muslim imam suspected of radicalizing the Fort Hood shooting suspect.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/30/airliner-suicide-mission-blessed-by-imam/

Abdulmutallab told FBI agents there were more just like him in Yemen who would strike soon.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/abdulmutallab-yemen/story?id=9430536

In fact, “hundreds” according to the Yemeni Foreign Minister.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6970574.ece

“25 British-born Muslims are plotting to bomb Western airliners, now training at secret camps in Yemen.”

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2785733.ece#ixzz0awVGRWJk

The CIA was tracking a person of interest known as "The Nigerian" as early as August. The connection between ''The Nigerian'' and Mr Abdulmutallab was not made when the 23-year-old's father contacted the US embassy in Nigeria in November to warn them of his son’s radicalization.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/cia-admits-tracking-the-nigerian-before-northwest-terror-attack/story-e6freuyi-1225814660999

In fact, the father of the terror suspect did everything but take out an ad in the Washington Post to let American authorities know that his son needed watching.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/30/why-dont-moderate-muslims-police-their-own-heres-one-who-di/

But Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said investigators did not have enough information to keep him from boarding the flight and that “the system worked as it should have.”

http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2009/12/27/homeland_security_head_the_security_system_worked

The next day she reversed herself and admitted the system failed.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/6789046.html

So what is she doing now? “…the Transportation Security Administration is going after bloggers who wrote about a directive to increase security after the incident.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091231/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_airliner_attack_tsa_subpoenas

And what is the White House doing? Two days after the incident, senior Obama White House aides ordered staff to begin researching similar breakdowns -- if any -- during the Bush Administration. "The idea was that we'd show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps….This White House doesn't view the Northwest [Airlines] failure as one of national security, it's a political issue," said the White House source. "That's why Axelrod and Emanuel are driving the issue."

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/12/31/the-politics-of-incompetence

While al -Qaida was plotting to kill Americans over the Christmas holidays, what was the Federal Aviation Administration doing? Why, spending $5 million on a three-week-long Christmas party, of course.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/29/while-terrorists-plot-the-faa-parties/?feat=article_top10_shared

On Nov. 11, sharp-eyed airport security troops in the failed state of Somalia, pinpointed a terrorist with a syringe detonator, lethal powder and explosives in his pants trying to board a Dubai-bound jetliner in Mogadishu. They yanked him out of line and stopped him from getting on. For all the billions the U.S. spends on intelligence and homeland security, it's Somalia that has racked up a better record of stopping jet terrorists with explosive-filled underwear.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=516682

UK Daily Telegraph: “Barack Obama gets an 'F' for protecting Americans”

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyharnden/100020934/barack-obama-gets-an-f-for-protecting-americans/

President Obama is the first president to give an international law enforcement organization free rein within the territorial confines of this nation. Put simply, this means the Constitution is no longer the supreme law of the land in America. Thanks to Executive Order 12425 , which Obama signed Dec. 16 without explaining why, the supreme law of the land is now arguably whatever Interpol says it is, most likely as directed by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, in conjunction with the United Nations. A White House spokesman said there would be no comment about Executive Order 12425 because "there is nothing newsworthy here."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/What-is-Barack-Obama-doing_-8700165-80341107.html

The start of a trend: “The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHoYSI84VdL0

Likely voters oppose Obamacare by more than the (18-point) margin by which Ronald Reagan beat Walter Mondale: 58 percent to 39 percent.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/12/rasmussen_obamacare_disapprova.asp

Senator Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) cast the 60^th vote for Obamacare. Although he doesn't have to face Nebraska voters until 2012, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows him now losing to a republican by a 30 point margin.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/rasmussen/20091229/pl_rasmussen/nebraskasenate20091229_1

2009 was a remarkable year for Fox News Channel. The numbers show Fox News establishing dominance over rivals CNN and MSNBC. In short, 2009 was the best year in the network's 13-year history. According to Nielsen, the ten-most-watched cable news shows in 2009 were all Fox News programs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20091230/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1043

“Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift from Barney Frank”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a48c8UpUMxKQ

Legendary lawyer and politician Percy Sutton has died at the age of 89, and the major media are omitting mention of one of his most notable acts: he stated on television that he knew that an Islamic supremacist and advisor to a wealthy Saudi, had paid for Barack Obama's education at Harvard Law School. Exactly how young Barack Obama, a man of slender means, managed to pay for a Harvard Law degree has long been a mystery, and the President has not been forthcoming about any details of his elite education.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/percy_sutton_dies_his_obama_re.html

In an apparent split with Roman Catholic bishops over the abortion-financing provisions of the proposed health care overhaul, the nation’s Catholic hospitals have signaled that they back the Senate’s compromise on the issue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/health/policy/26abort.html?pagewanted=all

Washington State may get another voice in Congress, if projected Census numbers hold true.

http://www.nwcn.com/news/Report-WA-may-get-10th-congressional-seat-80024502.html

A Michigan woman owns her own child care business—yet the Michigan Department of Human Services claims she is a government employee and union member. The agency thus withholds union dues from the child-care subsidies she receives, and sends them to a union.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703478704574612341241120838.html

Great moments in socialized medicine:

Spending in the UK on the NHS bureaucracy has risen by 50 per cent in just four years, according to ''heartbreaking'' government figures. The increases include a 43 per cent rise in the costs of managers, while spending on clerical staff rose by 78 per cent at Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), which decide how NHS funds should be used. Meanwhile, their expenditure on management consultants and temporary staff have more than doubled.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6890335/Spending-on-NHS-bureaucracy-up-50-per-cent.html

A teenage girl in the UK died on Christmas Eve from a series of heart attacks just days after doctors discharged her from hospital with suspected flu.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1239868/Healthy-girl-15-died-series-heart-attacks-sent-home-hospital-flu.html

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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN

Betsy Newmark, 12/31/09

Whenever people start debating how to treat captured terrorists the show-stopper question: what would you do with a prisoner who knows information about an imminent attack? This is the almost proverbial debate over the ticking time bomb. Well, now we have such a prisoner. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the undie bomber, is such a person. And, as Victoria Toensing points out, he could be a fount of important information.

Where was Abdulmutallab trained? Who trained him? Where is the training facility located? Where is the stash of PETN, the explosive used in the bomb? What are the techniques he was told to use for getting through airport security? Was there a well-dressed man who helped him board the plane without a passport as claimed by another passenger? And, most important, are future attacks planned?

Stories came out this week that he told the FBI that there are 25 Yemeni-trained terrorists just waiting to finish their training and then go ahead to kill as many Westerners as possible. The reports come after The Sun revealed that cops fear that 25 British-born Muslims are plotting to bomb Western airliners.

A Scotland Yard source said: "The great fear is Abdulmutallab is the first of many ready to attack planes and kill tens of thousands…….The source added: "Imams would have promised them rewards in heaven for becoming suicide bombers prepared to kill Westerners."

And now we have in our possession someone who trained alongside these guys. Wouldn't you like for us to know what he knows? I'm not saying that he has to be tortured; but I would like him to get some intensive questioning in an undisclosed location. And if he has to be deprived of sleep or humiliated or sit in the cold that's fine with me.

But that isn't what is going to happen with this guy. Now we know what will happen with the ticking time bomb in Obama's administration. He'll get a lawyer and clam up. Abdulmutallab remains in a Detroit area prison and, after initial debriefings by the FBI, has restricted his cooperation since securing a defense attorney, according to federal officials.

The Obama administration has determined that any terrorist captured will get all the civil protections of the American Constitution in our criminal courts. We have tried enemy combatants in military commissions since the Revolutionary War. Under Barack Obama and Eric Holder we won't use a military commission even for the guy who planned 9/11, so now we know what will happen with Abdulmutallab.

As Toensing writes, Abdulmutallab is not a United States citizen. By detonating a bomb on an airplane filled with 269 civilians, he committed an illegal act of war. A military commission, which has been used for such conduct since Gen. George Washington, will give him due process. But first, he must be interrogated.

Alas, that won't happen under the Obama-approved procedures for fighting the war on terror.

http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2009/12/now-we-know-what-obama-administration.html

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FROM OTHER COLUMNS

“The Obama administration, like the Clinton administration, continues to view terrorists as criminals who ought to be subject to the American judicial system. In fact, they are soldiers in a war unlike any this country has ever faced. Until we start treating these people as soldiers and not criminals, there will be more incidents like this, as there have been previous ones. Without a serious approach to domestic terrorism, the next attempted attack on an airliner might succeed, as did the ones during another less serious time which gave us 9-11.”

-Cal Thomas

“….we can no longer afford to wage the type of attacking and bitter intra-party battles that have weakened our ability to coalesce as a party in opposition to the wasteful and damaging policies coming out of Washington.…..as we approach this new year and reflect upon 2009 and think of ways to improve our situations in 2010, I ask that my fellow Republicans join together to have a respectful debate during our upcoming primary process and then give their full support to our selected nominees even if there remain some philosophical differences. I know this is the approach my father personally took and I cannot think of a better beacon of light than his legacy to help us once again find our way. Have a safe and prosperous 2010!”

-Michael Reagan

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GLOBALONEY

Send your environmentalist friends this link: “ It is crucial that scientists are factually accurate when they do speak out, that they ignore media hype and maintain a clinical detachment from social or other agendas. There are facts and data that are ignored in the maelstrom of social and economic agendas swirling about Copenhagen. Greenhouse gases and their effects are well-known. Here are some of things we know:

1. The most effective greenhouse gas is water vapor (from oceans), comprising approximately 95 percent of the total greenhouse effect.

2. Carbon dioxide concentration has been continually rising for nearly 100 years. It continues to rise, but carbon dioxide concentrations at present are near the lowest in geologic history.

3. There are no data that definitively relate carbon dioxide levels to temperature changes.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/12/025239.php

But wait: A new study finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/new_study_finds_no_rise_in_atm.html

A peer-reviewed study by a respected Canadian physicist blames the interplay of cosmic rays and chlorofluorocarbons for 20th-century warming. The CFCs are now gone, and so is warming — perhaps for the next 50 years.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=516286

Dallas-Fort Worth area experienced its first White Christmas in more than 80 years.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/6787095.html

A global warming protest in Salt Lake City had to be cancelled. "Not many people showed up because of the blizzard conditions," said one organizer.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14096723

If climate-change legislation is passed. Farming costs will rise, and it may become more profitable to plant trees than crops.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=516681

Lefties have long mocked Christians on the fringe for proclaiming the imminent end of the world and the coming of God. Yokels, bumpkins, knuckle-draggers, Bible-thumpers, crazies, and zealots are but a few of the epithets that have been hurled at End-Times Christians. It's therefore more than a little ironic -- perhaps divinely ironic -- that many of these same oh-so-worldly liberals have come to embrace their own version of the end times. Theirs, though, hasn't a hint of the divine in it; that would smack of the wrong sort of primitivism and violate their steadfast secularism and their claim to upholding down-to-earth science and ideology. Their chicken-littleism, preaching, and rants about global warming.. is never portrayed as such -- not, of course, by themselves or by a pliant establishment media. Theirs is "settled science," according to movement gurus, with Al Gore being the most conspicuous.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/the_lefts_end_times.html

The delegates, journalists, activists and observers from almost 200 countries that gathered in Copenhagen created 46,200 tons of carbon dioxide, most of it from their flights. This would fill nearly 10,000 Olympic swimming pools, and is the same amount produced each year by 2,300 Americans or 660,000 Ethiopians.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BD4D020091214

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LEFTIST WATCH

Berkeley High School’s School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students, proposes to eliminate before- and after-school science labs at Berkeley High School (BHS) because "information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students."

http://townhall.com/columnists/LaShawnBarber/2009/12/31/berkeley_high_may_drop_white_science_labs

The new Evangelical Left largely agrees with the old Religious Left that traditional religious conservatives have distorted the Bible with their patriotism, support for America’s wars, and friendship for Israel. For left-leaning Evangelical elites, no less than for old Mainline Protestant bureaucrats, pacifism, at least for America, is the answer.

http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/31/evangelical-pacifism-in-the-war-on-terror-by-mark-d-tooley/

The left, which invented first "hate speech" (opinions they didn't like) and then "hate crimes" (crimes judged less on the criminal's actions than on what he was presumed to be thinking), has now gone on to its epiphany, which is "hate" defined not by your words or deeds but by what other people have decided you really think. "Hate" is no longer what you do or say, but what a liberal says that you think and projects on to you. You are punished for what someone else claims you were thinking. It hardly makes sense, but it does serve a political purpose. You could call it Secondhand Hate.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/386jvsil.asp

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ARTICLES

Ever since President Obama took office, the media began reporting high unemployment in the most positive light they could find. One such trick by Newsweek on December 10 found a silver lining for unemployed dads to reconnect with their children. ABC News posted a column on their website Thursday that advanced the cause even further: “now people who still have jobs are hoping to get laid off.”

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/candance-moore/2009/12/25/abc-news-americans-are-hoping-more-layoffs

Shelby Steele: Obama and Our Post-Modern Race Problem

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704254604574614540488450188.html

With Democratic senators united on the health care bill, their campaign arm has settled on an attack plan for 2010: Republicans would "repeal" it if they win control. So, the Democrats' attack plan is to tell voters that the GOP will repeal the budget-busting, tax-hiking, Medicare-cutting, abortion-funding, big insurance and big pharma giveaway that only has the support of 35% of voters. Brilliant!

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/12/dems_2010_strategy_gop_will_re.asp

Don't assume that Russia and America will be adversaries forever… Why? The answer to this question is both, logical and simple: The spread of Radical Islam throughout the Muslim world, and the quickly advancing process of the Islamization of Europe, could bring to life this unlikely, and according to many experts, even impossible scenario.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/america_and_russia_rivals_unit.html

“There's a resonant story about Suzuki Roshi, the beloved 60s-era Zen master. A visiting teacher asked Suzuki Roshi whether his students had mastered a particular Buddhist scripture. Suzuki responded that he didn't know. Aghast, the visitor demanded, "Then how do you evaluate the students' progress?" Suzuki answered quietly, "I observe how they treat each other." To know everything about the "progressives," just observe how people have been treating each other since Obama came on the scene. For one, the misogyny has been despicable. Then there's the surge of attacks on law enforcement, from the murders of police officers in Seattle and Oakland to the slaughter of soldiers at Ft. Hood. Obama is sending out a "question authority" vibe -- everyone's authority, that is, except his.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/the_hypocrisy_of_the_left.html

They are objects of derision. Influential government officials refer to them as unproductive, of less value than others in society. The political party running the government aggressively denies them access to health services while putting in place bureaucracies devoted, in effect, to ending their lives. The Jews in Nazi Germany? No, seniors in a United States governed by the party of President Barack Obama and his allies on the Democratic left.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/seniors_are_americas_new_jews.html

Keep your eye on this woman: Michele Bachmann, sounding a lot like Ronald Reagan. “…..recently, she has achieved a rare feat: winning the trust of the anti-incumbent, small-government "tea party" activists who distrust most elected officials. And that puts Bachmann in a position of rising influence.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-michele-bachmann27-2009dec27,0,658913.story

“2009 was an extraordinary year in which ordinary people did extraordinary things not because they were the easy things to do, but because they were the right thing to do. The people ranged from young Hannah Giles who jump-started her journalism career by donning a hooker’s garb to bring down the racketeer influenced corrupt organization known as ACORN, to Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III, who culminated the decades of his life that he worked toward airline safety simply by landing an engineless plane on the Hudson River. While each of the finalists was deserving, there can be only one man of the year — Sarah Palin. In the pantheon of people who stood up this year for that which is right, no one else stood taller or looked better.”

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/6511

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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES

Six things you cannot say in Seattle: examples:

“Recycling is a hassle.” “Bellevue’s pretty cool.” “I like driving better than biking.” “I’m a Republican.”

http://crosscut.com/2009/12/24/mossback/19017/

Dave Barry’s year in review:

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/dave-barry/v-print/story/1397654.html

Top Ten reasons it took Obama 3 days to respond to terror attempt

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/top_ten_reasons_it_took_obama.html

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WISE WORDS

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of."

-James Madison, Federalist No. 46